Originally posted by Foxxen

Originally posted by DeniZg

It's too early to tell.

Still, we could discuss what would bring longevity to any MMORPG.

PVE wise, long-ish leveling process, with alt replayability (multiple alternative leveling zones) and carrot obtained through well scaled heroics and/or raids.

I think that even combat is not that much important as the previous features. Crafting and housing would be icing on the cake, but would not make or break the game.

PVP wise, I think the game should have at least 2/3 from the following scenarios: massive open PVP battles, instanced warzones with different objectives, instanced PVP death matches.

We know that massive PVP battles should be in, but even if they are perfectly implemented, I don't think that it will suffice, to cater to mayjority of PVP playerbase. Carrot has to be in. Either in form of vertical progression (not a fan of vertical progression  in PVP) or horizontal, which preferably transfers to other parts of the game.

Personally here is a small list of what I feel would help....

1. Longer Leveling Cycles
2. A lot more Story Based Content ( Pull people into the story, not just do quest hubs )
3. Give more choices ( Like instead of classes, just choose a Race then play it how you intend it to be played ie: Skyrim )
4. Break away from the duldrum of Talent Trees, use a system similar to Skyrim in this respect but put your twist on it.
5. I like the 3 Faction idea, but don't let the race decide what faction you're a part of.  Defecting is always an option, but it also should be permanent.  This allows for endless replayability in the long run.
6. Pace out the game's progression a lot better, by limiting the skills used by players ( Like no more AE heavy classes, only have like one or two ways to get AE's and put them on decent Cool Downs so that fights take more effort and coordination ).
7. Make Crafting the primary way to get gear!  Do the Dungeons and Raids for the higher level components to make said gear, but make crafting the Primary way and don't chump it up.  Make it similar to Vanguard where you have to really work for it.
8. Make Guilds important once again.  Give players a lot more benifits for joining a Guild and Sticking with them. DAoC did this very well.
9. Make Alliances possible, again DAoC did this extremely well. This is great for a lot of smaller Guilds to band together and work as one.  This has NOT been done in a long time and needs to come back.
10. Stop doing the "Heroic, Nightmare, Hellmode" options on dungeons.  Just add another Dungeon, stop being lazy in development, stop rushing things, put in more content.  If you want it to be for certain skill levels, then do it for that skill level.  Stop the Cut & Paste programming.  It's outdated and boring.....  More dungeons means more content which means the game has more to offer and will last longer.
11. There should be a bigger focus on grouping in MMO's as well, you should be able to solo in content too, but there needs more group content.  As this is a MMO, not a stand alone.
12. Add Player Housing, believe it or now, this is another way to slow down leveling, extending the life of the game in other ways than just constantly beating on stuff.  Again I'm going to refer to Skyrim, make it so that they have to gather the materials and learn how to use a subset of crafting skills to build a house themselves.  Also offer lots of options based on cost for the style of house.  This gets a player involved and trust me, offering them something like this will keep them busy for weeks!

 

I could go on and on here, as myself I have a lot of ideas of what I'd want to see in an MMO.  I feel after playing them for over 11 years now, I could come up with a complete story line, map and full drawn out plans for one.  If I had the people to work with to help build on?  I definitely would.  But I'm no programmer, I'm a graphic artist and musician.  I get together nightly almost with friends and this is all we talk about some nights is how we would do things if we could.  At certain times I have said, we should!  But these things take years to develop and to do one right would definitely be that, years!

I'd be interested to hear some of your ideas.

I for one have come up with a system which would allow world pvp with a fully workable consequences system alongside open world questing and dungeons - as well as no levelling and therefore no levelled zones.

A 'sandbox themepark' you might say.

It wasn't that hard coming up with it either.

I would love to see something so organic in an MMO - but Devs seem stuck with certain tropes and don't think far enough out of the box.

The bar here is quite high however - a new MMO which was truly innovative in depth - and in every aspect of the game, would be expensive to produce. It would be a risk of pretty high proportions. But WoW has proved it - there is a 10 million+ subscription fanbase out there for a fantasy MMO and it is not innevitable that they cannot be seduced to finding a new collective home....

.... it's just that no-one has done enough in every facet of their games to get them to jump into bed.

It can however be done - just needs someone to take the risk and have the right vision and team.

Originally posted by Caliburn101

Originally posted by Foxxen

Originally posted by DeniZg

It's too early to tell.

Still, we could discuss what would bring longevity to any MMORPG.

PVE wise, long-ish leveling process, with alt replayability (multiple alternative leveling zones) and carrot obtained through well scaled heroics and/or raids.

I think that even combat is not that much important as the previous features. Crafting and housing would be icing on the cake, but would not make or break the game.

PVP wise, I think the game should have at least 2/3 from the following scenarios: massive open PVP battles, instanced warzones with different objectives, instanced PVP death matches.

We know that massive PVP battles should be in, but even if they are perfectly implemented, I don't think that it will suffice, to cater to mayjority of PVP playerbase. Carrot has to be in. Either in form of vertical progression (not a fan of vertical progression  in PVP) or horizontal, which preferably transfers to other parts of the game.

Personally here is a small list of what I feel would help....

1. Longer Leveling Cycles
2. A lot more Story Based Content ( Pull people into the story, not just do quest hubs )
3. Give more choices ( Like instead of classes, just choose a Race then play it how you intend it to be played ie: Skyrim )
4. Break away from the duldrum of Talent Trees, use a system similar to Skyrim in this respect but put your twist on it.
5. I like the 3 Faction idea, but don't let the race decide what faction you're a part of.  Defecting is always an option, but it also should be permanent.  This allows for endless replayability in the long run.
6. Pace out the game's progression a lot better, by limiting the skills used by players ( Like no more AE heavy classes, only have like one or two ways to get AE's and put them on decent Cool Downs so that fights take more effort and coordination ).
7. Make Crafting the primary way to get gear!  Do the Dungeons and Raids for the higher level components to make said gear, but make crafting the Primary way and don't chump it up.  Make it similar to Vanguard where you have to really work for it.
8. Make Guilds important once again.  Give players a lot more benifits for joining a Guild and Sticking with them. DAoC did this very well.
9. Make Alliances possible, again DAoC did this extremely well. This is great for a lot of smaller Guilds to band together and work as one.  This has NOT been done in a long time and needs to come back.
10. Stop doing the "Heroic, Nightmare, Hellmode" options on dungeons.  Just add another Dungeon, stop being lazy in development, stop rushing things, put in more content.  If you want it to be for certain skill levels, then do it for that skill level.  Stop the Cut & Paste programming.  It's outdated and boring.....  More dungeons means more content which means the game has more to offer and will last longer.
11. There should be a bigger focus on grouping in MMO's as well, you should be able to solo in content too, but there needs more group content.  As this is a MMO, not a stand alone.
12. Add Player Housing, believe it or now, this is another way to slow down leveling, extending the life of the game in other ways than just constantly beating on stuff.  Again I'm going to refer to Skyrim, make it so that they have to gather the materials and learn how to use a subset of crafting skills to build a house themselves.  Also offer lots of options based on cost for the style of house.  This gets a player involved and trust me, offering them something like this will keep them busy for weeks!

 

I could go on and on here, as myself I have a lot of ideas of what I'd want to see in an MMO.  I feel after playing them for over 11 years now, I could come up with a complete story line, map and full drawn out plans for one.  If I had the people to work with to help build on?  I definitely would.  But I'm no programmer, I'm a graphic artist and musician.  I get together nightly almost with friends and this is all we talk about some nights is how we would do things if we could.  At certain times I have said, we should!  But these things take years to develop and to do one right would definitely be that, years!

I'd be interested to hear some of your ideas.

I for one have come up with a system which would allow world pvp with a fully workable consequences system alongside open world questing and dungeons - as well as no levelling and therefore no levelled zones.

A 'sandbox themepark' you might say.

It wasn't that hard coming up with it either.

I would love to see something so organic in an MMO - but Devs seem stuck with certain tropes and don't think far enough out of the box.

The bar here is quite high however - a new MMO which was truly innovative in depth - and in every aspect of the game, would be expensive to produce. It would be a risk of pretty high proportions. But WoW has proved it - there is a 10 million+ subscription fanbase out there for a fantasy MMO and it is not innevitable that they cannot be seduced to finding a new collective home....

.... it's just that no-one has done enough in every facet of their games to get them to jump into bed.

It can however be done - just needs someone to take the risk and have the right vision and team.

1) Longer levelling cycles - do you mean character levels? What kind of levels would you like to have in your MMO?

2) Story based content - I personally prefer people making their own stories rather than be just part of a premade one no matter how good you are immersed / pulled in the story.

3) I agree. Classes are terrible idea.

4) Agree kind of. Let people skill w/e they want to skill by using it.

5) Personally dont have problem with race locked factions

6) indifferent

7) I agree that crafting is the way

8) Why not to make who faction work together as one big guild rather by game mechanisms. I agree that joining a guild should be beneficial, but I would like to have that without actually making artificial bonuses for that. Guild is rather small group. Lets utilize the fact that there are hundreds / thousands of players and make them cooperate.

9) Refer to 8)

10) Agreed. I would love to have a game with only one huge server with many open dungeons, caves, places of interest.

11) Agreed

12) Housing is good, but it needs to make sense. In themepark, the housing lacks any sense, hence becomes boring, imo.

If you are interested, check out my game concept. Link is in my signature. It is quite long, but I hope it is worth reading. I believe that such MMO may have quite long life cycle. It is related to some of your points here.

 

TESO will have one megaserver. That mean alot of 'channels' / 'zone cloning'  and it mean that game will propably be heavily instanced.  Official video indirectly suggest it that instancing and personalization through story & instancing will be significant.

Those are design choices that I don't like in mmorpg.   In order to make final decision I will have to see more videos, game design & features presented in more detailed way and propably participate in some kind of 'demo beta weekend'. 

Still chance that I will evenplay after release this game are very very small.

Yes.

 

The IP will bring a certain amount of people who will likely never leave.  

 

If only there was housing.

I personally am very excited about TESO. I think a lot of the fans from the Elder Scrolls games will at least try it out. If they do it right (find a way to make everyone feel like a hero), it will work. I'm still hopeful that it will be available to play (and not just beta test) sometime next year.

Originally posted by ShakyMo
Depends how good the rvr is

exactly.

DAOC is still around after 10 years and a LOT of dumb decisions .

Honestly, I was excited for TESO until I watched their official intro video. There seems to be no innovation at all. I was particularly put off by the way they explained their mega server technology as if it was something new. I'll try the game probably, but my hype-meter is way down for it. That might be a good thing.

I'm really hoping the hype stays low for TESO. Obviously I want it to be successful. But so many games get hyped up to rediculous proportions and when the game doesn't deliver as expected...  Well, we all know what happens.

Longevity?  Nope.   

Not that kind of game design and too much mmorpg's on the market.

I dont think it will have very good longevity since they think that adding "MMO required features" like instances, battlegrounds, zone lockouts and more are a requirement....it is clear they are only after box sales and hope to make back their investment plus profit in the first 3 months and could probably care less about the game doing well past their initial release.

Originally posted by ZigZags
....it is clear they are only after box sales and hope to make back their investment plus profit in the first 3 months and could probably care less about the game doing well past their initial release.

exactly, absolutly nothing about this game stands out to me about them trying for anything more than what I quoted for above. 

It seems developers has almost perfected this model. These games a coming out like factory made items.  Cheeply made zones,  genric quests. They are all the same game with minor changes to make it look different.

I just feel sorry for the casual elder scrolls gamer, the one's that doesnt really live in forums like we do. They are going to see TESO and their eyes will light up light a christmas tree. They are going to be thinking "Skyrim online". Oh man, how he/she will be sorely dissapointed. This example is another huge red flag that they are just after box sales. They couldnt even put any effort into making the combat feel like an ES game.

Originally posted by ZigZags
I dont think it will have very good longevity since they think that adding "MMO required features" like instances, battlegrounds, zone lockouts and more are a requirement....it is clear they are only after box sales and hope to make back their investment plus profit in the first 3 months and could probably care less about the game doing well past their initial release.

This kind of rumor mongering and  spread of ill information is the plague of these forums.  Let's begin with the fact that the game doesn't have battlegrounds, only the FvFvF area.

 

Originally posted by toddze

Originally posted by ZigZags
....it is clear they are only after box sales and hope to make back their investment plus profit in the first 3 months and could probably care less about the game doing well past their initial release.

exactly, absolutly nothing about this game stands out to me about them trying for anything more than what I quoted for above. 

It seems developers has almost perfected this model. These games a coming out like factory made items.  Cheeply made zones,  genric quests. They are all the same game with minor changes to make it look different.

I just feel sorry for the casual elder scrolls gamer, the one's that doesnt really live in forums like we do. They are going to see TESO and their eyes will light up light a christmas tree. They are going to be thinking "Skyrim online". Oh man, how he/she will be sorely dissapointed. This example is another huge red flag that they are just after box sales. They couldnt even put any effort into making the combat feel like an ES game.

 Completely agree.

To me it seems that no matter how innovative the developers try to be or even think they are, they are still acting only between the standardized boundaries existing in practically every MMO created in last 10 years.

There is always the same framework. They just slightly change details. There are always the dungeons, raids, bgs, levels, endgame, quests, you name it. And then inside these boundaries, they start making the "changes". Our dungeons will be public dungeons, our quests will be dynamic events, we wont have holy trinity, we will have non-tab-targetting combat, etc...

How about trying to change the formula completely and create something truly new. In my opinion, there will not be revolution in the genre unless someone tries to break these boundaries.

The only thing I would disagree with is the combat. I kind of like the combat from the videos I have seen.

I feel that as long as MMO's continue to replicate the same old ideas into different formats, this game and others to come will always lack longevity.   I think that the core goal should be to completely throw out the D&D/WoW format and come up with something new.  New games like to come up with new names for stats or gear but basically they are just various ways of implementing the same material.  

Why always strength, dex, con, int, wis etc etc??  why always levels and gold?   Why not start out as 10y/o kid carrying rocks to defenders on the walls of a siege and then gradually age by actual experience?  Have player actually LEARN skills, not train them for a price or because of a level.  Why not have players randomly assigned looks, sex, race, and born into a random family of other, more advanced players?  We don't get to choose our sex or race or skills prior to being born IRL so why not try to emulate this?  Not saying this is a great idea, just saying that if a dummy like me can think of this in 5 seconds (and there are several other great ideas I read in this thread) then why can't devs?  

I feel that no game will endure until the MMO introduces more chance, requires more skill and patience, and is organic and random in it's progression.  NPC's that never move, or only know 2 sentences.. yawn.  Give us player developed content that is permenant.  

This is going to be a game where some people will simply have to see or play the beta in action to decide whether or not they think it 'feels" like Elder Scrolls or just another MMO.

First off, I would like to state that my intention with this post is not to bump my old thread.

However, the question asked in the OP is still relevant for me.

When I made this thread, the hype of this game was around 6 and if you look at the replies, many people predicted that this game will be another 3 month business before it becomes boring.

On the other hand, some people answered that it was too early to ask this question.

The game is currently the most hyped title on mmorpg.com. (I realize is not directly connected to the question of longevity or even potential quality of the game as we learned with some of the most hyped titles of the past.)

I was wondering if they released any new information in the last 3 months which would allow you to give more accurate / educated answer to the question in the OP.

Where is the longevity in this game, FOR YOU.

 

Longevity is also one of my main concerns. One of the reasons why I'm in favour of P2P games and not B2P + cash shop. I don´t want to quit playing a game after a few months, I love the idea of building a virtual game community where everyone can do stuff and have fun.

---------------------------------------------------------------

1. More to do than just fighting
I hope people can enjoy the game playing different roles than just "fighter". One thing I loved about EVE is that some people were fulltime miners, crafters, traders or transporters, some of which couldn't even properly fly a frigate. I hope TESO will have multiple options to specialize deeply into things like crafting, food and such.

I feel that it would greatly contribute to making it a really rpg living, breathing world. I always dreamed of a full player run village with blacksmiths, tavern keepers, masons, carpenters, tailors and the like.
---------------------------------------------------------------
2. Semi-randomized Dungeons
I just don't like the static dungeon mechanic most games offer: always the same predictable mobs in the same place doing the same things. Usually resulting in wiki and youtube walkthoughs - and that's it. People work out the best group/way to speedfarm it and the next 5 years it's basically just another farm spot - or people just ignore it because it's too hard or unrewarding.

What I'd love to see (but probably won't) is dungeons with more randomized content:

• So let's say you enter a dungeon, kill the goblin guards protecting the brigde, evade traps while you fight off bats and meet a troll mini-boss with its goblin minions.
• The next time you get there the bridge is broken so you have to get across the underground river where a crocodile family is swimming around. The bats are still there, but have a mini-boss, and after that you'll face a small horde of goblins circling around their dead troll boss.
• The third time you'll get the same bridge guarded with goblins but there's netting spiders with a poison bite in the trap corridor. The troll is there again, but there's a second caster troll as well, which makes it a totally different challenge.

And so on. If every dungeon had like 5 "scenarios" for every spot (spots in the example: bridge, trapped corridor, troll spot) and the average dungeon would exist out of 10 scenarios + some random patrols, you never know what you're going to meet. It would keep the content a lot more unpredictable and challenging then static content that you can lookup on a wiki a week after release.
Especially if devs would add a few new scenarios every now and then, which is far easier than make whole new dungeons. It may take a very long time to see every scenario and perhaps you'll never see all 50.

Some scenarios would perhaps favour casters, others may be easier for melee classes, some may cater the sneaky professions better. That way you can never have an "ideal dungeon group".
And with the random scenarios and adding some new ones from time to time you'll never get a youtube or wiki walkthough.

 

Originally posted by thexrated
Not looking for longevity. Happy with few months worth of entertainment.

Exactly - as if there´s not already enough games around to cater the "gamehoppers" among us.

Can't possibly say as we don't now how often they will create updates, how captivating is the end game pvp (or pve for that matter)  and if they actually somehow capture the feeling of an elder scrolls game.

Originally posted by Findariel
*snip* lots of really good points that I feel bad about snipping but snipped anyway *snip*

I like the idea of semi randomized dungeons, even if they just did what PoE is doing and have set bosses but randomize the layout, it would help keep things fresh.

 

Don't think the PoE way of changing the complete layout would work well in this ip but you could randomise the mob layout and what abilities the mobs have access to tho, speed runners would hate it, but I would love it!

I think this game will have longevity where others have failed. Some people fail to understand just how much community building things are in this game. First you have public dungeons which is excellent for building Alliance communities. Unlike raids in other games like WoW, the more people you bring the better, not only that but if a public dungeon raid starts at 8pm and you can't be on til 10pm, that's not a problem because you can just meet up halfway through. Or if you can only be on for the first half you can kill the bosses your raid kills and get loot til you have to leave.

Then you have something that DaoC had that no game has had since. That's Faction pride, people hear it all the time from daoc vets i know but there is a reason. DaoC was a game that even the most pvp hating person felt a sense of contribution when defending his faction's relics or keeps. Whole Pve raids would stop on a dime to go defend against the threat of a 200-300 person relic raid that hits multiple keeps at once. IF your guild owned a keep and your guild chat started spamming 123 invaders killing guards at your keep, you immediately alerted the alliances to come defend.

 

Then you have the uniqueness of the alliances. The land is your own and the stuff in it is only experienced by your realm. Some see this as a downside but it is definitely an upside. It makes your class and alliance feel much more unique and if by chance you do get bored, you have a whole other game to explore if you reroll to another alliance.(which by the way you probably wont reroll another alliance til much later in the game because most fall in love with their alliance and feel that sense of betrayal if you thought about rerolling)

 

Trust me, i think a lot of people on this forum are underestimating this game because of the last few years of failure games. I believe this one is one to break the mold though, Matt Firor is the guy I'd want behind an MMO.