Mildly bias opinion on why this very particular formula of MMO doesn't sit well with me

Bradleyastab14_ESO · January 2017

First and foremost i want to acknowledge the amount of work and passion that has gone into creating this game. For it's developers, this is a monumental icon of their achievement, this is their baby, and i'm sure they put every effort into making it a legacy to be proud of.

Now, if i may, i'd like to point out that it's developers made a very fatal decision when they decided to employ the procedure of a tried and true, "standard" mmo experience. By this i mean the nature at which you log in and play the game. You go to the login screen, you create a character, and you go through, step by step, a carefully put together (textbook even) gameplay timeline. Which, for someone who isn't mildly bias such as myself, wouldn't know the wiser.

But i know, and you know (devs), that you had in mind a specific destiny for your customers. Which is great! No, really, im praising you for it.

But what i can't praise you for is implementing that rhetoric into the "standard" MMO experience. As for me it's akin to being a genetically modified chicken in a factory. being forced to breed in a small cage where i can see thousands of other chickens having a similar experience all around me.

No, buttholes, this is MY destiny. I'm a midly bias, senile gamer and i paid for this, i paid to make the decisions that YOU (devs) allowed me to make in this fake world. So that i may escape from reality and admire all that i have accomplished.

Unfortunately, the only thing i can really be proud of is the facial aesthetics of my character. My choices in the first 2 hours that i spent making my face pretty. Had a bigger, more unique feeling "impact" than anything i accomplished in the 60 hours i spent beating the main story line and side questing. I go to cyrodil as i watch thousands of lookalikes die, respawn, and shuffle a series of pre-determined "forts".

This is all due to how YOU (Devs) chose to create a very "standard" and "safe" (albeit unstable) MMO formula. You have mass produced everyone of your customers into an assembly line. You get a few who wonder off now and then, to kill a specific creature or open a specific chest 10 billion times before you say "no my child, back to the line with the rest of em".

I believe this entire experience could have been more volatile, had you developed it with an open mind in regards to the MMO formula you chose. You didn't need to make the world a specific size, you didn't need to have X amount of players all playing in the same area. This is your creation! Not Blizzards, Not Arenanets, this is your legacy. Unfortunately, my legacy doesn't offer as much freedom in the world you created for me.

gard · January 2017

Sounds like this might not be the game for you. Different strokes for different folks and all.

Bradleyastab14_ESO · January 2017

gard wrote: »

Sounds like this might not be the game for you. Different strokes for different folks and all.

It was an exploratory experience nonetheless.

MLGProPlayer · January 2017

It sounds to me like you're looking for a single player RPG experience.

MMOs will never be as deep as single player RPGs. If you're looking for the same level of depth and sense of personal impact in an MMO, you will disappointed. It's just not possible to design a multiplayer experience that plays like that.

Bradleyastab14_ESO · January 2017

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

It sounds to me like you're looking for a single player RPG experience.

MMOs will never be as deep as single player RPGs. If you're looking for the same level of depth and sense of personal impact in an MMO, you will disappointed. It's just not possible to design a multiplayer experience that plays like that.

You're telling all the software engineers in the world that accomplishing such a feat is impossible? Blasphemy!

Teronell · January 2017

Well, get on it!

Be the change you want to see.

idk · January 2017

gard wrote: »

Sounds like this might not be the game for you. Different strokes for different folks and all.

@Bradleyastab14_ESO

I think heeding this person's message is the answer to your post. No game can meet everyone MMO players wants with gaming. It is why there are multiple games available. As at least one other has said, it seems a single player game is more your taste.

And you are correct. Your comment is biased. Especially the "unstable" part. The rest of it is really pointless banter that really does not say much.

Sausage · January 2017

Play Conan Exiles its totally different, when you get bored, come back here, easy.

DragonBound · January 2017

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

It sounds to me like you're looking for a single player RPG experience.

MMOs will never be as deep as single player RPGs. If you're looking for the same level of depth and sense of personal impact in an MMO, you will disappointed. It's just not possible to design a multiplayer experience that plays like that.

Older mmorpgs had tons of classes and depth your very wrong here.

MakoFore · January 2017

sounds as if ur someone with many complaints but no ideas

psytic · January 2017

My thoughts are in a similar vein to illurian's. there is no such thing as a "truly unique" experience in mmos or single player RPGs.

What is in a game is predetermined and scripted. No matter what you do, what class you pick or where you go it's all been coded and scripted and designed to follow the same pre set number of linear paths. Although you can choose how you get there, it still leads to a predetermined ending, kind of like a choose your own adventure book. You always will pick one of a few predetermined classes to lead down one of the many predetermined paths and hit one of the predetermined ending outcomes.

You don't really have an arguement there is no truly unique procedurally generated story based games with AI based npcs with real evolving needs. If you want that you'll have to go outside with your tin foil hat on and cardboard sword into the real world.

Bradleyastab14_ESO · January 2017

psytic wrote: »

My thoughts are in a similar vein to illurian's. there is no such thing as a "truly unique" experience in mmos or single player RPGs.

What is in a game is predetermined and scripted. No matter what you do, what class you pick or where you go it's all been coded and scripted and designed to follow the same pre set number of linear paths. Although you can choose how you get there, it still leads to a predetermined ending, kind of like a choose your own adventure book. You always will pick one of a few predetermined classes to lead down one of the many predetermined paths and hit one of the predetermined ending outcomes.

You don't really have an arguement there is no truly unique procedurally generated story based games with AI based npcs with real evolving needs. If you want that you'll have to go outside with your tin foil hat on and cardboard sword into the real world.

I read an article about the developers of Oblivion and how they had designed the ai to feed itself. Unexpectedly, they ran into a funny and rather dynamic gameplay issue where the guards in one of the prisons was taking his key, going down to the dungeon and eating all the prisoners food. Prior to finding this, they just couldnt find out where that food was going =D

Fast foward and you have similar conundrums occurring in multiplayer games.

I think the issue with ESO is everything is designed to accommodate the massive assembly line of players that all the npc's are just very robotic feeling, which leaks to the quests and just about everything else in the game as well.

Sure, in the end everything stays right where it needs to be for the next customer in the assembly line to go through, but nothing ever changes, nothing unpredictable or unexpected happens here. It just can't, there isnt any variability whatsoever. So much so that i can feel it without ever even seeing another person experience it! Call me senile but i can tell when something has been made that way.

Nyteshade · January 2017

I think what you, OP, are describing, is a thing called "real life".

Maybe someday we'll have a multiplayer simulation of real life, in a fantasy setting, but not yet.

BlackEar · January 2017

I think you will like Minecraft, that is all your own creation. Maybe Second Life as well if that game still exists

Keep_Door · January 2017

TL;DR
This game isnt for me ....

Logicbomb00 · January 2017

My 2 cents is that slowly and insidiously this game is moving towards 'free to play'. Those with the money win. First of all there were the Grimstones and Skyrim shards which could only be purchased with mimic stones, now we have an entire master writ system based on motifs known (partly). What's to stop some fat, lazy sloth from buying all the crown motifs and viola they have a better chance at Master Writs.

It only begins there, and it'll be through the crown store than they insinuate this sneaky and underhanded 'pay to win' schedule.

Tabbycat · January 2017

Teronell wrote: »

Well, get on it!

Be the change you want to see.

With today's Go Fund Me and Indie Developers, this is actually possible. The OP could indeed create the MMO they have always wanted to experience. Whether or not it sells is a different story.

hmsdragonfly · January 2017

Bradleyastab14_ESO wrote: »

First and foremost i want to acknowledge the amount of work and passion that has gone into creating this game. For it's developers, this is a monumental icon of their achievement, this is their baby, and i'm sure they put every effort into making it a legacy to be proud of.

Now, if i may, i'd like to point out that it's developers made a very fatal decision when they decided to employ the procedure of a tried and true, "standard" mmo experience. By this i mean the nature at which you log in and play the game. You go to the login screen, you create a character, and you go through, step by step, a carefully put together (textbook even) gameplay timeline. Which, for someone who isn't mildly bias such as myself, wouldn't know the wiser.

But i know, and you know (devs), that you had in mind a specific destiny for your customers. Which is great! No, really, im praising you for it.

But what i can't praise you for is implementing that rhetoric into the "standard" MMO experience. As for me it's akin to being a genetically modified chicken in a factory. being forced to breed in a small cage where i can see thousands of other chickens having a similar experience all around me.

No, buttholes, this is MY destiny. I'm a midly bias, senile gamer and i paid for this, i paid to make the decisions that YOU (devs) allowed me to make in this fake world. So that i may escape from reality and admire all that i have accomplished.

Unfortunately, the only thing i can really be proud of is the facial aesthetics of my character. My choices in the first 2 hours that i spent making my face pretty. Had a bigger, more unique feeling "impact" than anything i accomplished in the 60 hours i spent beating the main story line and side questing. I go to cyrodil as i watch thousands of lookalikes die, respawn, and shuffle a series of pre-determined "forts".

This is all due to how YOU (Devs) chose to create a very "standard" and "safe" (albeit unstable) MMO formula. You have mass produced everyone of your customers into an assembly line. You get a few who wonder off now and then, to kill a specific creature or open a specific chest 10 billion times before you say "no my child, back to the line with the rest of em".

I believe this entire experience could have been more volatile, had you developed it with an open mind in regards to the MMO formula you chose. You didn't need to make the world a specific size, you didn't need to have X amount of players all playing in the same area. This is your creation! Not Blizzards, Not Arenanets, this is your legacy. Unfortunately, my legacy doesn't offer as much freedom in the world you created for me.

I will be honest in this game your decisions have more impact to the world than the ones in skyrim.

BlackSparrow · January 2017

While I agree with you in principle (one of my biggest disappointments about this game is how little your choices really matter), I also accept that it just wasn't something they prioritized in development. Developing an MMO is a big, risky process. If it takes off, you have a cash cow, but if it crashes, it crashes hard. For that reason, many companies just don't want to risk spending development time on content only a fraction of the players will even see.

Elder Scrolls has always been about emergent gameplay and crafting your own story, and I love them for that. But it's much harder to make that work in an MMO, because the very presence of multiple players consuming the same content adds restrictions, like the fact that you can't kill merchants, and the fact that quest-givers will be standing at the same spot at all hours. An MMO needs to build an environment where people can have fun together, but to make sure no player is inconvenienced by another's actions. That adds restrictions, because the game can no longer be a single player's sandbox.

I love games that acknowledge your choices but, yeah, you're right. This just isn't that game. Single player games like Fable or Dragon Age may be more up your alley, or if you really want an experience based around player choice, try Undertale or The Stanley Parable. Building what those games do into an MMO may be possible, but it's too risky and too costly at the moment for most companies to risk it.

idk · January 2017

Bradleyastab14_ESO wrote: »

psytic wrote: »

My thoughts are in a similar vein to illurian's. there is no such thing as a "truly unique" experience in mmos or single player RPGs.

What is in a game is predetermined and scripted. No matter what you do, what class you pick or where you go it's all been coded and scripted and designed to follow the same pre set number of linear paths. Although you can choose how you get there, it still leads to a predetermined ending, kind of like a choose your own adventure book. You always will pick one of a few predetermined classes to lead down one of the many predetermined paths and hit one of the predetermined ending outcomes.

You don't really have an arguement there is no truly unique procedurally generated story based games with AI based npcs with real evolving needs. If you want that you'll have to go outside with your tin foil hat on and cardboard sword into the real world.

I read an article about the developers of Oblivion and how they had designed the ai to feed itself. Unexpectedly, they ran into a funny and rather dynamic gameplay issue where the guards in one of the prisons was taking his key, going down to the dungeon and eating all the prisoners food. Prior to finding this, they just couldnt find out where that food was going =D

Fast foward and you have similar conundrums occurring in multiplayer games.

I think the issue with ESO is everything is designed to accommodate the massive assembly line of players that all the npc's are just very robotic feeling, which leaks to the quests and just about everything else in the game as well.

Sure, in the end everything stays right where it needs to be for the next customer in the assembly line to go through, but nothing ever changes, nothing unpredictable or unexpected happens here. It just can't, there isnt any variability whatsoever. So much so that i can feel it without ever even seeing another person experience it! Call me senile but i can tell when something has been made that way.

@Bradleyastab14_ESO

It is clear your MMO experience is a little light and as others have pointed out single player games may be more your style. ESO decidedly has a less static feel to it than most MMOs where it comes from NPC behavior. Especialy since they do not stand still like in other MMOs, Many have different conversations, though limited as required and some quests require some serious looking for the NPC required though they follow a predetermined path which is also required by any MMO design.

Even in games that offer players a choice that affects a quest, it is still on some sort of rails since a player that has a choice of 2 outcome still has a specific aspects that must be completed for either outcome regardless.

There are many areas ESO deserves criticism, your criticism is about an aspect that has unrealistic expectations in an MMO in today's time.

AzuraKin · January 2017

camelot unchained, dynamic pvp, dynamic buildings and other structures, if they successfully pull off all they trying to do, camelot unchained will have that choice dynamic you crave op.

Rungar · January 2017

to be honest ive never seen such a well crafted mmo with so much accessible content that you can play with a controller in first person.

I cant believe its not more popular. Its like a Syrim version of Dark Age of Camelot.

I don't pvp much and I know there are issues there, but my biggest gripe would be the lack of a search function at the guild vendors.

corrosivechains · January 2017

I honestly have the opposing outlook on this. Game Developers, especially in MMO's, want so desperately to make the player feel like they're the hero of the story that it will inevitably make everyone's gameplay experience similar. The lead up to this genre was very much the opposite...In MUDs, Ultima Online, Everquest, and everything in between, you were just another nameless face until you made a name for yourself.

In these sorts of settings I think a lot of game writers and developers don't understand or seem to forget, is that the world you build is/should be the main character, and not the players. Bethesda/Zenimax is particularly guilty of this oversight.

Bladerunner1 · January 2017

So you want something unique in this multiplayer game and you enjoy the Elder Scrolls series? Divorce your character from the vestige questline and recreate them however you like. Thousands of players have done it and joined each other in Tamrielic plots that weren't created by Zenimax. Be a Thalmor agent, or a skull crushing orc trying to take over leadership of a stronghold, or a freed Khajiit slave. Lots of people will be logging into this game until the server's shut down to get that sort of experience.

Remag_Div · January 2017

I do wish this game was a more sandbox experience and less themepark. It's still a good MMO with tons of content but they did play it a bit safe, I agree.

Tandor · January 2017

It sounds to me like the OP wants a sandbox MMO, not a theme park one. For that to happen, however, the MMO couldn't be derived from an established IP like TES as with that comes a preset world and lore. It's also impractical in a MMO to have hundreds of thousands of unique characters - although in my view the appearance aspect is something that ZOS have nailed very well (especially since the introduction of dyes) as I have never come across another character looking even remotely like any of my characters.

Riejael · January 2017

Bradleyastab14_ESO wrote: »

No, buttholes, this is MY destiny. I'm a midly bias, senile gamer and i paid for this, i paid to make the decisions that YOU (devs) allowed me to make in this fake world. So that i may escape from reality and admire all that i have accomplished.

Unfortunately, the only thing i can really be proud of is the facial aesthetics of my character. My choices in the first 2 hours that i spent making my face pretty. Had a bigger, more unique feeling "impact" than anything i accomplished in the 60 hours i spent beating the main story line and side questing. I go to cyrodil as i watch thousands of lookalikes die, respawn, and shuffle a series of pre-determined "forts".

This is all due to how YOU (Devs) chose to create a very "standard" and "safe" (albeit unstable) MMO formula. You have mass produced everyone of your customers into an assembly line. You get a few who wonder off now and then, to kill a specific creature or open a specific chest 10 billion times before you say "no my child, back to the line with the rest of em".

I believe this entire experience could have been more volatile, had you developed it with an open mind in regards to the MMO formula you chose. You didn't need to make the world a specific size, you didn't need to have X amount of players all playing in the same area. This is your creation! Not Blizzards, Not Arenanets, this is your legacy. Unfortunately, my legacy doesn't offer as much freedom in the world you created for me.

Everquest Next was going to be the MMORPG you wanted. Unfortunately Daybreak (who was SOE, Verant, and 989 Studios) was unable to come through with it. They even tried a pilot Sandbox MMO called Landmark to test the servers and Forgelight engine to see if it'd work.

If the creators of Everquest and other flagship MMORPGs couldn't make it happen, what makes you think ZOS could?

I'm not going to say its impossible. I'm going to say its going to take a crew, publisher, and set of charismatic producers to make it happen. Established companies likely won't try since it'd be opening a new can of worms.

Bradleyastab14_ESO · January 2017

Remag_Div wrote: »

I do wish this game was a more sandbox experience and less themepark. It's still a good MMO with tons of content but they did play it a bit safe, I agree.

Sandbox is a bit too generalized a term i think.

People here are asking for suggestions. I can't come up with anything good as this isn't my field.

However, using the current system i think there could have been a more impact result from our decisions using the mega server technology.

For an extreme example, ill use a scenario similar to fallouts. Perhaps theres some major decision you make in ESO that decides the entire fate of a town. Like say, either unleashing oblivion on a town and obliterating it (With following quest lines in the realm of oblivion), or rescuing the town and having an alternate quest line for the still-intact town

MEBengalsFan2001 · January 2017

CosmicSoul wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

It sounds to me like you're looking for a single player RPG experience.

MMOs will never be as deep as single player RPGs. If you're looking for the same level of depth and sense of personal impact in an MMO, you will disappointed. It's just not possible to design a multiplayer experience that plays like that.

Older mmorpgs had tons of classes and depth your very wrong here.

I'm playing through the story right now and it feels like a single play RPG. Once that is done I know the game will shift a bit to more group content like most MMOs do. You have the initial content which is usually done solo to allow you to develop skill to play end game. From there you continue with solo content to fine tune your skill to play end game. Than you play end game content. RPG simply does the story and than you are done.

As for classes, in other game most classes can be two roles: DPS and support or two support roles. Very rarely does other MMOS offer the ability to play all roles with 1 class. Than to top it off, like other games ESO has weapon type DPS (stamina) and magical based DPS. So depth of character is there and there are plenty of skills to learn and develop to expand on your character.

ESO is far from perfect, every MMO has flaws, but this game has quite a bit going for it.

I'm still far off from reaching end game but I will continue to play my character and grind out content to get his level up to end game.

Bonzodog01 · January 2017

What the OP is describing is a Sandbox MMO. They do exist, but have problems all of their own.

One of the most genius games (and its not really an MMO as such.....) I have recently come across is Elite:Dangerous.

It uses procedural generation, and a forge engine to create a permanently modelled world around other players as the game goes along. There is no story quests. There are quests/missions to do however that enable you to rank up and improve your ship (your character is merely a pilot so far. That is to change however), or buy an even better ships. They are trading quests, bounty quests, and mining assignments mostly.

The main reason it can get away with this is because its set in space, and based on our own galaxy, even using realtime NASA maps for certain clusters and stars. Our own galaxy is so mind-bogglingly huge that even after thousands of players and 2 full years, only 0.4% of the game has been explored.

The only thing that was pre-determined by the devs is some local space stations, the range of space ships available to buy and the kit they use. Everything else is made up by your own computer as you go along, and uploaded to the servers when you discover and explore somewhere that no other player has been yet.

When you are limited to a world such as Nirn, and just the continent of Tamriel at that, the map is finite, and would not take long to fill in. So, the devs have had to create it before we even start.

They could have gone a little bit sandbox and not implemented a story line, or fixed classes. There would just be tons of repeatable quests everywhere that you can do to rank up the skills you want to concentrate on. This idea was going to be the basis of the recently cancelled Everquest Next.

Dev · January 2017

I agree with the OP on some of what was said:

Zos, like every other mmo before them is trying too hard to be blizzard. Because it was done in WoW and they had 14mil customers at one point, companies like zos think they can do the same. What ends up happening is that because those companies are so poor in comparison to blizzard, they just cant afford to test and build at the same level.

They end up cutting corners, and before you know it they go f2p/micro-transaction based/ out of business. The only reason that WoW is still running is that is it still sub based. No, seriously: Because the revenue stream is based on subs, they have a constant need to keep as many people as possible. Once you go B2P/Cash scam crate, your revenue plans are not based on keeping people.
Elder Scrolls was never a class based game, so by implementing that design is what caused the three years and however many millions spent in nerfs.
They tried to force pvp, and uh... how well is that going? I am not saying they shouldnt of had it available, but the 'forced' aspect due to limited stam self heals is wrong.
The management of the game did spread the development too thin, this was clear at launch, and still visible in even today's game. Most of the effort spent is clearly in nerfing abilities, instead of new content, new quests, new end game raids or anything.

1tam was mostly database admin work moving the loot tables around, and homestead is mostly so they can milk money from us in the crown store. Orsinium was a whole zone filled with content, then we get TG... A very shallow, time locked dlc which offers very little in the big picture. DB is a nice copy of TG with some minor changes, but seriously if your clicking 'E' to open a coffer or 'K' put a knife in someone, its really not all that different an experience is it? IC was such a flop, i dont even know where to begin...

We all like the game, or at least we did at one point. I get the whole 'must defend zos at all costs' mentality that happens but realistically that mentality is the same as the Captive/Captor dependency: A lot of people will let zos take a dump down their throat and smile for the privilege.