Originally posted by Ebonheart

No... If anything, it's piqued my interest.

The game is based around three alliances, basically racial alliances. Switching that all up at the character level is going against the point and creates a contradictory game story/world. Race has always been a big deal in TES games, and racism has always been a big deal as well. Cultures and races are very distinct and isolated geographically. It makes complete sense that the alliances would be phobic.

There is no middle ground for compromise for the developers, you either let everyone or no one cross-racialize the factions. They had to choose one of the extremes in character creation, contradiction and variation, or culture and limits. They definitely made the right decision, as min-maxing would definitely take advantage of the other and eventually destroy the overall story/lore from within, which is a huge part of any great game.

Faction lock made DAoC a great game. Faction pride, sense of belonging, distinct culture and ways of doing things as a group/faction, immediate recognition of enemies, consistent lore, etc. etc.

I guarantee you if you could play a troll wizard, lurikeen berserker, or a half-ogre bainshee,  DAoC would've been a complete and utter failure.

It's nice to see another game making a good decision for a change.

Yeah your right racism has been a big thing in TES however why in the world would the Orcs be allied with Redguard or the Argonians allied with Dunmer.  I mean Blackmarsh is not that far from Elsweyr and the Argonians are natural born swimmers and sea folk.  The Factions were never about rasism or land locks its only about remaking daoc and then slaping a coat of TES paint over it.

Yes it did, but I've learned this game isn't  really for TES fans just for those who like daoc.

It probably still sell well just because of the TES ip, and then probably drop in active members like mad when people realize they're not getting a TES mmo

Then with the few million or so left who like the game will slowly leave one by one as they realize there is no endgame because Zenimax won't be making enough money to support rapid development of content.

And then it will fall to the way side just like the many other themeparks before it

Originally posted by Axxar
Unfortunately no dwarfs, they gotta respect the lore.

Well not really after all the Redguard are enemies of the Orcs, the High Elves view the Khajiit as a filthy race, and the Nord, the Dark Elves, and the Argonians have very bitter past of war and enslavement.

Even though its a 1000 years before Skyrim and Oblivion, its seems they've allready been alittle loose with the lore to start with.  So it wouldn't be too out there to say they couldn't add a new race or bring the dwemer back

Originally posted by Teh_Axi

PoE is a decent game but unfortunately it's a deceptively simple one. Ironically at its core is has the same issue D3 has, what I like to call "super character syndrome", the skill gem system even means you don't have to commit to anything at all just like D3. In the end its just another slot machine game, you punch mobs till the perfect super items fall out.

That probably reads more negative than I intend, if you're a fan of ARPGs then PoE is definately worth a look.

Well not completely true, at first it seems that way but your choices on your passives do somewhat restrict you to what skill you can use late game.

Originally posted by Grotar89

Originally posted by meddyck

You don't need any more proof of how stale and uninspiring the MMO genre has become that Diablo clone Path of Exile now has the #1 hype spot on this site. In case anybody wants to argue PoE is an MMO, here's what the devs themselves say:

We do not classify Path of Exile as an MMORPG. It is a competitive online action RPG, and has little in common with games that are typically given the MMORPG moniker.

http://www.pathofexile.com/about/

Have you seen this http://steparu.com/previews/mmo-rpg-previews/1071-black-desert-online-preview-2 ?

Dunno why this game isnt on this site...... Looks like masterpiece smth that themepark and sandbox fans have been waiting for.

That trailer made me cry....and it there isn't even a single word or explanation too anything about the game

Originally posted by Rayshe
That actually makes me wonder, if you start Hyping a game as much as possible for as long as physically possible. Just how nasty will the inevitable Train Wreck Be

Well lets see....(gets notepad) mhm.......mhm.....carry the 1......and....GOOD GOD!!!

I'd start building your fallout shelter as soon as possible, its not going to be pretty.

Originally posted by Foxxen

Where to begin.....

GW2 pretty much sucks after you reach a certain point.  All it is is the same thing, zone after zone after zone.  That's definitely not going to be for ESO.  I've 3 max leveled characters in GW2, played GW1 till I had 9 level 20's with 4 of them all geared with all the fancy faction armors and so on....  Just like GW1, GW2 got boring fast.  Fun to play but gets boring.  They didn't do ANYTHING that I would call over the top in innovation for MMO's.   Warhammer Online had Dynamic events before either Rift or GW2 and the problem with them is the same across the bored.  People just aren't all that interested in most of them.  There was nothing truely rewarding about them and their dungeon system is no different.  They just reinvented the GRIND was all they did.

ESO isn't without flaws already, I have my gripes with it as well and it's not even out.  Like I don't care for the way they're doing the Class thing based on Race.  I'd rather them give you the choice of a Race to play, level to a certain point in a Racial Starting Zone.  Then say at 15 or 20 you have to decide which side of the fence you're playing on.  From that point on you're permanently on that side with that character, no going back once you make your decision.  This would have let the players get to play the Race they want without having to worry or not about which side their friends had chosen.  Which is how the Elder Scrolls games have always been.  You chose your race, then later you picked your side to follow.  This is the biggest gripe I have which to some will be looked at as minor.

The other thing I'd like to point out about all the hotbar gripes, of ESO having one to begin with.  All a hotbar is, is a set of skills that are -HOTKEYED- onto those keys.  Which you did in Skyrim and previous games.  Just you could not visually see them on your screen which ment you had to memorize them well.  So the gripes about this game having one is stupid.  More than likely you can turn the UI off like in other games and not worry about it? Who knows, but it's no different than hotkeyed skills just you can visually see them.  Big deal!

Quite frankly I have worries over this stupid Mega Server System, I see nothing but bad coming from this.  Yeah looks good, sounds good, on paper and on their limited amount of people at this time having access to it.  But we all know when you put everyone on basically one big server, cluster or whatever and have it all tied together with thousands of other players.  It normally causes a lot more problems once something like this goes live than it ever even was thought of while they are testing it and using it as it is currently.  So I do worry about that.

The other thing I don't like is the Zerg-Fest mantality this game ( As did GW2 and Rift ) promotes.  Just means all this game is looking to be is another one of those play it for a month and beat the end game scenarios.  That is NOT what an MMORPG should ever have become but today's lazy players want everything handed to them so that is what these game companies now cater to.  Quick buck, turn around rinse and repeate.  When you pretty much make it so people can share kills without grouping and get full experience and rewards, all they do is zerg the entire game to  the end and wala!  Completed in no time without any major challenge once so ever.  Now I can't say that ESO is going to be like this, all I am saying is from what I've read and heard from others posting that is what we're heading for.

This is why I'd rather had Elder Scrolls just have a bloody Multiplayer ability to games like Skyrim where the game would have a host server or you could host it yourself and have 2 to 3 others join your game and just have the game become a tad harder for every extra person over you joining.  That would have been PERFECT for Skyrim, I hope they do it for ESVI because MMO's in my opinion are becoming so short lived they're not worth the money anymore.  They might as well hand you a fully leveled and decently geared character at the start and be done with it.  Because lately that's all the MMO's are worth.

I've been in MMO's since 2001, started with DAoC, did WoW, LotRO, AoC, SWG, SWTOR, Vanguard ( Which was great for a while ), RIFT, Lineage II, Warhammer Online along with countless others I've been in Beta with and tried out for a free month and just could not stand them.  Now I understand something that others do not wish to.  No game company is ever going to please everyone, so I wish they'd stop trying to.  in the early days of gaming, this goes for all games, not just MMORPG's...  When you got a preview copy, trial, whatever you wish to call it, you could play a little of it and decide if you were going to be interested enogh to buy it or not.  Once you bought the game, you could get a lot further, but at least you got a good enough start in it to find out if you liked it or not.

Point I'm trying to make, no game should be tailored to a majority of anything.  It should be designed from the ground up to be DIFFERENT and CHALLENGING in it's own UNIQUE way.  If the player doesn't like it?  They don't buy it, they get one they do like and play that one.  Game companies need to get off of this Quantity over Quality and go back to the old ways of doing these games.  Then they'll last longer than a month, have far less bugs, become far more in-depth, have far more options for players that are of the most demanding in skill and want the best.  Not just settle for whatever a COMPANY says is or claims is the best just because they make it.

Lastly, I do hope that ESO is a lot better than what I'm feeling it is as of this time.  I absolutely LOVE Elder Scrolls, I've almost 900 hours played in Skyrim alone and still playing it.  I have the same with Oblivion, fixing to start playing Morrowind, but I've been an RPG fan for decades.  I've done D&D Table Top, loved the Forgotten Realms games, I love a lot of lore, detail, exploration, crafting, questing, I love it all and a lot.  So here is to hoping for the best for ESO, I'm just not going to hold my breath on it.....

Thats not a minor thing at all, honestly its something more mmos should do.  Sadly ESO looks more and more like an atempt to just shove the TES IP into an mmo.

Pokemon, even though I haven't played a pokemon game since silver came out.  It is possibly the easiest game to convert to an mmo.

Second choice would be a Dragon's Dogma sandbox, I thought the mechanic of the "boss fight" was dead in todays games reduced to nothing but a button mashing sequence.  Then I played Dragon's Dogma and was blown way.  Such a combat mechanic in a mmo would be amazing.

Well blizzard has talked about redoning the textures for awhile now but I think they're worried about chaseing away lower preformance users.

The Pandaren seem to be a trial run of the new textures.

Originally posted by Greyface

Assumption #1 Developers should listen to the players:  Henry Ford once said "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."  Developers who design based on player feedback get a lot of praise.  They really shouldn't.  What do players ask for?  More of the same: more raids, more gear, more levels, more buffs, more nerfs, more convenience.

The truth is that the players don't know what they want, because they've never seen it before.  Verant (now SOE) took a lot of crap back in the day for talking about their "Vision."  Sure, they sounded like jerks, but they also built a landmark game in Everquest.  Back in 2004, no one was demanding more quests.  Blizzard did it anyway, and you got the runaway success of WoW.  When was the last time a game feature came out of left field like that?  The reason why there's never been a WoW-killer is that the AAA developers can't move past the WoW-clone.  Players aren't game designers -- they're going to ask for a slightly different version of what they know.  Innovation comes when a developer takes risks.

I'm not saying there should be no communication between the people who make games and the people who play them.  But the industry has gotten into the habit of trying to please everyone, and the players have gotten into the habit of expecting it.

   

 Left field huh well funny thing alot of left field plays have been made by mmos lately

swtor's compainion system actual got quiet alot of people attached to their compainions , even though the games other short coming pushed people away many people will still say they miss their compainion.

TSW's investigation quest, finding clues ingame and on the internet the game for quest was a nice change of pace for lot of mmo gamers who have seen every incarnation gather this/kill this many quest. However, the games less than staler combat has alot of player going else where

GW2's dynamic event/quest system was very promising in changing up the flow of questing and to some extent did.  Strange thing was it also made forming parties/groups nearly pointless out side of dungeons.  This has made a huge social wedge in the game.

Then theres the action mmo movement Vindictus, Tera, RaiderZ, and I think Blade & Souls aswell have all tried to push the mmo world away from tab targeting and to a more hack and slash combo like combat systems. 

So there has been alot of left field moves but often those weren't enough.  Alot of the reason has to do with the fact the gaming industry it self has changed since the days when WoW was released. Because of this its become alot like the movie industry taking very few risk and only making small changes to stale formulas.

Originally posted by st4t1ck

Originally posted by maddog15a

Originally posted by revy66

Originally posted by ShakyMo
Well more people played skyrim on consoles than pc, and they don't have steamworks.

This. Skyrim sold significantly more on consoles. Hell, even on PC most of my friends who played Skyrim did not use any mods at all. I think you are overstating the significance of modding to the general populace, it's good yes, but not significant.

 So then why not they release it on consoles then.

Modding may not make a game good but its what brings players back to it.

Again, again, and again its been shown that player retention is what keeps an mmo going.  While I have no doubt TESO will sell.  I have yet to see anything about thats going to keep players on or coming back.  People will put in their 100 hours look around asking for more.  In past TES games modding fixed that(for the pc anyway).  TESO being a mmo means modding will be a no no. So without sandbox elements the only thing that will bring players back is frequent FREQUENT content patchs.

 

isnt that what an mmo does though trhough patching.  makeing new gear, new missions changing the way things look.

 Yes, but theres very few mmos that have done well relying only on content patchs to retain players, WoW being the best example.  Its this very model that creates the gear grind.

Thing is its a old model that even Blizzard is starting to move away from with WoW patch 5.2 introducing a basic form of sandbox farm ownership.

So far it seems TESO will be only relying on content patches to keep players, just like other mmos such as Tera, GW2, swtor, Rift, and TSW all of which have had major issues with player retention.

Originally posted by revy66

Originally posted by ShakyMo
Well more people played skyrim on consoles than pc, and they don't have steamworks.

This. Skyrim sold significantly more on consoles. Hell, even on PC most of my friends who played Skyrim did not use any mods at all. I think you are overstating the significance of modding to the general populace, it's good yes, but not significant.

 So then why not they release it on consoles then.

Modding may not make a game good but its what brings players back to it.

Again, again, and again its been shown that player retention is what keeps an mmo going.  While I have no doubt TESO will sell.  I have yet to see anything about thats going to keep players on or coming back.  People will put in their 100 hours look around asking for more.  In past TES games modding fixed that(for the pc anyway).  TESO being a mmo means modding will be a no no. So without sandbox elements the only thing that will bring players back is frequent FREQUENT content patchs.

ugh!!! don't link us to some outside social media the game it self should be the social media!!

mmo thrive on player retention, the last thing you want is your players going to other media.

Originally posted by FromHell

Originally posted by Soldier101

Originally posted by maddog15a
I got a sinking feeling in my stomach that this is gona be swtor all over again...

I think you might be right.

Impossibru. 

I think TESO will be a lot better and different.

 I would like to think so, but it seems ZeniMax is riding to much on the lore to make this game.  I have no doubt it will sell alot.  But sells don't support a mmo, player retention does.  And lately every mmo thats come out has been struggling with that, case in point swtor.  Swtor has great lore to work with and provides a great single player experience, but its an mmo and you need not just a great single player experience but multiplayer one as well.  Thats something ZeniMax has talked very little about.  Also with sandbox gameplay being a huge part of the last 3 TES games, for the developers to come out and state they see no value in sandbox material is a scary thing.

I don't realy like the idea of a Massive worlds(huge freaking world), because what that realy means is lots of open space between things you can actualy do and/or interact with.  I mean I feel that even WoWs game world feels empty when you look at how much space it takes up compared to how much you can realy do.

mmos need to find a balance between size and content

TSW - combat got old and the enemies got boring

Tera - wasn't realy able to find a class I liked, will say the it was the smoothest running game on max settings I've ever played on my 7 year old rig.

D3 - lazy game with lazy animations that kept my attention only enough to complete its short campaign.  Loved the cutscene though