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[ArtOfLight]

The absolute realization that everything you've worked for at [Current Max Level] will be worthless within a couple of hours into the next expansion with an increased levelcap has kinda ruined my enjoyment of the typical modern "Max level, then ENDGAME, OH SWEET JESUS; WE HAVE ENDGAME!"-MMO. But hey, there'll be another set of challenges (industry for "hamster wheel") so that you can be as good as you were prior to the expansion. 

Therefore that little sentence "once you reach level 50 the game opens up" is a warning flag for me.

A valid concern, but if the game progresses as everything I've read and seen seems to suggest it will progress, there's very little (if any) grind in ESO. What the director is talking about is certain more difficult areas of the game are locked until you reach a high enough level to be able to actually get through them (hero dungeons, so to speak). From what I've seen, this essentially means that places you've been before (because it's an open world that you can explore at any level) will have changed by that point to be more challenging for higher level characters, like a second instance of an already explored area.

I am extremely averse to grinds and chores while playing a game, but I'm pretty optimistic that this game won't have it.

[ArtOfLight]

I wouldn't be so radical myself but I thought something in the lines of "doesn't look elder-scrollish" a lot on some visuals. Color saturated (bad) FX, amongst other visuals that makes me think their artistic direction might not be totally faithful toward the original series... Looks very "standard MMO-ish" to me. Not surprising since it is another studio that is in charge and not Bethesda, right ?

It lacks definitly something imo, but to the point of saying that they are screwing things royally, well, i'm not that into the licence to begin with so I couldnt tell. But the video game artist in me is not really impressed for now.

The models are necessarily a little more stylized because more of them have to fit on the screen at one time. In the single player games, more attention to detail and sharper textures and graphics can be put into the game because the game is only rendering one dynamic character: the player character. In an MMO, the engine will need to render multiple dynamic characters (up to 200 is their goal), so the characters will have to be slightly less detailed and sharp.

Also, keep in mind that the game is still in its pre-alpha phase, so much of what you see is likely to be sharpened out, shaped up and refined before the game is actually released.

[Lyn Farel]

The absolute realization that everything you've worked for at [Current Max Level] will be worthless within a couple of hours into the next expansion with an increased levelcap has kinda ruined my enjoyment of the typical modern "Max level, then ENDGAME, OH SWEET JESUS; WE HAVE ENDGAME!"-MMO. But hey, there'll be another set of challenges (industry for "hamster wheel") so that you can be as good as you were prior to the expansion. 

Therefore that little sentence "once you reach level 50 the game opens up" is a warning flag for me.

A valid concern, but if the game progresses as everything I've read and seen seems to suggest it will progress, there's very little (if any) grind in ESO. What the director is talking about is certain more difficult areas of the game are locked until you reach a high enough level to be able to actually get through them (hero dungeons, so to speak). From what I've seen, this essentially means that places you've been before (because it's an open world that you can explore at any level) will have changed by that point to be more challenging for higher level characters, like a second instance of an already explored area.

I am extremely averse to grinds and chores while playing a game, but I'm pretty optimistic that this game won't have it.

How do you progress in this game ?

I wouldn't be so radical myself but I thought something in the lines of "doesn't look elder-scrollish" a lot on some visuals. Color saturated (bad) FX, amongst other visuals that makes me think their artistic direction might not be totally faithful toward the original series... Looks very "standard MMO-ish" to me. Not surprising since it is another studio that is in charge and not Bethesda, right ?

It lacks definitly something imo, but to the point of saying that they are screwing things royally, well, i'm not that into the licence to begin with so I couldnt tell. But the video game artist in me is not really impressed for now.

The models are necessarily a little more stylized because more of them have to fit on the screen at one time. In the single player games, more attention to detail and sharper textures and graphics can be put into the game because the game is only rendering one dynamic character: the player character. In an MMO, the engine will need to render multiple dynamic characters (up to 200 is their goal), so the characters will have to be slightly less detailed and sharp.

Also, keep in mind that the game is still in its pre-alpha phase, so much of what you see is likely to be sharpened out, shaped up and refined before the game is actually released.

I am not sure what you call a "dynamic character". As long as the character has animation and real time visual generation, the fact that it is a NPC or a PC changes almost nothing in terms of graphic calculations. You will still have that number of triangles and that texture resolution to draw.

[Wanoah]

Let's be brutally honest here. The Elder Scrolls Online will spread its wobbly cheeks and shit all over anything that anyone ever liked about the games. It will be bereft of anything even remotely approaching a redeeming feature.

The only way it can possibly result in a positive outcome is if it fails so dramatically that it takes down the developers and publishers in a blaze of bitter recriminations and finger pointing. Maybe then the cycle of abuse that MMOs represent will finally be broken. Then we just need someone to somehow excise the cancer of Call of Honor XXIV from gaming's nether regions so we can all go walking off into the sunset hand-in-hand and singing songs of love.

[Lyn Farel]

The only way it can possibly result in a positive outcome is if it fails so dramatically that it takes down the developers and publishers in a blaze of bitter recriminations and finger pointing. Maybe then the cycle of abuse that MMOs represent will finally be broken.

Let's be brutally honest here. Did it work  even with the SWTOR example ? 

[ArtOfLight]

Let's be brutally honest here. The Elder Scrolls Online will spread its wobbly cheeks and shit all over anything that anyone ever liked about the games. It will be bereft of anything even remotely approaching a redeeming feature.

The only way it can possibly result in a positive outcome is if it fails so dramatically that it takes down the developers and publishers in a blaze of bitter recriminations and finger pointing. Maybe then the cycle of abuse that MMOs represent will finally be broken. Then we just need someone to somehow excise the cancer of Call of Honor XXIV from gaming's nether regions so we can all go walking off into the sunset hand-in-hand and singing songs of love.

I respectfully disagree. Only time will tell, further deliberation would be pointless.

Lyn,

Ignoring my use of the term "dynamic" character (since it really doesn't serve a purpose in the long run), the base point is that the Elder Scrolls single player games don't render more than a few persons on the screen at any given time.

 I think the most I've seen without someone actually leading a large group of people to a single location is between 15 and 20 and that's within villages and towns.

You also have to account for the number and size of areas loaded on the computer at one time. In a single player game, the player's computer is both server and client. All maps, AI, treasure tables, NPCs, PCs, saved games, character information, etc is saved on the computer. All rendering and calculating is done by that same computer. Because of this, a single player computer can load areas in localized maps called "instances." (Nearly any time you see a loading screen, a new "instance" is being loaded). The computer doesn't have to keep the world map running while the player is exploring ruins, it can save the state of the world map and load only the instance into memory and video memory. This frees up more memory and allows the computer to render more in-depth textures, effects and animations.

In an MMO, on the other hand, the server and client are separate computers. The server must have all instances available and open at all times for anyone visiting them (some instances can avoid being loaded if no one is in them but will load on demand), this places a significant load on the server computer. Likewise, all input commands must pass through the server before the game processes them, further placing demands on the server computer. The client only deals with client-side video rendering and communicating between the server and itself.

The result of this type of set up is that the polygon count of all objects and the resolution of textures must be reduced to a significantly lower base sample so that the server can render and calculate many more objects and textures at all times.

I'm sure we could discuss it in much greater detail as much more goes on than this, but the point is that everything is slightly less detailed because of demand, not because of choice.

[Lyn Farel]

To begin with I want to say that I agree with you on the fact that MMOs often require less detailed 3D objects since sceneries are often wider but especially since they might have to bring on screen a lot mor potential characters (on open worlds mostly, the rest is mostly like any standard solo RPG).

However I think you might be confusing several different things, which is what I will call roughly hard computing, graphic computing time, and data computing.

- Hard computing is used to compute everything tied to the core engine of a game, like the physics, the gameplay, etc. The CPU is involved.

- Graphic computing time, the most hungry on a video game of that caliber, concerns everything tied to the visuals (directX, 3D objects, shaders, post process, the graphic engine, etc). The GPU is involved.

- Data computing mostly is about keeping tables of data and keeping tabs on all the info and variables the game might need (like the character info, spatial position, its inventory, whatever). It is totally insignificant in comparison of the rest : nothing involves big calculations of any kind, just a lot of transfers of data and adressing. It mostly involves bandwith.



Now, graphic computing is still 100% done by the client in any MMO, nothing changes compared to any solo game. It's the same. In a MMO it is not the server that calculates what is put on your screen for you, it's your computer.

Hard computing is done on both sides. What is server side mostly concerns the coordination and the processing of... data.

Now then, the amount of data of a solo game is very small. In a MMO of course, it can be quite huge (as all eve players have experienced). What makes the servers "lag" is not the power required to make the graphics run (that is client side), but the sheer processing power to process all the data sent by thousands of players and then send it back to them with the results, and also the bandwith it requires for so many transactions.

It is also a key point in the difference between a client computer and a server. The former has one or  two CPUs, and a GPU big enough to display the game. The latter has dozens of CPUs, huge amounts of memory, and a very different base architecture that allows it to process thousands of different things at the same time, this coupled with huge bandwith to send it back to the users, but I don't even know if they have a single graphic processor.

So no, a server does not compute objects and textures, but a lot of data. When too much data has to be processed, then we end up in situations like in Eve when everything becomes a lagfest and the server eventually crashes, overloaded, while our computers are awaiting eagerly for the answers to the requests they sent 10 min ago.

If you lag only because of :graphics: then your computer is to blame. This is why they often try in MMO to use lower quality models to be able to sustain extreme situations, as you say, where hundred of characters have to be displayed at the same time by the client.

[Shiori]

Let's be brutally honest here. The Elder Scrolls Online will spread its wobbly cheeks and shit all over anything that anyone ever liked about the games. It will be bereft of anything even remotely approaching a redeeming feature.

Quite. The latest trailers and information make it out to be less "The Elder Scrolls Online" and more "Every Goddamned MMO Ever Except We Say 'Mudcrabs' Sometimes."

[Shiki]

No personal knowledge on my part, but I have a co-worker who took part in the latest CBT and he described the game as essentially being an empire-building game. He said a lot of it had to do with territory control and resource management, and I got the impression it functioned, at least in a fundamental way, similar to Sov space in EVE. I asked him if he felt that the mechanics punished solo play, which he affirmed, adding that it felt like a game where whoever brings the most players wins.

[Lyn Farel]

From what I have heard, people that have tried RvR are pretty unanimous : it is really great.

[Vic Van Meter]

 

Well, I'll give it some time after it comes out to even out a bit.  I had some hopes, at least.  MMORPGs are such a great concept, they're just so hard to put into practice.  I'm starting to think that developers are just running out of good content ideas, so it's easier to build and balance a PVP-centric game and let your player base essentially create your challenging content for you.  There was a time they made games ridiculously difficult and made you learn to overcome the game, rather than just fearing that your grind would be interrupted by the other players.

Whatever happened to the concept of giving us a challenge so great that only with your four mightiest friends could you conquer it?  Maybe I'm just getting ancient, but I kind of feel like PVE content in new RPGs is being made too easy and RVR PVP is being pushed as a viable alternative.  For God's sakes, if I wanted my content to be player generated, I'd go back to running my own freestyle RPs.  That's what I pay companies for, to make me an interesting game and to keep putting new, interesting stuff all the time to make it worth the subscription cost.

[Arista Shahni]

I was informed it costs 20$ more to play an Imperial.

Wat.

Yehno.  Not playing it.

[Elmund Egivand]

Goddamned necromancers!

[Jace]

Goddamned necromancers!

Fo reals.

[Morwen Lagann]

I was informed it costs 20$ more to play an Imperial.

Wat.

Yehno.  Not playing it.

There's a lot of other stuff that goes with that, like being able to place the Imperial characters in whichever of the 3 alliances you choose (whereas you're effectively race-locked with all the other options), but you're right, $20 seems a little silly.

I'll probably try it for a month when it comes out. If I like it I might stick with it. If I don't, I'll just wait for TES6.