Overall:
reset just one skill: awesome and its just an user interface thing.
Transmorg: we have been waiting for this.

XoneX: who not rater increase the frame rate? It would have the benefit that frame rate drops will not be so hard, say it runs in 60fps, it drops to half and you get 20fps, with 30 fps it would drop to 15.

AdamBourke wrote: »

I AM a programmer - and I can see why there might be technical difficulties with storage. Take special note of the fact that he says that ESO is not built for that.

The problem is not that it is hard to do. I could probably write a quick application in half a day that had a fairly complex housing-inventory management system. But there are three problems I wouldn't need to deal with: Scaling, Speed and Legacy.

Scaling: Firstly, what is easy for one person is not easy for 10 million people. It would include more storage (only a few Terabytes) and more connections to the banking system (Players might only go to the banker on special occasions, but would look through the containers in their houses more often - especially if it was done properly and each container had a separate storage space!)

Speed: Have you noticed that when you open a chest or urn etc the contents appear immediately? That's because the client generates that information. For a storage system in a house you would need to connect to the servers to check the contents.On a slow day this could take a while. If you have a large number of items in your bank it could take longer. People would get irritated by this, so it would need minimising as much as possible.

Legacy: One of the hardest problems to solve in any programming job. You (or the people that came before) didn't write the original code in the way that would make this easy.There's lots of good reasons that this happens, and some bad ones - but it virtually always happens. IT can be fixed, but it's often hard and leads to bugs. Imagine you are building a house. You start with the foundations, and then the walls and the roof. But someone later says they actually want a tower - it's easy conceptually, you just add higher walls - but the foundations aren't strong enough to hold it - that's Legacy Issues, and it's why Matt Firor says that ESO is not built for it.

Having said all of that... I can't see what the problem with a Transmog system would be, since it's already in the game for Morag Tong and Imperial!

I'm finding this to be a bit vague.

Firstly, why should we take special note of anything? If ESO is not built to take storage into account then that points to some really poor architecture. Storage is an essential part of the game.

This isn't an old game. When I have to deal with legacy code, it's usually some piece of spaghetti written in the 1990's or even earlier. Converting COBOL to dotnet is complex. Converting ASP to MVC is tricky. Storage is a system that's already in place and is new code. I don't get why it's a big 'technical' deal, unless their code is one big violation of the single responsibility principal. Which I suspect it is.

AdamBourke wrote: »

Speed: Have you noticed that when you open a chest or urn etc the contents appear immediately? That's because the client generates that information. For a storage system in a house you would need to connect to the servers to check the contents.On a slow day this could take a while. If you have a large number of items in your bank it could take longer. People would get irritated by this, so it would need minimising as much as possible.

"That's because the client generates that information."?! Surely the contents for chests and urns is also determined server side. As for speed in general: There should be no difference between the bank and a "house chest". No "irritation".

Adding an additional kind of storage should really not be to complicated but I reckon there is some work involved, since you have to touch a lot of components from UI, the client itself, maybe networking, backend down to the database. Definitely more work than doubling the space for ESO+. -- Maybe the same as for adding the crafting bag? Don't know.

I wonder what kind of transmog they want to add: Actually mogging the equipment (WoW) or just something like costume sets (LOTRO, SWTOR(?)). I played games with both systems and I liked the latter much better. -- And I guess the latter is much easier to accomplish.

zaria wrote: »

I wonder if they use an pretty weird method to store style for items.
Theory: dropped sets uses style id stored in the set, together with the set bonuses.
Has any dropped set ever changed racial style for used items? thinking one tamriel mostly here?
Do the ones who made armor preview know?

Crafted sets and non set items has style stored in item itself.
This is why imperial transform can not covert dropped sets.

That's exactly why configurable sets of outfits like in Lord of the Rings instead of changing the look of an item are the easier and better solution. Better, because as a side effect they could provide multiple slots for outfits.

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

morrowjen wrote: »

Honestly while transmorg is a great feature, there's no point in even having a house without storage. This is incredibly disappointing.

Yeah, it's "RPG dreamhouse." (Which is awesome, if it's something that inspires you, but functionality would be worth much, much more to most.)

The good news is @morrowjen , (clever @name, btw) is there are lots of things they were 'never' going to do, several of which, have been done since.

Step one: They have to figure out how to monetize it.
Step two: They have to figure out how to make it (kinda) work.
Step three: They have to figure out how to monetize it.

Too true and thanks for the info. Hopefully they figure out a way to let us display armor/swords etc. and store some stuff. Even just a few containers would be fine with me.

As far as morrowjen goes, thanks. I've actually been using that name since I first played the original Morrowind. At the time, it was my first character's name.

They have to use "No ETA" now because @ZOS_GinaBruno trademarked "Soon"

drakhan2002_ESO wrote: »

Most "programmers" now-a-days go by the title "developer", but that's neither here nor there. Are you a "programmer" for ZOS, making ESO? If not, your opinion may carry a little more weight than us non-programmers, but you don't *really* know. You're just speculating.

Depending on someones experience those speculations can be surprisingly accurate. Software development is no magic. For the most part it's just many classes of problems and many patterns to solve them. The rest is very specialized stuff and not what we a talking about here.

Turelus wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

altemriel wrote: »

Transmog as a super new crown store feature f********** that

ESO+ perk more likely if they go that route, although I think it will be available to everyone. Putting that behind a paywall would cause a massive *** storm.

I fully predict this as well.

I really hope they're not just going to make it a trashy ESO+ feature and actually make it a games mechanic which makes style materials worth money again.

5, maybe 10 style material bits to "Reforge" a single piece of gear?

Calling it Transmog here would just be stupid. In Elder Scrolls parlance this would be more akin to taking a cuirass to a blacksmith and asking them to make it smaller so that it actually fits your puny Wood Elf.

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

1/ it is unclear what Matt actually meant. If he meant "storage for housing items" then it would only be something like a "crafting bag for housing items", basically a system similar to the crafting bag that already exists... if he meant interactable storage containers for houses, then that's a different story and I can see how your arguments may apply.

If it's something like the crafting bag, it would be more difficult than the crafting bag to implement - partly just because you need to have the "Created by X" string for most of them. Basically each version of the items can be unique. That means it cant be as simple as the crafting bag (which is probably just a list of integers, or a list/map of string-integer pairs at most).

If they were to do something like this, then I imagine it will be more like giving each character another inventory - which sounds simple enough... but who knows?

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

2/ you mention that server interaction takes time and resources, and that picking-up stuff in the environment is quick because it is generated on the client side. But if I understand that correctly, whatever we pick up goes into our inventory, and said inventory is managed and stored on the server side. So in the end whatever we do in the game causes server interaction. Storage chests in our houses would be nothing more or less than yet another "bank". What's the problem there ? I understand that databases can reach unmanageable exponential sizes sooner than we imagine, but is it truly the case here ?

The difference is the speed of interaction. in current containers, the list is shown immediately. You pick stuff up and a message is sent to the server - but you don't need to wait around for the result, you can run off to another container if you want. In containers linked to the bank, you would click to open the bank and have to wait for it to load before you can do anything.

drakhan2002_ESO wrote: »

Most "programmers" now-a-days go by the title "developer", but that's neither here nor there. Are you a "programmer" for ZOS, making ESO? If not, your opinion may carry a little more weight than us non-programmers, but you don't *really* know. You're just speculating.

I do normally go by developer - but I was responding to someone who started with "I'm not a programmer" so I used the same language. I don't work for ZOS - It would be cool if I did, but I'd actually rather be a concept/level designer! So yes, I am jsut speculating - which brings us to:

reiverx wrote: »

I'm finding this to be a bit vague.

Yes, that's for two reasons, 1) I don't work for ZOS so am talking about general problems with computing that may or may not be affecting this issue, and 2) I was writing a quick response to a non-programmer, so didn't want to get very detailed on details that I'd probably be wrong about!

reiverx wrote: »

Firstly, why should we take special note of anything?

Because that's the part of the interview I was referring to.

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

Scaling

• Scaling is mostly a factor of raw storage on ZoS's side ~ aka more hard drives. It's a cost that pretty much guarantees they're probably not going to give it away (ever).

I was thinking this, but then I did some maths and at a presumably overestimated 1kb per inventory slot, and 100 slots per house, average of 5 houses per player and 10 million players... that's only 5TB. My PS4 has a 2TB hardrive, and it wasn't that expensive... So maybe it's not much of an issue?

Speed

• Speed could be remedied by having the container contents 'load' when you enter the house, and update when you exit.
• The content list could then be held client side (encrypted, for the love of Azura).
• One additional bit field could be added to indicate if an item had been updated server side or not. Anything not yet updated server side (sync'd) could not be sold, only moved back and forth.
  This would server two purposes.
  • One would ensure nothing gets dupe'd (Oops, I accidentally DC'd after withdrawing my $200k gold items. I shall now reload...)
  • The other would ensure nothing goes into limbo.
  • In either case, log in with non-synced items in your inventory and it reverts to the container (the original server side copy). Even if someone is playing from multiple locations, there is no realistic reason why they should not have clean disconnects.
  • To prevent Guild-Bank level loading delays, the container could be restricted to owner-only access.
• Update the contents again when you exit the house or log out, and all is right with the world.
• Sure there would be additional loading screen time, but this is the price you would pay for having storage access.

[/quote]

I agree, they should do something like this. I kind of hope they already do, to be honest - since the banker assistant can be placed...

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

Legacy

• Legacy should not be an issue. (Then again, it never should be.) Granted, people code differently, but the API is already in place, and for the most part, a container is a container - it simply needs a different ID than current ones available. If they hired people that did not properly document their code / the API, it is a problem. It's just more of a management issue than a programming one.

I've found that any long term project i've worked on, Legacy is always an issue. There's a lot of different people working on ESO from when it started, it might be three years old for us, but i think it was in development for 5-7 years before release? I forget exactly. So that's up to a 10 year project. There's also going to be bad documentation, deprecated APIs, etc. It's not ideal, but it's just something that happens to every project after a while :-(.

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

If they have programmers half worth there salt, it could be implemented. I suspect it's more about whether they want to invest in those resources (storage and manpower) and their inability to determine the exact price point that won't completely *** everyone off at once..

Yep, this. I hope they so decide to ultimately do it, and I think it needs to be a free update with someway to extend it for a fee. Maybe make the number of available containers allowed in the house something like 5 (with varying container sizes for immersion), and then add an option to increase it in the crown store...

I'm going to get something to eat, I might reply to more people later xD.

Majic wrote: »

Alas, in the MMO design world, spaghetti is still a very popular dish.

To be fair, I think every developer in the galaxy would like to go back and clean up some of their own code.

Especially me, that is

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

drakhan2002_ESO wrote: »

Most "programmers" now-a-days go by the title "developer", but that's neither here nor there. Are you a "programmer" for ZOS, making ESO? If not, your opinion may carry a little more weight than us non-programmers, but you don't *really* know. You're just speculating.

"Programmer", "developer", "coder"... isn't that all synonyms ?
Anyway I'm grateful to anyone trying to rationally explain, even if only based on his own experience and know-how and not on insider knowledge. That's better than nothing at all - and we can't trust ZOS to explain anyway

Back in the day we had analysts and programmers, then dedicated analysts where phased out and replaced by programmer/analysts. Programmer/analysts trying to stand out from the crowd renamed themselves developers and hip employers also starting to use the phrase developer. Now we all use the phrase developer, waiting for the next preferred terminology to come along. So yes, they are all synonyms.

edit; spelling.

me_ming wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

The summary forgets to mention that Matt Firor takes us for fools. I mean, really.

He says that transmog and additional storage face heavy technical difficulties !!!

It is pretty technically complex.

We can’t just increase storage because Elder Scrolls Online is just not setup for that. We would love to, but we don’t have plans for it right now.

I, admittedly, am no programmer. But I am computer literate enough to understand that there is nothing, absolutely nothing technically difficult in applying a texture that already exists to a gear (basically, a set of stats) that already exists. Also, there is absolutely nothing difficult is telling any given inventory item to contain X maximum slots instead of Y maximum slots.

So please Mr. Firor, do not take me for stupid.

The "difficulties" you are "facing" are strictly related to how you are going to implement it in the game as either (or both) a gameplay incentive or/and a mean of monetization. Which, by the way, are fair and serious questions. But no "technical difficulties".

And the reason why you don't want to increase storage aren't technical. It's just that storage is the undisputed number one incentive for players to subscribe.

Transmog is technically already in game, isn't it? I mean, you can change your gear in Imperial/Morag Tong style. Isn't that what transmog is? I could be wrong.

Only for certain items. Some dropped set items can't be transmogged, since they have a specific style.

Hope we get transmog soin

Skjoldur wrote: »

me_ming wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

The summary forgets to mention that Matt Firor takes us for fools. I mean, really.

He says that transmog and additional storage face heavy technical difficulties !!!

It is pretty technically complex.

We can’t just increase storage because Elder Scrolls Online is just not setup for that. We would love to, but we don’t have plans for it right now.

I, admittedly, am no programmer. But I am computer literate enough to understand that there is nothing, absolutely nothing technically difficult in applying a texture that already exists to a gear (basically, a set of stats) that already exists. Also, there is absolutely nothing difficult is telling any given inventory item to contain X maximum slots instead of Y maximum slots.

So please Mr. Firor, do not take me for stupid.

The "difficulties" you are "facing" are strictly related to how you are going to implement it in the game as either (or both) a gameplay incentive or/and a mean of monetization. Which, by the way, are fair and serious questions. But no "technical difficulties".

And the reason why you don't want to increase storage aren't technical. It's just that storage is the undisputed number one incentive for players to subscribe.

Transmog is technically already in game, isn't it? I mean, you can change your gear in Imperial/Morag Tong style. Isn't that what transmog is? I could be wrong.

Only for certain items. Some dropped set items can't be transmogged, since they have a specific style.

Each and every item has a specific style. The point of transmog would be simply to overwrite that style - and I don't see why it shouldn't be doable for each and every item in the game.