I'll do my best to be polite. I'm deeply frustrated by his approach to the arena weapon changes (he did say to blame him, Heh). I have hundreds of the normal versions of these weapons, dozens of flawless runs, and I am not eager to run this content ever again. The answers to this and the discord thread just seem to be about refusing to back down, rather than offering a logical justification for the decision. What balancing act is he talking about?

Honestly he is ill suited to being the PR face of an organization. This interview doesn't make me any more interested in the game, doesn't give me any confidence that things are going to get better, and doesn't make me feel like they understand or even care about the player's experience. The attitude is palpable. (I've felt this way ever since he mocked players on Twitter for being upset by the waves of nerfs last year.) With so many non-answers, what is the point?

Dalsinthus wrote: »

Honestly he is ill suited to being the PR face of an organization. This interview doesn't make me any more interested in the game, doesn't give me any confidence that things are going to get better, and doesn't make me feel like they understand or even care about the player's experience. The attitude is palpable. (I've felt this way ever since he mocked players on Twitter for being upset by the waves of nerfs last year.) With so many non-answers, what is the point?

I respectfully disagree. He has the tendency to speak freely, where he can, and says what is on his mind. That might rub y'all the wrong way, and you might not like his decisions, but he provides useful information. For those who are willing to listen, that is. This is better than some corporate suit with a VP title rambling on about stuff that he really knows nothing about and had to be briefed on. I'll take speaking freely and directly over honeyed words from the PR person.

theDTV wrote: »

7.
Q: With Western Skyrim opened up, is there any chance to see Markarth or the Reach later in the year?
A: Good question. Check out the Stage Event, there may be a small spoiler there.

I think it's about this part of presentation.

This sounds promising:

"20.
Q: What will happen to us console players when the new systems arrive?
A: We didnt talk about it? Then i cant talk about it right now. When we are ready about it, we will talk about it."

Having something to talk about is better than nothing!

Just posts and posts of vitriol. Y'all are hypocrites, insulting him and his teams after giving you all what you've been demanding. Communication.

What you're really after is "Tell me what I want to hear!"

I honestly don't know if this interview is true or not, but with the way that ZoS has been ignoring the players' concerns over the past year's changes, this doesn't seem like a stretch. I'm to the point that I don't think ZoS cares about the player anymore. They jut want to make their job easy and the players just have to accept it. The lack of listening to their players is highly disappointing.

ArchMikem wrote: »

Just posts and posts of vitriol. Y'all are hypocrites, insulting him and his teams after giving you all what you've been demanding. Communication.

What you're really after is "Tell me what I want to hear!"

What the heck are you even talking about? Hypocrites? I wouldn't mind siting down with him for a discussion. I don't think he's willing to reason with anyone though.

Also, what have we been demanding? The weapons? Maybe. The grind? Nope.

It could've been positive all around. It could've been: "Here's the gift to the ones who can't complete vMA or vDSA, you now have access to those weapons. Vet players, don't worry, you got those weapons in the past now were giving em to the other crowd but were adding a small bonus to differentiate them."

It was so simple, so obvious but why make it easy when you can start a fire?

Sleep724 wrote: »

Actively working on desyncs but snipe desvync has been around for how long? Servers are fine? Didn't lose anything in VMA except for the fact they're the one who made them worse to begin with a few years ago? This can't be real.

100%

zvavi wrote: »

ArchMikem wrote: »

Just posts and posts of vitriol. Y'all are hypocrites, insulting him and his teams after giving you all what you've been demanding. Communication.

What you're really after is "Tell me what I want to hear!"

Communication requires 2 sides of the coin. Both listening, and talking. I think that a comment that was deleted painted it quite nicely, saying it is full of half truths, and other things. The most vivid example is, that in the interview, he said that desyncs became better with the arrival of update 25, while the truth is, by the Experience of the players, desyncs after update 25 are worse than ever before. He said servers are holding up great, while people are posting videos of abilities not firing, and world bosses dancing in place while you are hitting them.

And don't even get me started about his answer to the vMA question. Because as I said, communication requires both sides. He didn't address the our worries. We got that vMA weapons won't be upgraded because of his decision, but as we already said in many threads, it broke ESO's promise for horizontal progression, what he needs to do, is to go out there, and say, "we will abide to horizontal progression in ESO from today", or "we might not abide to horizontal progression". We already got that they won't upgrade the weapons. The question that is left, will they do *** like that again. This is what we truly care about. And all the noise we keep making, is not to get our vMA weapons upgraded, because we all know deep in our hearts it won't happen. But to make sure that they never. EVER. Pull one like this again. And hey, if they plan on doing it again, I wish them luck.

The bold is literally "Tell me what I want to hear.".

Technically the servers are "holding up". Yes there are desyncs, yes there is input lag, yes there are loading screens. Are the Servers crashing completely? No. Are they mass disconnecting every player and becoming unreachable? No. Yes I'm stretching out on a technicality but those are still truths in a sense. He may not be right in a way but he's still not wrong either in what he's saying.

Not to mention this guy is settled into his Foxhole of Corporate Speak. He's not speaking as an individual, he's speaking on behalf of a Company with a LOT of responsibility. What he says can carry a lot of weight and I've seen what the Internet and Media outlets are capable of spinning. There's a line between your playerbase having reservations and upset feelings, and your company being utterly destroyed by bad publicity. They can't say what you want, because what you want is very difficult to acquire here, within the limitations of this game's infrastructure. What everyone wants, really wants, can basically only be achieved in a brand new product built from scratch, designed from the ground up to actually handle what you want. Because of that, all we can do now, here, with this, is to accept what can be given. Or just stop playing and leave. Move on.

Quick google search says the Hero Engine is eight years old now. The demands of gaming have only skyrocketed.

What bothers me is the answer regarding next new trial this year. “We released Kyne’s Aegis.”
I hope we won’t end up like last year, with zone DLC with no PvE endgame.

gatekeeper13 wrote: »

"Q: Are you planning to split up the servers into EU West / East to help with the server load?
A: We don't have any plans on splitting servers. We did add capacity to the EU Server. We look at the load regulary, and monitor it. We got alot better."

Do they live in a parallel universe or sth?

Note he said "WE" as in the team, not "IT" as in the server or performance. SMH.

4.
Q:What do you think about an "Choose your start Location"-Menue after creating a new alt? (That way players could experience the old starting zones again)
A: I think its a good idea.

I liked this.

22.
Q: Would you think to add barbers to the game?
A: Really gone that direction, you can kind of already change your hair at will as long as you have these collectibles. We are interested into adding new Hairstyles, but we are not thinking about adding new systems in that direction.

Hello disconnection! So we can't have a barbershop where we can change our hair from what we chose at our character's "birth" to another option that's available for that race, paid for with in-game gold? We can only change our character's hair IF WE HAVE COLLECTIBLES??? That's NOT what we're asking for but I guess unless it's something that you can charge real money for, then you won't even consider it. That's a bit on the greedy side.

24.
Q: Dragurkin are unkillable. Is that intentional?
A: Dragurkin are unkillable?? *Wife yelling in the background, telling him to fix it*. Yeah, i guess there is an issue.

HILARIOUS!!! At least one member of his household actually plays, right? On the other hand though, HOW MANY TIMES HAS SHE ALREADY TOLD HIM THIS???? You can read into this that we're not the only ones he ignores if the feedback doesn't please him.

27.
Q: Any plans there will be more NPCs in the future for housing? Or armor stands?
A: I like that train of thought

How about you put that sucker on the tracks & get it rolling then??? We've only been asking for display cases & armor stands for how many years now???

28.
Q: We will ever see an system to earn Crowns through daily challenges etc?
A: Not sure
We kinda have that right now with the gems, where you can earn those with crowns. I can talk with the teams to see where their heads are.

Again, severe disconnection here. We know we can "sell" certain Crown items to "earn" Gems. THAT was NOT the question though. The question is, "Is there a possibility of earning Crowns through IN-GAME activities?" Gems are not even mentioned...

This is the lead developer? I fear for the future of the game.

First of all, thanks @theDTV for your effort! Regarding Rich's responses, there are a few that kind of rub me the wrong way.

theDTV wrote: »

2. Regarding bad launch of Greymoor
Q: Still digging through it, there will be an official message for that, as the Live team was fixing things all the time.
We almost broke all time concurrency record today.
We are investigating Lag-Related Issues for Western Skyrim, but other than that, servers are holding up fine.

The first point is getting tiresome. If you have too many players, it's on you to scale whatever you need to scale. You can't simply shrug it off as "we're victims of our own success heh". As for the second point, he's said it before, and it's still not true. Sure, his definition of "fine" may be corporate speak for "they didn't burn down". But the server-side issues are most definitely not limited to lag in Western Skyrim.

theDTV wrote: »

6.
Q: Are you planning to split up the servers into EU West / East to help with the server load?
A: We don't have any plans on splitting servers. We did add capacity to the EU Server. We look at the load regulary, and monitor it. We got alot better compared to last year

I didn't want to call him a liar, but that's a lie. Server-side issues have gotten progressively worse last year on PC-EU. Maybe load issues have improved, I wouldn't know, since I don't have the numbers. But player experience has deteriorated. There are more desyncs, more instances of grayed-out skill bars, more cases of need-to-swap-weapon-to-loot, and game-breaking bugs in group content, such as one-shot avoidance mechanics not working (pillars in Falkreath Hold, statues in Sunspire, dome in Frostvault, etc).

theDTV wrote: »

10.
Q: Why are current VMA and VDSA weapons not being upgraded to their perfected versions?
A: They are not imperfect, you didnt loose any power. Its still the same weapon. Current weapons became a lot more accessible. I made the call for them to not be upgraded, as players didnt loose any power.
You didnt loose anything. If you want the perfected versions, run VMA again.
Yes it may feel arbitrary, i get that, but again when youre kind of doing that kind of balancing act, i made the call to not upgrade them. Blame me (Rich) for it.

There are enough threads on this issue already. I still maintain that this is a petty decision that has very few advantages and generated an enormous amount of ill-will against ZOS. Enjoy the feedback, Rich.

theDTV wrote: »

28.
Q: We will ever see an system to earn Crowns through daily challenges etc?
A: Not sure
We kinda have that right now with the gems, where you can earn those with crowns. I can talk with the teams to see where their heads are.

Seriously? He's equating a two-tiered currency system where you need to destroy items you bought for real cash to get the second-tier currency (among other things obfuscating the actual price of items bought with it) to a system where you can earn something by playing? There really is no limit to how companies can spin a subject.