Originally posted by ShakyMo The factions they've picked don't male sense to me. They should have gone.
Breton, redguard, nord High elf, wood elf, dark elf Orc, khajit, argonian
Imo, although dark elves are still a dubious fit there.
Well if going with 3 factions
Those factions never would have worked, due to geographical restrictions. Maybe Breton's, Redguard, and Nord, but even that would have been an awkward fit due to having Orcs right in the middle.
High Elves and Wood Elves are at least corner of the world, but Dark Elves are in the opposite corner.
Argonian, Khajit, and Orcs don't share even a single border between any of them, not to mention their cultures are all completely different.
It sounds kind of like you have no real grasp of Elder Scrolls lore, which is fine. Your suggestion just makes no real sense as a result.
Originally posted by AdamChattaway I really dont like this? I want to be a Nord but my friend a Breton? so we cant play together and pvp together, sorry but what the FK is this? an mmo we cant play with friends or pvp with friends because of this limiting faction, why cant we pick race and then faction? what the frakin hell is this seriously? suck an awesome amazing looking game ruined by this fail faction restriction.
DAoC, widely considered one of the best PvP MMO's ever, was the same. 3 factions, all different, and all fighting.
Originally posted by AdamChattaway I really dont like this? I want to be a Nord but my friend a Breton? so we cant play together and pvp together, sorry but what the FK is this? an mmo we cant play with friends or pvp with friends because of this limiting faction, why cant we pick race and then faction? what the frakin hell is this seriously? suck an awesome amazing looking game ruined by this fail faction restriction.
DAoC, widely considered one of the best PvP MMO's ever, was the same. 3 factions, all different, and all fighting.
Did the 3 factions have different races what were widely know for over 10 years through TES lore? which have different appearences and attributes? DAOC was no where near 1% the world TES is, so dont even go there.
The fact this game is 90% PVE with 10% PVP endgame like GW2, doe snot justify the racial/faction restrictions, in a mainly pve game i want to play who what and where i like, this aint fking wow or DAOC lore but they just had to make a wow clone faction system, which is wrong in the firs tplace for this game, i know in 20 years lets make the British Alqaeda and Taliban allies, dont make fu sense but im sure a politition can make some lore ofr it.
DAoC, widely considered one of the best PvP MMO's ever, was the same. 3 factions, all different, and all fighting.
Just because the developers want this to be DAoC 2 doesn't mean they are right. Elder Scrolls series is considered one of the best rpg games ever, they don't need DAoC's systems to boost their validity.
It also had ace lore, with the factions bound to Celtic, Viking and Arthurian mythology respectively.
So don't even go there
I would have preferred if you joined one of 3 factions like in Morrowind, but there's nothing wrong with them picking RVR as the pvp model, as tes single player games DON'T HAVE PVP AT ALL! So they had to pick one pvp model.
So the choices were 1 ffa guild based pvp like eve and darkfall which I like, but would scare away all the pure pve types. 2 wow style instanced away minigames. I.e. pointless shite Or 3 rvr with pvp and pve flagged areas of the world.
I think they made the right choice considering the budget / risk of the game. But like I said would prefer if you joined one of 3 imperial houses like the dark elf houses in Morrowind.
Also Adam, what makes you think its a 90% pve game? Where have the devs said this.
I think considering the devs worked on daoc and uo before, this is unlikely to be a wow style raiders first everyone else second game. I mean they've talked a lot more about endgame pvp than they have pve.
Originally posted by ShakyMo Also Adam, what makes you think its a 90% pve game? Where have the devs said this.
I think considering the devs worked on daoc and uo before, this is unlikely to be a wow style raiders first everyone else second game. I mean they've talked a lot more about endgame pvp than they have pve.
because the zone in the middle is pvp? and the rest of the game world is pve and they are tsalkign constantly about pve pve pve public pve dungeons pve exploration pve mobs pve dynamics, are you retarded? this is mainly a pve game jsut like gw2, people will do pvp mainly endgame, dont be some pvp fanboy thinking one of the worlds best rpg games is goign to be mainly pvp.
Mainly pve games - wow, swtor, tsw, eq Mainly pvp games - planetside, darkfall Games with a nice balance of the 2 - eve, daoc, gw2 and probably TESO.
Let's take your "tiny pvp area" its the entire size of oblivion, its the whole province of cyrodil.
Now say you are a nord. You get the whole of skyrim and vardenfell for pve and the whole of cyrodil for pvp. So 2/3rds of your world is pve, 1/3rd pvp. But... quite a bot of that pve area will be leveling content, let's say for argument 50% of it, so at endgame half your relevant world is pve the other pvp.
The fact that they haven't gone with token tacked on mini game bullshit. The fact that being the best at pvp leads to the ultimate reward, getting crowned as emperor. The fact that they keep talking up this faction war despite all the howls of protest. the fact that all the lead devs are fans of and cone from games with a strong emphasis on pvp. All this points to your 90% pve "fact" being a whole load of bullshit made up on the spot.
Originally posted by ShakyMo I don't consider gw2 a mainly pve game.
Mainly pve games - wow, swtor, tsw, eq Mainly pvp games - planetside, darkfall Games with a nice balance of the 2 - eve, daoc, gw2 and probably TESO.
Let's take your "tiny pvp area" its the entire size of oblivion, its the whole province of cyrodil.
Now say you are a nord. You get the whole of skyrim and vardenfell for pve and the whole of cyrodil for pvp. So 2/3rds of your world is pve, 1/3rd pvp. But... quite a bot of that pve area will be leveling content, let's say for argument 50% of it, so at endgame half your relevant world is pve the other pvp.
The fact that they haven't gone with token tacked on mini game bullshit. The fact that being the best at pvp leads to the ultimate reward, getting crowned as emperor. The fact that they keep talking up this faction war despite all the howls of protest. the fact that all the lead devs are fans of and cone from games with a strong emphasis on pvp. All this points to your 90% pve "fact" being a whole load of bullshit made up on the spot.
I like how you say GW2 is mainly a PVE game, yet most people PVP ont he game, hence WVWVW and the structured PVP, guild wars is all about PVP even int he first game. GW2 has a lot of pve content to play though how you see it is opinion. Just because TESO has a end game pvp zone where you can become the emperor dont make it the main means of the game, why would they turn a pure PVE IP into a mainly PVP IP? when what we wanted for years and years is TES multiplayer?
So TESO will be mainly a pve game with endgame pvp, but as myself am mainly a pvper, just like gw2 when they hyped WvWvW as the most epic thing ever and it turned out to be a fraking boring ass zerg fest of 100 peopel running around the map kiling groups of 10 people and caping a castle.
I agree that details about gameplay would be more interesting than lore questions. However, many of the people griping seem to be concerned with lore, so maybe the devs are trying to placate them.
As for complaining that you can't play any race and do whatever you want to with regards to joining different factions, etc...I think people are being ridiculous. The whole setup is to allow the end-game content to be RVR...much like DAOC. Allowing everyone to do whatever they wanted would essentially destroy the whole plan for the end game. The same folks saying they know better than the devs about how to guide gameplay would be the ones complaining that there isn't anything to do once they reaced level cap if they got their way.
From what I can tell, this is headed towards being an RVR game with a TES flavor. If that's not your thing, then perhaps this game won't be for you. If you want to play TES single player or co-op, the good news is that a new TES game is being worked on.
I agree that details about gameplay would be more interesting than lore questions. However, many of the people griping seem to be concerned with lore, so maybe the devs are trying to placate them.
As for complaining that you can't play any race and do whatever you want to with regards to joining different factions, etc...I think people are being ridiculous. The whole setup is to allow the end-game content to be RVR...much like DAOC. Allowing everyone to do whatever they wanted would essentially destroy the whole plan for the end game. The same folks saying they know better than the devs about how to guide gameplay would be the ones complaining that there isn't anything to do once they reaced level cap if they got their way.
From what I can tell, this is headed towards being an RVR game with a TES flavor. If that's not your thing, then perhaps this game won't be for you. If you want to play TES single player or co-op, the good news is that a new TES game is being worked on.
I still dont see why we cant pick a race and e.g. get to lv 10 and thean pick a faction to fight for in pvp, not only does it mean me and friends cant play together because i dont liek the races they play and they dont like the races i play but it means its going to be more boring exploring the worls as we will always see the same 3 races.
We NEED to be able to pick race and then perma pick faction, theres no excluse fo rit and its easier lore wise to make it fit and allows people to play the race they want, imagine for a moment how man people will be forced to play the race they dont want to just to play with friends? do you think that is fair at all?
Originally posted by AdamChattaway I really dont like this? I want to be a Nord but my friend a Breton? so we cant play together and pvp together, sorry but what the FK is this? an mmo we cant play with friends or pvp with friends because of this limiting faction, why cant we pick race and then faction? what the frakin hell is this seriously? suck an awesome amazing looking game ruined by this fail faction restriction.
DAoC, widely considered one of the best PvP MMO's ever, was the same. 3 factions, all different, and all fighting.
Did the 3 factions have different races what were widely know for over 10 years through TES lore? which have different appearences and attributes? DAOC was no where near 1% the world TES is, so dont even go there.
The fact this game is 90% PVE with 10% PVP endgame like GW2, doe snot justify the racial/faction restrictions, in a mainly pve game i want to play who what and where i like, this aint fking wow or DAOC lore but they just had to make a wow clone faction system, which is wrong in the firs tplace for this game, i know in 20 years lets make the British Alqaeda and Taliban allies, dont make fu sense but im sure a politition can make some lore ofr it.
I've been a big fan since Daggerfall, and I love the lore. I just think you are making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be. You act like they somehow changed everything about the races, and reconned TES history to support it.
They really didn't though. A lot of the ES races have always had a pretty vague history aside from the Imperials. Khajit and Argonians get filled out a little more each game, usually through the books lying around the games, but that's it.
What's funny is that the one major lore question they've raised/dodged that I never see anyone complain about, has to do with the Orcs. Orcs were basically considered monster living in caves during the time ESO takes place, so they probably shouldn't even be a player race anyway. They didn't have their first city for a good 1000 years after ESO, if I remember correctly.
Aside from that, the rest makes sense. At least enough for the time the game is set in. Still, people get frothing at the mouth over this stuff.
DAoC, widely considered one of the best PvP MMO's ever, was the same. 3 factions, all different, and all fighting.
Just because the developers want this to be DAoC 2 doesn't mean they are right. Elder Scrolls series is considered one of the best rpg games ever, they don't need DAoC's systems to boost their validity.
And just because you disagree with them, doesn't mean you are right. Personally, I prefer to have restricted factions because it creates identity. Who you fight for doesn't mean a whole lot when you can just change sides with a questline. What race your character is doesn't mean a whole lot when you can just choose whatever faction you want. If you strip it down too much, the factions become meaningless. Look at TSW and see how meaningful factions really are when there's no reason to choose one over the other. Imagine WoW, where players can change factions and keep their race, and imagine how much less meaning it would have to be Horde or Alliance. Look at GW2 and tell me with a straight face that the game is has more depth and complexity due to making racial factions irrelevent beyond character looks.
DAoC, widely considered one of the best PvP MMO's ever, was the same. 3 factions, all different, and all fighting.
Just because the developers want this to be DAoC 2 doesn't mean they are right. Elder Scrolls series is considered one of the best rpg games ever, they don't need DAoC's systems to boost their validity.
And just because you disagree with them, doesn't mean you are right. Personally, I prefer to have restricted factions because it creates identity. Who you fight for doesn't mean a whole lot when you can just change sides with a questline. What race your character is doesn't mean a whole lot when you can just choose whatever faction you want. If you strip it down too much, the factions become meaningless. Look at TSW and see how meaningful factions really are when there's no reason to choose one over the other. Imagine WoW, where players can change factions and keep their race, and imagine how much less meaning it would have to be Horde or Alliance. Look at GW2 and tell me with a straight face that the game is has more depth and complexity due to making racial factions irrelevent beyond character looks.
But have you ansewred what is im want to play nord and my friend breton? we cant play together. you or your friend will be forced to play what you dont like to just playe together, and thats what gets on my bellend.
Originally posted by FallguyArmy While I understand the importance of asking questions regarding the lore, considering this is a TES game after all, I'm still baffled as to why there's too much emphasis on this. What about questions regarding actual gameplay? Are people simply satisfied with what they've seen in the trailers? I, for one, feel like the game needs some major improvements, borderline "overhauls". It's not looking/feeling like a TES game at all!
From a nElder Scroll perspectie the "Lore" is the most important thing about the game. I am 100% positive the devs know that gameplay questions are just as important but for their longtime viability they must asuage the fears of so many fans of the single player series so they can get on board. Its only natural.
Who needs good gameplay?
They've got a hot IP, and they want to tell you a story.
Look how well that worked for ToR.
Gameplay first is always a bad idea when you've got a popular IP. Look at all the emphasis on gameplay developers have historically put on games based on popular IP's, and how horrible they always turned out.
No one ever stopped playing a game because it had great lore. I can't help think of all the games with really awesome gameplay and crappy lore that I just coudln't manage to get through.
Originally posted by FallguyArmy While I understand the importance of asking questions regarding the lore, considering this is a TES game after all, I'm still baffled as to why there's too much emphasis on this. What about questions regarding actual gameplay? Are people simply satisfied with what they've seen in the trailers? I, for one, feel like the game needs some major improvements, borderline "overhauls". It's not looking/feeling like a TES game at all!
From a nElder Scroll perspectie the "Lore" is the most important thing about the game. I am 100% positive the devs know that gameplay questions are just as important but for their longtime viability they must asuage the fears of so many fans of the single player series so they can get on board. Its only natural.
Who needs good gameplay?
They've got a hot IP, and they want to tell you a story.
Look how well that worked for ToR.
Gameplay first is always a bad idea when you've got a popular IP. Look at all the emphasis on gameplay developers have historically put on games based on popular IP's, and how horrible they always turned out.
No one ever stopped playing a game because it had great lore. I can't help think of all the games with really awesome gameplay and crappy lore that I just coudln't manage to get through.
I'm playing LOTRO right now and its amazing, the gfx are unbeatable and the Lore and story is so vast and intresting it keeps me playimg, and they have an expansion every year.
Orcs were basically considered monster living in caves during the time ESO takes place, so they probably shouldn't even be a player race anyway.
Holy crap, how cool would that have been. You create an Orc character and you start off in a cave with a loin cloth. After a few levels/story arcs/quests you move out into the world and begin your journey. They could be barbarain like fighters, brutal and feral. Other races see them as monstes but the military uses them for fighting. They are slaves of war going to the faction who captures them.
Originally posted by rguilbert
The whole setup is to allow the end-game content to be RVR...much like DAOC. Allowing everyone to do whatever they wanted would essentially destroy the whole plan for the end game.
YOU CURSE THE GOOD NAME OF ELDER SCROLLS TO ASSUME THEY HAVE AN END GAME!!... sorry caps got sfuck. Seriously, the game ends when you stop playing it. Get the mmo out of your head and look upon the elder scroll.
Originally posted by asmkm22
And just because you disagree with them, doesn't mean you are right. Personally, I prefer to have restricted factions because it creates identity. Who you fight for doesn't mean a whole lot when you can just change sides with a questline. What race your character is doesn't mean a whole lot when you can just choose whatever faction you want. If you strip it down too much, the factions become meaningless. Look at TSW and see how meaningful factions really are when there's no reason to choose one over the other. Imagine WoW, where players can change factions and keep their race, and imagine how much less meaning it would have to be Horde or Alliance. Look at GW2 and tell me with a straight face that the game is has more depth and complexity due to making racial factions irrelevent beyond character looks.
No one is right or wrong, regardless of what we think these are just opinions we are throwing around. Personally I prefer to have open factions because it creates characters.
There is no changing sides, you belong to no faction. Each race will start in the faction owned areas already assigned. There will be a prominent military force of that faction that will always try to recruit you BUT you have a choice. After a certain level you must join the military or you can flee. If you flee you begin the exploration part of the game.
There will be NPC military presence all over Tamriel from each of the factions, around the borders and in major towns. If you are from another area your enviroment is considered hostile territory (enemy NPCs you would quest against). You could quest with rebellion armies hiding around, traders, travelers, other players, or you can try to join the opposing faction. You surrender to the army and pledge your service. You may have to go to a prison camp, work as a mercenary, be a messenger, or other storylines depending on the faction. Eventually you'll work your way up through the ranks the good ol' fashion elder scrolls way.
Factions are not meaningless in this senerio. Yes it would be difficult and risky but no more difficult and risky a standard mmo is currently. Let go of the mmo stereotype, make it more casual to join the faction you started with but for people who want to work for something, give them the option to join another faction. Every project has problems but part of the creation process is to plan, solve and execute.
I have to be honest, I wouldn't want racial segeration in guild wars 2 (I even liked the legacy racial thing in SWTOR). The games depth and complexity had nothing to do with mixing races. I also enjoyed going up to stormwind in stealth as a horde. I liked the fact I could travel there and see where they quest. If they wanted to copy wow, why didn't they at least copy the persistent world with natural borders and no limitations part.
Comments
Those factions never would have worked, due to geographical restrictions. Maybe Breton's, Redguard, and Nord, but even that would have been an awkward fit due to having Orcs right in the middle.
High Elves and Wood Elves are at least corner of the world, but Dark Elves are in the opposite corner.
Argonian, Khajit, and Orcs don't share even a single border between any of them, not to mention their cultures are all completely different.
It sounds kind of like you have no real grasp of Elder Scrolls lore, which is fine. Your suggestion just makes no real sense as a result.
You make me like charity
DAoC, widely considered one of the best PvP MMO's ever, was the same. 3 factions, all different, and all fighting.
You make me like charity
Did the 3 factions have different races what were widely know for over 10 years through TES lore? which have different appearences and attributes? DAOC was no where near 1% the world TES is, so dont even go there.
The fact this game is 90% PVE with 10% PVP endgame like GW2, doe snot justify the racial/faction restrictions, in a mainly pve game i want to play who what and where i like, this aint fking wow or DAOC lore but they just had to make a wow clone faction system, which is wrong in the firs tplace for this game, i know in 20 years lets make the British Alqaeda and Taliban allies, dont make fu sense but im sure a politition can make some lore ofr it.
Just because the developers want this to be DAoC 2 doesn't mean they are right. Elder Scrolls series is considered one of the best rpg games ever, they don't need DAoC's systems to boost their validity.
It also had ace lore, with the factions bound to Celtic, Viking and Arthurian mythology respectively.
So don't even go there
I would have preferred if you joined one of 3 factions like in Morrowind, but there's nothing wrong with them picking RVR as the pvp model, as tes single player games DON'T HAVE PVP AT ALL! So they had to pick one pvp model.
So the choices were
1 ffa guild based pvp like eve and darkfall which I like, but would scare away all the pure pve types.
2 wow style instanced away minigames. I.e. pointless shite
Or 3 rvr with pvp and pve flagged areas of the world.
I think they made the right choice considering the budget / risk of the game. But like I said would prefer if you joined one of 3 imperial houses like the dark elf houses in Morrowind.
I think considering the devs worked on daoc and uo before, this is unlikely to be a wow style raiders first everyone else second game. I mean they've talked a lot more about endgame pvp than they have pve.
because the zone in the middle is pvp? and the rest of the game world is pve and they are tsalkign constantly about pve pve pve public pve dungeons pve exploration pve mobs pve dynamics, are you retarded? this is mainly a pve game jsut like gw2, people will do pvp mainly endgame, dont be some pvp fanboy thinking one of the worlds best rpg games is goign to be mainly pvp.
Mainly pve games - wow, swtor, tsw, eq
Mainly pvp games - planetside, darkfall
Games with a nice balance of the 2 - eve, daoc, gw2 and probably TESO.
Let's take your "tiny pvp area" its the entire size of oblivion, its the whole province of cyrodil.
Now say you are a nord. You get the whole of skyrim and vardenfell for pve and the whole of cyrodil for pvp. So 2/3rds of your world is pve, 1/3rd pvp. But... quite a bot of that pve area will be leveling content, let's say for argument 50% of it, so at endgame half your relevant world is pve the other pvp.
The fact that they haven't gone with token tacked on mini game bullshit. The fact that being the best at pvp leads to the ultimate reward, getting crowned as emperor. The fact that they keep talking up this faction war despite all the howls of protest. the fact that all the lead devs are fans of and cone from games with a strong emphasis on pvp. All this points to your 90% pve "fact" being a whole load of bullshit made up on the spot.
I like how you say GW2 is mainly a PVE game, yet most people PVP ont he game, hence WVWVW and the structured PVP, guild wars is all about PVP even int he first game. GW2 has a lot of pve content to play though how you see it is opinion. Just because TESO has a end game pvp zone where you can become the emperor dont make it the main means of the game, why would they turn a pure PVE IP into a mainly PVP IP? when what we wanted for years and years is TES multiplayer?
So TESO will be mainly a pve game with endgame pvp, but as myself am mainly a pvper, just like gw2 when they hyped WvWvW as the most epic thing ever and it turned out to be a fraking boring ass zerg fest of 100 peopel running around the map kiling groups of 10 people and caping a castle.I agree that details about gameplay would be more interesting than lore questions. However, many of the people griping seem to be concerned with lore, so maybe the devs are trying to placate them.
As for complaining that you can't play any race and do whatever you want to with regards to joining different factions, etc...I think people are being ridiculous. The whole setup is to allow the end-game content to be RVR...much like DAOC. Allowing everyone to do whatever they wanted would essentially destroy the whole plan for the end game. The same folks saying they know better than the devs about how to guide gameplay would be the ones complaining that there isn't anything to do once they reaced level cap if they got their way.
From what I can tell, this is headed towards being an RVR game with a TES flavor. If that's not your thing, then perhaps this game won't be for you. If you want to play TES single player or co-op, the good news is that a new TES game is being worked on.
I still dont see why we cant pick a race and e.g. get to lv 10 and thean pick a faction to fight for in pvp, not only does it mean me and friends cant play together because i dont liek the races they play and they dont like the races i play but it means its going to be more boring exploring the worls as we will always see the same 3 races.
We NEED to be able to pick race and then perma pick faction, theres no excluse fo rit and its easier lore wise to make it fit and allows people to play the race they want, imagine for a moment how man people will be forced to play the race they dont want to just to play with friends? do you think that is fair at all?
I've been a big fan since Daggerfall, and I love the lore. I just think you are making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be. You act like they somehow changed everything about the races, and reconned TES history to support it.
They really didn't though. A lot of the ES races have always had a pretty vague history aside from the Imperials. Khajit and Argonians get filled out a little more each game, usually through the books lying around the games, but that's it.
What's funny is that the one major lore question they've raised/dodged that I never see anyone complain about, has to do with the Orcs. Orcs were basically considered monster living in caves during the time ESO takes place, so they probably shouldn't even be a player race anyway. They didn't have their first city for a good 1000 years after ESO, if I remember correctly.
Aside from that, the rest makes sense. At least enough for the time the game is set in. Still, people get frothing at the mouth over this stuff.
You make me like charity
And just because you disagree with them, doesn't mean you are right. Personally, I prefer to have restricted factions because it creates identity. Who you fight for doesn't mean a whole lot when you can just change sides with a questline. What race your character is doesn't mean a whole lot when you can just choose whatever faction you want. If you strip it down too much, the factions become meaningless. Look at TSW and see how meaningful factions really are when there's no reason to choose one over the other. Imagine WoW, where players can change factions and keep their race, and imagine how much less meaning it would have to be Horde or Alliance. Look at GW2 and tell me with a straight face that the game is has more depth and complexity due to making racial factions irrelevent beyond character looks.
You make me like charity
But have you ansewred what is im want to play nord and my friend breton? we cant play together. you or your friend will be forced to play what you dont like to just playe together, and thats what gets on my bellend.
Who needs good gameplay?
They've got a hot IP, and they want to tell you a story.
Look how well that worked for ToR.
Gameplay first is always a bad idea when you've got a popular IP. Look at all the emphasis on gameplay developers have historically put on games based on popular IP's, and how horrible they always turned out.
No one ever stopped playing a game because it had great lore. I can't help think of all the games with really awesome gameplay and crappy lore that I just coudln't manage to get through.
I'm playing LOTRO right now and its amazing, the gfx are unbeatable and the Lore and story is so vast and intresting it keeps me playimg, and they have an expansion every year.
Holy crap, how cool would that have been. You create an Orc character and you start off in a cave with a loin cloth. After a few levels/story arcs/quests you move out into the world and begin your journey. They could be barbarain like fighters, brutal and feral. Other races see them as monstes but the military uses them for fighting. They are slaves of war going to the faction who captures them.
YOU CURSE THE GOOD NAME OF ELDER SCROLLS TO ASSUME THEY HAVE AN END GAME!!... sorry caps got sfuck. Seriously, the game ends when you stop playing it. Get the mmo out of your head and look upon the elder scroll.
No one is right or wrong, regardless of what we think these are just opinions we are throwing around. Personally I prefer to have open factions because it creates characters.
There is no changing sides, you belong to no faction. Each race will start in the faction owned areas already assigned. There will be a prominent military force of that faction that will always try to recruit you BUT you have a choice. After a certain level you must join the military or you can flee. If you flee you begin the exploration part of the game.
There will be NPC military presence all over Tamriel from each of the factions, around the borders and in major towns. If you are from another area your enviroment is considered hostile territory (enemy NPCs you would quest against). You could quest with rebellion armies hiding around, traders, travelers, other players, or you can try to join the opposing faction. You surrender to the army and pledge your service. You may have to go to a prison camp, work as a mercenary, be a messenger, or other storylines depending on the faction. Eventually you'll work your way up through the ranks the good ol' fashion elder scrolls way.
Factions are not meaningless in this senerio. Yes it would be difficult and risky but no more difficult and risky a standard mmo is currently. Let go of the mmo stereotype, make it more casual to join the faction you started with but for people who want to work for something, give them the option to join another faction. Every project has problems but part of the creation process is to plan, solve and execute.
I have to be honest, I wouldn't want racial segeration in guild wars 2 (I even liked the legacy racial thing in SWTOR). The games depth and complexity had nothing to do with mixing races. I also enjoyed going up to stormwind in stealth as a horde. I liked the fact I could travel there and see where they quest. If they wanted to copy wow, why didn't they at least copy the persistent world with natural borders and no limitations part.