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I think they went in a good direction with the races...
...in terms of making the populations roughly equal. Each side has two "pretty" races and one "monstrous" race.
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No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up - Lily Tomlin
Ironic that the one positive thought about this game is so blatantly wrong... Some polls estimate that the Ebonheart Pact will have over 50% of the population, giving them dominance 24/7.
Putting Nords, Argonians, and Dunmer on one side was not smart, despite it making some geographical sense...
Edit: On the other hand, I guess they didn't have much of a choice, I dont see how else they could've divied them up.
Maybe you're forgetting that Nords and Argonians and Dunmer are the most popular races and every poll about what faction people are going to choose has Ebonheart with 50-60% of the votes across the board.
Ebonheart will be the cominant faction no matter what. They put no thought into balance, they just grabbed the races that lived next to each other (or in Hammerfell's face, on top of each other).
one of the things i like about tes is it doesnt have "pretty" races.
elves in most mmos are typically girly men / porn stars in chainmail bikinis.
tes elves are more strange looking / alien
ah come on loads of people play as rogues - typically kahjit if going melee or wood elf if going bow, or just kahjit anyway because kahjit are cool.
put them next door to each other - make aldameri dominion all 3 elf races
then had the 3 human races
and the 3 "beast" races (although technically orcs are a 4th elf race arent they?)
They could have let the factions be non race related and let people fight for the 'cause' they saw best fitting their character but I guess that was too hard to program
The one thing I really do not like about the game so far from what I have heard is how they have designed the faction and race restrictions along with map restrictions based on faction/race. I want to play a Breton who fights alongside the Nords....can't though!
I also want to be able to trade with the Elves...but again I can't because I cannot enter their lands.
I also want to remain out if the fight and be factionless....but I can't.
The whole faction/race limitations are going the be the one thing that will stop me getting the game unless they really do a good job with the rest of the game and even then I am not sure I will get it.
I think the race spread is fine tbh, its just unfortunate that Morrowind and Skyrim are next to each other, because those (and Cyrodil, but thats ok as its the shared pvp map) will be the places most people want to revisit.
Only thing they can do about it imho is release faction trailers and make the other factions look more interesting/cooler than the Ebonheart Pact, but tbh no matter how nice they make them look, the desire to revisit the massive shrooms of Morrowind will still be a massive draw
I think it could be kind of a cool mechanic if you had a sort of reputation system with the major factions. You'd be well liked by your starting faction, but hated by the opposing factions. But each faction would have spies and such in the enemy factions which you could do tasks for to change the reputations. This way you could slowly work towards a faction change until you're hunted out of your own area. But this sort of stuff is likely to be difficult to do since I'm getting the impression they're going for a very scripted leveling experience. But maybe it could be a feature unlocked when you hit the level cap.
As long as they make the grind to switch difficult enough, most players will still stay with their starting faction, preserving the racial makeup of that faction. But there'll be a few exceptions, as there would be if it was "real."
I think you underestimate how much fans of the series will want to revisit places they havn't done in a very long time. I know myself I wanted to play Dunmer (Dark Elf) but after more thought I am seriously wanting to go play in Elsweyr (from Arena days) Valenwood or Hammerfell (From Daggerfall).
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
ah come on loads of people play as rogues - typically kahjit if going melee or wood elf if going bow, or just kahjit anyway because kahjit are cool.
"Rogue" wood elf if i were to play... Which is on the cards but some of there systems worry me very much..
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Well, if you want to talk rogues, there's nothing better than an Argonian. Shadowscale anyone?
If those numbers are true, then that's very sad to hear. Don't get me wrong, I'm not jumping to any conclusions, but a few months ago I did make a thread where I simply expressed concern over the three faction system, pointing out to the population imbalances that hurt RvR on many DAOC servers. I was pretty much laughed at and called all sorts of names, even one jackass who accused me of being "new to MMOs" despite my detailed recounts of a game released in 2001.
That being said, I'm looking forward to this game. I love the lore of the Elder Scrolls and I think it's a fantastic MMO setting. I'm an open-minded person and I've found enjoyment in plenty of MMOs that everyone else seems to hate. I simply hope that Zenimax (That's the developer, right?) is preparing some sort of system to address issues of faction population imbalance. Because the absolute worst thing that can happen to someone is to invest time into a specific server, only to find out later that you're on the side that has less than 20% of the server population in a game based all around faction PvP.
They pretty much butchered faction balance when they the top 3 popular races all in the same faction not to mention it doesn't make much sense how the Argonians would from an alliance with a race that enslaves them. And who says that you need to divide the races evenly into the factions?
Unless they somehow make it where they limit the amount of people into Cyrodiil that are in an overpopulated faction I would say that PvP will be greatly imbalanced. I'm was on Jade Querry in GW2 and almost eveytime I checked out how the WvWvW is going they would almost always be dominating WvWvW so I don't buy the whole two lesser factions will team up on the larger faction.
To be fair, if you've checked out the lore writing on the official website, it gives a fairly reasonable description of the Ebonheart's races. Basically, the main website seems to hint that the Ebonheart is strong when it comes to raw military power, but centuries of conflict have left plenty of distrust between the three races. So they have a major weakness in that they lack the unity and trust that the races of their rival factions have for each other.
And I agree with what you say about two lesser factions double-teaming the bigger one. People love to talk about it, but it never even happened in DAOC.
Clan Hispania
The point you make about the Ebonheart having a weakness of trust and unity is fine except.....how will that affect players? It won't I suspect. Will the distrust mean members of the Ebonheart can attack each other more ofter? How exactly will the weakness actually have any effect on the game?
This weakness is purely story based and will not have any effect in the game that I can tell. All this is, from the current information is an artificial mechanic to emulate the 3 faction fights that were in DAOC that the developer thinks is a sure bet. I think he is making a mistake. I think that the ability to actually think through this design concept has been glossed over simply because "DOAC worked, 3 factions are the way to go".
For DOAC2 it might have fit but I think TESO deserved someone to sit down and deisgn system that works for TESO. A system that is inclusive of exploration, not restrictions based on faction. A system that allows players to choose any race and play any class and work anywhere they are willing to go if they accept the risks, not where the risks are totally removed by invisible walls.
I keep reading about this game and I keep slapping my head in dismay. I am sad with their design idea's.
Are these three factions completely contrived or is there part of the elderscrolls history that lists them?
Because I would normally agree with you that "making something up" just to support three factions isn't the way to go. However, if these were really listed as part of the elder scrolls lore then it is what it is.
It would be like playing a game set in the civil war and bemoaning two factions as being contrived.
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
As it stands, ALL Nord players are in the Ebonheart, Nords will never be able to change that. Same for each race, they are each locked into their faction without ANY choice in the matter. That means you will never be able to change sides, even if you dislike your side. Take Argonians for example. They are apparently allied with the race that enslaves them. Are we ment to assume that absolutely no Argonians would say "screw this, I am not helping my enslavers, I am going to fight against them" because as it stands, no Argonian can make that choice. It sucks, isn't neccessary (except if you are lacking the will to add a bit of complexity to the game design of course which tehy obviously are not) and it removes one of the founding reasons why TES is such a good series of games, the freedom to play your character the way you WANT to play, not be forced into the way someone else dictates it.
Sure there might be lore to support these factions but to ask players to accept that no one fights for the opposition, no one dislikes the pacts made, no one lives in other areas of the world outside their homeland and most importantly no one chooses NOT to fight for any side, well that is just not TESO, at least in my mind. I love the TES games, look forward to a TES MMO...but this arbitary design choice just to give the world a 3 faction rigid, non negotiable design is just aother in a long line of recent design choices that basically take the fundamentals a an IP and screw it over for no real valid reason except making the design simplified when it really doesn't have to be. It is just lazy.
But that isn't any different from any faction based game.
What you are saying here is that you just don't like factions. Which is fine. But I'm unclear if there are many faction based games that allowed everyon of any race to pick their faction. Especially when the faction is represented as a unified nation.
The argument you put forth has been put forth in other factoin based games and the answer is that "it's a faction based game" not a sandbox game where people pick and choose and create their own factions.
which brings us back to whether they just wanted 3 sides and wrote the lore to support this or if there really were 3 factions, three fronts, in the history and therefore that time period fit.
however, as I mentioned, you can't play a civil war game without acknowledging that there are two factions. One can make the argument that there were people on both the north and the south who supported the other side but if you allow that in a game it's just goin gto break down.
It's not much of a civil war game if the entirety of the northern "players" are all on the side of the south.
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
I dont know what server you played on but on the Guinevere server, we Albions were constantly on the defensive thanks to cross realm teamwork with the Hibs & Mids. It was even worse once Darkfall was released. I don't think Darkfall ever flipped one time from Mid to Hib or vice versa. The only time DF was flipped from those other 2 realms was when we did it. However every time we had DF, we had it for less time then the other 2 realms combined. Hib or Mid would get DF and keep it for at least a few hours but every time we Albs got it, we lost it within 30 mins. True Story!
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
I don't mind factions. I don't mind the factions as they are currently in the game. What I dislike is the fact that I cannot choose my race, class and faction independently. I also dislike the fact that I MUST choose a faction. I would likw the same freedom to never choose a faction if I want in the same way I could choose to never engage in melee combat in any of the TES games if I wanted and just use magic.
If TESO is designed with the 3 faction PvP as the point of the game then I will probably have to give it a miss. To me a TES game is about the freedom to play how you want to play, get involved in the war or not, do the main questline or not, use magic or not, craft or not.
And all of the reasons I dislike how the game has been designed so far don't even touch on the limitations put into the game by these factions to world exploration. The argument that each faction is bigger then the explorable parts of previous games is moot, TESO has all these regions and the game is artificially impossing an impassible barrier to my ability to travel where I want. I couldn't explore outside Skyrim because the game didn't have anywhere outside Skyrim to go. Yes an invisible barrer, but one I can understand from a design point. The barriers that are imposed here are just a system mechanic. If the fact was I could travel into another factions lands but there was a geat risk of dying then that is a choice to make. But I cannot make that choice. It is the removal of freedom to choose that really stops this game being a true TES MMO in my mind. And so I have to agree with others that I think the game is DAOC 2 with a TESO skin. And imo TESO is the game they should be true to, not DOAC.
It's not intended to have any effect on gameplay and is purely for storyline. Which is where the complaints came from in the first place, that the Ebonheart faction is inconsistent with TES lore.