Originally posted by AdamTM

Originally posted by aphydork

Wouldn't things not changing be an immersion killer as well?

"Oh, we killed the Super Dragon that was terrorizing the land!"

*Super Dragon flies by*

*NPCs still talk as if Super Dragon is a problem*

...nothing changes.

 

At least with phased areas, you are with people who are seeing the world as you do, and when you choose to join your friend's phase, you can pickup your RP where he is.

I mean... how do you deal with Guild Wars 2's system as a roleplayer? Unless nothing happens ever, roleplayers always have to suspend disbelief anyway.

This is why MMOs in which developers have the control (be it over story, environment or otherwise) will always be the shittiest of both worlds.

How about some permanency? You kill the emperor? The emperor is dead, for everyone.

Freedom of choise and permanent consequences across the entire playerbase would mean that after one month of release every forest would be burnt down, every town and city would be in rubbles, every NPC would be dead.

How will a ton of permanent choises and actions work? So the Emperor is dead, forever? The town is in rubbles, forever? In a game like that stuff gets completed fast and then there's nothing left to do except staring at the rubble and burning horizon. That's what happens in singleplayer games, and singleplayer games end when the goals are completed.

Originally posted by Burntvet

Originally posted by karmath

Hoping for "miracle" patches on pre alpha games. I'm speechless.

I don't believe in miracle patches. Often promised, never seen.

Zenimax's philosophy is "If we put ES on the box, it will sell."

 

Even if all of what is mentioned in the article is true, there is still far, far too much missing of what most fans consider "ES gameplay".

 

Zenimax could etch Elder Scrolls onto a turd and I wouldnt buy it....I would be waiting for hte collectors edition

It would be nice to hear how the stealth mechanics are implemented.

What happens if you go stealth? Will other players be able to see you? Or thats' only for NPCs?

Not a big fan of the combat but willing to wait and see to check it out.  They mention that MMO is more than a game, yet they wont implement housing?  Thats almost a corner stone to an MMO especially if you are expected to play it months on end.  Even the single player console game has housing?

Hoping they (re)think this and implement in a later expansion/patch.

In order to implement permanancy, you have to have some type of recycle system.  The person above brought up a good point.  New people joining ESO way after launch will miss those experiences.  If the emperor is truly dead then have a system to 'elect' a new emperor.  This way immersion is in tact but allows the system to reset.

Outside of that Im ok with the phased approach.  Doesnt break immersion for me.

Originally posted by Kuinn

Originally posted by AdamTM

Originally posted by aphydork

Wouldn't things not changing be an immersion killer as well?

"Oh, we killed the Super Dragon that was terrorizing the land!"

*Super Dragon flies by*

*NPCs still talk as if Super Dragon is a problem*

...nothing changes.

 

At least with phased areas, you are with people who are seeing the world as you do, and when you choose to join your friend's phase, you can pickup your RP where he is.

I mean... how do you deal with Guild Wars 2's system as a roleplayer? Unless nothing happens ever, roleplayers always have to suspend disbelief anyway.

This is why MMOs in which developers have the control (be it over story, environment or otherwise) will always be the shittiest of both worlds.

How about some permanency? You kill the emperor? The emperor is dead, for everyone.

 

Freedom of choise and permanent consequences across the entire playerbase would mean that after one month of release every forest would be burnt down, every town and city would be in rubbles, every NPC would be dead.

 

How will a ton of permanent choises and actions work? So the Emperor is dead, forever? The town is in rubbles, forever? In a game like that stuff gets completed fast and then there's nothing left to do except staring at the rubble and burning horizon. That's what happens in singleplayer games, and singleplayer games end when the goals are completed.

Worked just fine is MUDS/MUSH's.  Thing is in MUDS/MUSH's the GM's were actualy being GM's not glorified customer service reps. They had both the tools and the freedom to constantly change and add to the world in response to the players actions, to constantly run stories/story arcs, inhabit NPC's, spawn monsters, etc and frankly the other PC's were ALOT of the content themselves as the whole point of the game wasn't about completing quest #469 to get your gold star.

MMO's (with todays technology COULD do this). They would need to be able to do several things...

- Start off with the principle that the players WERE the content...or at least a large part of it.

- Design a robust set of mechanisms for the players interacting with the world in meaningfull ways that didn't break the game system and where the game would automaticaly respond to those actions. This would not mean COMPLETE freedom of choice but an extremely wide latitude in choices. For example you wouldn't allow players to build structures ANYWHERE they wanted but you would have a number of predesignated building sites in any given area and allow the players the latitude to choose which ones they wanted to use and which ones they didn't and exactly what would be built there.

- You would need to design closed-circle systems. In our example above, just as structures could be built by player action so too could they be destroyed by player action or inaction (such as failing to keep up maintenance or defend from monsters). Thus things COULD return to thier origional state...but what state they were in was dependant ENTIRELY upon player ACTION/INACTION....not an an automaticaly recycled timer which was impervious to player behavior.

- You would need a large enough map for the size of your player base....and you would need tools to add to that map with minimal man-hour investment as needed.

- You would need excellent tools designed for GM's to change certain aspects of the game-world on the fly without breaking it.....and you would allow the GM's and SUPERVISED volunteers the freedom to perform LIMITED actions (i.e. creating and inhabiting temporary NPC's, spawning temporary monsters, temporarly changing the weather in a zone) in order to run mini-story arcs for the player base.

- You would need to develop good systems for porceduraly generated content that added dynamism to the world with little or no Developer intervention and allow  players to interact with those systems in limited ways again. For example you could have game/wildlife/monster migrations that varied based upon seasonal patters and that also included some proceduraly driven random variation. You could have players affect those patterns in limited fashions. For example you could have herds of migratory Caribou that went through certain areas in the Spring. You could have predators which followed these herds to prey upon them and the RNG might determine exactly what type distribution those predators were for a particular season (wolves, tigers, griffons, etc). If players were heavly hunting that area you could have the herds/predators dispearse to other areas.....the herds/predators wouldn't be permanently destroyed in response to player action BUT they would shift thier patterns.

The idea here is that the game doesn't revolve around 1 SPECIFIC pre-scripted story that the character experiences but rather that it's a dynamic, shifting, evolving but SELF-SUSTAINING world. The game shifts it's focus from the character chasing after specific quests to them pursuing self-directed GOALS. It doesn't matter that the Castle of Nod is destroyed and it's Lord slain because SOMETHING is going to move into those ruins, prime lairs don't stay empty for long, creating a DIFFERENT opportunity for adventure....and of those ruins are cleared out and made safe...some OTHER Lord is eventualy going to want to come along and rebuild there....because power abhors a vacume, etc. "The" story doesn't end...because there are no "THE" story...there are just thousands of individual stories that are constantly occuring each day.