*** Official Elder Scrolls MMO Thread ***

[LateX'Dog]

Come on you can't be that naive surely? They all say that in the beginning - Rift, WoW, TSW, AoC, LoTR - none planned cash shops. Like I said, it's a sign of the times and a slippery slope once started. The only question is how long ESO will run before it happens. It may not be in at the start, but it will arrive (within this year I predict) and you just have to hope they don't pull any nonsense with the stuff they sell in there.

If it's one thing I hate about this sector, it's cash shops

I have no doubt that a form of pet and mount store will be coming, but as of now and as of release there is not a cash shop.

Cash shop is a dirty word, which is why the WS fanboy losers keep popping in this thread and spreading there crap.

There is no botting, no bots exist.
There is no cash shop, as of now and launch there isn't a cash shop.
There is no more AHK hacking, as the API has been closed.

They keep coming in and trying to find something negative and then making it out like its true.

Wish they would just grow up.

 

[LateX'Dog]

It's telling that the VP of PR & Marketing actually calls it a cash shop, even though he claims it will only have account services:

http://elderscrollsotr.mymiddleeart...-scrolls-online-will-have-microstransactions/

As soon as people race through the content and sub figures start to fall, it's the first place they'll look. Convenience items, dyes, mount, slippery slopes etc

And is quickly rebutted by:

http://teso.junkiesnation.com/2013/09/07/paul-sage-off-the-record/

Sage confirms that Matt Firor simply picked his words poorly when he mentioned there would be a cash shop on top of the subscription fee. Sage says that Firor was talking about things like name changes – things you cannot normally do in the course of your gameplay. He even states that to his knowledge there is no cash shop.

Seriously, you hate this game, why are you still trying to cause trouble and spread false information?

 

[LateX'Dog]

Do you have the full patch notes for this?

Why would they close off the API, sounds like the worst idea ever, there were some great addons coming through as well on esoui.

I think its for Addon testers only, so getting the patch notes will be difficult.

I think they are finalising the API, maybe they closed off too much? No idea.

 

[LateX'Dog]

God help us Latex, relax! I have the Imperial edition pre-ordered, I'm as excited for the game as anyone here.

I'm also realist enough to acknowledge the financial realities of MMO lifecycles. How do you know the rebuttal wasn't damage control? "oh crap, the VP mentioned the cash shop, quick, post something denying it all!"

I'm not here to destroy the game's rep before it's launched, but if you want to go off the rails every time someone dares to post anything even vaguely negative, off you go, and keep taking the tablets. Or start taking them. Please.

No need to get butthurt because you where proved wrong again.

If your not against it and your not here to be a WS moron, then contribute by at least proving information that is true. And support people who lack knowledge of the game.

 

[LateX'Dog]

On this topic, how does the guild system work? Can you have multiple sides join a guild or have we all got to be on the same side?

If we have gotta be all the same side, how will we pick a side??

Not to sure about picking sides etc, but I think there faction specific and you can join up to 5 I think. Because there is no auction house you can expect trading guilds to be quite exclusive.

 

[LateX'Dog]

I hope they've fixed the CPU spikes. I couldn't play much last beta weekend as it constantly froze every 30 secs.

Yeah that was pretty rough, experienced that a lot my self.

Remember everyone, this is the 0.18 patch, the combat feel patch (Collision on NPCs, animations and other combat related changes) and change to starter areas. So now would be a great time to check out the game if you didn't like it.

 

[LateX'Dog]

Oh man, you're going to be Latex enemy number one for that, far too honest

Watch him call you a liar and a troll without actually refuting any of your arguments

There's not going to be a font big enough for the outrage

Newbie is on my ignore list, as he's just a troll and full of ****. Been there for a year or so now i think.

So his opinion means a little as the crap coming out of my cats arse.

 

[LateX'Dog]

I know the real reason you're doing this Newbie but props for actually doing it via constructive criticism this time

Just ignore him, he's just trolling all the time. Based upon some the quotes I've read from other peoples posts, he's massively misinformed. Like badly.

Based of what your saying:

You can level just as effective in PvP as you can in PvE as they have uncoupled the skills to levels, so you will not longer out level your skills.

Crafting hasn't got nerfed and its pretty simple to understand:

You can craft good gear at special sites.
Dropped gear is better then the above but made even better by crafters, as they can apply enhancements to the gear.
Crafters are the only people able to make the best gear in the game.

Veteran XP has been nerfed so you don't max out after doing a handful of zones, this way it spreads you out over the other zones. Personally there is nothing wrong with that.

There is 1 adventure zones with single player, group play, raid and dynamic world content.

You also have unique dungeons in the PvP only zone if you control it.

So post 50++ content you have more then enough to keep you going.

Craglorn description by one of the high end testers from TF:

Picture a new zone like Auridon (or Stonefalls). Now cut that zone down to about 2/3rds that size. Next make everything approximately veteran rank 5-10 (sorta like level 52). Now take those mobs, and make 4x as many in each group. That would be the overworld of the zone.

Now within that zone there is usually an instance dungeon for 4 players (Spindleclutch or whatever). Now take that dungeon, and make the same changes as above (excluding the size I would imagine). The zone is now stuffed full of mobs that are veteran rank 10+ and various bosses that are tuned for 12 players. This is were things get foggy for us – all we know past here is that we can imagine they are close in scale and difficulty as “raids” in past MMO’s (WoW).

We don’t know how many there will be. It is suspected only 1 (as that would follow the idea of the other zones). I do expect however that the “caves” that are normally tuned for 1-2 players in most zones will still exist and be tuned for 4 players – so those could be fun side attraction as well.

I don’t think WoW has an example of an adventure zone really. They seem to go back to more of an EQ/DAoC old school raid zone type of deal – with the added innovation of instancing of the actual raid bosses. The zone will be sort of like an extremely huge 4 man dungeon (that is not instanced) , and the “Trials” will be like Black Temple or possibly something like Mount Hyjal (Hyjal seems like a better bet to me with the ESO system I have seen thus far).

And they are planning multiple zones like this.


And this is about the PvP Zone with PvE content:

Cyrodiil was not Bethesda’s best open world. Its unrelenting greenness wasn’t nearly so powerful as Fallout 3’s sudden flashes of it, nor as compellingly weird as Morrowind’s massive mushrooms. And where Skyrim offers breathtaking views, 2006’s Oblivion couldn’t help but scupper its own with a dodgy draw distance.

But seven years or so makes the heart fonder and the head forgetful - and we’re quite looking forward to joining The Elder Scrolls Online’s PvP fight across a recognisable warzone. And if Zenimax Online are to be believed, we will recognise it.

“Cyrodiil in our timeline will look very familiar to Oblivion,” wrote Zenimax lead PvP designer Brian Wheeler, “however much more spread out.”

In a long and winding Q&A session with Elitist Jerk forumites, Wheeler confirmed that Zenimax’s version of Cyrodiil was “very, very large” - so much so that it’d take roughly 20 to 30 minutes to cross from North to South on foot.

Given the size of the map, potential players wondered how Zenimax had gone about ensuring that points of interest were scattered throughout. Wheeler answered that besides the major keeps and the outside resources that fuel them, there are “specific choke points” between the territories of the three player Alliances in Cyrodiil. There, we’ll always be able to look for small skirmishes.

The towns dotted throughout Cyrodiil, meanwhile, offer repeatable PvE quests for those looking to take a break from people murder. “Or even better,” suggested Wheeler, “want to look for players taking a break [who] don’t expect to be killed”. PvE objectives will be found in Bruma, Cheydinhal, Chorrol, Cropsford or Vlastarus.

Finally, players asked about the memorable Ayleid ruins that helped define Oblivion’s aesthetic. Wheeler confirmed their return, in Cyrodiil and elsewhere, as dungeons to explore with “stories focused around them”.

“Coming from a purely combat standpoint like the buffs from Oblivion, some Ayleid wells will also offer a temporary bonus to stats once you interact with them,” he said. “These are especially useful in Cyrodiil as you can imagine.”

I’m coming round to the idea that PvP is where The Elder Scrolls Online will make its mark - and likely where you’ll find the majority of its players 10 years down the line. What do you reckon? Maybe read yesterday's story on PvP fortifications in The Elder Scrolls Online if you're interested.

 

[LateX'Dog]

Some official information on crafting posted today:

http://elderscrollsonline.com/en/news/post/2014/03/10/ask-us-anything-crafting

Crafted gear of the same level and same quality as gear found in the world is almost always better. For instance, if you find a level 22 sword of fine quality, but your friend crafts a level 22 sword of fine quality, the damage done by the crafted sword is going to be slightly better. However, some of the gear you find in the world will have unique enchantments or set bonuses crafters cannot replicate. Still, a crafter might be able to take that dropped item and make it even better while retaining the unique enchantment.

See what i mean, Newbie is just full of crap.

 

[LateX'Dog]

Seems that isn't the case at all. They've put the lock on so that people can halt their XP gain if they desire, but the gain from killing players has been diminished. I can't really see too much in this because if you're playing the game for PvP, levelling isn't really an issue as you'll be involved in so much fighting that you'll get to max level soon enough anyway. If you're not that involved in PvP, then why are you trying to level in Cyrodill?

I don't see the issue with this? I'm sorry, maybe explain it a little more as i'm confused as to why this is an issue.

You get less XP for PvP then PvE, as this is clearly stated by the devs. But as PvP content is made by the players, the more players the more XP.

Crafted gear on the journey to 50 is better than dropped (greens I'd imagine but I don't know) but the requirements of making set gear (lots of research hours) and underwhelming effects mean they're not worth making (apparently). I'm sure if ZoS look at their data and don't see them being utilised they'll do some upgrading.

'Not worth making' is very subjective. As I've just posted a crafting post from the devs, have a read of that. Pretty sure I'll take their word over his.

Yeah, this is actually the biggest one that I agree with Newbie on. There seem to be lots of rumblings that after doing all three, campaigns for wont of a better word I suppose, you'll end up at around vet 7, maybe 8. That leaves no content other than adventure zones/dungeons/grinding with which to get your remaining levels. If you're not lucky (or desirable) enough to get regular grouping (which cancels out AZ/dungeons) then it is going to be a long, lonely walk toward vet 10. As I said, I have faith that something will be in the works to remedy this.

Right, i'm still failing to see the 'massive' issue in this? SWTOR legacy system wasn't finished with your first character? I'm pretty sure the extension to the veteran system is to slow the steam rolling idiots who rush to 50 and complain.

Whats wrong with dragging something out? Why should you be max veteran rank after doing all the zones?

 

[LateX'Dog]

And if anyone wants to debate addons and so on, Here is the link for the entire API for ESO:

http://wiki.esoui.com/Main_Page

Also, this is posted by one of the addon dev's:

A big concern right now with addons is the amount of information the ESO API allows for them to see. The default UI has a very minimalist design to it which doesn't show on-screen a large amount of the data available at any given time.

For instance, here is a function from the API which an addon could use to see a lot of information about a unit casting a spell in the vicinity...

GetUnitCastingInfo(string unitTag)
Returns: string actionName, number timeStarted, number timeEnding, bool isChannel, integer barType, bool canBlock, bool canInterrupt, bool isChargeUp, bool hideBar

Some of the most important information this function returns includes:

The name of the spell/action
When the cast began
When the cast will finish
Whether the spell/action is channeled or a chargeup type spell
If the spell/action can be interrupted
If the spell/action can be blocked


The addon could then take some action(s) based on this information it has received...

However! It is incredibly important to realize....
By and large, the ESO API does not allow an addon to issue combat or movement commands for the player. So by itself, the addon is only capable of notifying the player of this information. In theory this prevents "cheating" or "botting".

Access to this kind of information does, however, make botting a fairly trivial task using an outside application. For example, you could make an addon which uses the above function to detect whenever a certain interruptable spell is being cast nearby and do something non-combat related in the UI, say place a 1 pixel pink square at a specific location on the screen. A program external to the game could be setup to look at that one pixel and enter some keypresses automatically whenever that pixel turns pink. Voila, you have an auto-interrupter. This is cheating and could very easily get you banned.

The two most obvious ways to prevent this are to...

implement tools to detect/police these external applications which use the legitimate API information to cross the line

or

cut off the information at the source by removing addon access to the API functions which give the exploitable information to those external applications in the first place


The former would preserve access to those API functions for legitimate uses, but is much more difficult and invasive to pull off (the game would need detection algorithms and/or a sniffer application that can look at what is running on your computer outside of the game).

The latter would solve the problem for good, but deny a great deal of functionality to addons which would use the information legitimately.

Zenimax has stated that they will be taking a pretty firm stance on exploits of the API. They are very much against the idea of players feeling forced to get a certain addon in order to stay competitive in the game.



To address some of your specific concerns....

Automatic PvP Blocking

Addressed above

Aggresive Guild-Autoinviting

Definitely possible with the API unless there is some sort of internal cap on invites/time

IP-sniffing

To my knowledge, nothing in the API has access to anything regarding your system information, so no worries there

Peformance Stealing

Addons run locally on the client's computer reactive to "events" (player opened a vendor screen, player looted something, etc.) in the game. As far as I know, there are very few (if any) API functions that create events that are not local to the client and would need to be sent to the server. Even if there are and an addon was made to maliciously spam the server with events, it would probably take a lot of people all using the addon at the same time in one place to notice any effect on latency due to the enormous bandwidth the servers have.

Yes an addon could cause performance issues for the person running the addon
No, it is very unlikely that an addon could create performance issues for other players

Oh and FTC still works fine FYI, as i've just found out.

 

[LateX'Dog]

It's not the fact that you should be max rank, but more the issue that if you want players to use alternative routes to get there, then you need to make those routes worthwhile or at least applicable, not reduce them.
You really shouldn't use the TOR grinding, I mean Legacy system as an example for anything MMO related; it was a bad idea that revolved around getting players to do the most boring and mundane things imaginable for ridiculously inconsequential rewards. Daniel Erikson deserves to never work in the industry again for thinking that sort of rubbish is acceptable for any Western MMO game.

I used the legacy system as thats the only example i could think of that was remotely similar.

You do have alternative routes to increase you veteran rank as you've explain?

 

[LateX'Dog]

With regards to veteran ranks:

Reduced the veteran points gained from completing over world content; instanced dungeons and Cyrodiil are unaffected by this change.

From the 0.181 patch.

Looks to me as they are trying to push people away from single player grinding quests into group and PvP play to get more veteran ranks. And that's a bad thing?

Veteran ranks as of 6th of March:

 

[LateX'Dog]

Any beta key giveaways up yet?

They normally start today, keep your eyes open.

 

[LateX'Dog]

Here is my new and refined Warlock build:

http://esocalc.com/#1-5b502251509f:...3:402:545:336:400:538:333:402:463:336:480:341

Top bar is for PvE group and raid content and bottom bar is for PvE solo and PvP. There is 2 unused skills not on that bar as they are situational AoE abilities if needed.

 

[LateX'Dog]

I've watched a few ESO PvP vid's and sadly it looks dull and bland compared to other MMo's but well wait and see.

And here we go. The dull and bland is completely subjective and your opinion alone. I will say you are in the minority in that opinion though.

 

[LateX'Dog]

I tell you what....you make my day reading all of them!

I'm glad i bring a smile to your face . Nothing more satisfying then rebutting the lies and misinformation you and your trio like to spread in here.

 

[LateX'Dog]

LateX'Dog, looks like you're on a crusade to defend this game at all costs, which is fine I guess. But then you start calling other people fanboys.. ?

I will just add this - if, by some miracle, ESO is succesful, it won't be due to the combat. It brings nothing new to the table and it lacks fluidity, even in single PvE.

I'm on a crusade to clear up the blatant lies and misinformation that people are spreading. There is a big difference.

I will happily call my self a ES fanboy, i love their lore, games and so on.

I'm not a fanboy of ESO, i have my concerns, i have parts of it i don't like, but overall my experience of the game is very enjoyable and fulfilling as as such its why I'm here.

A lot of people in this forum and in others seem to think gaming is an entitlement, i have a PC or console and therefore any game that comes out i must own it regardless of enjoyment because i have said platform. Gaming is a privilege, a luxury, something you do because its fun and a lot of people have completely forgot about this. If something is not fun for you, why are you doing it? If a game is boring, bland and dull, why are you still interested in it?.

Yet you have people who are on crusades around the web pushing their game of choice as the one game to rule them all and its especially prevalent in MMO's.

Now take the WS trio, they are big WS fans, they have expressed their dislike for the ESO, they stick around in the ESO thread to spread misinformation and lies and brandish WS as the holy grail. That to me fills the fanboy crusade category.

Now in my personal case, I've expressed my dislike for WS in the WS thread and i left it there. I hardly ever post in the WS thread (And wont be venturing there again), look at it or engage in much discussion about it. Inside this thread i spread information, support ideas and provide help to others that want more information. Does this mean I'm a fanboy on a crusade? Personally no, but I'm sure this post will get flamed with contrary statements filled with fallacies.

If you don't like the game and you post your opinion, fantastic! But to then stick around and try to twist others to agree with you, that's childish. Eekfek tried this with me at the last beta weekend, claiming i had blinkers on and the game was super bad. Stuck around for another 3-4 pages to spread his opinion onto others and then left. Completely pointless, people who already like it, do so because of their own choices. Why can people just not leave others to their own opinions?

Why have the WS trio come back to this thread, spreading lies and misinformation and again trying to push their opinions onto others? The only reason:

In Internet slang, a troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, either accidentally or with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response

This is why and I'm guessing its fun for them.

 

[LateX'Dog]

but I also find the "WS trio" contribute too with the negatives that are surfacing about the game so I know what to expect.

If you find their constant stream of negativity and misinformation of interest, then great. But, as shown already in this thread, Newbie for example was lying to Vtec9k by spreading misinformation, which i then cleaned up.

So they do have an agenda, so be careful what information you value from them.

Also, i see opinions being expressed, not forced onto people as you suggest and as for the childish name calling...well

Using force can be applied either directly or indirectly. For example through spreading misinformation to spread discord and to change opinion.

Pretty sure I've not insulted anyone, newbie as shown based upon the quoted text is spreading misinformation, so my statement of "Being full of crap" is a true statement.

 

[LateX'Dog]

Hopefully a mod can halt this decline as right now you need to read through 4 or 5 posts of slanging to actually read any new info on the game.

Exactly.