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Total Biscuit's take on The Elder Scrolls Online

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Comments

  • DissolutionDissolution Member Posts: 210

    Its amazing how much information about the game is based entirely off of two interviews and a few speculative articles.

    From what I have gathered:

    *It is 3 faction PVP
    * It is embracing public dungeons
    * Experience wiill not be locked via ownership (with no further explanation other than a theoretical situation and no breakdown of exactly what they have in store for exploitation security)
    * The main story line will be 100% soloable
    * They want to break the pattern of quest hubbing as is the case in every themepark MMO template out these days
    * It is using the Hero Engine

    From this it appears a good majority have immediately gone back into SWToR frenzy. Just because SWToR screwed the pooch has no impact on ESO at all. The Hero engine is an engine, and SWToR bastardized it by their own admission. What Zenimax does with it will determine their own game. BioWares successes and/or failures are absolutley no indication of what another company can do with that engine.

    The single player storyline rings of SWToR yes. However, the SWToR "idea" was inventive, just executed incorrectly. If anything Zenimax had an opportunity to see how not to do it and improve on it.

    The fact that they are endorsing public dungeons as opposed to 100% instanced dungeons indicates that they understand the issue with heavy instancing and how it kills community in a mmorpg. This would also indicate that although the main storyline may be 100% solo-able and instanced, the entire game is not going to be like other titles.

    The fact that they have stated they want to break the mold with reducing/eliminating quest hubbing is a positive statement. It does not promise a groundbreaking achievement but at least we are moving away from the modern themepark template and attempting to go in a new direction. Even if its just a baby step.

    Matt Firor gives high hopes of a positive PvP experience based on his history and what we have seen from him with his DAoC PvP game (not what we imagine he will do in the future).

    The game very well may be horrible. However, everything I am reading does not offer much other than speculation to prove this will be the case. It also doesnt prove it will be the "WoW killer" or change the genre as we know it.

    The game hasnt had any real decent coverage yet and the majority of what is out there is pretty much just hype by Gameinformer for their June edition. It's humorous to read the overreaction sometimes.

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  • UhwopUhwop Member UncommonPosts: 1,791

    Two things that bothered me.

    1, he took the time to mention that it'snot FPV or using the standard ES style of combat, and that that's not good, but neglected to point out  that it's class based even though he mentions class base.  Removing the FPV and combat that has been a staple of the series I can forgive, making the game class based I can not.  I personally think this is the biggest departure from the ES series that they're making, and the worst.

    2, He, like I believe a lot of other people, will buy it just to try it because that's what they do with MMO that releases.  It bothers me because that's what the developers seem to expect, and the way things are going these days it doesn't seem to matter to much if the game only retaines a very small percentage of subscribers, as long as they can sell several million copies out of the gate.  If it's subscription based you don't need millions of subs to keep a game going, fact.  The only MMO's that need millions of subs are the ones that have publishers that won't settle for less, IE: ToR.  Without millions of subs EA doesn't consider ToR worth investing heavilly into, even though with a subscription based model the game will eventualy, if it isn't after selling millions of copies out of the gate, make a profit. 

    Whether or not you have enough subs to reinvest money into wrothwhile development after release is another issue.

    Then there's the F2P over shutting down possiblities that has opened up in the genre.  Once upon a time if the game sucked, you closed the servers and said goodbye, now you just switch to F2P.  Which is fine, but it means that they can release a crappy TESO mmo and when it doesn't pan out like they think it will, just switch on the F2P life support and keep it rolling for as long as people are willing to spend minimum amounts of money in he cash shop to support the game. 

    As long as people are willing to buy it just to try it, even though they already think it's just going to be another typical MMO, and not something they'll stick with, they'll keep making typical mmo's.  They already know that enough people are going to buy it just to try it, and that's why they're making the MMO they're making. 

    If they knew that people wouldn't pay for the game because of the direction they're going with it, they wouldn't be going in that direction. 

  • erictlewiserictlewis Member UncommonPosts: 3,022

    Why in the heck do folks even give him time of the day that is the second video that I just saw that is not game footage.  Until he gets to play in beta then he is full of hot air.

    After this and the bs he pulled on d3,  how would anybody take anything that biscuit had to say as a half truth.

    Now when we get game play then yes otherwise its just biscuit making up a bunch of bs.  That is all it is.

     

     

  • DeivosDeivos Member EpicPosts: 3,692
    Originally posted by Zylaxx
    Originally posted by Darth-Ninja

    One of my main beefs is that the combat wont be like the single players, which I actually enjoy. I really disagree with the 'elder scrolls combat sucks' comment I knew I didnt care what he said after that.

    I know alot of others agree with you but I honestly hate the way TES does its combat.  Theres something awfully boring about left clicking your mouse button a million times.  I might be in the minority but I love hotbar tab targetting combat because it allows the players almost unlimited freedom in having combat skills.  I look at it like this, you can have 1 combat ability (left mouse click) or 12+ abilities (like in WoW).

    Just wanted to share an opinion on this comment. I find it a bit flawed.

     

    In comparison lets take a look at fighter games. A format of game that for a long time has operated on a principle of a motion control and somewhere between four to eight available buttons. Any one that plays these games knows they rather commonly have plenty more than four to eight attacks.

     

    And how? Well, combos and context driven actions. Skyrim uses it to a finite degree. You have directionally based power attacks that perform different functions, or you can combine your block and attack buttons to perform an interupt bash.

     

    Or another common reference point to combat complexity provided in an otherwise simple upfront design. Mount & Blade directionally based attack swings and blocks.

     

    Honestly the best option would and could be a context driven combo system. Click one, click and hold, move and click, block and click, jump and click. Each grouping can hold it's own effect that makes sense to the combo and offers a different kind of effect without having to be independently bound to a hotbar.

     

    And this doesn't preclude the use of the hotbar in tandem with a system like this either. Binding items and utilities to the hotbar instead of powers to ovver a way of hotswapping equipment for different combo and ability sets can give groupings of powers simple access without having a plethora of buttons filling your screen in some of the many pictures we have of WoW player's UI.

     

    It's streamlining without reducing depth of complexity or options.

    "The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay

    "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin

  • UhwopUhwop Member UncommonPosts: 1,791
    Originally posted by Dissolution

    Its amazing how much information about the game is based entirely off of two interviews and a few speculative articles.

    From what I have gathered:

    *It is 3 faction PVP
    * It is embracing public dungeons
    * Experience wiill not be locked via ownership (with no further explanation other than a theoretical situation and no breakdown of exactly what they have in store for exploitation security)
    * The main story line will be 100% soloable
    * They want to break the pattern of quest hubbing as is the case in every themepark MMO template out these days
    * It is using the Hero Engine

     

     *No ES game ever locked me into a faction based on the race I chose to play.

    *No diffirent then public events that are becoming the norm in MMO's. 

    *That's still not anything to do with the ES games.  You weren't trying to gain experience, you increased skills by simply using them, not by doing quests to advance your level in order to get the ability available for your class. 

    *They said that the main story is 100% solo, not soloable.  He said solo, if he meant that you didn't need another person to do it then he didn't say that, he said it was 100% solo.  Watch the video and listen to what he said, at no point does he use the word soloable, he said it's a SOLO story that you do.  Whether I can do it alone or with a friend becomes irrelivent when I'm playing an MMO.  I'm not playing an MMO to have a personal story to follow that makes me the savior of the world, it's counter the point of an MMO.  Just because i don't see someone else doing the exact same story I am doesn't mean I'm oblivious to the fact that they are. 

    *Firor did a pretty good job of explaining that quest hubs do in fact exist, just not the same places you'll typically find them.  Having a quest hub located at "that tower off to your left" instead of "that town straight ahead of you" doesn't mean it has no quest hubs, it only means they moved the hub.  Also, not having to do the hubs in a specif order doesn't make them any less a hub, it just means I can do the hubs in whatever oder I choose.  Just like GW2 has quest hubs even though Anet will say they don't.  Just because the quest hubs change from one location to the next depending on were an event is taking place doesn't mean it's not a hub, it just means it's not always in the same location. 

    "you'll go to the tower off to the left and there will be things there for you to do, or you'll just do one long quest chain, and then you move on to the bandit camp you saw was near by and you'll do whatever is there for you to" is the exact same thing as a frigging quest hub, just not located in a town you know you have to go to to get the quests!  How is that not a quest hub, especially when that's exactly what firor said you'll do?

    *who cares.

     

    And how exactly is any of the information you gather even remotely like any ES game you've ever played.  Aside from the lore, which they said, at this point in time, isn't even considered canon by Bethesda.  So in the end the only thing you have is a game that takes place in some of the same places as the previous ES games, and has ES in the title.

    Or as one of the devs, in the most recent interview said, when asked what a fan of skyrim would have to look forward to in TESO, "being able to explore the lands of skyrim."  What he should have said was, a game that provides that same great open-ended, free-form gameplay that you fell in love with, set in a persistant world, with the ability to move from the lands of skyrim to any of the other lands you may have only heard about while playing skyrim. 

  • DissolutionDissolution Member Posts: 210

    Solo...soloable...whatever.

    I do understand your concern with it. This point I find in particular is disconcerting and has been since I heard it. However, if just the main storyline is a solo storyline I do not think it will ruin the game if other features are on point.

    They do seem to be getting lost in the trap that BioWare did with SWToR where they are trying to make there single player game experience shine through in a singular story. Whether they can pull it off better than BioWare will not be known until we see it.

    Its all speculation.

    By deciding to go in the direction of an MMO as opposed to co-op play they will have to change certain aspects of what was traditionally used in the ES line. Its inevitable. In my opinion I am surprised they went MMO before going co-op but its not up to me.

    I doubt they will deliver a gamebreaking PVE experience. I really don't think that is there intent either. If anything may really shine in terms of gameplay with ESO it may very well be the PvP. Again though, all speculation.

    I wouldnt read TOO MUCH into the fragments of information that are out there right now. There simply is not enough and they are relatively cloak and dagger about the majority of it. I dont think any one game will change the genre in one release. It will most likely be a series of small changes from multiple titles over multiple years that lead things in a new direction.

    We simply do not know enough about the overall scope of this project to praise it or condemn it.

    It may be great, it may be horrible. Its all speculation.

    However, if World of Warcraft would have been a failure I do not think it would have had a major impact on the single player Warcraft series at all. The community would have said "I told you so" and Blizzard would have continued to focus on their single player games. The players would have continued to buy them. ESO whether good or bad will not change the quality of the single player games previously released. Provided they continue their single player lines in the same tradition they always have I dont see how ESO's success or failure has any impact on that whatsoever.

    Its also been strategically placed in a timeframe that will have little to no effect on the current lore.

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  • NitthNitth Member UncommonPosts: 3,904


    Originally posted by Creslin321
    I love that the first thing he says is that it is NOT Bethesda making this game.  That is what I have been trying to tell everyone since this announcement first happened lol.

    yet like i always say, There still there sticking there huge logos on promo material.
    It's perceived like yes we are making it, but we sub contracted a company to do the "meat"

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