First things first: fix the queues, then improve the groupfinder for it. Lvl/CP restrictions, bg type select, allow sigils,... are just a few things from the top of my head

I mean, I guess I could see it either way

On one hand, I was always under the impression that an MMO could assume all players who were there to stay would own(or come to own) all the expansions. To this end, if you lack TG or Morrow you cannot properly raid with a group who will go with the weekly or do all trials regardless whether or not you actually want TG or Morrow for their quests. One cannot run all dungeons without SoTH and IC (and soon the nord dungeons). One already could not participate in all forms of PvP if they did not own IC also, and now Morrow. Orsinium also has its singleplayer trial, though more noteworthy is the almost universally BiS weapons from the arena that are also BoP, requiring ownership of Orsinium regardless of one's want for the questing again.

On the other hand, $40 for a couple of arena maps wouldn't fly if it were its own game, so why would someone want to pay for it when they find themselves utterly disinterested in the questing and items from Morrowind? The Warden I suppose, but it's not hard to be disinterested in unlocking the class for some reason or another also. Then again, someone else still could say you're paying the $40 as an offering to the no-sub-required model of the game, which only gets further complicated if you do pay the optional subscription that ZOS has decided to not include Morrowind within....


It's an absolute mess, but certainly unlocking Battlegrounds for all players would only be an improvement to population.

There's no question that the queue is buggy as hell, and imbalanced team numbers are still a serious issue, but Battlegrounds are really rather addicting, and I'd like to see more than the same 20 people in there over and over. Removing the paywall would be a good thing for the health of BG in general.

And I can't imagine that it would hurt Morrowind sales. I'm sure that every one who intended to buy the expansion solely for BG already has. And while some would feel "cheated" to have content they paid for given for free, most would be glad to see more participants. Maybe carving BG into their own, cheap (1500 crowns?) DLC would be the happy medium.

Bg's are broken.....

I feel it's a bad thing for BGs in the longterm that they're locked behind a paywall because active population is absolutely vital for their sole existence, you can't just wander around BGs like in Cyrodiil, you either have people to fight or you don't. With that in mind I think it was a mistake to lock them behind a paywall in the first place - even if the amount of people ending up locked out is smaller than that already in BGs, the more people the better for this specific activity.

HOWEVER, it all absolutely doesn't matter long as BGs are in their current sorry state. It really doesn't matter if it's 10k people that can't queue in BG or 20k(totally random numbers here).

The more people queue, the harder it is to get in. Opening them up would make it impossible to join BGs. And I have doubts ZOS is gonna remove the broken ready check anytime soon. And no, they are not gonna fix it tomorrow. They are adding even more features (not put CP with <lvl50, etc.). And by features I mean wannabe-features. None of it is gonna work as long as there's a broken ready check in place. I bet you won't be able to get in in 3 hours even with solo queue tomorrow.

I would love to see then open it up. Stupid it is behind a pay wall. That said, adding more people currently is a bad idea given the state of bgs currently.

As someone who plays often during night, no that would be a terrible idea.
During day i have +30 minute queue times, during 3am maybe 1 minute ( well you are fighting the same 30 people of course )

They won't fix the group finder. If they had the will they would have fixed it before Morrowind. Over the time I've looked at their job listings they've never looked for someone with experience in group finder systems. They'll never get it fixed if they just hire general programmers, or they'll be really lucky to get a great one.

Most of the programming job listnings now are for mobile device programming and that's probably where the future is heading for the company.

LegacyDM wrote: »

Sure, do I get a partial refund or compensated for content that I paid for and now is free?

And this is why you don't open BGs to everyone else. There will be a lot of these guys popping up and complaining. I really don't care, more lambs to the slaughter.