The Elder Scrolls Online

Utnayan

Utnayan

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Grim1_sl said:
Show me something outside of the starting area playing content that actually matters. And give me a high quality recording.
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They should have some of that done for beta players to play by release.

So Grim1 what you are saying is that we can't judge a game now by it's character creation and starting areas? Am I to assume that we should all wait till level 50 when the "game really takes off!" like we have all heard for every MMORPG launched since 2004?

It would be safe to assume you would actually want a fun starting area and a fun game to play to hook people after they purchase. But since all they care about is recouping costs after blowing 7 years of dev funds in an attempt to break even, you are probably right. None of that matters.
 
Grim1

Grim1

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Utnayan_sl said:
They should have some of that done for beta players to play by release.

So Grim1 what you are saying is that we can't judge a game now by it's character creation and starting areas? Am I to assume that we should all wait till level 50 when the "game really takes off!" like we have all heard for every MMORPG launched since 2004?

It would be safe to assume you would actually want a fun starting area and a fun game to play to hook people after they purchase. But since all they care about is recouping costs after blowing 7 years of dev funds in an attempt to break even, you are probably right. None of that matters.
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Not at all, judge whatever you want. But judging a game based on a crappy video of the starting area is not a very good idea. AoC comes to mind. Videos of the starting area in AoC sucked but actually playing it was fun. It was the rest of the game that was so lacking at launch. That is why I want to know more about the rest of the game.

And personally, until I actually play a game, ANY game, it is hard for me to judge it's worth. Watching someone else play the game doesn't convey all the necessary information. It is helpful sometimes to use reviews by professionals and other players, but even then you have to give them a grain of salt. Many games are rated highly that I find excructiatingly boring and there are plenty of examples of games that rate poorly that I enjoy.
 
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Draegan_sl

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To be fair, AOC was the only game in history to have a miracle patch. Plus the videos were good looking of the starter area. The rest of the game was shit though.
 
Grim1

Grim1

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I found the AoC vids to be boring and cheesy. Which is true of most gameplay videos.

WoW is another great example of crappy video gameplay needing hands on to judge. You can't get the feel of how reactive and smooth WoW is without playing it. I don't like WoW much but I have to admit the actual combat gameplay is some of the smoothest on the market. You can't get that sense from a video.
 
Quaid

Quaid

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Grim1_sl said:
I found the AoC vids to be boring and cheesy. Which is true of most gameplay videos.

WoW is another great example of crappy video gameplay needing hands on to judge. You can't get the feel of how reactive and smooth WoW is without playing it. I don't like WoW much but I have to admit the actual combat gameplay is some of the smoothest on the market. You can't get that sense from a video.
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Honestly, I liked that video... Keep in mind though, I have never played an elder scrolls game. Not a single player RPG guy (except old school FF and Demon/Dark Souls)

The world looks quite appealing to me. It looks detailed in its landscape and evokes a sense of 'emotion' that I got from everfrost peaks, kithicor forest, and tirisfall glade. This guy is a terrible player and rushed through the game, but I noticed a lot of cool ground spawns you could interact with. I'm a sucker for that.
The voice acting sounded quite good, and visually, both PCs and NPCs 'did it' for me.
Animations are acceptable, but nothing to write home about.
I love the minimalist UI. Also, I really appreciate the subtle quest markers. Giant yellow '!?' are so gawdy.
I can't wait to try the combat in first person. I hope it's as good as I'm imagining it after watching that video.

One thing though... I HATE the red aura around targeted mobs... Why would they do that? Spend all that time crafting beautiful NPCs then cover them in a ridiculous red outline. Dumb.

Unless they really shit the bed they'll prob get a box sale out of me - as long as there's no monthly sub. (Ill only pay monthly for a game that has sufficient raid content - which I think they said hey won't have)
 
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qwertyqweqwertwqert

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I loved 1-20 in AoC, really good, I think they invented the high quality questing thing. Problem is, at 20 it went in to normal MMORPG style chore questing and not very good ones, and was weak in general. With TSW they improved it and kept good questing for the whole game, but it only lasts a month.
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I don't know why they didn't just make some killer single player RPG's. They could have wiped the floor with shit like Oblivion and The Witcher and whatever else, imo. People were still playing NWN2 back then, they could have cleaned up.
 
mkopec

mkopec

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More money in subs, dude, simple as that. Remember both AOC and TSW released as full fledged sub games. And im sure even when AOC was a turd and everyone left in droves after the initial few months, they still made more bank than any single player RPG could ever bring in.
 
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qwertyqweqwertwqert

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mkopec_sl said:
im sure even when AOC was a turd and everyone left in droves after the initial few months, they still made more bank than any single player RPG could ever bring in.
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If that's true then good on em. But they are now verging on bankruptcy after TSW which makes me think, maybe it wasn't so good in the long term after all. The thing is with games like Elder Scrolls or whatever, if it gets on the hype train it can sell 3+ million copies, more than AoC ever did. And yet your budget can be far lower too because you don't have to host servers, make LFG tools and do all kinds of other stuff that is just expected in an MMO.

That's partly why WoW was such a success. Bliz were already hugely successful with single player games, and rolling in money. If you can get to that point, when the time comes to make an MMO, your budget can be enormous. And that's the main reason I keep an eye on this thread. The Elder Scrolls games have been a success for a long time, I bet their budget for ES:O is pretty huge.
 
Caeden

Caeden

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Such a shame they're using said budget to wipe their ass with. This game has fuck all to do with TES aside from slapping the name for box sales. Stuff should have been shit-canned and put the money into doubling the next game and adding multiplayer/co-op into the next real TES game.
 
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qwertyqweqwertwqert

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Meh they don't care about doubling anything anyway. People buy TES because all the websites tell them to and the hype train is too hard to not jump on. Three million dumbasses bought Skyrim even though it was super buggy at release and had other glaring issues. I bet the next elder scrolls 6 will be more or less the same. And they'll get away with it, because they can.
 
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Campa

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Utnayan_sl said:
Essentially, the game has become a pay-to-win scheme. With an accessable stat-capped system that Arenanet originally promised, one could liesurely advance their characters to top-stat status and then liesurely play those characters to eventually acquire cosmetically variant skins; after a certain level, there was nothing one needed to "keep up with" in order to have a maxed-out character. IOW, with everyone eventually hitting the same cap, there was no "win" you could pay for, even if you bought boosters all the time.

After the introduction of the "item progression initiative", players will never (not for long, anyway) have a maxed-out character, so unless you invest enough time in-game to keep up, either by constantly grinding ascended [EDIT: Ascended materials] and infusions or by grinding gold to buy ever-increasing [materials for] ascended and infusions, your only option is to simply buy gold via gem purchases or off the black market.
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What a load of shit. With how slowly they've released the Ascended gear and the numerous ways they give you to get it, it is a far fucking cry from pay-to-win. They sure as shit wouldn't be giving out gems as part of the achievement system if any of that BS were true.

I do agree ANet definitely didn't plan to have the Ascended tier but they needed to give something as a long term item progression since so many were bitching about how fast you could get a full exotic gear set. Is that against the original design, yup. Has it been a terrible, IMO no. Especially in comparison to every other MMO. All you have to invest is time on a regular basis and pretty much everything they've done since launch is give people more reason to log in & play more regularly.

Is that NCSoft or ANet's doing, I don't know. But they sure as shit aren't using the Gem Shop as you seem to think. Hell they've even backed off on the store only bought RNG chests and have been giving more ways to get the skins associated with the events.
 
Mr Creed

Mr Creed

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Ut, if you're basing the pay to win claim on that article from november then whatever they feared did not come to pass. No P2W in GW2 unless you follow the line of thought that even a different skin for an otherwise identical item is P2W. Not that they arent screwing up in other ways.
 
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Draegan_sl

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The only way this game can be considered P2W is if you thinking buying gold and then buying stuff on the auction house counts.
 
Utnayan

Utnayan

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/\/\ And there is that as well. And the only difference between people being pissed off at Gold Farmers and ANet, is that Anet now has a way to realize the revenue. Meaning, it's thesame thingfrom an ethical stand point. They brought the gold farming in house and added a layer of complexity to disguise the same thing that everyone here has been bitching about happening for the last 10 years.

Campa_sl said:
What a load of shit. With how slowly they've released the Ascended gear and the numerous ways
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I don't care how many "numerous" ways they give you a chance to get it. You can buy it and bypass all progression!

Holy fucking slippery slope. Just because I disguise the living shit out of a Pay to Win shop, take stats off something, or try another one trick pony to avoid a stigma of P2W, it still doesn't negate the fact that in this instance this is 1) Sought after. 2) Can either be acquired in the game through a tremendous grind, or just simply purchased.

Why even fucking play the game? Why go through the challenges of the content? (They fucked up there too because it isn't a challenge, it's a grind)

This is a huge middle ground that publishers are just waiting to capitalize on. How to find a middle ground between cosmetic items and not crossing a boundary where you give a player an advantage. In my eyes, this is even worse. What is the point of acquiring items and sought after things in the game, regardless of item strength, when you can just log in and purchase it? And if you are using sought after cosmetic items as your end game carrot, you shouldn't be able to purchase them either. Because regardless of stats, that's what people are playing for.

Here is what happened:

"Hey guys... Public perception is that it's pay to win if we offer a statistical advantage to gear offered via a cash shop"

"Ok let's just take off the stats and still have the gear itself sought after - they should be dumb enough to fall for that one"

"Nice spin! Jeff Hickman sure does know how to make a recommendation!"
 
Grim1

Grim1

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UT if you call GW2's cash shop P2W then you are calling ALL cash shops P2W. It's that simple. And then you have to expand your argument to include all F2P games and some sub games. Since most sub games have cash shops now that offer xp pots. Even WoW will soon.

In some sense most cash shops have ways to make some of the grind easier. So that argument has merit. But it's an extreme viewpoint and flies in the face of public perception. The vast majority of players are fine with making some of the grind easier with cash shops. There is a limit to players acceptance and some games take it too far. But GW2's cash shop is one of the fairest out there.

You are fighting the tide this time around. And the tide always wins.
 
Utnayan

Utnayan

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Grim1_sl said:
UT if you call GW2's cash shop P2W then you are calling ALL cash shops P2W. It's that simple. And then you have to expand your argument to include all F2P games and some sub games. Since most sub games have cash shops now that offer xp pots. Even WoW will soon.

In some sense most cash shops have ways to make some of the grind easier. So that argument has merit. But it's an extreme viewpoint and flies in the face of public perception. The vast majority of players are fine with making some of the grind easier with cash shops. There is a limit to players acceptance and some games take it too far. But GW2's cash shop is one of the fairest out there.
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Yes. I am calling any game that allows the purchase of any high end or sought after items that can be obtained via normal means (Playing in game and sacrificing time, effort, challenge, content absorption, etc, ) Regardless of the statistical nature of said item, pay to win. Because subjectively, while people play for numerous reasons, MMORPG gamers tend to be achievers. Now, a solution to this would be to make a completely different set of items for the cash shop, heavily distinguishing the items from sought after drops in the game, to still recognize in game achievement. That can be from over the top particle effects, completely different art styles, anything that players * Want * to obtain and cannot purchase. If you want this subset of items, you NEED to complete the content. And it will be distinguishable from anything else in the game.

As of right now, there isn't anything you can't just buy, and the gold farming routine that we have seen as a pay to win argument across this forum before, one that you even said you disliked, has just been disguised now so NcSoft gets the revenue rather than Playerauctions.com.

You are fighting the tide this time around. And the tide always wins.
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And in this case, the tide is a plethora of smoke screens and confusion where the end result of what people were bitching about 10 years ago is still happening today, just in a different way.
 
Grim1

Grim1

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Yeah. Well good luck with that. Like I said the vast majority of players are fine with xp pots and buying gold from the company that makes the game. That isn't going to change, no matter what you do or say.
 
Denaut

Denaut

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Generally speaking, "Pay-to-win" monetizes extremely well and can dramatically boost ARPPU. Whether we like it or not (I don't in the games I play) it is here to stay.
 
Utnayan

Utnayan

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Grim1_sl said:
Yeah. Well good luck with that. Like I said the vast majority of players are fine with xp pots and buying gold from the company that makes the game. That isn't going to change, no matter what you do or say.
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I am fine with XP Potions. I am not fine with using gear awarded to content consumption and progression able to be purchased, nor am I fine with cash gold shops.

So if this what the genre is becoming, I just won't play the games any longer.
 
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