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[Column] The Elder Scrolls Online: Megaservers vs. The Elder Scrolls
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
There are some clear benefits to going with a single-server solution in an Elder Scrolls MMO, but are there some potential pitfalls with Zenimax Online's particular implementation? We weigh in below!
Generally, I’m a huge fan of single server solutions, and what Zenimax Online is proposing for The Elder Scrolls Online takes the whole idea a step further. You see, in The Elder Scrolls Online, players will be given the option of setting their own play preferences. Players will be asked what sort of age groups they want to play with or what playstyle preferences they have (ex. PvP, raiding, etc.) and the game will intelligently match up players of like interests when sorting out the populations of zone instances. Instead of just shuffling players into different zone copies by simple load metrics, The Elder Scrolls Online will give players the option of tailoring the community they share the world with to their own individual preferences. The game will even remember players you’ve interacted with and place you in zone instances with them if they’re online. Neat!
Read more of Michael Bitton's The Elder Scrolls Online: Megaservers vs. The Elder Scrolls.
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"You are all going to poop yourselves." BillMurphy
"Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone."
Fortunately, the folks behind The Elder Scrolls Online are a good deal smarter than I am when it comes to this sort of thing, so I’m hopeful they’ve already recognized these concerns and have some sort of solution at the ready.
Maybe this is a question that can be asked of them?
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
in my case it wil be withered old women with walking sticks..but when you look has bad as i do anything will do..on topic i,m not a great fan of phasing,has i understand it i wont be able to go back and help a friend,is that correct or am i wrong?
I don't every recall any of the Elder Scrolls games having an instanced or zoned off world. They've always been open worlds. Some of the things TESO is doing sounds good and true to the IP, while other things are going against what TES games have always been. The latest news is not having an open world, rather having a zoned off and instanced world.
Be true to the IP and do things right, or don't create a MMORPG based on a well known and loved IP. This is the problem with making a single player IP into a MMORPG. They make concessions where they don't need to.
lots of chooo chooo..in the end it will be exactly the same as systems the secret world or guild wars 2 uses...with less servers but more copy-zones...so who cares? instance is instance is server is server is zone is zone is all the same crapp...
"im personally am a huge fan of one server solutions - especially since teso introduces them in their game cause they are paying me off to say that..." chooooo chooooooooo
There are no "solutions" to a one server world. It's either one server or it's not. Of course you have multiple servers to make up that "one server", that's just a term we're throwing around here, but when you start instancing it in any form you just don't have a "one server game world".
It appears that these guys are just "game developers". We'll ge more of the same from them. What we need are "world developers" instead.Once upon a time....
SWTOR had a lot of problems, instancing wasn't one.
The only real problem is community policing. Small server communities that a player is forced to belong in make it much more likely that people will behave civilly. With WoW and crossrealm dungeon finding, people are just jerkoffs to every other person. They have no reason to be nice, and as a social experiment, it shows that most people need that reason.
I won't rule it out working yet, but most of the criticisms listed here just don't make sense. SWTOR is why SWTOR failed, and instancing was only bad because it removed EVERYONE else but your party from your world, not because it split people up. Servers already do that. It's a hollow criticism.
Yeah, "hollow" like the sound of crickets on an MMO server.
Once upon a time....
Phasing, story, instanced zones...it all sounds very familiar...like SWTOR 2.0 familiar. Looks like another IP is going down in flames.
The only positive mentioned in this article is having the ability to filter the type of players you play with. That's the only positive aspect I can glean from this unfortunate news.
If you think back to the ES games, they were indeed instanced. Every time you entered a dungeon or significantly large city and even sub-sections within the city, there were loading screens. Mind youthey were fast enough but nevertheless, they were instances. This isn't quite the same as phasingbut honestly I don't see how phasing is even possible anyways.
Huge server when your world is normal sized, so you have to split it into tons of instances, loosing the persistent world of both tes and daoc in one fell stroke - terrible
The tes single player games are zoned, not instanced. You can't really have instancing in a single player game anyway.
this is the correct answer
You don't have to put a spin on server merges.
When we get back from where we are going, we will return to where we were. I know people there!
If there is one thing that has me "iffy" on TESO its this megaserver technology.
Call me old fashioned but I never ever had a problem chosing what server to go to, and even though I understand the limitations of a seemless world (meaning it cant be done with todays graphical quality) I am a sucker for the old school server structure and the rivaleries and community one develops from them. Now I am sure the same can be had with this mega server I just cant see it or fathom it till i've played it.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
But that is a problem for them. Gamers have been showing, with their wallets, that they aren't too interested in these sorts of non-worldly games anymore.
Edit: Replying to Purewitz a couple of posts up.
Once upon a time....
guild wars 2 sold 2 million? or so copies. how many gamers showed the industry with their wallets?
This goes against everything ES games ever stood for. To me this smells like just another miserable attempt to cash in on IP sentimentality. I remember that once upon a time Bethesda said they'll never ever do an ES mmo because that goes against their whole philosophy...
To put it succintly, Bethesda doesnt' like mmos. They don't understand them, they loathe them, they wouldn't have anything to do with them if it weren't for the money. So, they gave the dirty job to an outside company in order not to soil themselves with mmo development. At the time, I thought this attitude tragic - that it is exactly Bethesda's approach which is needed to bring some fresh air into the genre. However, instead of doing the right thing, Bethesa chose to go the cynical i-wash-my-hands route. They gave another company the job to create an ES-based mmo which will, in essence, be a parody of everything that is bad with mmos today.
When the dust settles, Bethesda will calmly collect their IP money and say "You see? We told you that MMOs suck."