So it has been confirmed that provinces are separated into regions, which are separated into zones, and these zones are divided by load screens. Out of all the information that was announced and clarified at this Press Event (overwhelmingly being positive), this, for me, is the most disappointing news so far.

If there is one feature I would love to have seen maintained from TES into ESO, it would have been a seamless world. Now, I'm not even suggesting the entire continent of Tamriel would need to be seamless. That would be nice, but I wasn't exactly betting on it. What would have been nice, though, is at least if the individual provinces were seamless internally (just like the BGS titles).

I feel this is not only an important component for TES games, but for MMORPGs in general. Coming from playing SWTOR and more recently GW2, load screens between zones killed the massively multiplayer feeling of the game. In both, and more in particular GW2, I really felt like I was playing a single player game and not an MMORPG. While there was an obnoxious amount of load screens from planet to planet in SWTOR, at least zones were seamless on the planet.

I'm just fearful of the potential repercussions this could have on truly building a community. With the way these zones are set up, it almost sounds as if they are really catered towards the solo experience. I don't mind that being a feature in the game for those who want it, but this is an MMORPG. This is supposed to be the TES game you play with friends, and I think load screens could potentially be a huge detriment to that experience.

I would like to know how everyone else feels about zones being divided by load screens (GW2) instead of being seamless (SWTOR). Is this a concern for you as it is for me? It certainly isn't a deal breaker for me, but I fear the unintended consequences and fragmentation this could potentially cause. Building small communities with your friends is nice, and certainly ZOS is trying to make that as easy as possible. I'm not sure if they are considering the larger community ties that must be built though, which concerns me.

Feel free to share your thoughts.

I think we need to hear about more of the game to be honest. Those that got to play only played a small portion of the game. They started in the starter zone and then zoned into the main continent by the sounds of it. This happens in most every MMO that I've known. You lvl up in the starter/tutorial zone then you load into the main game world.

Also I would contend what your definition of seamless would be. In SWTOR going from planet to planet was in fact a loading screen. Once on a planet sure it was all open to you. Same in WoW each continent was open but if you went to another continent there is a loading screen.

So apply this to TESO, once you are out of the starter zone you load into your factions continent and that is all open with no loading. Now if you go into Cyrodiil or another continent (w/e is available to) you will load.

yeah we dont know quite yet. but i guess pangscar is on the right track.

As I said, it has been confirmed that there are loading screens between zones. Zones in WoW were seamless. Zones in SWTOR were seamless. Zones in GW2 were not seamless. ESO is following the same approach that GW2 did. When I think of a seamless world, I think of Skyrim, Morrowind, Oblivion, and older generation MMORPGs that were not divided by load screens. ESO, unfortunately, is not retaining this feature of TES.

To be more specific, zones are divided by level brackets. Once you complete all the quests and content in a zone, you move on to the next level bracket. This is when you hit a load screen. Provinces are not seamless.

We do know. People have played the game. I wouldn't have posted this thread otherwise.

Yeah ok.... i personaly dont care at all. If they are not too ludicrious. I guess it can solve quite a few problems, including high load times on low end machines, id like to have a full seamless world too, but i can see where the limitations of an MMORPG come in. Id rather have it there than in the combat.

The whole large community thing... i realy like it, but not in TES. In fact, what i always wanted as a Multiplayer for TES was kind of sharing the world with few but respectable other players. Its a matter of taste.

Just a slight diagreement: Of course there are loading screens in TES. Everywhere. Every time you switch from interior to exterior there's a loading screen, every time you enter a walled city there is a loading screen, every time you use any kind of teleportation or fast travel there is a loading screen. So loading screens themselves are not the problem. The problem is that you can't go everywhere you want; Seeing a location doesn't mean its accessible like we are used to from the single player games. Now, as long as these blockades are reasonable obstructions, like high cliffs or mountains, they won't break immersion. We will just have to wait and see how the border of those zones are handled.

Also, do we know anything about the size of those zones? That would be crucial to know as well.

That aside, I wouldn't worry about this influencing the multiplayer-feel of the game. Because the megaserver handles over- or underpopulation anyway, being in a zone or a borderless world will not feel any different in terms of population.

Don't think you read all my post or didn't understand some parts.

Those that played the game only saw two zones. The starter zone and the zone you go after that. We have no idea if there are more loading after the second or its like I'm saying and past MMOs are that the continent is now open to you.

To use SWTOR as an example, you load between planets but once on the planet its all open. So in TESO each faction area will be a planet, also the starter zones are a separate planet as well (also like in SWTOR). So again once you're done with your starter zone you load in your factions main area and its all open to you.

My concern is if ZOS is so focused on pleasing the solo community (TES fans) and not the MMORPG fans, they will run into a similar issue BioWare did with SWTOR. More or less by making an RPG with multiplayer functionality, but not actually building an MMORPG at all. I'm not against an emphasis on the solo experience and it being incorporated. I am, however, against it being a detriment to the MMORPG as a whole and making the entire product suffer.

The larger community will matter for AvA, which is why I'm largely concerned. ZOS has been so focused on making sure that factions build camaraderie and that they are united. If everyone is segmented off into different zones with only their friends, I just don't really see how you can bolster unity and a thriving community overall. It just sounds like ZOS will be fragmenting the community more so than anything else and that AvA could be as chaotic and unreliable as WvWvW is in GW2.

Again, I won't jump to too many conclusions until I actually get to play the game myself. However, I just don't see how having zones divided into load screens can really be beneficial to building an MMORPG. Perhaps ZOS has the secret formula that previous MMORPG developers failed to use when having zones divided by load screens?

Whats wrong with Darkfall? Play it. Darkfall Unholy Wars is gonna be simply awesome, just watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G1r5yuKFLk

Here's the difference. Load screens in TES games are generally only divided for cells for large cities and cells for interiors. As far as the exterior (which is what I'm referring to) is concerned, all loading is done seamlessly while the player is traversing the environment. This will not be the case in ESO, as there will be load screens between zones, so it's taking a break from previous traditions of the past. It's not even necessarily a matter of the fact that it can't be done, because previous MMORPGs have done it. ZOS, for whatever reason, has decided to frame the environment in this way as they believe it is best for their product.

My problem has nothing to do with actual size. My problem has to do with the fact that provinces are divided into regions which are divided into zones by loading screens. The provinces themselves are not seamless like they are in Skyrim, Morrowind, and Oblivion and that could potentially take away from the game. I personally didn't like all the load screens in GW2 dividing the zones, and ZOS seems to be going that same path. For others, load screens may not bother them as much as they explore different parts of a province.

I did play Darkfall and it was terribly buggy and poorly managed. One of the only redeeming factors about the game was the fact that Agon was a persistent and seamless world. That being said, most sandbox MMORPGs generally are. Again though, my issue isn't the fact that all of Tamriel isn't seamless. My issue is that provinces themselves couldn't be seamless. Loading screens are just going to take me out of the immersion more than I would personally like, and I'm sure there are likely others who may share my sentiments.

They have had 3 YEAR to work on it and the crew is now 50 member instead 12. Even the race selection is similiar. And combat to Skyrim.

Darkfall is Elder Scroll MMO. sadly.

I understand exactly what you are saying. I would expect a load screen between traveling from Skyrim and Morrowind though. All I'm saying is that doesn't apparently seem to be the case with ESO. I would be more than happy for someone to prove me wrong. However, it seems that ESO is taking a similar approach that GW2 did in terms of dividing zones by levels and load screens.

I'm more or less expecting that each zone is going to be relatively large and give a small portion of a particular region of a province. Much like GW2, each zone is for a particular level bracket, so only players in that level bracket will be questing there. It's a linear progression of sorts but exploration will still be a driving force as players have to find the content.

Two years of development, actually. Not three. They also never open beta tested the game, which is coming out next month, so it's more than guaranteed that DFUW will be buggy and broken upon release, like its predecessor. But again, this thread isn't about Darkfall as I'm not interested in that MMORPG. I'm interested in ESO, and this by far is the most disappointing news I have heard.

oh glee someone is mentioning dark fall!

anyway. i actually dont mind. I think they still cater to the MMO crowd, a seamless world is actually not what makes an MMORPG. WoW has qutie a few zones, and as pangscar and faulgor pointed out: we dont know how big these zones will be.

You think these big company puppets ever make it for us? No. These just keep doing this, hell I actually believe this game is how future games looks like, facebook, megaservers, lots of phasing, instancing, all the stuff we absolutely dislike and they know it too, etc etc. All kind of [censored]. All we need now is some "pay by hour" business model and its ready.

I have enjoyed TES games immensely playing exclusively ONE province, every single corner of one province... I don't think being able to explore three provinces plus Cyrodiil is the game flaw. Maybe there are some quests that eventually take you to enemy ground to have the glimpse of the other provinces, but still 3 provinces are way more than anything else we've had from previous games... and they were great!

oh yeah now we got conspiracy theories too?! qucik put on your tinfoil heads! they want to controll your brain waves with TESO!

Dark Fall has been a failure and will be a failure.

The difference though is that WoW's zones are actually seamless, meaning you don't go through a load screen when you go from zone to zone. This is how most MMORPGs are. GW1 and GW2 are really the only games that I know of that segment and divide individual zones by load screens, and it seems ESO is following that tradition. For me, again, it's not size that bothers me. It's the fact that the environment is being built by level brackets and being divided by load screens as GW2 was. I felt this severely fragmented the game personally.

I'm not talking about being able to explore all of Tamriel. There is a thread about being restricted to your faction's provinces. This is about the fact that Provinces, composed of regions, and composed of zones within those regions, are divided by load screens. The easiest example and comparison for this is GW1 and GW2 as all of their zones are divided by load screens. This is a major break from TES games and really MMORPGs in general. I can understand having a load screen between a province in ESO. I cannot understand having a load screen between zones in a province.

Well again I just don't think we know enough about it to say this for sure.

In my opinion what was described in yesterdays reviews was exactly what happens in SWTOR. After character creation you load onto the starter planet, you do all the quests and get to lvl 10 or so then you load onto the next planet. This next planet is far larger and has a larger lvl range.

Or in WoWs newest expansion, you make a new Pandarian Monk, lvl it to 10 or w/e than you load into one of the main continents to continue lvling in the next continent which is all open to you.

I don't so far see it as GW2 like more SWTOR and WoW like. Further info might prove otherwise but at this point I don't see it that way.

erh. redguard king thats not true. you have quite a few loadscreens on WoW too. Yeah there are like 3 zones that dont have that. But pretty much any other does, and any new zone in BC and WotlK does. Cant talk about Cata but i doubt they changed much.

That's fine and I understand your point about tutorial areas (I've played SWG, GW1, SWTOR, and they all had a similar approach to tutorial areas). From what I have read though, it seems like this applies to all areas and regions after the tutorial. We'll have to see. Those who played were only able to explore a bit of the zone of Morrowind that they were in before their time was up.

With just the way environments and leveling was explained in the various articles about ESO, it sounds very similar to how ArenaNet approached loading between zones in GW2.

I haven't played WoW since 2006, so I can't speak for how it is now. I can only speak for how it was then and one could travel between zones on a continent without load screens. This is off topic though as my concern is with the fact that ESO is taking a similar stance that GW2 did to exploration. I've just never personally have played an MMORPG where load screens dividing environments was ever really good for an MMO community. It was the loading screens between planets in SWTOR that was a contributor to why the community was so fragmented and inevitably died.