September 1997 was the last day of the original beta test. The beta ended with a bang, as players were treated to an "end of the world" scenario with Shadowlords, demons, and other evil creatures slaughtering every character in sight. Ultima Online opened its doors to the public.[36] In 1998, the game expanded, and the number of users reached over 100,000 worldwide. In 1999, the game expanded to Japan in January, to Europe in May, and to South Korea in July.Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_OnlineSo only 2 expansions were tested publicaly for beta.One closed(1997) and one open(2009)The official game never had "outside" beta testing or "public" testing.I'm not calling you out. Just clairify first so people don't look it up, like I did, and lose credibility.Now I do agree with your post op. I have yet to see any "patch notes" for a build we have not tested yet. I was getting pissed yesterday because the quests were bugged to death and for some reason my character would swing to death and the enemy would still be standing there looking at me like, "duh". lol
You aren't calling me out, I was in the beta test. I actually have a still active account that was created the day UO launched and I had been part of the last beta in 1997 (I'm an old fart - good thing this isn't Logan's Run!) so it's fine if people look it up. Having been beta testing that long doesn't make me special, I only use it as a reference that I have experienced betas going back a very long way when they were quite different than now.
Yeah this weekend was tough because I actuallye xpected to see some of the naggy bugs like and getting locked in crafting fixed and then to be falling through the world and have previously fine quests bugged was annoying. I have a plan for launch though in case these issues still persist so as long as I can connect and stay online I am set to be happy :-)
DANG dude. Thats a long time yo'. I think I started my first beta 5 years ago lol.
Although in 1997 I was 12 lol.
In 1997 I was 31... told you I was old! My first computer was in 1983, a TRS-80 Model 4 with 16k (yes 16k) memory and a cassette drive. Oh, and it cost like $1500. The dual 512k floppies I added later cost another $800.
You forgot the daisy wheel printer! I had one at least lol.
-Rig
16k of memory and dual floppies; luxury. You probably had DOS as well rather than CPM.
Yup, I was living the high life! CLOAD ftw!
I love ESO but it has nothing on the original Zork! Grues still give me nightmares.
I love beta testing. I submitted bugs with screenshots long time ago. And the bugs are still there. So, really, I don't care. I know what the game is about, I played it, reported bugs, now I can make an informed decision if I want to play the game at launch. I don't need you tube videos or info from zenimax bootlickers such as the T foundry, et al, to know what's the state of this game. Many submitted bug reports since day 1. Beta forums were full of them. The huge invite of millions was more of a stress test because the devs know launch day is gonna be hell. Better to know now their systems can not handle the horde of players that will try to play the game at launch than wait for launch and screw it all. I don't think it's their fault; it is what it is; if they don't want to push back the release and then comes launch day with millions of players unable to even login, well, then the devs are to blame anyway.
I agree with the OP. I plan to play but I have warned off friends who are not 100% devoted to the game to wait until it's stable. I want them to stay in the game playing and not quit in frustration after a few weeks.
If the bugs upset people so much, they shouldn't be on a computer, let alone play any games. There are bugs in your Computer's OS, there are bugs in your e-mail programs, there bugs in your browser you are looking at right now. There are bugs everywhere. By some people's thought process, nobody should use a computer at all until all the bugs have been worked out
Originally posted by Gravarg If the bugs upset people so much, they shouldn't be on a computer, let alone play any games. There are bugs in your Computer's OS, there are bugs in your e-mail programs, there bugs in your browser you are looking at right now. There are bugs everywhere. By some people's thought process, nobody should use a computer at all until all the bugs have been worked out
There are bugs in my front yard. Should I hide in my house and pretend they aren't there, or work to get rid of the ones interrupting the enjoyment of my lawn?
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Not a single sub based mmo that launched in recent years managed to remain sub based. They are all Free to play or buy to play. ESO will be no exception.
Its a waiste of money to buy it now, better wait and get it for free within 6+ months ? Maybe abit longer, but it aint worth a box price and a sub, hell no.
2) The community on Tamriel Foundry are all ESO fans, obviously there is going to be very little friction or negativity. This forum on the other hand is for all types of players, many who will have a different perspective to yourself.
3) Nice quests? The quests were shallow and dull. If voice acting is all it takes for a quest to be great then TSW and SWTOR are light years better than ESO. Not sure how anyone manages to get immersed in ESO. I guess people are so desperate for a 'dark realistic' MMO that they are happy to overlook the quality of its components.
4) I agree that the character building is nice. Could do with more skills unlinked to weapons / class though.
OP sorry but I'm getting pissed on people who whine and whine on every single thing )
No need to apologize, it is frustrating, but for many of them it's not because they are "whiners" but because Zenimax has made some curious choices that can shake the confidence of those on the fence. When a publisher announces that a beta is their "final" one before launch and then invite as many as 5 million people to it, the perception is going to be that it's a preview of things to come. Now that perception may be wrong, but since it has become industry standard that final betas are really sneak peeks it behooves the publisher to consider that standard when they offer their beta.
If I had to guess, the real issue is that Zenimax ran short on time and the game may not be "ready" for launch but they have to launch it anyway because they have committed to it. Because they ran short on time, their final beta was lacking the polish it needs and thereby disappointed a lot of people.
I refuse to debate the status of a possible PTS build that may be better because I learned a long time ago not to take every report from everyone who claims to be "in the know" because most of them (and I'm not saying who is or is not) are just making up stuff to sound important. I bought the game and if they offered subscriptions now I'd sign up for the longest one possible right now without waiting for launch, but I will see on launch day if the release version is any better. If it is, great! If it's not, I'll survive until they smooth it out.
Not a single sub based mmo that launched in recent years managed to remain sub based. They are all Free to play or buy to play. ESO will be no exception.
Its a waiste of money to buy it now, better wait and get it for free within 6+ months ? Maybe abit longer, but it aint worth a box price and a sub, hell no.
I'm going to have to respectfully disagree, but I do understand where you are coming from.
I'm not going to agree or disagree on whether or when ESO will change subscription models because I don't have a crystal ball.. maybe it will happen, maybe it won't... maybe it'll be 6 months, a year, two... again, don't know... nobody does for sure.
What I will disagree with is your contention that it's a waste of money to buy it now. If I enjoy it for the next 6 months then my money isn't wasted. I have no expectations (hopes yes, expectations no) that it will be close to perfect, but bottom line is if I have fun then considering the relative cost of entertainment, it's not a waste at all... for me. If you prefer to wait for a different model then yes it would be a waste for you.
Not a single sub based mmo that launched in recent years managed to remain sub based. They are all Free to play or buy to play. ESO will be no exception.
Its a waiste of money to buy it now, better wait and get it for free within 6+ months ? Maybe abit longer, but it aint worth a box price and a sub, hell no.
Ah, FFXIV.
Granted it's still young but it's a sub based MMO that has not gone F2P.
The truth is that F2P games do make more money per active player than sub based games do. The odd part to me about that is why do some many consumers consider that a good thing? When 90% of your development effort is spent creating new dresses to put in the cash shop or new mounts to put inside lock boxes that have 100:1 or higher odds of winning at $1 a pop for the keys why do we as consumers celebrate these games? I'm not saying that sub based games that never release new content is good either and frankly most of these "failed" sub based MMO's did so because they lacked long term value but F2P isn't the answer to this industries woos either especially if you like compiling new content and not fluff.
I played all factions and i have to say broken quests depend on what faction you played. For example Dagerfall have barely any broken quests and if anything breaks simple re log fixed it, while Aldmeri dominion had tons of broken quests.
Preordered CE edition and will play as DC. So far enjoyed the game a lot.
I played all factions and i have to say broken quests depend on what faction you played. For example Dagerfall have barely any broken quests and if anything breaks simple re log fixed it, while Aldmeri dominion had tons of broken quests.
Preordered CE edition and will play as DC. So far enjoyed the game a lot.
Let's hope launch doesn't find a whole bunch of new bugs!
Not too many of us 10 year MMORPG veterans around!
Not a single sub based mmo that launched in recent years managed to remain sub based. They are all Free to play or buy to play. ESO will be no exception.
Its a waiste of money to buy it now, better wait and get it for free within 6+ months ? Maybe abit longer, but it aint worth a box price and a sub, hell no.
Ah, FFXIV.
Granted it's still young but it's a sub based MMO that has not gone F2P.
The truth is that F2P games do make more money per active player than sub based games do. The odd part to me about that is why do some many consumers consider that a good thing? When 90% of your development effort is spent creating new dresses to put in the cash shop or new mounts to put inside lock boxes that have 100:1 or higher odds of winning at $1 a pop for the keys why do we as consumers celebrate these games? I'm not saying that sub based games that never release new content is good either and frankly most of these "failed" sub based MMO's did so because they lacked long term value but F2P isn't the answer to this industries woos either especially if you like compiling new content and not fluff.
This is what i agree on and also what the OP said in his posts regarding what Zenimax did with the last beta.
I just hope it was a mistake and that yes it was a different build then on the PTS. Time will tell. And yes i will wait a few months after release before buying this game, i will monitor there forums to see what players say and watch youtubes from players giving there impression.
I played all factions and i have to say broken quests depend on what faction you played. For example Dagerfall have barely any broken quests and if anything breaks simple re log fixed it, while Aldmeri dominion had tons of broken quests.
Preordered CE edition and will play as DC. So far enjoyed the game a lot.
Let's hope launch doesn't find a whole bunch of new bugs!
Not too many of us 10 year MMORPG veterans around!
There is actually only 1 bug that I am aware of. It's a problem with overloading the phasing mechanics, that can't keep up with all the respawning of the objectives in quests. When did people experience the most problems ? It is in the most crowded places where there was the most phases of the same event happening. The only bug is that the mob or the clicky would not respawn.
It's all linked to the same bug, which could be because Zenimax pushed the stress to the extreme to figure exactly what was too much.
If you played ahead of the crowd in the 20s level areas you probably didn't experience any of those "bugs''. I know that I didn't, I completed all the quests there without having to relog.
I played all factions and i have to say broken quests depend on what faction you played. For example Dagerfall have barely any broken quests and if anything breaks simple re log fixed it, while Aldmeri dominion had tons of broken quests.
Preordered CE edition and will play as DC. So far enjoyed the game a lot.
Let's hope launch doesn't find a whole bunch of new bugs!
Not too many of us 10 year MMORPG veterans around!
There is actually only 1 bug that I am aware of. It's a problem with overloading the phasing mechanics, that can't keep up with all the respawning of the objectives in quests. When did people experience the most problems ? It is in the most crowded places where there was the most phases of the same event happening. The only bug is that the mob or the clicky would not respawn.
It's all linked to the same bug, which could be because Zenimax pushed the stress to the extreme to figure exactly what was too much.
If you played ahead of the crowd in the 20s level areas you probably didn't experience any of those "bugs''. I know that I didn't, I completed all the quests there without having to relog.
I wonder if this is the reason or something else. The reason I say that is because it seems like a chicken or the egg argument. It's easy to say that the spawning issue was because of too many people in the area, but it seemed to me that there were too many people in the area because the stuff didn't spawn. You could relog to a new instance (1 relog, 2, maybe 10 sometimes) and you'd come to an area that didn't have 20 people standing around waiting for the spawn, but that also tells me the first person that got there didn't get the spawn and over time the number of people waiting grew.
So is the phasing issue really related to too many people or does it just seem that way over time and really is something else?
Not a single sub based mmo that launched in recent years managed to remain sub based. They are all Free to play or buy to play. ESO will be no exception.
Its a waiste of money to buy it now, better wait and get it for free within 6+ months ? Maybe abit longer, but it aint worth a box price and a sub, hell no.
Ah, FFXIV.
Granted it's still young but it's a sub based MMO that has not gone F2P.
The truth is that F2P games do make more money per active player than sub based games do. The odd part to me about that is why do some many consumers consider that a good thing? When 90% of your development effort is spent creating new dresses to put in the cash shop or new mounts to put inside lock boxes that have 100:1 or higher odds of winning at $1 a pop for the keys why do we as consumers celebrate these games? I'm not saying that sub based games that never release new content is good either and frankly most of these "failed" sub based MMO's did so because they lacked long term value but F2P isn't the answer to this industries woos either especially if you like compiling new content and not fluff.
This is what i agree on and also what the OP said in his posts regarding what Zenimax did with the last beta.
I just hope it was a mistake and that yes it was a different build then on the PTS. Time will tell. And yes i will wait a few months after release before buying this game, i will monitor there forums to see what players say and watch youtubes from players giving there impression.
There was a time before massive pre-order campaigns, Internet vial marketing and digital downloads where game launch day wasn't the huge deal it is today. People filtered into games instead of rushing to them as word of mouth, game magazine articles, and just seeing the box in the store made people interested in buying the game. There is nothing wrong with waiting on a game like this and seeing how it goes. I don't like the people who proclaim "I'll play it when it goes F2P" because it's really nothing more than a cheap jab at the game but those who chose not to play at launch because they want to see how it goes I think is fair. At this point I'm still undecided on the longer term viability of this game. It look interesting enough to purchase and try for a month or three but after that I just don't know and it's really in the hands of Zenimax to keep me as a subscriber.
I liked the game a lot but the dismounts were ridiculous. Also a bug in PVP when a wall or door gets knocked down and you cannot see the rubble. You just have to jump over and even stand on top of a transparent block of nothing.
I can put up with some of that for a short while post-launch because it's not my first MMO and I get that these games never launch in a perfected state. But within 30 days that stuff better be fixed or the natives will be really restless.
I played all factions and i have to say broken quests depend on what faction you played. For example Dagerfall have barely any broken quests and if anything breaks simple re log fixed it, while Aldmeri dominion had tons of broken quests.
Preordered CE edition and will play as DC. So far enjoyed the game a lot.
Let's hope launch doesn't find a whole bunch of new bugs!
Not too many of us 10 year MMORPG veterans around!
There is actually only 1 bug that I am aware of. It's a problem with overloading the phasing mechanics, that can't keep up with all the respawning of the objectives in quests. When did people experience the most problems ? It is in the most crowded places where there was the most phases of the same event happening. The only bug is that the mob or the clicky would not respawn.
It's all linked to the same bug, which could be because Zenimax pushed the stress to the extreme to figure exactly what was too much.
If you played ahead of the crowd in the 20s level areas you probably didn't experience any of those "bugs''. I know that I didn't, I completed all the quests there without having to relog.
I wonder if this is the reason or something else. The reason I say that is because it seems like a chicken or the egg argument. It's easy to say that the spawning issue was because of too many people in the area, but it seemed to me that there were too many people in the area because the stuff didn't spawn. You could relog to a new instance (1 relog, 2, maybe 10 sometimes) and you'd come to an area that didn't have 20 people standing around waiting for the spawn, but that also tells me the first person that got there didn't get the spawn and over time the number of people waiting grew.
So is the phasing issue really related to too many people or does it just seem that way over time and really is something else?
Not necessarily the number of people in that instance at the same time as you, but the number of those phases needed for all the people doing the same thing. It happened in the solo phases too. But what I think is that whatever ressources was needed to populate those quests over the thousands of those phases wasn't keeping up.
Comments
Yup, I was living the high life! CLOAD ftw!
I love ESO but it has nothing on the original Zork! Grues still give me nightmares.
I love beta testing. I submitted bugs with screenshots long time ago. And the bugs are still there. So, really, I don't care. I know what the game is about, I played it, reported bugs, now I can make an informed decision if I want to play the game at launch. I don't need you tube videos or info from zenimax bootlickers such as the T foundry, et al, to know what's the state of this game. Many submitted bug reports since day 1. Beta forums were full of them. The huge invite of millions was more of a stress test because the devs know launch day is gonna be hell. Better to know now their systems can not handle the horde of players that will try to play the game at launch than wait for launch and screw it all. I don't think it's their fault; it is what it is; if they don't want to push back the release and then comes launch day with millions of players unable to even login, well, then the devs are to blame anyway.
If they don't care enough to fix a quest in a month for the next beta test, I can't imagine what they will do on release.
Yes I know it's supposedly not the latest version used for the test, in my opinion that's even worse. Why bother to test an outdated version???
There are bugs in my front yard. Should I hide in my house and pretend they aren't there, or work to get rid of the ones interrupting the enjoyment of my lawn?
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Not a single sub based mmo that launched in recent years managed to remain sub based.
They are all Free to play or buy to play.
ESO will be no exception.
Its a waiste of money to buy it now, better wait and get it for free within 6+ months ?
Maybe abit longer, but it aint worth a box price and a sub, hell no.
1) Dungeons are not amazing, challenging or fun.
2) The community on Tamriel Foundry are all ESO fans, obviously there is going to be very little friction or negativity. This forum on the other hand is for all types of players, many who will have a different perspective to yourself.
3) Nice quests? The quests were shallow and dull. If voice acting is all it takes for a quest to be great then TSW and SWTOR are light years better than ESO. Not sure how anyone manages to get immersed in ESO. I guess people are so desperate for a 'dark realistic' MMO that they are happy to overlook the quality of its components.
4) I agree that the character building is nice. Could do with more skills unlinked to weapons / class though.
No need to apologize, it is frustrating, but for many of them it's not because they are "whiners" but because Zenimax has made some curious choices that can shake the confidence of those on the fence. When a publisher announces that a beta is their "final" one before launch and then invite as many as 5 million people to it, the perception is going to be that it's a preview of things to come. Now that perception may be wrong, but since it has become industry standard that final betas are really sneak peeks it behooves the publisher to consider that standard when they offer their beta.
If I had to guess, the real issue is that Zenimax ran short on time and the game may not be "ready" for launch but they have to launch it anyway because they have committed to it. Because they ran short on time, their final beta was lacking the polish it needs and thereby disappointed a lot of people.
I refuse to debate the status of a possible PTS build that may be better because I learned a long time ago not to take every report from everyone who claims to be "in the know" because most of them (and I'm not saying who is or is not) are just making up stuff to sound important. I bought the game and if they offered subscriptions now I'd sign up for the longest one possible right now without waiting for launch, but I will see on launch day if the release version is any better. If it is, great! If it's not, I'll survive until they smooth it out.
Here's to hoping!
I'm going to have to respectfully disagree, but I do understand where you are coming from.
I'm not going to agree or disagree on whether or when ESO will change subscription models because I don't have a crystal ball.. maybe it will happen, maybe it won't... maybe it'll be 6 months, a year, two... again, don't know... nobody does for sure.
What I will disagree with is your contention that it's a waste of money to buy it now. If I enjoy it for the next 6 months then my money isn't wasted. I have no expectations (hopes yes, expectations no) that it will be close to perfect, but bottom line is if I have fun then considering the relative cost of entertainment, it's not a waste at all... for me. If you prefer to wait for a different model then yes it would be a waste for you.
Ah, FFXIV.
Granted it's still young but it's a sub based MMO that has not gone F2P.
The truth is that F2P games do make more money per active player than sub based games do. The odd part to me about that is why do some many consumers consider that a good thing? When 90% of your development effort is spent creating new dresses to put in the cash shop or new mounts to put inside lock boxes that have 100:1 or higher odds of winning at $1 a pop for the keys why do we as consumers celebrate these games? I'm not saying that sub based games that never release new content is good either and frankly most of these "failed" sub based MMO's did so because they lacked long term value but F2P isn't the answer to this industries woos either especially if you like compiling new content and not fluff.
I played all factions and i have to say broken quests depend on what faction you played. For example Dagerfall have barely any broken quests and if anything breaks simple re log fixed it, while Aldmeri dominion had tons of broken quests.
Preordered CE edition and will play as DC. So far enjoyed the game a lot.
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Exactly this!
Most of the folks arguing that Zenimax is greedy and just wants to milk the early subscribers to maximize financial income completly ignore that fact!
They could easily make more money from the beginning if they set up a F2P / ingame shop system …
Let's hope launch doesn't find a whole bunch of new bugs!
Not too many of us 10 year MMORPG veterans around!
This is what i agree on and also what the OP said in his posts regarding what Zenimax did with the last beta.
I just hope it was a mistake and that yes it was a different build then on the PTS. Time will tell. And yes i will wait a few months after release before buying this game, i will monitor there forums to see what players say and watch youtubes from players giving there impression.
There is actually only 1 bug that I am aware of. It's a problem with overloading the phasing mechanics, that can't keep up with all the respawning of the objectives in quests. When did people experience the most problems ? It is in the most crowded places where there was the most phases of the same event happening. The only bug is that the mob or the clicky would not respawn.
It's all linked to the same bug, which could be because Zenimax pushed the stress to the extreme to figure exactly what was too much.
If you played ahead of the crowd in the 20s level areas you probably didn't experience any of those "bugs''. I know that I didn't, I completed all the quests there without having to relog.
I wonder if this is the reason or something else. The reason I say that is because it seems like a chicken or the egg argument. It's easy to say that the spawning issue was because of too many people in the area, but it seemed to me that there were too many people in the area because the stuff didn't spawn. You could relog to a new instance (1 relog, 2, maybe 10 sometimes) and you'd come to an area that didn't have 20 people standing around waiting for the spawn, but that also tells me the first person that got there didn't get the spawn and over time the number of people waiting grew.
So is the phasing issue really related to too many people or does it just seem that way over time and really is something else?
There was a time before massive pre-order campaigns, Internet vial marketing and digital downloads where game launch day wasn't the huge deal it is today. People filtered into games instead of rushing to them as word of mouth, game magazine articles, and just seeing the box in the store made people interested in buying the game. There is nothing wrong with waiting on a game like this and seeing how it goes. I don't like the people who proclaim "I'll play it when it goes F2P" because it's really nothing more than a cheap jab at the game but those who chose not to play at launch because they want to see how it goes I think is fair. At this point I'm still undecided on the longer term viability of this game. It look interesting enough to purchase and try for a month or three but after that I just don't know and it's really in the hands of Zenimax to keep me as a subscriber.
I liked the game a lot but the dismounts were ridiculous. Also a bug in PVP when a wall or door gets knocked down and you cannot see the rubble. You just have to jump over and even stand on top of a transparent block of nothing.
I can put up with some of that for a short while post-launch because it's not my first MMO and I get that these games never launch in a perfected state. But within 30 days that stuff better be fixed or the natives will be really restless.
Not necessarily the number of people in that instance at the same time as you, but the number of those phases needed for all the people doing the same thing. It happened in the solo phases too. But what I think is that whatever ressources was needed to populate those quests over the thousands of those phases wasn't keeping up.