» Fri Jun 07, 2013 6:49 am My ideas on what would make ESO fantastic...
The following is a list of opinions in which I think the game needs; I've been playing video games for 22 years, I've tried most MMOs, I've played at least one game of most genres of video games and I've played multiple titles on multiple platforms over the years. I would not say my opinion carries weight due to these stated things; But would appreciate if my words carried wieght because of it, granted you only have my word and I have no evidence to proove my word so humor me on this please.
I think the biggest flaw in game design these days, especially in big studios are being of the arrogant mindset that 'because I have *blah blah blah* credentials and made *blah blah blah* game I have the right and I think I know what I am doing so my staff should shut up, do as their told and the community on the forums and elsewhere doesn't really know what they want because marketing says otherwise'. Many failures have occurred due to this, also never be afraid to admit that you change a game simply because your fans demand it, that is a good thing. Embrace it, because the truth about the vocal minority is that usually, not all the time, but most of the time... they represent all of us who normally are too busy with our lives to voice our opinion. I know people of the opinion that, they will try something, if they like it, they will buy it, if they do not... they will not, its pretty obvious really, least it is to me. A lot of the people I know who are like that tend to agree with those who are vocal. Some people simply do not know any better, they will buy the food presented in front of them and not really consider the ingredients in it, in which case the people who provide it thinks 'let's cut corners to save money, lets milk them of money, they do not care, they will not know any better'. Ever think that in the long run this will help you retain customers? In the short run you make a profit, but in the long run you do not keep loyal fans because said people are left with a bitter taste and the feeling of being had. Most would not bother coming back or complaining because that is how people are these days and the reason such things go unpunished, but in the world where the community is the game... that punishment comes from a decline of players which results in a decline of proffits and it means delayed or no further development of what could of been a fantastic game.
Now I have somewhat mixed opinions on this game, high hopes too, considering the studio lead and design lead for your game is the brains behind Dark Age of Camelot (Don't worry people he left long before the failure that was Warhammer Online).
It would be wonderful if more developers had the time to sit down and actually talk with their fans, have a real solid brainstorming session, rather than simple Question and Answer or ask us anything sessions.
It is a good thing to find the time for it, even when you are very busy with making the game.
Now some people seem wary about the idea of a mega server, honestly think it is a good idea if done right, it worked in games like EVE Online because EVE is such a game where it doesn't really appeal to many people and the population of the single server is large enough to keep it alive but small enough not to brake the system, but for having among 250 000 and 500 000 players (which is the usual population of most MMOs outside World of Warcraft, regardless if they are sharded or shardless), that is hard to do. Honestly think it can be done now and I praise the developers for being so ambitious as to undertake this but it must be done correctly, when the community is completely combined it is easier for people to socialise and find the right people to play the game with, where on sharded communities, one could go for months jumping from one guild to the next on a terrible server, on a shardless game they would find the right community for themselves quicker. It also means PvP will always be active, although how you contend with lag from multiple entites in one zone will be something to see, as even in Guild Wars 2 WvW could not handle 80 players on one spot laying siege to a keep and in Warhammer Online (during the few months it had a large community) it was unplayable during that time and those games have (had) shards.
Some ideas in theory are fantastic, but in practice are not. My biggest gripe with Guild Wars 2 was in fact the very feature which was added to help make the game smoother for players actually isolated players from one another, the servers within servers queuing server system actually stopped people who wanted to play as a group from the word "go" from being able to, which ruined the experience. Now I am all for a single player experience, but that is what a *SINGLE PLAYER GAME IS FOR*. You may try to pretend this is a Multiplayer version of Elder Scrolls as the genre title "mmo" seems to roll off the tongue with a bitter afterthought. Truth is, it is a MMO and like any MMO the focus is group/party play and that is why long term MMO fans will be interested in leaving other games for this for, if it doesn't have that, they will go back to World of Warcraft and other games. Plain and simple, I am sorry but a MMO will only really attract mostly MMO fans rather than Elder Scrolls fans, yes some Elder Scrolls 'fans will play this game, but history tells me; And from a lot of people I meet, I know that many guilds, communities and players who play MMOs, tend to be the vast majority of the only type of people who play MMOs. And what they are interested in, regardless of it being PvP, PvE or whatever, its the capacity to do it with friends and not feel like it being a single player game with "PvP" tacked onto it with the ability to wander around and hang with people like its Second Life. If you want to keep guilds playing the game needs some features to appeal to them. For PvP guilds, they want the ability to create and have their own banner, their ability to show off their *ahem* 'ego' as that is what PvP gamers love to do. They take pride in seeing their banners flying over the battlefield, to appeal and to keep PvE guilds, you need raiding, plain and simple... a grind, pushy end game raiding system, because for them the challenge of the progression though each boss fight and the experience of taking down something hard to fight as a team is what they enjoy, the gear is also important because for them it represents the barriers to the next difficulty to face. Yes it is grind, yes it is "carrot on a stick" dirty but unfortunately it's what they like and without it, they will not be interested, plain and simple.
What appeals to some people and achieves some dream of a developer, will not bring in a lot of players other than those who have the same ideals, few people do. If you want your game to be successful, yes appealing to the fans is important, but you need to appeal to people who want a great MMO experience as well. People want raiding, people want to be able to level up as a group with their friends, not just cator to loners who like to just join others to raid or do dungeons from time to time. If this game doesn't have that, they will look elsewhere.
Ok now that is out of the way... now onto skills...
Now skills for me, what I would like to see is well if you state the classes are simply starting templates, honestly think that is a fantastic idea, a system similar to what I've seen in games like Path of Exiles:
Just look up Path of Exiles passive-skill-tree
But with the same system as I see in previous elder scrolls games.
Path of Exiles is an example of a fantastic "create your own champion" skill system with default class templates, in that game a class template just positions a champion at different locations on the very large passive skill tree which simply adds benefits to using different kinds of weapons or spells etc, rather than a set experience system for it. There are many great and fantastic ways to implement customisability in a game which has a focus on balance, you just need to think outside the box, while having your feet still firmly placed inside the world of "balanced". The biggest issue with an approach to full customisation is what I refer to, pretty sure everyone here and the developers included of many games are aware of is "option redundancy". Where you are given a heap of options to pick from, but the community pretty much works out though Min/Maxing and preferred abuse of particular skill sets or starting stats which is the optimum or best builds for a character or class in most games which offer variety. As a result a lot of other features become pointless and redundant due to a real oversight by the developers to focus on full functionality of choice. In this regard when designing class exclusive abilities one should approach it from them not holding any real benefit to the "holy trinity" (Tank, Healer, DPS). A lot of developers seems to take their games in a direction where such systems either are holy entirely non-beneficial and universe and have limited use capacity in PvP (like in Guild Wars 2 etc), or are so pointlessly useless those people do not even make use of it. I think, well instead of having a tunnel vision on such a thing, is to take it outside the monolithic approach to skills/spells/etc/etc. But to have them have different affects and uses dependent on the direction you take your character.
For instance, lets take a simple well established ability you see in a lot of fantasy and medieval games, the Shield Bash. In most games the shield bash falls into pretty much a reactionary or an action role. Hit target with shield, stun target with shield, do damage with shield etc... however, those are all in different games, or it is all bundled into one in a game. Let's separate these and expand on them, say if a character is damage focused, the bash does increased damage, if the character is support focused, the bash stuns their foe and if they are defence focused it could threaten those targets while decreasing the amount of damage they do to you because your bash made them disoriented so they cannot be as effective at hitting you with whatever.
This is just one of my many ideas I have, but naturally I am not sure if you would take them onboard but its just ideas worth considering. I do not want to come off as being negative, I am just very critical about things, I simply will not just blindly state I hate a game, nor would I blindly say I like one, I take the grounds of I want to improve something though ideas. Whither or not they can be carried out is something entirely different... I am very aware of that, do not need to talk to me about that. However I really do think people should sit down and think, well what can we do to make this a fantastic product in which people will enjoy for years?
What I would like to see also, variety... not just in character customisation and socialising and interacting with the game world, but in combat... the very core of PvE and PvP is the combat, combat must feel fluid, brutal and make me stick my tongue out and revel in the brutality of it. The best feeling you can get out of the fans is that feeling of emotional satisfaction, either though a great story and I presume you plan to do that as well, great interaction but at the core of it, great combat. Would love to have mounted combat, even if it cannot be done with NPCs as it is hard to perfect and tweak, just having the player being able to do it and having it in PvP, that would be fantastic!
With that said, in variety, I would like to see a variety of weapons in the game including poleaxes, pole arms, longbows, short bows and other kinds of weaponry including different kinds of shields rather than your traditional "one hitbox for all shield," great axe, broadsword, one hander sword, mace, axe, staff "one hitbox for all bow." Considering this is a time period of total war, you would see weapons which you normally only see equipped with armies, with large combat battlefields, I think it would be prudent to have such weapons... if the size of such weapon means they could clip in narrow dungeons (which is the usual excuse) then simply adjust the animation to suite. Now I am aware of how expensive it is to do animations and create content, I am hopeful for these regardless and it would be great because if you include it, people will use it and they will love it, look at Dark Souls for example.
And yes this is my opinion, my opinion doesn't reflect that of what everyone wants, only what I would like to see, if others want to see it, fantastic. If it is in it, that is great; Would I play this game for only these reasons? Guess what, no, I will not but others will most certainly. I will be playing this game because my friends want to play it, because despite all my interest in things, I tend to go from one game to the next, never really wholly satisfied... which for me, it's a big downer. Now if this game satisfies me in a way that it keeps me playing it, that would be great too and I shall keep playing. Means I will have some closure in my somewhat misdirected gaming time. 
Now after reading all that, I want you to take the Themepark and then dump it to the side... forget it, bye bye themepark
How to do Sandbox Right, something which Arenanet didn't really get right (sorry guys, but it's kind of a fact). First off in a PvP centric game with Guilds with a open PvP area with claimable locations and territory, you need guild verse guild, that's a given, not just Faction verse Faction and make it so all territory is up for dispute, faction verse faction is great and all, but the raw truth of it is, to have complete true sandbox, you can't get past the raw nature of the human collective nature itself, perfect example EVE Online Null Sec. Also give guilds the ability to create their own banners with a LARGE variety of choice and the ability to display their guild colours on their armour, on their banners on anything they want but for reasonable costs for simple things like say a tabard or whatever. People like that...
I mean if the entire region of Cyrodiil in the game was a sandbox, people can build their own castles and lay claim to land and fight over it for their guild? Now that would be fantastic, but I'm pretty sure there are other great ideas out there. If this game will have sandbox elements, make sure to go all out with it and not just tack it on and go "look sandbox" in an otherwise themepark but with a "sandbox feel" game.
If a dev reads this, fantastic and thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to read my ranting, if other people on here read it and think they agree or disagree, that is great too and thank you.
If people want to leave feedback, negative or otherwise, I am all for it.
