My two "worries" regarding TESO is the PvP content and future expansions.

Will they implement an arena? I know many are turned off with this but many people i play with share the concern. Hey if it doesnt it doesnt, its just a concern with me. Other games have Arenas, however those are not Elderscrolls! Im going to play wildstar just based on the fact it has arena but i see it as a side game for me. ESO will be my main focus to play in the long run. My concerns come based on that fact.

Secondly, knowing they will have certain zones locked for future content, will ESO ever develop more areas for an expansion? It seems like they wont be able to due to lore restrictions. this takes place 1000 years before the original games and the maps are already made. They cant really just add a new continent and say it was forgotten.

What are your thoughts on these 2 topics i listed?

I'm hoping some 1:1 arena and 2:2 arena's make it into gameplay at launch, but I hope they offer no rating nor reward, to keep pvp focus on Cyrodiil.

They're keeping some areas held back for later content/expansions, and I really hope if they do have an arena they do it right. WoW arena started the entire craze but the devs at Blizz have said a few times that they wish they had never done it and it started way more trouble than it was worth because they had no idea it would become so popular.

I dont think they've said anything offical on arena but its been asked alot... I think they should do it, Gladiator Guild, a few well designed PVP maps, where 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3 matches happens, if asked from me, easy to make and I know theres tons of people who're interested.

Regarding future content.. their plan is to expand/improve current zones, instead of starting to make new stuff, they save alot of time and resources. For example Cyrodil launches without Imperial city, but its added later. I dont say there isnt new stuff but they play alot with what they got now.

I'm not too worried over expansions. I just play the game, it's their job to come up with the content. I'm not going to bark what they should and shouldn't do for that and it's too early to really consider.

Some of the Devs have already said they will add what the players want. Ive played most MMOs and arenas are fun and needed in most games, I don't think they are needed in TESO tho because Cyrodiil will offer everything, They are trying to do what DAOC did and if they pull it off there will be very competitive fights a reward system to keep you going after max level, and there is also purpose there on the battle field. If it were like any other game then yes it would need arena fights. But I have a feeling they don't want arenas taking people away from Cyrodiil.

They also said they are already working on content for after the game launch, and even new skill lines can easily be added like the thieves guild. the PVP dev also said he wants to add a massive PVP dungeon that the alliance fight for control of. basically Darkness Falls in DAOC.

We didn't engineer the game and classes and balance around it, we just added it on, so it continues to be very difficult to balance. Is WoW a PvE cooperative game, or a competitive PvP game? There's constant pressure on the class balance team, there's pressure on the game itself, and a lot of times players who don't PvP don't understand why their classes are changing. I don't think we ever foresaw how much tuning and tweaking we'd have to do to balance it in that direction.

That is the exact quote regarding arena from years ago. They dont regret anything. People just made their own quote and said it was a wow dev.

This game has the potential to have less issues with balance based on it being more action based than wow and more variety inside a base class that doesnt leave one class "OP". Either way arena is a huge draw for wow and i feel it would here as well

Wise words

I don't really mind Arenas at all. I did it a bit when they first came out in WoW, but I preferred doing BGs instead.

Now my only issue with adding arenas is that now you need to balance the game for 1v1. While when you just have open PvP you don't need to balance towards the 1v1.

Man reading the arena forums over there I don't see how they couldn't regret it. I just imagine team meetings at their offices being very depressing in the PvP department.

See, that's the real issue I have with arenas.

The idea itself is fine. Oblivion did have an arena, so one can't honestly say that arenas *themselves* are "not elder scrolls." I am, however, concerned about what the future influence of the people who want arenas is going to have on the rest of the game over time, especially if there are truly 'tonnes of them.' It's not that I want to spite them or anything... I've just seen where catering to them takes games, and that overall direction is something I would say is "not elder scrolls."

Note: I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing either. It's just a direction that, IMO, is wrong for this IP and for the premise already established.

I only ever used to go to Arenas, Battlegrounds, whatever, in other mmos because that's where PVP used to happen as all other areas were dead.

In ESO you'll have a reason to go out and battle over keeps, farms, mines, or whatever - it gives you stuff.

Games like WoW never had anything good come out of a Pvp open world battle really...

This is the reason many people hope there WONT be arenas.... it'll take people out of Cyrodiil and after a while the only place pvp will be found is the arena. (yawn)

To answer your second question and address some payment model ideas too - the more subs, the more money for expansions.

Plenty good came out of open pvp in WoW and other MMOs. God I love world pvp. I plan on stalking Cyrodiil when not actively doing campaign things just to find as many people and neutralize them as humanly possible.

I will never use battlegrounds or arenas they do nothing for me or the game world. I find them dull and boring to be honest. I hope TESO doesn't have them in the game as it will pull players from Cyrodiil and make it empty. If there are going to be arenas or battlegrounds then there must never be any rewards attached to them for playing in them.

PVP Content is a need but Arena is not one of them, i really hope Arena will never be in ESO. Arena destroyed the hole balance in PVE in WOW.

Well, how I look at this, game like this, this kind of magnitude, 1.1mill at Facebook and counting... ESO is gonna be one of the coolest game of 2013 by far, no-one cant deny that, if you dont play this you're simply fool. Arena could easily mean 200k+ sales to the game if they did it. Yep, in ESO's case small things would mean substantially bigger sales.

How I look at it, is that's exactly the kind of attitude and approach that takes the game away from the IP around which it's ostensibly centered and into the offices of accountants who couldn't give a damn if it's Elder Scrolls or Power Rangers anymore. Which is something that will drive me out of the game; I didn't come here to play a MOBA with a Tamrielic skin.

Hmm, its already happened.. very first thing they said they're gonna take this to "new bold direction".

Just add the damn Arena and Raids too. Cyrodil, Arena, Raids, Max-level zones, Dungeons, theres little bit of old and new.

98.6%+ Sure, that they do have plans for expansions. Mind that the game isnt a realistic renderition of a 3D virtual world. They can add vertical levels, teleporting doors and all kinds of dimensions. They dont have to work out something entirely connected, in fact, it seems they do aim to disconnect the areas as much as possible. For whatever reason.

Oh and for the Arena -- bring it.?????

not all of tamriel is in the game at launch. there are your expansions right there. plus DB and thieves guild.

At launch they will either have one or four total arenas at launch time.

Where did you hear that there will be Arenas at launch? Because everything I've read has stated that the only PvP that will be in the game at launch will be Cyrodiil. Now that's not saying they won't add Arenas later (when they open up the Imperial City), but they won't be in at launch.

FUN FACT: The original Elder Scrolls game, entitled Arena, was initially going to be a stat-based Arena-fighting game set in a fantasy setting where you join a team of gladiators and tour Tamriel engaging in all sorts of fights to earn yourself the title of Grand-Champion. It was only later that it became an open-world RPG.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls:_Arena

So to say that Arenas are not Elder Scrolls, means one doesn't know Elder Scrolls.

But seriously, I could definitely seen an arena working as long as it was modeled after Oblivion's arena faction with PvE as well as PvP fights, players betting on fights and avoiding the ladder ranking system of WoW altogether.

I fully expect there to be arenas in the game. I think the first one that will be implemented into the game will be the one that's in the Imperial City. It's just not going to be in the game at launch though.

Question and answer thing. They said there would be an arena in each group. Plus at least one in cyrodiil.