SkaiFaith wrote: »

It could be. Or it could be a choice since nowadays gameplay is "always" favored over CGI by players, in the general gaming sphere.
Surely some of us miss the cinematics...

Nah Gameplay Trailers have been a thing of the 2000's. Looking back at WoW and other Games we alwas had in Game recorded Trailers. ESO regressing to Gameplay Trailers seems worrying to me.

colossalvoids wrote: »

Honestly those trailers were a huge money sink most probably, adding absolutely nothing to the game itself. I doubt that the money went back onto the development process but still hardly see it as a loss.

I didn't even realize there wasn't one; never crossed my mind.

Big trailers are, a huge percentage of the time, visual garbage that's only close enough to the actual gameplay to keep from getting sued. If ZoS wants to spend $100k on the actual game, instead of 45 seconds of "wow, that looks cool", I consider that a smart business decision.

CGI trailers can be eye catching. Lots of people on Facebook compliment them in random ads but then the players laugh and meme on the actual gameplay.

I absolutely love the ESO cinematic trailers and always rewatch them, they are so well made and bring the ESO world to life I wish ZOS keeps making them, and I also hope one day there could be a full length movie with the same visuals/characters.

I've never watched any of the trailers enough to care what style they're using, but then I suppose they're not aimed at me. I've already got the game and will decide on buying new chapters based on the actual information about what's included rather than snippets of flashy looking gameplay (or a CGI idealised version of it). I assume they get shown as Youtube adverts or whatever, and are aimed at drawing in people who don't already play, but if that's the case I think it's better to be honest about how the game looks, which IMO is already very good.

Einar_Hrafnarsson wrote: »

SkaiFaith wrote: »

It could be. Or it could be a choice since nowadays gameplay is "always" favored over CGI by players, in the general gaming sphere.
Surely some of us miss the cinematics...

Nah Gameplay Trailers have been a thing of the 2000's. Looking back at WoW and other Games we alwas had in Game recorded Trailers. ESO regressing to Gameplay Trailers seems worrying to me.

That's at least partially because before that era it was common to have adverts that showed absolutely no gameplay footage at all, instead showing only cut scenes with much higher graphical quality than it was possible to get in the real game, or even live-action footage (either from FMV cut scenes or recorded purely for the advert). Even when it was done with the best intentions it was misleading and made it look like they were ashamed of the game and didn't want you to see it until you'd already paid, and sometimes that was almost certainly the case because the actual game looked nothing like that. That's why adverts still have to have disclaimers at the bottom warning you when you're not being shown in-game footage.

Trailers recorded purely in-game were a response to that - going the other way and making sure they showed you nothing but the game. It was also helped by in-game graphics catching up so more games could use the same graphics for gameplay and cut scenes instead of having a huge jump in quality and style from one to the other.

I'm not suggesting ESO was trying to be misleading with CGI trailers, they've never been shy about showing how the game actually looks, but it's amusing to me that we've now reached a point where in-game trailers are seen as old fashioned and pure CGI is preferable for some people.

Redguards_Revenge wrote: »

It's a free base game addition, correct? I don't have any problem with them going this route if so.

No. It's basically a chapter under a different name.

There will be a new zone with it's own story, and to access it you need to buy the "content pass" (which also includes the dungeon DLC).

Maitsukas wrote: »

Or it could be an issue with the studio that makes the CGI trailers (which isn't ZOS or anyone else under Zenimax Media)

Someone said the other day that the company making them had closed in February, unless I misunderstood them. If that's the case then it would doubtless have been too late to get someone else to step in.

Yikes, that one voice.

Einar_Hrafnarsson wrote: »

SkaiFaith wrote: »

It could be. Or it could be a choice since nowadays gameplay is "always" favored over CGI by players, in the general gaming sphere.
Surely some of us miss the cinematics...

Nah Gameplay Trailers have been a thing of the 2000's. Looking back at WoW and other Games we alwas had in Game recorded Trailers. ESO regressing to Gameplay Trailers seems worrying to me.

I always love the epic cinematics, and my emotions were like this watching the countdown: hype, but then there was no cinematic start, just people talking, so I felt a bit disappointed and not as engaged, BUT I kept listening and it was actually interesting to hear the major changes in the development cycle, the reasoning in taking us this new direction, and that they're going all in on creativity and breaking from the norm.

Then the HYPE CAME FLOODING BACK! We're confirmed getting a sequel for past storylines, something I've been craving since I started playing in 2016, very hyped for part 2/getting to know more lore around Meridia and Molag, but knowing we'll likely revisit Mora, Leramil, and Ithelia, AHHHHH PLEASE ZOS, there's just too much foreshadowing to deeper lore there, AND I WANT ITHELIA BACK!!

MORE HYPE: Server-wide, realtime, world events that will last for weeks!!! And the world will actually evolving/be progressing with time!! I've always wanted something like this, like back in Elswer, I always had hope we would get dragons roaming the world, imagine being a new player in Glenumbra and getting to participate in, or even just see, an epic fight against a dragon at the start of the game!

ANDDDDD SUBBBBBCLASSSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AND HOPEFULLY VENGEANCE RETURNS AS A PVP MODE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AND GRAPHICAL UPDATES!!!!!!!!!!!

It's genuinely unfathomable to me, how can any veteran ESO player not be ABSOLUTELY HYPPPPPEEEDDDD!!!!

randconfig wrote: »

Then the HYPE CAME FLOODING BACK! We're confirmed getting a sequel for past storylines, something I've been craving since I started playing in 2016, very hyped for part 2/getting to know more lore around Meridia and Molag, but knowing we'll likely revisit Mora, Leramil, and Ithelia, AHHHHH PLEASE ZOS, there's just too much foreshadowing to deeper lore there, AND I WANT ITHELIA BACK!!

I don't think they'll bring Ithelia back. To be honest, I'd even be disappointed if they did, because it would make the story even more meaningless. Unless maybe they'd make it very, very subtle, only a hint (but not a full story), more like an Easter egg for people who played her original story. Like you end up in some other plane of existence and see her (in her "human" form without wings or glowy symbols or anything unusual) again, and she's living some normal mortal life and can't remember a thing. She's just working at a tavern, selling fruit at the market or herding sheep or whatever, and is happy. And maybe if you've done her questline before, you can make a little remark of some kind (like trying to remind her of what happened, but she doesn't know what you're talking about and assumed you must be confusing her with someone else), but that's it. I think I could live with something like that (although I don't really need it), because I know some people were sad about the ending, and maybe it would be nice if they get to see she's doing well now, living an ordinary life. If at all, I'd prefer something like this, not bringing her back for a story another time.

Also, I think ZOS didn't really think of the newer stories when mentioning plans to continuing storylines, but more like Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild or just new, not neccessarily related, stories in older zones like Vvardenfell or Murkmire. And probably continuation of companion stories sooner or later. There are still a few loose threads in some, after all.

randconfig wrote: »

MORE HYPE: Server-wide, realtime, world events that will last for weeks!!! And the world will actually evolving/be progressing with time!! I've always wanted something like this, like back in Elswer, I always had hope we would get dragons roaming the world, imagine being a new player in Glenumbra and getting to participate in, or even just see, an epic fight against a dragon at the start of the game!

Right now, I fully expect the proto-Ghostfence event to be nothing more than enemies spawning next to it for some days, and if a certain number of them had been killed, the wall gets weaker, and if the number ZOS has set as 100% has been reached, it will be deactivated. Which doesn't sound very exciting to me, but I'm open to surprises. Let's just wait and see.

Maitsukas wrote: »

Not Necrom and Gold Road, those were made by The Mill

Thanks for the info! That studio has a Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mill_(company)
It also mentions news from February 25, 2025, but I'm not sure whether that might have influenced the ESO trailer production, as it's very recent news? I would think that it takes a bit longer to produce a trailer, and that it would be ready a bit earlier, not just a few weeks before the intended reveal. But I'm no expert on that industry.

Even SWTOR at its worse pre-maintenance days did a CGI trailer for their final expansion.

At least we know the money they saved goes into hiring devs for ESO. Right?

Syldras wrote: »

Danikat wrote: »

I'm not suggesting ESO was trying to be misleading with CGI trailers, they've never been shy about showing how the game actually looks, but it's amusing to me that we've now reached a point where in-game trailers are seen as old fashioned and pure CGI is preferable for some people.

Yeah, right? I might be a little younger, but from my childhood I still remember those bombastic trailers (and also box art and magazine ads) which looked nothing like the game. I remember many people found it either disappointing or useless because they wanted to know what exactly they're buying instead of staring at fancy pictures made only for the ad.

What would I personally care for in a trailer? If it's a story-based game I'd like to know the story the game starts with (which is a reason I didn't care for many of the ESO trailers, because they're just random fighting that left you clueless in the end). In that case I don't even care if it's game graphics or cgi because nowadays it's easy to look for screenshots online, once I've decided a story sounds interesting enough to have a closer look. But with less story-focussed games (like some random WW2 strategy game where you move tanks around) the most important thing to me in a trailer would indeed be game graphics. That's the factor that makes me decide whether I'm interested in it or not (with story-focused games, I'm more lenient with graphics, as long as the story is good, but if there's none, other factors become more important).

ForumBully wrote: »

Now if we could only lose the 10 minutes of various ZoS employees describing what a magical journey it's been

I'm happy they are happy with their work, really, but I have to be honest: It's not a fact that interests me when I want to know about a new dlc release. It always leaves me wondering what it's for, are they trying to hire people that way? I'd assume ZOS gets enough applications already, and I don't think a video snippet gives people the idea to start joining the gaming industry (for most people with that interest it's a dream job anyway, they don't need a video to get that idea).

Also, placing it at the start of the stream, and it being unrelated to new content, feels a little like it's supposed to be some spare minutes to grab some drinks or whatever before the stream actually starts. Which seems a little, well... I'm not sure how I'd feel if someone suggested me to record an interview for a livestreams's toilet break. Not trying to be disrespectful, only describing how it feels to me.

I don't doubt their sincerity, and I do hope it's true and they enjoy their work. But as a PvPer, I have never felt the love they claim to have for the community...I should say "until now".
The history of PvP in ESO is neglect, disconnection and often what feels like outright sabotage. Going live with ideas that are overwhelmingly rejected by the people who actually play PvP daily and refusing to address problems that were bugs...actual unintended consequences left untouched for a couple of updates leaving Cyrodiil in a virtually unplayable state for months without so much as a comment about it on the forums.

What I see in this update and with the Vengeance server looks like an attempt to finally pay attention. Balancing classes has never happened, and I see subclassing as a way to change the playing field and work on balancing skills instead...maybe they can maybe they can't, but it's an attempt to make something work.
What I see with Vengeance is an admission, after so many years, that Cyrodiil, and specifically what's been done to Cyrodiil with heal stacking, an overabundance of AoE skills and sets and a server drowning in calculations, cannot be fixed at this point. They finally seem to be accepting what PvP players have been saying for years. What they've been doing isn't sustainable.

Whatever comes out of this update. I'm happy to see effort in PvP. That almost never happens. So sincerely, thanks ZoS.