Many have expressed concern over Lore and Graphics-related issues. What I am concerned about is how ZOS will treat the community concerning forward-going content and gameplay development. I long for an MMO developer that will actually put a link on the game's launcher that says:

Join our forum community
and help shape the futire of

Far too many times, when a developer decides to go a different way from what the majority of the community is asking for, they cite feedback from unvarrifyable sources as the reason. Such as Customer Service calls, or Focus Group feedback. And they tend to say things like "the community doesn't represent the majority of the player base."

Well, if the developer in question were to define the community forums as THE place to go to express one's self, be it bug reporting, content suggestions, general feedback or whatever. And if said developer actually uses community communication to determine development response, then transparency between developer and customer would exist. Any changes or additions made can point to the place where community feedback dictated a need for it.

I am assuming that TESO is going to be subscription-based. If so, I am hoping that ZOS will drop the NONE clause in the terms of service.

A NONE clause is a declaration in the terms which basically tells the customer that the developer is Not Obligated to provide anything beyond access to the service, and that the subscriber is Not Entitled to anything beyond said access. It is this clause which has allowed MMO developers to just sit pretty for months, raking in the money, while putting forth little if any effort to release additional playable content that would keep players interested. SOE was horrible about this with Star Wars Galaxies. Cryptic was horrible about it before they took Star Trek Online free to play. The former game is no more and the latter one still lacks content, but you get what you pay for...

And incidentally, the NONE clause is usually followed by a statement that says the company reserves the right to alter or terminate the service as they see fit, and that the subscriber reserves the right to alter or terminate their subscription as they see fit.

It essentially translates to, "We don't have to do anything you ask us to do, and if you don't like it, you can leave..."

If I am paying for a service, then I expect service. If it were a restaurant, I can generally walk in and sit down without charge (access). What I pay for is the food and I tip based on quality of service (content).

So I am hoping that while the initial release of TESO is done according to how ZOS thinks it ought to be, that they will base their forward-going development on what their paying customers express a need for.

Granted, not every idea can be implemented. Some are not technically possible. Some would just be jumping the shark. Which is why an idea should be monitored to measure the responses of those who support it and those who say it is a bad idea. And a blanket statement of "that's not a good idea" will not cut it. The one who proposes it should put forth reasons why adding whatever to the game would benefit the game as a whole, not just for his/her own personal wish fulfillment. Those against a well-reasoned idea need to also explain why they feel it would detract from the game as a whole, not just for their own personal lack of interest.

The company would ideally take the five mose prominantly supported ideas that are technically feasible and let the community vote on which one they most want. When the winning feature goes in, they do the next vote. So the community that pays to play can and should effect what is playable. Debate on an idea would have to be conducted with civility. Violation of that condition would mean removal from the forum group that would have access to forward-going development discussion. No second chances. You get snarky with someone just because you don't like what they think, you're out. Blatantly bait someone into being snarky? You're gone too.

So it would have to be a tightly monitored process, but there are passionate players in every MMO community. And their ideas are good a lot of times. And of course, there would have to be a statement in the terms that any ideas or suggestions expressed are subject to disposal as the company sees fit.

The company at no time will offer any guarantee of use for an idea or suggestion, and offers no form of compensation should any idea or suggestion be used. By posting in this conceptual development forum, you acknowledge the above and waive all rights to any credit, compensation or recognition. Violation of these conditions will result in loss of access to this forum...

That condition should be a message at the top of such a forum and be the first thing that anyone who enters it sees. In that manner there would be no excuse for anyone to say "That was my idea and I demand credit!".

Will ZOS be open to community involvement? Will they blatantly ignore community concerns like so many other MMO developers do? Here's hoping they will treat the community like paying customers rather than clods of dirt to be kicked to the curb at every turn.

Compared to other developers, Cryptic is ridiculously small, though, and the content draught of 2011 was also due to the uncertain future of who's going to publish the game (they changed from Atari to PWE a while ago). Nevertheless, Cryptic took a lot of user feedback into account since the beta (at least in terms of gameplay, gee, they even hired people from the community into their staff), and if I could wish for anything for TESO, it's such an involved development team. I hope to hear from the devs soon, personally. They should introduce themselves before the gameinformer coverage is done.

I don't see them getting rid of the NONE clause, though. How would that work out? Am I guaranteed 6 updates per year? What counts as an update? Guaranteed access to everything that is in the game will stall any changes, bad and good alike.

Never gonna happen on dropping the NONE clause. Zenimax's legal department would laugh, at best. Freak out, at worst.

Agreed


Well when you put it that way, I see the need for keeping the NONE clause in effect for legal reasons. However, I see a greater need for developers to stop hiding behind it as an excuse to milk their subscribers for as much as they can get and wait until enough people start to unsubscribe before they get around to introducing new content. I'm not saying that this is what ZOS will do. But I have seen it done a lot. Content updates need to happen as regularly as humanly possible, assuming that the MMO in question is themepark based. When players exhaust playable content, if the endgame mechanics are not compelling for them, they will unsubscribe. There's a long-standing argument that $15 a month is not much. Well if it is automatically coming out of my account and there's nothing compelling in the game to keep me coming back, then it is wasted money which I could have spent on something else. I will not just freely hand my money to any developer on a promise of new content. Been burned too many times on that. Not again.

The thing is, if ZOS uses the hero engine the way it is supposedly designed to be used, content delivery should be relatively easy. They should theoretically be able to deliver something new to live at least once per month. ANY bit of content, either in the form of a questline or in the form of a new gameplay mechanic. If it is something new that I have the OPTION of doing, whether or not its something that interests me personally, I would qualify it as forward-going development of content. For the record, I do not view the addition of horse armor, clothing, armor styles, weapon styles, character customization options or anything that is not something to actually DO as content. I also do not view bug fixes as content.

Others may have a different view of what is or is not content, and i will not debate them here. But for myself, I am more interested in things my character can do than I am in things my character or his horse can wear...

See above...

The NONE clause is going to stay or you risk the [censored]storm Valve endured with the promises for DLC for Left 4 Dead. Or risking a class action lawsuit from overreacting whiners.

Anyways, frequent updates seem extremely probable with several areas such as the city and college of Winterhold not being in the game at launch, suggesting that that is the case for all the provinces having zones missing at launch which will then be filled in by content patches.

2013: The Elder Scrolls: Online is released.
One day later: Patch 1.0 is released. this isn't going to be the first.
Two weeks later: first "new" DLC announced (aka content that was already made before the game was released), called the "Winterhold Returns" pack. It is priced at $15.99.
Three weeks later: $9.99 Horse Armor pack is released, just for the lulz.
A month later: By now Patch 1.5 has already hit, nerfing raids and catering to complaints, thus ruining the experience even further.
Two months later: ESO forums begin to collapse on itself as long time subscribers express disappointment at Zenimax's lack of proper support.
Three months later: Zenimax releases an apology stating "We are doing everything we can to ensure The Elder Scrolls: Online remains a safe and fun online experience."
A year later: Bethesda announces The Elder Scrolls: VI, a summary of the community's response consists of, "How about you guys fix all the issues with ESO before jumping on a new project?" even though Bethesda isn't developing it.
Another month later: By now we're at patch 5.6, which has almost rendered the game unrecognizable from how it was at launch. We are also at expansion pack 20, the "here's the locations you guys asked for but we didn't really put a lot of time into it so excuse the bugs." pack.
A week later: Petitions form, amount of players on ESO slowly declines as people "return to WoW".

About as well as they're treating them now, I suspect. Silence for the most part, excuses in interviews for why things are not being done the way they KNOW the fanbase wants them done.

They don't care about you as a community, they only care about your money.

ZeniMax Online has plans for a full and comprehensive community management group. We'll announce plans for this group soon, but it will exist to ensure that ESO community concerns are understood and received by the game's development team. We fully understand that online games communities are the single most important part of a game's success and longevity, and are staffing our cm team appropriately.

More to come.

Gstaff!!!

Thank you for stopping by my thread. It's good to know that Zenimax will be taking community concerns seriously. This right here give me hope that I have not had in a long time as far as MMOs are concerned.

Excellent news...

sweettalk for there will totaly be some administration that totaly wont listen to anyone.

Hear, hear. Now the team just has to deliver and I'm a happy guy.

Lol. Coming from someone who's known about the atomic nirnroot bug, among many others that have never been addressed, that doesn't sound reassuring to me.