Official Discussion Thread for "Ask Us Anything: Variety Pack 14"

Gator_ESO · May 2014

"This is not world of warcraft this is Elder Scrolls, they have not created an auction house do to the simple fact you don't get the gear you want immediately in-game. You explore and find it, just like I and all the others whom have played have done."

I'm too old to sling mud at you Pal - so let me try to take the high road here. It'll be a change of pace for me and an opportunity to practice being nice to people, even if I don't really want to.

Okay - so it here it goes then: I get it. To jump to this conclusion is a fair assumption. If I were you, I'd probably think the same thing after reading a comment like the one I made - only the rub is that it is not true.

Games that I've played with auction houses:
Tera, SWTOR, Rift, FFXIV, Age of Conan, Star Trek Online, LOTRO, Guild Wars 2, and yes - World of Warcraft. (And a few others I couldn't think of off the top of my head.)

Games that I've played without auction houses:
TESO (I can't even think of another game in this genre that doesn't have this feature.)

Thinking outside of the box is a good thing - usually. All I'm saying is - this decision doesn't make sense to me. If someone wants to take the time to explain to me exactly why this convenience has been left out - I'm ready to listen. Only this time, make it plausible.

If you're worried about actual gear - armor and weapons - hard to get stuff or stuff that can be crafted - stuff that is tons more fun to find or make rather than buy - then let me make a suggestion here: put in an auction house, but only allow crafting resources to be sold. Think of as a sort of commodities exchange house. Don't allow gear or weapons to be sold in it. Would that even work? Not sure to be honest. Why don't you guys tell me what's wrong with this idea?! All I want is a convenient way to buy and sell cloth, wood, metal, upgrade materials, motifs etc. Crafting the gear is actually fun - so far. I would like to be able to name my weapon or maybe create my own gear set (name and all) - but other than that - I thoroughly enjoy it.

One last thing - some people don't actually enjoy running around collecting resources - and some do. Some people think the auction house is tedious - and some people enjoy "playing" the auction house. They consider it to be a sort of game within a game. And these days, in the world of MMOs, it is considered by most to be a standard feature. It's like buying a new car - you expect there to be a radio of some sort in there. To completely leave it out seems more like a way for the manufacturer to skimp on production rather than an actual design decision. All I'm look for here is clarity.

Gator

camelknightb16_ESO · May 2014

The main thing I'm bothered with is the inability to (auto-)stack items in the guildbank. As a guildleader of a smallish (60+ members) I'm literally spending hours a week sorting the guildbank to make sure there's room for new items. If I don't, it will be full in a day or two. I dread to think what would happen if my guild doubles in size as I'm already too occupied with sorting the guildbank then I care to be.
I understand this option was disabled/removed because of the duping mechanism, but are you planning to return it anytime soon?

Tawn · May 2014

As an explorer (so not in a rush) I got to a leisurely level 17 in a month and had huge hopes for the game. I love the Khajit story, wandering around and talking to every cat I could find.

But when you spend more time filling in gold spam tickets than exploring?

Just unsubscribed.

See you guys, have fun! I will miss GoldScamriel terribly, but the fun was being replaced with sadness. I'd rather cut my losses now and hopefully ome back in a year or two once the devs work out how to do basic security code.

heyguyslol · May 2014

I honestly don't know the best place to post this so here it is. I would like the devs to plz take a look at my video demo below about the broken mechanics of the Sorcerer - Storm Calling Ultimate - Overload. The video clearly describes three important problems that really need to be fixed hopefully sometime in the near future.

http://youtu.be/E3xBfNVEP3E

or

http://www.twitch.tv/heyguyslol_1975/c/4249299

Thank you,
heyguyslol

frwinters_ESO · May 2014

Rosamond wrote: »

What's your purpose in making guild stores for guild members only? Why not make them for everyone? – sliyerking

Our goal is to make the economy more player-based, but not to have a system that allows you to find anything at any time because there are so many players involved on a megaserver. With extremely large communities, low-percentage drops can become highly available in auction houses. It ends up harming the “gear chase” portion of the game.

After reading this, I am on the fast track out of this game. As a crafter, I want the option to sell my wares to the public and not to my guildees. Now I learn that ESO's plan is to deliberately limit my ability to sell crafted items. I have also learned from this that if you don't want to join a guild, if that is your play style, too bad. You aren't allowed to sell things unless you join a guild. So much for your promise to allow people to play the game as they choose.

This game is boring, boring, boring. I spent 80% of my time in front of the banker because there isn't any reasonable amount of storage if you like to craft items. Perhaps your plan there is to make me throw away items I can use to craft with so I get it down to the allowed 100 slots. What type of *** is that?

Speaking of which, I see a lot of complaining about the spamming in the chat channel. Much more offensive is the chat that gets through. A lot of it is lewd, disgusting and vulgar. Personally I prefer the gold spammers to the kinds of things players type in the chat channel.

I have stayed with the game hoping it would improve, but obviously it is not going to.

Bye! Can i have your stuff?

frwinters_ESO · May 2014

Tawn wrote: »

So tired of the Jute Exploiters.
So tired of not having an AH so that I can get things like Dwarven Oil.

Will I bother to sub after my free time runs out in 2 days? That's the top question I am asking now.

Bye can i have your stuff too?

frwinters_ESO · May 2014

Gator_ESO wrote: »

"This is not world of warcraft this is Elder Scrolls, they have not created an auction house do to the simple fact you don't get the gear you want immediately in-game. You explore and find it, just like I and all the others whom have played have done."

I'm too old to sling mud at you Pal - so let me try to take the high road here. It'll be a change of pace for me and an opportunity to practice being nice to people, even if I don't really want to.

Okay - so it here it goes then: I get it. To jump to this conclusion is a fair assumption. If I were you, I'd probably think the same thing after reading a comment like the one I made - only the rub is that it is not true.

Games that I've played with auction houses:
Tera, SWTOR, Rift, FFXIV, Age of Conan, Star Trek Online, LOTRO, Guild Wars 2, and yes - World of Warcraft. (And a few others I couldn't think of off the top of my head.)

Games that I've played without auction houses:
TESO (I can't even think of another game in this genre that doesn't have this feature.)

Thinking outside of the box is a good thing - usually. All I'm saying is - this decision doesn't make sense to me. If someone wants to take the time to explain to me exactly why this convenience has been left out - I'm ready to listen. Only this time, make it plausible.

If you're worried about actual gear - armor and weapons - hard to get stuff or stuff that can be crafted - stuff that is tons more fun to find or make rather than buy - then let me make a suggestion here: put in an auction house, but only allow crafting resources to be sold. Think of as a sort of commodities exchange house. Don't allow gear or weapons to be sold in it. Would that even work? Not sure to be honest. Why don't you guys tell me what's wrong with this idea?! All I want is a convenient way to buy and sell cloth, wood, metal, upgrade materials, motifs etc. Crafting the gear is actually fun - so far. I would like to be able to name my weapon or maybe create my own gear set (name and all) - but other than that - I thoroughly enjoy it.

One last thing - some people don't actually enjoy running around collecting resources - and some do. Some people think the auction house is tedious - and some people enjoy "playing" the auction house. They consider it to be a sort of game within a game. And these days, in the world of MMOs, it is considered by most to be a standard feature. It's like buying a new car - you expect there to be a radio of some sort in there. To completely leave it out seems more like a way for the manufacturer to skimp on production rather than an actual design decision. All I'm look for here is clarity.

Gator

Well lets see how to fix this...oh wait! You all forget your guild can own territory in Cyrodil and give the public access to your store? Maybe get in there and defend your store, promote your wares in Cyrodil and make some money. No one is even trying to do what was intended because what its to hard?

And we all know, if you pay attention, they will be adding guild stores to the major cities by auction, so you will have your chance to sell in Cyrodil and all over Tamriel.

This is what happens when a new MMO comes out that tries to do a few things differently then the others, QQ QQ. In my opinion, I bet most people move to other games to try something new, not to have the same recycled garbage over and over. Some concepts will always carry over from other games with slight tweaks, but the minute you have one big change people cry.

So in a way there is a AH in the game, you just have to fight for it and claim your territory.

freche · May 2014

Is there any plans for pvp senarios?

Gator_ESO · May 2014

"This is what happens when a new MMO comes out that tries to do a few things differently then the others, QQ QQ. In my opinion, I bet most people move to other games to try something new, not to have the same recycled garbage over and over. Some concepts will always carry over from other games with slight tweaks, but the minute you have one big change people cry."

You're obviously young - full of *** and vinegar - so I'll forgive your propensity to put things in such absolute terms. Comments like these, and I suppose the young pups behind them, are becoming all to familiar in forums all over the internet. You think if someone complains, asks for clarification, or in anyway espouses a negative point of view, or a point of view that's different than yours, it's whining. Well - it's not, regardless of your somewhat puerile comments.

What you're going to find, when you go out there and start living in the real world, where you don't have the anonymity you enjoy here, is that the world is full of people who disagree with you. If you can't argue the point in a mature, objective way, you'll find that people will stop listening to you. You add this excerpt from your larger comment together with the previous two or three comments you've made and a pretty clear picture begins to emerge.

I'm not even going to begin to try and argue the actual topic with you, because it is obvious you're not capable of that without injecting useless hyperbole.

Audigy · May 2014

Games that I've played with auction houses:
Tera, SWTOR, Rift, FFXIV, Age of Conan, Star Trek Online, LOTRO, Guild Wars 2, and yes - World of Warcraft. (And a few others I couldn't think of off the top of my head.)

Games that I've played without auction houses:
TESO (I can't even think of another game in this genre that doesn't have this feature.)

Many of these games didn't ship with an AH, especially not a global one.

Also Ultima Online and DAOC never had an AH and both games are considered the most successful and best MMO´s of all time. If an AH as you said is required, how could these two games climb the top and defend that position for over 15 years now?

If you now look at both games and see how they made trading possible and if you compare this to ESO then what do you see? Right, you see that ESO is following in their footsteps. ESO offers guild shops, which is very similar to player shops at DAOC and UO.

People put something in the shop (a merchant), add their requested price and e voila you have a much better system than any AH can ever be!

I am quite confident that once player housing is in the game, also individual players can open these shops.

If those two games that reside on top for all those years managed without an AH, then this proves that this tiny feature isn't required at all.

Gator_ESO · May 2014

Thanks Audigy - great answer.

I realize that some of the games I mentioned didn't release with an AH option, but they all did eventually see the wisdom of it; however, what you said makes sense.

By surviving for as long as they did, you can say that those games were successes, but when you start comparing them to block-buster MMOs - I think the line gets fuzzy with regard to which games were more successful. When I refer to an AH as being a standard offering, I meant as compared to contemporary MMOs - not the ones that were developed and released years ago. I will happily agree to disagree with you on that point.

When I read your comment, I remembered playing a game where any individual could open up a shop, though which game that was has escaped my memory. I don't remember playing UO - but my memory is not what it used to be. When I envisioned a system like that, well I became less irritated that this game has no global AH. I will agree that it's not the only way to solve this problem. I'm nothing if not patient: maybe they will continue to work on it and head in that direction. I'm not going anywhere either way - I love this game too much. LoL!

I do like the idea of putting up my own shop, which anyone can walk up to and purchase materials - and vise versa - shops that I can access easily and obtain resources I have no desire to gather myself. That would be - well - it would fantastic really. That's not quite what they have here in ESO - but I could see what we have here morphing into something like that very easily. The whole thing with giving a shop to the highest bidder - well - I'm not a fan. The materials would at least be available for me to buy - that's a good thing. With only one guild having the privilege though, I can foresee some price gouging happening - and that's a bad thing. We'll just have to wait and see I guess.

Vanguard1 · May 2014

Blackrim wrote: »

This is not world of warcraft this is Elder Scrolls, they have not created an auction house do to the simple fact you don't get the gear you want immediately in-game. You explore and find it, just like I and all the others whom have played have done.

This has nothing to do with any other game, the lack of an auctions house means there is no way to make addition funds, grinding and exploring for rare materials is pointless except for personal use, the repair bills are higher than the gold rewards when grinding dungeons, selling items all get posted in zone chat, auction houses level off prices of materials, instead we will see many people stop playing or playing less because they lose the additional options that crafters do in other games are not there, so its raid, or pvp or nothing because farming mats with no way to sell them or no fast way to get a return means it becomes pointless. This game does not offer dailies in PVE, grinding dungeon's is not worth the repair cost to income. For example when I hit vet 10 I had 55k gold, because there has been no way of continuing to earn gold I am now down to 11k, is there any point to me continuing to play? Top drops in this game are purple gear, meaning you still need to have it upgraded to gold, some people will buy the materials to do this which will make crafting a valuable assets if they have ways to sell the materials people will need.

Blackrim · May 2014

Vanguard1 wrote: »

Blackrim wrote: »

This is not world of warcraft this is Elder Scrolls, they have not created an auction house do to the simple fact you don't get the gear you want immediately in-game. You explore and find it, just like I and all the others whom have played have done.

This has nothing to do with any other game, the lack of an auctions house means there is no way to make addition funds, grinding and exploring for rare materials is pointless except for personal use, the repair bills are higher than the gold rewards when grinding dungeons, selling items all get posted in zone chat, auction houses level off prices of materials, instead we will see many people stop playing or playing less because they lose the additional options that crafters do in other games are not there, so its raid, or pvp or nothing because farming mats with no way to sell them or no fast way to get a return means it becomes pointless. This game does not offer dailies in PVE, grinding dungeon's is not worth the repair cost to income. For example when I hit vet 10 I had 55k gold, because there has been no way of continuing to earn gold I am now down to 11k, is there any point to me continuing to play? Top drops in this game are purple gear, meaning you still need to have it upgraded to gold, some people will buy the materials to do this which will make crafting a valuable assets if they have ways to sell the materials people will need.

Have you even looked at crafting? I tear apart all my stuff into materials and get a buyer right away for 2k for drugh wax! It's so simple! Maybe we should all think about alternatives and pretend auction houses never existed

(By buyer I mean trade chat)

ragamerb16_ESO · May 2014

What's your purpose in making guild stores for guild members only? Why not make them for everyone? – sliyerking

Our goal is to make the economy more player-based, but not to have a system that allows you to find anything at any time because there are so many players involved on a megaserver. With extremely large communities, low-percentage drops can become highly available in auction houses. It ends up harming the “gear chase” portion of the game.

I wonder why ZO is so reluctant to talk about the real reasson behind this Guild Store system.

First the logic... If you want to protect certain loot, the well known (and well tested) mechanism you need to use is the Bind on Pickup formula (Not going to enter in details... It's well documented on plenty of MMOs were the "Gear Chase" was the only motivation to keep playing a character).

Second... The plans. If this is the real reasson... Why, in the near future, you want to offer to selected guilds the chance to be visible to the entire megaserver?. It's literally written on the future plans... But offering "kiosks" that guilds will have to "bid for".

Well... The real reasson is a simple technical limitation. ZO seems to think that informing their playerbase about the technical limitations they are subject to is somekind of "bad publicity" or something like that... I don't see the harm on explaining how technical limits impose restrictions on players' capabilities. So I would say something close to this:

We were forced to use this "limited AH" model because, on our megaservers, the number of potential users creating offers combined with the total ammount of users browsing those same offers would simply create an ammount of traffic that would create gigantic delays for most users, rendering the system unusable due to extreme delays between searches and sell offers.

I'm going to try to explain this with a numeric example (It's very rough... As it operates in terms of MAX resources needed... But I'm trying to show qualitative problem behind).

If you want to throw some numbers into this... With the actual system... Each account on a Guild can keep up to 30 offers up... Guilds are up to 500 users. Meaning that a "search" operation has to operate at max over 15000 items... But at the same time you limit this search to be performed by only 500 users (I'm speaking about max limits, here... Which is not what it's used IRL, is average user). So at PEAK you can have your 500 users asking the server information about 15000 offers = 7.500.000 "transactions". Suppouse you need to send 1 byte from your server per "transaction" = 7 Mb is the peak of information you need to send to each "search interval" on a given "Guild Store".

But now suppose that you want to have a Megaserver-wide AH with similar limits... And, been conservative, you have 100.000 players active at a given time... How the above scenario on "transactions" escalate? (The numbers are so high... that I need to use exponential notation):

100.000 users x 30 offers per user = 3.000.000 offers...

...But again, potentially you can have those 100.000 users searching through those offers:

3.000.000 x 100.000 = 3e11 "transactions"... If you need 1 byte per "transaction" = 279 Gb is the peak of information your server has to deal with on each "search interval".

I repeat this are just extremely rough numbers and I'm omiting the miriad of hardware+software techniques used all around to split this process overhead between different subsystems to offer decent perfomance to the end user (OFC I'm simply focusing in the ammount of information the Megaserver needs to send to its users).

That's why other MMOs are forced to split their playerbase into "servers"... It's not because of the zones were the game is played (After reliable instancing was incorporated into MMO engines, this is a thing of the past), it's because of the geometrically growing scenarios were players can interact with any other player (The typical cases are the AH, chat, grouping or mail subsystems).

ESO has grouped together almost all players into a single server... But they can't escape this technical limitations.

That's why ZO will offer us "some kiosks" in the future but will never be able to offer a "Megaserver-wide" AH... Unless the global population is reduced so geometrical scenarios as an AH can be offered with decent access times.

scriptur3 · May 2014

I just want to ask a question about customization.

In the future would it be possible to add an appearance change NPC?

Many people will agree that as you progress through any game you tend to find small things that you would like to change cosmetically about your character.

It would be wonderful to have the option to change your characters appearance on the fly. It would have to be full customization i.e exactly what you see when you first create your character.

If there was to be an in-game cost to this then it would have to be relatively low to free as this feature would have no impact on the economy. It would however keep your player base very happy.

NinjaApacHe · May 2014

Sorry if this is the wrong place, but i want to suggest a thing: please give us a shoulder toggle on/off please. Characters are really more beautiful without shoulder pads.

Anlaemar · May 2014

scriptur3 wrote: »

I just want to ask a question about customization.

In the future would it be possible to add an appearance change NPC?

Many people will agree that as you progress through any game you tend to find small things that you would like to change cosmetically about your character.

It would be wonderful to have the option to change your characters appearance on the fly. It would have to be full customization i.e exactly what you see when you first create your character.

If there was to be an in-game cost to this then it would have to be relatively low to free as this feature would have no impact on the economy. It would however keep your player base very happy.

That would actually be pretty cool to have.

frwinters_ESO · May 2014

Gator_ESO wrote: »

"This is what happens when a new MMO comes out that tries to do a few things differently then the others, QQ QQ. In my opinion, I bet most people move to other games to try something new, not to have the same recycled garbage over and over. Some concepts will always carry over from other games with slight tweaks, but the minute you have one big change people cry."

You're obviously young - full of *** and vinegar - so I'll forgive your propensity to put things in such absolute terms. Comments like these, and I suppose the young pups behind them, are becoming all to familiar in forums all over the internet. You think if someone complains, asks for clarification, or in anyway espouses a negative point of view, or a point of view that's different than yours, it's whining. Well - it's not, regardless of your somewhat puerile comments.

What you're going to find, when you go out there and start living in the real world, where you don't have the anonymity you enjoy here, is that the world is full of people who disagree with you. If you can't argue the point in a mature, objective way, you'll find that people will stop listening to you. You add this excerpt from your larger comment together with the previous two or three comments you've made and a pretty clear picture begins to emerge.

I'm not even going to begin to try and argue the actual topic with you, because it is obvious you're not capable of that without injecting useless hyperbole.

Well it was good that you chose to choose a single excerpt from my whole post to complain about when you probably didn't read the rest as I was asking you questions from your previous post and providing insight on solutions that are already in the game when it comes to the auction house and the market. But you do not want to discuss a topic with me anymore that's fine, ill just assume it is because you do not have a valid argument.