ZeniMax Cancels Planned North American In-Person Elder Scrolls Online 10th Anniversary Event | MMORP

System · December 7

ZeniMax Cancels Planned North American In-Person Elder Scrolls Online 10th Anniversary Event | MMORPG.com

The Elder Scrolls Online's 10th anniversary celebration is still going to continue into 2025, but one event won't be part of the celebratory slate anymore: a North American in-person community event.

Read the full story here

GrindcoreTHRALL · December 7

ESO is unofficially in maintenance mode

mitech616 · December 7

"Screw you, 'Murica!" LOL

Seriously though, it would have been nice for them to at least say WHY.

Robokapp · December 8

You want them to say "did not forecast to meet financial profitability" ?

Zandog · December 8

GrindcoreTHRALL said:

ESO is unofficially in maintenance mode

Based of the quality of their content the past few years, I'd tend to agree with this.

wyrren · December 9

Let's churn out literally the same formulaic slop every expansion with almost zero bearings on gameplay other than to just make it worse and then act surprised when players abandon ship.

I played this game for 5 years before the copium ran out.

Eldrach · December 9

wyrren said:

Let's churn out literally the same formulaic slop every expansion with almost zero bearings on gameplay other than to just make it worse and then act surprised when players abandon ship.

I played this game for 5 years before the copium ran out.

I think the «start anywhere, everything will scale with your level» hurt the game somewhat - there is no sense of progression in the story if you need to be able to «start at the end». They should’ve looked to WoW there - where scaling only applies to older expansions

sweetdreams · December 9

This is what happens when you focus on RMT vs subscriptions and player happiness. The game has steadily turned into crap with those awful loot boxes. Keep doing you, Zenimax.

Kyleran · December 9

So, time for Zenimax to release ESO Classic?

KnightFalz · December 9

sweetdreams said:

This is what happens when you focus on RMT vs subscriptions and player happiness. The game has steadily turned into crap with those awful loot boxes. Keep doing you, Zenimax.

They don't focus on RMT and instead put out a steady stream of sold content and have an optional subscription. The cash shop supplements that revenue but doesn't replace it as in some games. Recent updates have been generally well received, so whatever.

KnightFalz · December 9

Eldrach said:

wyrren said:

Let's churn out literally the same formulaic slop every expansion with almost zero bearings on gameplay other than to just make it worse and then act surprised when players abandon ship.

I played this game for 5 years before the copium ran out.

I think the «start anywhere, everything will scale with your level» hurt the game somewhat - there is no sense of progression in the story if you need to be able to «start at the end». They should’ve looked to WoW there - where scaling only applies to older expansions

The game would benefit from a character creation option that allows players to confine themselves to the original three character stories before opening up the wider world. That would allow the main story to be fully explored before the waters get muddied with the abundance of that which came after. That would provide a bit more solid foundation for those that want it while retaining the freedom of choice for those that don't.

The sense of your progression is moving from the handful of abilities you start with to the much broader depth you end out with. There is a huge difference between the former and latter, especially for your first character that has no CP pool to draw from.

Scot · December 9

KnightFalz said:

Eldrach said:

wyrren said:

Let's churn out literally the same formulaic slop every expansion with almost zero bearings on gameplay other than to just make it worse and then act surprised when players abandon ship.

I played this game for 5 years before the copium ran out.

I think the «start anywhere, everything will scale with your level» hurt the game somewhat - there is no sense of progression in the story if you need to be able to «start at the end». They should’ve looked to WoW there - where scaling only applies to older expansions

The game would benefit from a character creation option that allows players to confine themselves to the original three character stories before opening up the wider world. That would allow the main story to be fully explored before the waters get muddied with the abundance of that which came after. That would provide a bit more solid foundation for those that want it while retaining the freedom of choice for those that don't.

The sense of your progression is moving from the handful of abilities you start with to the much broader depth you end out with. There is a huge difference between the former and latter, especially for your first character that has no CP pool to draw from.

It would also benefit from a return to proper levelling, a real sense of achievement has been replaced with a misplaced sense of freedom.

Elidien_ga · December 9

With so much content and so many expansions, the playerbase is also too spread out. For example, I like to get achievements in the game and I need several group events in the Western Skyrim expansion. There is hardly anyone out there which makes the content moot. Same with a lot of the group content in Craglorn. Sure people are playing but they have moved on to other things.

vanderghast · December 9

Eldrach said:

wyrren said:

Let's churn out literally the same formulaic slop every expansion with almost zero bearings on gameplay other than to just make it worse and then act surprised when players abandon ship.

I played this game for 5 years before the copium ran out.

I think the «start anywhere, everything will scale with your level» hurt the game somewhat - there is no sense of progression in the story if you need to be able to «start at the end». They should’ve looked to WoW there - where scaling only applies to older expansions

That and the limited skills and forced swapping hot bars to accommodate consoles. Having a limited skill set was SUPER boring to me in a MMO and none of the classes were all that interesting. That coupled with the poor graphics.... My skyrim looks way better than ESO.

Sovrath · December 9

Scot said:

KnightFalz said:

Eldrach said:

wyrren said:

Let's churn out literally the same formulaic slop every expansion with almost zero bearings on gameplay other than to just make it worse and then act surprised when players abandon ship.

I played this game for 5 years before the copium ran out.

I think the «start anywhere, everything will scale with your level» hurt the game somewhat - there is no sense of progression in the story if you need to be able to «start at the end». They should’ve looked to WoW there - where scaling only applies to older expansions

The game would benefit from a character creation option that allows players to confine themselves to the original three character stories before opening up the wider world. That would allow the main story to be fully explored before the waters get muddied with the abundance of that which came after. That would provide a bit more solid foundation for those that want it while retaining the freedom of choice for those that don't.

The sense of your progression is moving from the handful of abilities you start with to the much broader depth you end out with. There is a huge difference between the former and latter, especially for your first character that has no CP pool to draw from.

It would also benefit from a return to proper levelling, a real sense of achievement has been replaced with a misplaced sense of freedom.

There isn’t anything misplaced about the game’s “freedom.” You have freedom to start in multiple areas and go wherever you want.

You are free to mix and match options for your class.

The issue is making an Elder Scrolls mmorpg when the built in fan base was used to exploration.

KnightFalz · December 9

Scot said:

KnightFalz said:

Eldrach said:

wyrren said:

Let's churn out literally the same formulaic slop every expansion with almost zero bearings on gameplay other than to just make it worse and then act surprised when players abandon ship.

I played this game for 5 years before the copium ran out.

I think the «start anywhere, everything will scale with your level» hurt the game somewhat - there is no sense of progression in the story if you need to be able to «start at the end». They should’ve looked to WoW there - where scaling only applies to older expansions

The game would benefit from a character creation option that allows players to confine themselves to the original three character stories before opening up the wider world. That would allow the main story to be fully explored before the waters get muddied with the abundance of that which came after. That would provide a bit more solid foundation for those that want it while retaining the freedom of choice for those that don't.

The sense of your progression is moving from the handful of abilities you start with to the much broader depth you end out with. There is a huge difference between the former and latter, especially for your first character that has no CP pool to draw from.

It would also benefit from a return to proper levelling, a real sense of achievement has been replaced with a misplaced sense of freedom.

It's fine as is. There are plenty of games with "proper" levelling for those that want that. One of the few MMORPGs that stepped out of that box needn't climb back in.

ValdemarJ · December 9

KnightFalz said:

Scot said:

KnightFalz said:

Eldrach said:

wyrren said:

Let's churn out literally the same formulaic slop every expansion with almost zero bearings on gameplay other than to just make it worse and then act surprised when players abandon ship.

I played this game for 5 years before the copium ran out.

I think the «start anywhere, everything will scale with your level» hurt the game somewhat - there is no sense of progression in the story if you need to be able to «start at the end». They should’ve looked to WoW there - where scaling only applies to older expansions

The game would benefit from a character creation option that allows players to confine themselves to the original three character stories before opening up the wider world. That would allow the main story to be fully explored before the waters get muddied with the abundance of that which came after. That would provide a bit more solid foundation for those that want it while retaining the freedom of choice for those that don't.

The sense of your progression is moving from the handful of abilities you start with to the much broader depth you end out with. There is a huge difference between the former and latter, especially for your first character that has no CP pool to draw from.

It would also benefit from a return to proper levelling, a real sense of achievement has been replaced with a misplaced sense of freedom.

It's fine as is. There are plenty of games with "proper" levelling for those that want that. One of the few MMORPGs that stepped out of that box needn't climb back in.

I prefer level scaling in MMOs and RPGs to "over leveling" and cheesing content. Some of the more robust and deep RPGs like The Witcher 3 offer settings option to scale content.

The problem I see with ESO is that the the narrative threads aren't well organized so people can easily get lost trying to follow story lines and quest threads.

In my opinion, WoW isn't superior in this aspect like a poster above claims. Each major area in WoW feels completely disconnected from the others. I also feel like ESO's scaling feels so much more natural.

My opinion is that players here who want a return to "proper" leveling should just go play many of the retro-styled MMOs that already offer "proper" leveling and the cheesing of early zones.

Scot · December 10

Sovrath said:
There isn’t anything misplaced about the game’s “freedom.” You have freedom to start in multiple areas and go wherever you want.

You are free to mix and match options for your class.

The issue is making an Elder Scrolls mmorpg when the built in fan base was used to exploration.

I think the sense of freedom is misplaced because being able to choose the order you do zones is not that big a deal. Indeed in a story rich game like ESO, playing the zones in the order they wanted you to makes for a better story. Now in the later zone additions they may well (I don't know) have decided to take out that continuation of story arcs, but if they did it was because of the new scaling and not because that is a better way to do it.

I question the exploration argument, you are exploring each zone regardless of whether you can pick which zones you do first or not.

Valdemar mentioned chessing content, sure that is an issue, but every system has its bad points, overall the sense of achievement and the continuation of story arcs is more important. Also I would not be opposed to scaling once you reach top level, which would keep that feeling of accomplishment going forward.

KnightFalz · December 10

ValdemarJ said:

KnightFalz said:

Scot said:

KnightFalz said:

Eldrach said:

wyrren said:

Let's churn out literally the same formulaic slop every expansion with almost zero bearings on gameplay other than to just make it worse and then act surprised when players abandon ship.

I played this game for 5 years before the copium ran out.

I think the «start anywhere, everything will scale with your level» hurt the game somewhat - there is no sense of progression in the story if you need to be able to «start at the end». They should’ve looked to WoW there - where scaling only applies to older expansions

The game would benefit from a character creation option that allows players to confine themselves to the original three character stories before opening up the wider world. That would allow the main story to be fully explored before the waters get muddied with the abundance of that which came after. That would provide a bit more solid foundation for those that want it while retaining the freedom of choice for those that don't.

The sense of your progression is moving from the handful of abilities you start with to the much broader depth you end out with. There is a huge difference between the former and latter, especially for your first character that has no CP pool to draw from.

It would also benefit from a return to proper levelling, a real sense of achievement has been replaced with a misplaced sense of freedom.

It's fine as is. There are plenty of games with "proper" levelling for those that want that. One of the few MMORPGs that stepped out of that box needn't climb back in.

I prefer level scaling in MMOs and RPGs to "over leveling" and cheesing content. Some of the more robust and deep RPGs like The Witcher 3 offer settings option to scale content.

The problem I see with ESO is that the the narrative threads aren't well organized so people can easily get lost trying to follow story lines and quest threads.

In my opinion, WoW isn't superior in this aspect like a poster above claims. Each major area in WoW feels completely disconnected from the others. I also feel like ESO's scaling feels so much more natural.

My opinion is that players here who want a return to "proper" leveling should just go play many of the retro-styled MMOs that already offer "proper" leveling and the cheesing of early zones.

The narrative is disconnected, and intentionally so for many of the chapters. ESO started out with connected chapters, then abandoned that for a whole bunch of stand alone chapters. It was just with Necrom that they returned to stories connected over a few chapters. Couple that with NPCs that actually call out to you and attempt to lure you into accepting disconnected quests as soon as you get to the mainland and you end out with quite a mess for anyone that wants to play through the game stories in order, for those that are actually ordered.

It's a big problem to tackle if they ever want to fix it, and since they can't be bothered to stick with their announced live events for a major game anniversary I doubt they'll care enough to do much of anything about it at this point.

I'm starting to think it may be time for me to put this one out to pasture, though I'm not sure what I would replace it with if I did so.

Sovrath · December 10

Scot said:

Sovrath said:
There isn’t anything misplaced about the game’s “freedom.” You have freedom to start in multiple areas and go wherever you want.

You are free to mix and match options for your class.

The issue is making an Elder Scrolls mmorpg when the built in fan base was used to exploration.

I think the sense of freedom is misplaced because being able to choose the order you do zones is not that big a deal. Indeed in a story rich game like ESO, playing the zones in the order they wanted you to makes for a better story. Now in the later zone additions they may well (I don't know) have decided to take out that continuation of story arcs, but if they did it was because of the new scaling and not because that is a better way to do it.

I question the exploration argument, you are exploring each zone regardless of whether you can pick which zones you do first or not.

Valdemar mentioned chessing content, sure that is an issue, but every system has its bad points, overall the sense of achievement and the continuation of story arcs is more important. Also I would not be opposed to scaling once you reach top level, which would keep that feeling of accomplishment going forward.

Well that’s certainly an opinion. Just because you don’t think it’s a big deal doesn’t mean others don’t. I would say that the real draw is to go anywhere you want.

It’s not really tied up in story order. And as others have pointed out, they really borked the original storyline by allowing people to stumble on it without any context.

The big issues when the game came out were that the player was locked to the land mass of one faction until they completed the main story and that pvp was seemingly shoe horned into the game.

The other issue is that you are inundated into a faction and then told suddenly you are to care for additional factions.

You don’t seem to understand the elder scrolls “vibe” regarding being able to explore and go where you want.

If you don’t remember I’ll remind you that the curtailed exploration to one’s faction lands was a sticking point when the game launched.

Psycked · December 10

Clearly we now know where the game is most popular.

ValdemarJ · December 11

KnightFalz said:

ValdemarJ said:

KnightFalz said:

Scot said:

KnightFalz said:

Eldrach said:

wyrren said:

Let's churn out literally the same formulaic slop every expansion with almost zero bearings on gameplay other than to just make it worse and then act surprised when players abandon ship.

I played this game for 5 years before the copium ran out.

I think the «start anywhere, everything will scale with your level» hurt the game somewhat - there is no sense of progression in the story if you need to be able to «start at the end». They should’ve looked to WoW there - where scaling only applies to older expansions

The game would benefit from a character creation option that allows players to confine themselves to the original three character stories before opening up the wider world. That would allow the main story to be fully explored before the waters get muddied with the abundance of that which came after. That would provide a bit more solid foundation for those that want it while retaining the freedom of choice for those that don't.

The sense of your progression is moving from the handful of abilities you start with to the much broader depth you end out with. There is a huge difference between the former and latter, especially for your first character that has no CP pool to draw from.

It would also benefit from a return to proper levelling, a real sense of achievement has been replaced with a misplaced sense of freedom.

It's fine as is. There are plenty of games with "proper" levelling for those that want that. One of the few MMORPGs that stepped out of that box needn't climb back in.

I prefer level scaling in MMOs and RPGs to "over leveling" and cheesing content. Some of the more robust and deep RPGs like The Witcher 3 offer settings option to scale content.

The problem I see with ESO is that the the narrative threads aren't well organized so people can easily get lost trying to follow story lines and quest threads.

In my opinion, WoW isn't superior in this aspect like a poster above claims. Each major area in WoW feels completely disconnected from the others. I also feel like ESO's scaling feels so much more natural.

My opinion is that players here who want a return to "proper" leveling should just go play many of the retro-styled MMOs that already offer "proper" leveling and the cheesing of early zones.

The narrative is disconnected, and intentionally so for many of the chapters. ESO started out with connected chapters, then abandoned that for a whole bunch of stand alone chapters. It was just with Necrom that they returned to stories connected over a few chapters. Couple that with NPCs that actually call out to you and attempt to lure you into accepting disconnected quests as soon as you get to the mainland and you end out with quite a mess for anyone that wants to play through the game stories in order, for those that are actually ordered.

It's a big problem to tackle if they ever want to fix it, and since they can't be bothered to stick with their announced live events for a major game anniversary I doubt they'll care enough to do much of anything about it at this point.

I'm starting to think it may be time for me to put this one out to pasture, though I'm not sure what I would replace it with if I did so.

I stopped playing FO76 and ESO when I started playing mainly on console because Bethesda/Zenimax artificially separates everything purchased between the two platforms. I think both games are great and I recommend anyone check them out, but some of their operational and development positions drive me crazy. I can relate to what you say.

In the end I'm unwilling to start all over and buy everything again just to play on Xbox, not to mention all the FOMO I've unlocked over the years that I won't be able to access. That's on me, but it did eventually motivate to find different things to play.

Scot · December 11

Sovrath said:
Well that’s certainly an opinion. Just because you don’t think it’s a big deal doesn’t mean others don’t. I would say that the real draw is to go anywhere you want.

It’s not really tied up in story order. And as others have pointed out, they really borked the original storyline by allowing people to stumble on it without any context.

The big issues when the game came out were that the player was locked to the land mass of one faction until they completed the main story and that pvp was seemingly shoe horned into the game.

The other issue is that you are inundated into a faction and then told suddenly you are to care for additional factions.

You don’t seem to understand the elder scrolls “vibe” regarding being able to explore and go where you want.

If you don’t remember I’ll remind you that the curtailed exploration to one’s faction lands was a sticking point when the game launched.

I played ESO from launch, back in the day when people who played the beta were telling us how easier the combat was now, which was not a popular opinion at the time.

It may not be as tied up in story order as it was, but there is still a best chronological way to do the zones. If you don't play it that way NPC's who you have never met will talk to you as if you had met them etc. :

ESO Chronological Timeline Guide - Best Way to Play the Story - ESO Hub - Elder Scrolls Online

You are quite right about the way they poorly implemented the sudden need to help other factions. There should have been a story arc to explain that, it was rather jarring.

I do get the "elder scrolls vibe" you mention, but this was a MMORPG, we could not expect it to be exactly like the RPG series. OT also removed much of the the importance of race and guild in terms of lore, so the lore and roleplaying got hit in multiple ways.

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ZeniMax Cancels Planned North American In-Person Elder Scrolls Online 10th Anniversary Event | MMORP

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ZeniMax Cancels Planned North American In-Person Elder Scrolls Online 10th Anniversary Event | MMORP

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