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[Interview] Elder Scrolls Online: The Imperial City And Beyond
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Before the live (and livestreamed) presentation for The Elder Scrolls Online at QuakeCon 2015, I had a chance to sit with Game Director Matt Firor and ask him a few questions about the game and especially the upcoming Imperial City DLC. While most of what we talked about was covered in the later presentation – that's just the way the interview scheduling went – I think there's still some value in hearing these kind of things in a more private setting, away from the lights and crowds. Where appropriate, I've augmented Firor's replies with a little extra context from the presentation.
Read more of Jason Winter's Elder Scrolls Online: The Imperial City and Beyond.
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Comments
A year and a half for pvp content and they're releasing it when pvp is at it's worst rather than fixing already existing problems. Well, here's to a couple of months of laggy gameplay killing people in I.C. then moving on to other games.
21 year MMO veteran
PvP Raid Leader
Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
From what I have heard the PvP in the game is suffering big time and this expansion, which is a pay DLC provides mostly PvP area and next to no PvE at all? How can you create a mostly PvP expansion and toss in a trickle of PvE and charge for it? Especially when part of that tiny amount of PvE is more PvE levels.
Anyway, here is the paygate so many of us were saying back in beta was going to come to the game after the sub was going to disappear!
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
What paygate???? If you subscribe as you did before you get all required content free as you did before. Whats happened is now there is a second option added to not subscribe but get everything else for free and pay for the extras you want.
I suffer from depression and I am pretty cynical but subscriber has only changed for the better. As a subscriber the only things you don't get are access to free cosmetic items or nice little enhancements such as tonics but you do get in game cash to spend on these and you do get subscriber buffs.
I have no idea where this paygate is coming from either.
If the game was still sub only you would get this for free. You still get this for free if you sub.
ZOS said their new payment model was paid DLCs if you do not sub. Nothing new here.
You can still buy the content with your sub as you get 1500 points a month which basically means you get the benefits of a sub for free and are simply paying for points for additional and mostly optional content.
Almost NOTHING has changed other than you can buy some cosmetic crap from the story if you want but is absolutely not required.
To sum up: You had to previously sub to play the game and that is all you got. Now you sub to play the game and get 1500 crowns a month to stuff you previously couldn't. Or simply buy the game and pay for dlcs if you want and play for absolutely free.
How that fuck is this worse now?
You stay sassy!
Man people have been tossing this misrepresentation out for over a year now. Millions of copies continue to sell and the PvP gets better and better.
Awesome game is awesome. If you are a mmorpg pvpr, you are playing ESO.
On the PTR they will be testing on how much of a % to use when players get killed on lose Tel Var Stones. It isnt going to a 100% drop all of your stones system. The writer would know this if they actually read the official forums or asked the right questions.
There is also no pay gate. Subscribe like you did before and nothing changes. Or just purchase the DLC whenever you want. You can still get the next VR ranks and you can trade for the crafted gear that comes from the IC DLC ( dropped loot is changed to bind on pick up sadly ).
The Sewers are going to be pretty sick with 3 different levels and each faction running around in there.
" From what I heard from a fellow hater that his game is worse than it ever was blah blah blah blah " SMH. People are still beating that drum.
What gets me about articles like this who are down on games with actual B2P models is that they support games like STO NWO GW2, and Archeage who've all had a long long history of gauging the players pockets to get anything at all meaningful for the sake of progression when it comes to gear, items for crafting or even skills to be trained and used but when a game comes out that actually has the RIGHT kind of economic model and that's doing so well with the changes they are making suddenly that's a bad thing.
Opinions like these just reinforce the belief that it's not the writer's opinions but the shareholders (the people who put together the PR and the who manipulate the PC gamers for example) propaganda that these pieces are written by and it reinforces the real problems that gamergate was REALLY about the unnatural and unwanted relationship between the powerful publishers and the press.
I can say as a player who's been in all of the games I've listed that this game has been nothing nothing at all but a breathe of fresh air in a completely manipulative and coercive MMO market that these developers have been nothing but honest and dedicated to bringing a game that's fun and that's for the players not the shareholders.
When i read about the stone looting I too initially thought it was going to be another Archeage in the making however I read further and the PVE stone rewards are actually locked behind a box you get from the PVE quest, when you do those quests you can keep those stones in their boxes because the boxes are not lootable and you can open them when you get to a PVE only zone and put them in your bank. They are using a fair system.
All Time Favorites: EQ1, WoW, EvE, GW1
Playing Now: WoW, ESO, GW2
Even though I'm not crazy about this interview and the muddling of the monetization model and TV stones (and presumably every other grievance the writer will air come next Festivus) I have to say, that I've thought that making this particular piece of content, the IC, paid DLC has never sat well with me either.
Why not? Because I'm an old DAoC vet and I remember what it was like when Darkness Falls was introduced there.
DF was a very similar concept to the IC. It was a shared PVE/PVP space with highly-desirable PVE content, unique items and its own currency for getting those items. You had to earn entry to DF by controlling certain PVP objectives outside of DF in the main PVP area. It created a shared community goal that was important to both, those who PVP'd all the time anyway and those who didn't. It often created several hours of PVP fighting just to gain access to it and when the call went out that we were trying to do that, players came running from everywhere to work on the push.
I thought the IC entry had the potential to work in similar fashion as a community event - something all MMOs should be trying to emphasize more.
IDK what the breakdown of subber / non-subber is in ESO but there is one. Why would a non-subber have any interest in participating in a community event if they're going to miss out on the final reward?
I think ZOS knows that this is a potential problem. Their way of dealing with it? When the IC goes on the PTS next week, there will be no entry requirement: anyone form any alliance can go into the IC whenever they wish. This is one of the ways of doing it that they're contemplating when it goes live with a couple of other ways to be tested in the PTS: control of all 6 of your home keeps (which could still result in all 3 alliances having access as if there were no requirements) and control of most of the keeps (resulting in one alliance at a time having access.
But I don't know what they hope to find out about access requirements by testing it in an environment where all players will be deemed to own rights to the IC. What do you think will happen when it goes live and you have a Cyrodiil population that doesn't all own the DLC or have access by subbing? This is what will happen: "screw you bud. you take your sorry band and try to recapture Brindle so you can go into the IC. We're on an Emp push."
Of course, they can just go with the default entry all the time for anyone and that problem wouldn't exists... and neither will the community event that gaining entry could have been.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Played this game over a year before launch all the way till now. This statement is beyond baffling. The PC pvp population has withered away over and over to the point where only a handful of actual "only" pvp guilds exist on each faction. There's no need for blind fanboyism here, you'll experience the lag, the broken skills, the unfixed exploits and bugs, the unbalanced classes, and lack of content.
The proof is in the game, they've removed campaign after campaign (like a server for those who haven't played) and twice since launch lowered the max populations of each campaign where it is 1/3 of what it was at launch. This is with far worse, 10-25x, worse lag and multiple forms of pvp content removed rather than changed and re-implemented (camps, mercenaries, former emp buffs, etc.)
We now have one non vet and one vet campaign that reaches locked pops during primetime, and one through two others only have certain factions reach locked pop on weekends. The forums are littered with leaving players and guilds who are expressing their feelings about lag and issues non stop, as it has been for months. Even console players, who are the only ones who could possibly say this is a "good" pvp game, are starting to experience game-breaking lag and bugs. Just look to the forums, just log in and play and all the evidence is present.
21 year MMO veteran
PvP Raid Leader
Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
For all the complaints about this expansion being a "gate" or whatever... So you'd rather pay a monthly sub that's roughly near the price of an expansion that you just pay for once?
If that was the case, ESO on the PC would be busting at the seams and I would be leading the charge. You and I both know there are more than a couple of hundred thousand PVPers that play PC MMOs.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
Del Cabon
A US Army ('Just Cause') Vet and MMORPG Native formerly of Trinsic, Norath and Dereth. Currently playing LOTRO.
That is a million times better than a free to play model with an absurdly greedy cash shop.
But you dont have to buy DLC, you can always subscribe if that tickles your fancy. You will still have to purchase expansions, which....oh my.... they are downloadable content(DLC) too! and in mmos!
This is not an expansion..... it is barely a DLC. The content of Imperial City was suppose to be an update in the game shortly after launch to finish what we were promised. They held IC back with the excuse that they needed to focus on console. Now they want to market it and sell it to us as a DLC!
I agree with many posts.... there needs to be a fix to the broken, laggy pvp first. This will just be a gankfest for those who are already manipulating the broken Champion System and abilities.
I can't believe anyone would trust what this guy says any longer. He has lied to us players that were in from beta right thru to them going B2P. If anything the IC should be free to all of us. It has been done way before they went B2P.
I also agree the major bugs in PvP should be fixed before adding anything else to the game. But instead of doing that they worked on consoles and what do anyone have to look forward to, just more lag on all platforms of the game.
This could have been a great game but sadly the people at the top like Matt just don't give a hoot about us just how much they can get for a broken game.
Star Citizen – The Extinction Level Event
4/13/15 > ELE has been updated look for 16-04-13.
http://www.dereksmart.org/2016/04/star-citizen-the-ele/
Enjoy and know the truth always comes to light!
Expansions are not DLC, not in the sense the word is being used here. MMO players have always accepted having to pay for expansions because of the size of them in terms of what gets added. They have never accepted having to pay for content patches, because nobody has ever asked them to before.
This is, in my opinion, an awful trend in no way made up for by the fact you can access the content for as long as you maintain your subscription. If accepted, it sets the precedent that people are willing to pay for an mmos content patches. There are expectations when you pay the box price of an MMO or buy an expansion. You're not just buying the game as is, your'e also going to be content they create for the game until their next expansion and you know they'll create the content to maintain interest and log ins from their player base. Anyone who bought GW2 at launch did so knowing they would get everything GW2 up until the first expansion pack dropped. People buying ESO today are buying a snapshot of how ESO is right now, this patch, and that's all anyone who ever buys the game again will ever get. There is a difference between these to approaches, from a consumer perspective.
Whether accepted or not, it segregates the community in this game to haves and have nots, those who sub or buy DLC and thus have access to drops or materials in new content and b2p only people will not. While I welcome more b2p players to cut down, I don't want them to be easy to cut down because they can't get the same stuff I can. I want everyone I come across to be capable of posing a challenge, no matter how much they've paid ZOS.
Expansions are not DLC? All a question of degree which is the point that sketocafe is making. Go check out the SWTOR forums for example: was RotH an expansion or a DLC drop and so on.
As for DLC dividing the community - subs do that as well; the division being between people who pay that month and people who don't. And if you look at a "traditional" mmo like EQ1 all new content was via paid, 6 monthly, downloadable expansion. Guess the community must have been split.
Your GW2 comment is valid but only applies to early PC adopters - those possibly "enticed" by the "promise" of new content every 4-6 weeks. The majority of TESO purchasers now are - probably - console driven; so they know all about the B2P aspect. And B2P titles in general - the norm on consoles - have paid DLC: BF3, BF4, Titanfall, Destiny, Withcher, Dark Souls, The Sims, CKII, Civ .... subs are the exception. So good point but the real question is: were early PC adopters "deceived" by non-delivery of content under the subscription model?.
We don't know how TESO would have fared if it had launched as B2P on day 1; we don't know how it would have fared if it had kept the sub option. We do know that subs "failed" - in the sense that Zenimax changed and we do know that the B2P has "succeeded" sufficiently to give us a promise of 4 DLCs. (Failed and succeeded being relative terms of course.)
What you are suggesting is that Z should have stayed with the failed model. I prefer the option that provides new content. However if you stay in the original areas then everyone you come across will have access to all the original content. Your choice. Fewer people maybe but that is the way it was going anyway so no loss there.
The B2P + paid extras is a tried and tested model. Airlines offer a range of ticket prices - they would like everyone to travel 1st and give them "free" food, extra leg room and lots of luggage but they recognise that they also have to offer a more basic option with paid extra and even a budget option: you want to take a bag on your trip? Car manufacturers. The film industry - you pay for each film, you don't pay every month whilst you wait for the next film to possibly come. And so on.
The business model you are advocating is rare. AC offered it; CoH made a big deal of it; FFXI, FFXIV; WoW used it - past tense deliberate. Most early mmos had paid new content. More recent mmos have failed with a sub.
what is the pvp like in this game is it like daoc rvr ?.
never played the pvp in this game seems pointless without a mount.
The boxes with Tel Var Stones are these bind on pickup. Because there is another part people are saying that you can put these into your bank, now does this mean your alts can take them from the bank and use them.
Or when you loot a player or npc you get a treasure chest and inside will be the Tel Var stones so the chests must be bind on pickup but the stones inside them will not be.
So if you have several Veteran players it will be good for all of them especially if you have Veteran players in all 3 factions.
Now what would be a nice update is that alliance points could be shared among your characters having played this game from Beta I have 7 characters 3 VR14, been doing PvP on all characters but you only start getting serious AP at VR14 now my VR14 characters have all the AP they will every need but my other 4 characters are in desperate need of AP.
The new Tel Var stones can be shared among your characters AP should be.
How is that different from before? The Imperial City was never going to be " free " as you would have had to have a subscription to even play at the time anyway. The same is still true. Subscribe and you will get IC and the DLC that comes later. Now players have the option to just purchase it if they want and $20 every 3 months isnt a big deal for many hours of content.