They basically decorated old zones with old assets so they have more assets and that's it, they look the same.

Stros is one of the zones I am fond of, since I played a lot in the beta on that island. I stationed my char in Bethnik fort for years, because of the proximity of the bank and crafting stations. So, I know these areas well.

To me the changes are subtle. Probably the water had the greatest change.

However, I feel like the devs spent too much effort for so little gains. Only the veterans will know the difference. For a new player, the textures and especially the rocks, will look dated, which is not good for starting zones. It doesn't matter if you have a fancy DLC with much better visuals, if the base game starting zones look like 2015. For me, Hew's Bane is an example of better graphics and biomes. This is probably the case because for Hew's Bane the devs had to create totally new assets for rocks and desert areas, and the Redguard 2.0 assets.

The visual upgrades made so far are a welcome change, but if these zones are to be on par with newer chapters, I think additional updated assets will be needed. For example, the buildings and structures from Hew's Bane and High Isle could spruce up Stros M'kai, such as the large gate to Abah's Landing, or a lighthouse from Gonfalon Bay.

If more changes to the starter islands are planned, though, perhaps an overhaul to make the island look a bit more like it did in Redguard could take considerably more time and effort compared to the others.

Was intially not convinced by the changes but now that I am questing on Bleakrock and spend more time there I have to say its´an awesome job.

Everything looks better and not so dated any more without disturbing any of the memories I have from previous playthroughs.

Unfortunately I can´t change my vote - Great Like!

As updating some dated things are, reusing the same assets everywhere makes things look samey and weird, especially between different provinces and cultures.

Like Stros M'kai now has a much darker dock with moss growing on it, which is a bit weird for a desert port.

The ship models also uses the same model of ship, so it's the same types of ships wrecked all over Tamriel's coast. Like you'd expect at least one to be a redguard ship around Stros M'kai and a khajiit ship around Khenarthi's Roost,

So I got to check these out today, and I see the sails on the wrecked ships and a few other things.

This update, and the last one too, seemed to have increased the resolution for objects further away. Things like large rocks and buildings in the distance used to be blurry, now they are very detailed and sharp. Also, there has always been a line out in front of the player where there is a transition from lower resolution to higher resolution which is closer to the player, noticeable when riding along on your mount. Today I have to really look to see this line. Objects used to pop into view while riding and were quite noticeable, but now there is just a slight increase at that distance.

In general, I think the whole game has more updated graphics and everything is much more crisp and vibrant than before. That is why the starter zones might not look as impressive because everything looks much better to me (except for the shadowing glitch on characters with body markings.)

katanagirl1 wrote: »

So I got to check these out today, and I see the sails on the wrecked ships and a few other things.

This update, and the last one too, seemed to have increased the resolution for objects further away. Things like large rocks and buildings in the distance used to be blurry, now they are very detailed and sharp. Also, there has always been a line out in front of the player where there is a transition from lower resolution to higher resolution which is closer to the player, noticeable when riding along on your mount. Today I have to really look to see this line. Objects used to pop into view while riding and were quite noticeable, but now there is just a slight increase at that distance.

In general, I think the whole game has more updated graphics and everything is much more crisp and vibrant than before. That is why the starter zones might not look as impressive because everything looks much better to me (except for the shadowing glitch on characters with body markings.)

Highly agree but I'd like to point out that it seems the changes are WAY MORE evident and good for us console players - the upgrade for us feels MASSIVE; really hope they keep up this work and update all base game zones to this quality if not even better. Yes there is margin to improve, like those damn doors we always look up close and have low res textures... But overall it's awesome, and it seems to me that on consoles even the rocks are definitely a lot better than before.
Base game zones felt old-gen. The revamped ones feel more current-gen, almost on par with DLCs.

AngryPenguin wrote: »

This effort tells me ZOS if focusing on cosmetic changes, which are ok if needed, but ZOS should be focusing far more on actual core combat and performance issues first. I feel like these cosmetic changes are a distraction from fixing some of the things that are broken with the game.

Well, the art team isn't going to be working on combat and performance, so if we're not getting a whole new zone, let them freshen up the older ones

They need to do much more if they want to "modernize" ESO — that includes character model updates. The moment they actually start updating assets (which would be reflected across all zones, e.g., Stonefalls), then we’ll talk.

Ok, I've been to the starter zones and they look the same to me.

Sometime I wonder...

Why are some potentially good polls so flawed? I cannot choose any of the options as they are all biased towards the topics assertion.