ESO remaster/anniversary ed. If not for 10th year, when?

SkaiFaith · May 2023

The title. When (if ever) do you think we will see a remaster or anniversary edition of ESO with reworked visuals/animations?

I would love to see many things redesigned 'cause, yes ESO is on the higher end of MMOs visually speaking, but still, it shows its age in some aspects.

Any educated guesses? Or even wild ones... I would explode of joy if 10th year would be THE year, but I set my hopes low.

Note: I'm just talking visually - PLEASE DON'T START COMPLAINING ABOUT PvP or "broken aspects"; I don't want this thread closed. Thank you

SkaiFaith · May 2023

I'll add: personally I find grass and vegetations in base game zones is poor compared to other MMOs (BDO) or to ESO's latest expansions. That's one point I'd really like to see touched asap.

TaSheen · May 2023

The last time I was playing an MMO, and the visuals got "changed for the better", it was the last straw for me (because that included my characters, and the visual changes to them made them.... not my girls any more), and I left the game, haven't ever been back.

After seeing what happened to templar's jabs, are you really sure you want them to mess with anything else in the way of visuals/animations? And I never even used jabs myself....

SkaiFaith · May 2023

@TaSheen the two skills that got redesigned and received backlash - the reason I think was because they felt downgraded instead of upgraded. I don't think the change per sé was a bad move, it's just that people didn't find it an improvement...

xclassgaming · May 2023

SkaiFaith wrote: »

The title. When (if ever) do you think we will see a remaster or anniversary edition of ESO with reworked visuals/animations?

I would love to see many things redesigned 'cause, yes ESO is on the higher end of MMOs visually speaking, but still, it shows its age in some aspects.

Any educated guesses? Or even wild ones... I would explode of joy if 10th year would be THE year, but I set my hopes low.

Note: I'm just talking visually - PLEASE DON'T START COMPLAINING ABOUT PvP or "broken aspects"; I don't want this thread closed. Thank you

The game is gorgeous it doesn't need a "Remaster."

TaSheen · May 2023

Um. No, most of the anger was because they redid the way the animations meshed with the new timings, AND they changed the jabs light spear to a vampire looking stave. There was a lot of fury engendered by the change to animations and the look of the spear.

SkaiFaith · May 2023

TaSheen wrote: »

Um. No, most of the anger was because they redid the way the animations meshed with the new timings, AND they changed the jabs light spear to a vampire looking stave. There was a lot of fury engendered by the change to animations and the look of the spear.

That's what I meant, maybe I expressed myself bad: it was perceived by the people like a downgrade not an improvement. I would hope a supposed remaster would improve things 😅

SkaiFaith · May 2023

xclassgaming wrote: »

SkaiFaith wrote: »

The title. When (if ever) do you think we will see a remaster or anniversary edition of ESO with reworked visuals/animations?

I would love to see many things redesigned 'cause, yes ESO is on the higher end of MMOs visually speaking, but still, it shows its age in some aspects.

Any educated guesses? Or even wild ones... I would explode of joy if 10th year would be THE year, but I set my hopes low.

Note: I'm just talking visually - PLEASE DON'T START COMPLAINING ABOUT PvP or "broken aspects"; I don't want this thread closed. Thank you

The game is gorgeous it doesn't need a "Remaster."

I have to admit I'm the kind of person who likes to look around all the most fine details on the ground mud/rocks, so I personally don't even understand all the PC players playing with the camera all far high which makes you lose all those details... Perhaps I have sort of a biased opinion due to my specific taste and mine it's not an objective point of view. That's why I'm asking

All feedback is appreciated!

TaSheen · May 2023

xclassgaming wrote: »

The game is gorgeous it doesn't need a "Remaster."

Agreed. My personal taste is just fine with the way it looks right now.

markulrich1966 · May 2023

I personally like ESO the way it is. Ultra-realistic games kind of turn me off. I use ESO to flee the real world, so a "non-realistic" setting is ok for me.

And ESO does not make the other mistake, of exaggerating the fantasy aspect.
I just watched a gameplay video of a new Zelda title. The 2 play characters reminded me of my cute bosmer girlies, but they are TOO "cute", the proportions less natural. Zelda looks like a person that shrank in height, without adapting the diametre of the extremities. Looks cute, but unnatural.

So I hope there will be no major changes. Some more detailed textures maybe, some slightly improved shadows (the next gen patch did this, subtle but improving the look).

We never will reach a stunning experience of a Skyrim, raytraced with 4k textures, looking like filmed with a real camera, because these mods have insane requirements concerning the latest, ultra expensive graficscard, suffer from performance, and are single player mods without any multiplayer functionality.

N3CR01 · May 2023

I wouldn't mind seeing 'next gen' textures in the future.

Shagreth · May 2023

They have to do that, WoW has gone through several upgrades for example. ESO? Not really, main reason being old gen consoles holding the game back. They have to modernize the game if they're serious about it and want it to survive long-term. They are making a new mmo game on the side, so hopefully they still have big & ambitious plans for ESO despite that. The pessimist in me says they probably don't.

Paulytnz · May 2023

I think we would probably see an ESO 2 before a remaster. Having said that, I would like a lot of graphics updated. A basic example is those furnishings of foods. Crates and baskets of apples just look bad, real bad. So, I would welcome any upgrades to things like that!

LunaFlora · May 2023

maybe in another ten years

Dr_Con · May 2023

When EQ decided to redo certain zones (starter zones) for the better, it removed some nostalgia but I won't deny the zones looked better and would be more captivating to new players.

ZOS has gotten around this issue by making the starter zone be wherever you want. There's little need to remaster the game when you can just release an expansion which you consider to be a new release of the game.

jtm1018 · May 2023

Should we have a year long anniversary event for eso 10th birthday.

X10 xp for 1 year!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!

Northwold · May 2023

Honestly I think ESO looks very, very impressive for its age and given that its intended to run on some pretty low configs / old consoles stably.

So I think the direction they've taken, of adding new technologies as options as they become available and upping the resolution of objects in new zones a bit, is a sensible one.

Realistically, I think a full remaster to higher res textures across the board is probably unrealistic given the size of the game. It would take a MASSIVE amount of work unless everything existed at the time the game was made in a much higher fidelity version (in which case it would be a case of substituting objects that already exist -- still a lot of work but not a total re-do). The game is absolutely huge and you'd need a lot of players to justify that.

Amottica · May 2023

If such a thing is even being considered it would hinge on the server recoding work actually improving performance of the game.

One thing that is a certainty is it will not be here for the 10th anniversary since they would not be doing two major projects that would effect overlapping game assets outside of DLC work at the same time.

Elsonso · May 2023

10th Anniversary? No. I figure a project like a "remaster" would take them years to accomplish. They would have had to have started a couple years ago. With C0VID, I suspect such a project would have failed.

Hoghorn · May 2023

world of warcraft updated a bunch of their base game zones when the game was 6 years old and on it's 3rd expansion. the devs eventually stated it was a waste of time money and effort which detracted from making content for the expansion it went live in. if zos did do some sort of visual upgrade i hope they look at blizzard's mistakes and are careful to avoid starving the game for the sake of aesthetics. considering there will be no further dlc after necrom launch, i am not confident they have the resources to accomplish anything but the bare minimum we are already getting.

TaSheen · May 2023

Hoghorn wrote: »

world of warcraft updated a bunch of their base game zones when the game was 6 years old and on it's 3rd expansion. the devs eventually stated it was a waste of time money and effort which detracted from making content for the expansion it went live in. if zos did do some sort of visual upgrade i hope they look at blizzard's mistakes and are careful to avoid starving the game for the sake of aesthetics. considering there will be no further dlc after necrom launch, i am not confident they have the resources to accomplish anything but the bare minimum we are already getting.

Yeah. And it made my girls not look "right" or like anything I wanted to keep playing, so I dropped 7 accounts and went off to RIFT. Never been back to WoW.

Lena_HJ · May 2023

I love how ESO looks in general, and how beautiful some of the tinier zones like Murkmire or Fargrave are.

On the other hand, I feel some of the costumes of main characters - especially Tharn - basic racial styles and daedric/barbarian/primal motifs could use some higher resolution textures. Nothing big, just some refreshing : ).

wenchmore420b14_ESO · May 2023

Elsonso wrote: »

10th Anniversary? No. I figure a project like a "remaster" would take them years to accomplish. They would have had to have started a couple years ago. With C0VID, I suspect such a project would have failed.

Just to add to this.
The ESO Base Game released at launch was over 7 years in the making. It was in production years before Skyrim was released.
So I agree that it such a project as OP suggested would be be unattainable.
Just my 2 drakes...
Huzzah!

AzuraFan · May 2023

I used to play another MMO (not WoW) and occasionally I drop in to the forums to see what's up. They have retextured the game a couple of times over the years (made everything higher resolution), which has been met with approval.

Recently they upgraded how the characters look, and as you can probably guess, many players aren't happy. The characters they've been playing for years don't quite look the same.

I think ESO looks great, to be honest.

ArchangelIsraphel · May 2023

TaSheen wrote: »

The last time I was playing an MMO, and the visuals got "changed for the better", it was the last straw for me (because that included my characters, and the visual changes to them made them.... not my girls any more), and I left the game, haven't ever been back.

After seeing what happened to templar's jabs, are you really sure you want them to mess with anything else in the way of visuals/animations? And I never even used jabs myself....

This right here. I like the basegame zones as they are, and I definitely want the characters I have spent hours designing and playing to be left as they are.

SkaiFaith · May 2023

Thank you all for your opinions!
To those saying it already looks good enough, question: don't you find some low resolution textures to be immersion breaking?
I've played ESO on literally every Xbox console, and even on Series X when you are in 1st person and go near a door to open it in base game zones you can see it clearly pixelated, the squares that compose the locks on the doors.
Many areas have rocks and ground with blurry textures.
Don't you think at least high resolution textures are needed?

TaSheen · May 2023

SkaiFaith wrote: »

Thank you all for your opinions!
To those saying it already looks good enough, question: don't you find some low resolution textures to be immersion breaking?
I've played ESO on literally every Xbox console, and even on Series X when you are in 1st person and go near a door to open it in base game zones you can see it clearly pixelated, the squares that compose the locks on the doors.
Many areas have rocks and ground with blurry textures.
Don't you think at least high resolution textures are needed?

Nope. I'm not a texture junkie. It all looks great on my 4k monitors. A LOT better than other games. It looks REAL - the base game zones look like the older areas they are, and the newer zones are a bit more vibrant.

I don't see "pixelated" - I just see the world.

SkaiFaith · May 2023

@TaSheen I'll give you examples, so please tell me if these aren't distracting to you, I want to understand if it's a me thing...

One is a door in Windhelm and the other rocks in The Rift.
It being a 4K TV doesn't matter - those look bad to me... Definitely improvable. Isn't this kinda objective?

EDIT: Xbox Series X

AScarlato · May 2023

The old zones look noticeably dated and disjointed from the quality of newer zones. It would be nice if they were raised to the newer standards.

SatanicSister · May 2023

@SkaiFaith where is the first screenshot taken? Honestly, I'm more bothered by the saturation than textures on that pic. But I'd like to check out if the game looks the same on my laptop with my current settings in that particular area.

SkaiFaith · May 2023

@SatanicSister one is the new life festival shrine for the imperial quest in The Rift, near Blessed Crucible, going up from the Stonefalls pass; the other is like every door in Windhelm but specifically the enchanter one.

About saturation - it's default HDR on console. I could tone it down but then it would look like washed out. I'm constantly playing with that setting and switching from less to more saturated as I feel in the moment... Edit: also, they are pictures taken with my phone, not proper screenshots, so backlight can interfere... (The reason is I'm lazy to take screenshots on console and bringing them here XD more friction than doing it on PC)