Elder Scrolls MMO Announced

[Mr. Laz]

Elder Scrolls Online Announced
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Posted 13 minutes ago - By Stephen Johnson

The Elder Scrolls Online has been announced by Bethesda. It is being developed for PC and Mac under the leadership of Matt Firor, who has spent the last two decades working in online game development.

“We have been working hard to create an online world in which players will be able to experience the epic Elder Scrolls universe with their friends, something fans have long said they wanted,” said Matt Firor, game director of The Elder Scrolls Online. “It will be extremely rewarding finally to unveil what we have been developing the last several years. The entire team is committed to creating the best MMO ever made – and one that is worthy of The Elder Scrolls franchise.”

Details are scant at this time, but expect a screenshot later today and a teaser trailer tomorrow.

[hometeam]

If anyone gets in that isn't interested I will trade a beta key for a copy of torchlight 2, just cause 2, or a smattering of left over humble bundle cd keys. pm me!

[kaplin42]

Originally Posted by hometeam

Yea, have been seeing it pop up on reddit.

What kind of sucks is there there is no application process, just an email sign up.

So any random dude can get in with any hardware.

I have lots of beta test experience and nasty high end hardware. LEMME PLAY :'(

Im in the same boat though. Been playing MMO's forever, I have beta tested at least 3 of them, and I have high end system as well.

My problem is that this will just be a carbon copy of WoW with better graphics, but extremely dumbed down for the masses.

[hometeam]

Originally Posted by kaplin42

Im in the same boat though. Been playing MMO's forever, I have beta tested at least 3 of them, and I have high end system as well.

My problem is that this will just be a carbon copy of WoW with better graphics, but extremely dumbed down for the masses.

I have been keeping up with it a little bit. Seems like its going to be more like guildwars 2 than wow, and gw2 is a very good game.

Im not saying TESO is going to be great. It might suck.

I still want to try it~

[Pants]

Originally Posted by kaplin42

Im in the same boat though. Been playing MMO's forever, I have beta tested at least 3 of them, and I have high end system as well.

My problem is that this will just be a carbon copy of WoW with better graphics, but extremely dumbed down for the masses.

The fact that there are 3 factions is already going to be a massive improvement over WoW at least in terms of PvP, IMO. But then again, I haven't played WoW since like 2008 or something, so I don't even know how much the game has changed since.

Also, I'm not sure what any one MMO can do to really be different from WoW or even any other MMO. The genre is what it is, there's not that much a developer can do to be drastically different (kind of like FPS games). After all, if you change the formula too much, you're running the risk of destroying the very thing that usually keeps people coming back.

[kaplin42]

Originally Posted by Pants

The fact that there are 3 factions is already going to be a massive improvement over WoW at least in terms of PvP, IMO. But then again, I haven't played WoW since like 2008 or something, so I don't even know how much the game has changed since.

Also, I'm not sure what any one MMO can do to really be different from WoW or even any other MMO. The genre is what it is, there's not that much a developer can do to be drastically different (kind of like FPS games). After all, if you change the formula too much, you're running the risk of destroying the very thing that usually keeps people coming back.

Actually I could think of a lot of things that could be done to improve MMO's. Some of it is basic common sense at this point. Any new start up should look back at the last 15 years of MMOing and get a clear idea of what to do.

I'm not saying that they have to change the formula, but some of the features could be improved upon by leaps and bounds.

1.st thing. Stop dumbing down the content. I know this would eliminate all the WoW babies, but so what, some of us liked having a challenge.

[QuikSsurfer]

Beta... I'm in.

[jd1020]

Originally Posted by kaplin42

1.st thing. Stop dumbing down the content. I know this would eliminate all the WoW babies, but so what, some of us liked having a challenge.

I'd like to play a MMO that doesn't havent instant travel. Everything is instanced these days. What ever happened to exploring? That's the whole point of "massive."

I used to spend entire nights just wall walking around WoW getting into places you weren't suppose to have access to. Then they added flying mounts in the 1st expansion. Pretty much killed exploration but you couldnt use them in pre-expansion content, so cool. Then they made it so you could use them in the original content... **** you! Then they simply just made it to where you open up a menu and queue up and when your queue pops... BAM! Instantly there and when its over you are right back to where you were when the queue popped... DIE IN A FIRE!

[hometeam]

Damn you beta bastards. Let me innnnn

[kaplin42]

Originally Posted by jd1020

I'd like to play a MMO that doesn't havent instant travel. Everything is instanced these days. What ever happened to exploring? That's the whole point of "massive."

I agree, as with everything though, it's a fine line. I don't want to sit on a boat for 40 minutes like in EQ1, but I agree with getting rid of instant travel removal so you actually had to make your way to different destinations.

Some quick blurbs about other things I would do:
Tl;dr lots of ideas to fix some features in MMO’s.

Spoiler!

Bring back massive, contested dungeons that are hard, but certain areas have rare spawns with a chance to drop nice items i.e. lower guk, Karnor’s Castle, Sebilis.

How to solve the appearance armor issue; Change the way weapons and armor are effective. Instead of having stats on the items, the items have slots, the better the item, the more slots. These slots can be segregated a little bit, for example resistance in some, bonus to hit/crit in others, and then base stat improvement. To fill these slots you need gems or what not, the better the gem, the better the stat improvement. Customize the look you want, with the stats you need. Gems can be assigned to clothing locations, helmet, feet, arm so that you can’t just find the best gem dropping mob in the game and farm it.

Speaking of stats; for ****s sake have the right stats mean something to the right class. I have in two games been told that either strength or dexterity is the stat for my class that will improve everything; instead it has been the opposite in each game. So when you build your armor, you build the wrong stats, and then realize you messed up and now have to obtain different gear. It's called math, hire someone to figure it out for you before you code it in.

Balancing PVE vs PVP; I am so sick of having raiders come into PVP contests with their raid gear and be so much better than the top geared PVP players, and vice versa. Neither one should affect the other. If it says PVP in it, it will be almost useless in a PVE environment, if it doesn't say PVP on it; it will be pointless in a PVP environment. Spells and abilities should have two versions, PVE and PVP. Stop nerfing PVE spells because they are too powerful in PVP. I can't believe over the last 10 years that how to solve this issue hasn't been figured out yet.

Launching a new game; Two things on this; First have enough servers to handle the load, you know you're going to be 1.5x - 3.0x your normal running numbers of players for the first 2 weeks to a month, make sure you can handle the load. Second, stop underestimating your players and have a fully developed end game at launch, with more material to be delivered soon after. I have launched EQ2, Vanguard, DDO, and SWTOR, and have played several others. Of the ones I launched, EQ2 was the only one that had some end game content at launch. And while it’s a small percentage of the player base, some will be max level in 1 to 2 weeks, with a bunch more hitting it within a month. Either have a well-defined end game or suffer the fate of SWTOR. Losing a lot of your player base out of boredom.

Keeping the same old dungeons and raids fun to do; Put them on a tier system, like a lot of games have now. Dungeons are easy, medium and hard, same with raids. This idea works best with raids, but could be used on hard mode dungeons, and maybe variation of on easier mode dungeons. For raids, you have “x” amount of bosses, each boss has “y” amount of abilities. Let’s say 5 bosses, with the easiest boss have 6 abilities and the hardest boss having 15. On easy mode, each boss gets 1/3 of the potential abilities assigned by RNG. So easiest boss would have two abilities, hardest would have five. But, you never know what those abilities are until you fight the mob, and they are always different. The harder the mode of the raid/dungeon, the more abilities they bosses end up having. By doing this, you can never just go in and faceroll the encounters, because you will never know the combinations of abilities that you will be facing. Some days, it will be super easy, others it could be incredibly hard, but every time would be different.

[Hammock Parties]

signed up for beta

[Pants]

Originally Posted by kaplin42

How to solve the appearance armor issue; Change the way weapons and armor are effective. Instead of having stats on the items, the items have slots, the better the item, the more slots. These slots can be segregated a little bit, for example resistance in some, bonus to hit/crit in others, and then base stat improvement. To fill these slots you need gems or what not, the better the gem, the better the stat improvement. Customize the look you want, with the stats you need. Gems can be assigned to clothing locations, helmet, feet, arm so that you can’t just find the best gem dropping mob in the game and farm it.

Speaking of stats; for ****s sake have the right stats mean something to the right class. I have in two games been told that either strength or dexterity is the stat for my class that will improve everything; instead it has been the opposite in each game. So when you build your armor, you build the wrong stats, and then realize you messed up and now have to obtain different gear. It's called math, hire someone to figure it out for you before you code it in.

Balancing PVE vs PVP; I am so sick of having raiders come into PVP contests with their raid gear and be so much better than the top geared PVP players, and vice versa. Neither one should affect the other. If it says PVP in it, it will be almost useless in a PVE environment, if it doesn't say PVP on it; it will be pointless in a PVP environment. Spells and abilities should have two versions, PVE and PVP. Stop nerfing PVE spells because they are too powerful in PVP. I can't believe over the last 10 years that how to solve this issue hasn't been figured out yet.

SW:TOR did both of these things really well. Towards the end, PvE gear was completely useless in PvP. It was ridiculous. I think there definitely has to be some kind of balance for those who prefer one or the other, but you can't just make PvE gear completely useless in PvP because it ruins open world PvP. Maybe you can have arena sets that can only be used in organized PvP... IDK.

Balancing MMOs is definitely not the easiest thing to do.

[jd1020]

Originally Posted by Pants

SW:TOR did both of these things really well. Towards the end, PvE gear was completely useless in PvP. It was ridiculous. I think there definitely has to be some kind of balance for those who prefer one or the other, but you can't just make PvE gear completely useless in PvP because it ruins open world PvP. Maybe you can have arena sets that can only be used in organized PvP... IDK.

Balancing MMOs is definitely not the easiest thing to do.

I've never understood why there needs to be separate gear for PVP.

I never had a problem with getting wiped clean by someone who spent the time to get the legendaries in WoW, that's the nature of the beast. I didn't want to spend 8 hours a night 7 days a week farming all the shit needed to run the hardest raids in the game so I accepted that fact.

Now they are switching it to where you only need to play 10 arenas or w/e a week and get the latest and greatest PVP items which will mop the floor with anyone wielding items that probably took 6+ months to get? Come on...

[Pants]

Originally Posted by jd1020

I've never understood why there needs to be separate gear for PVP.

I never had a problem with getting wiped clean by someone who spent the time to get the legendaries in WoW, that's the nature of the beast. I didn't want to spend 8 hours a night 7 days a week farming all the shit needed to run the hardest raids in the game so I excepted that fact.

Now they are switching it to where you only need to play 10 arenas or w/e a week and get the latest and greatest PVP items which will mop the floor with anyone wielding items that probably took 6+ months to get? Come on...

I get both philosophies. On one hand, you want PvP to be based on skill and not gear. On the other hand, you want the rewards you work so hard for to actually provide a tangible benefit.

I honestly don't know which one I would prefer, they both make sense to me.

[MTG#10]

I got this too. I participated in the first beta test a few months ago and it was great then, can't wait to see the progress.

[kaplin42]

Originally Posted by Pants

I get both philosophies. On one hand, you want PvP to be based on skill and not gear. On the other hand, you want the rewards you work so hard for to actually provide a tangible benefit.

I honestly don't know which one I would prefer, they both make sense to me.

I don't see why you can't have both. Taking the gem slot vision of the gear, why not have two sets of slots for stats, PVE and PVP. When PVP flag is on, the PVP gems apply, when it is off, the PVE stats apply. Yes it's twice the work to get the PVP and PVE stats up for the armor, but that is only if you do both, and not everyone does.

You would get the various gems like you would anything else. Raids, dungeons, quests provide nice gems for PVE. and then PVP battlegrounds/arenas provide nice gems for PVP. You could even extend this to crafting so you wouldn't have to have crafting gear, but you could have gem slots for that.

The organization of this could be easily be done through tabs on your paper doll. And by doing it this way, you can always keep the armor/look that you like, but advance in stats by upgrading the gems.