(Thread #1 reached the post limit)
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1454128-unfortunately-it-feels-like-deja-vu/

Note:

It seems I have to write a "disclaimer" for the people who find the time to post, rushing to defend TESO but don't have the time to actually read the thread and understand that

it is not judging or attacking TESO - it is not possible to do that, since the game has not been released yet.

If you have read it you will see that it talks about mmorpgs in general and makes a hypothesis of what will happen if TESO follows the common mmorpg trend in various separate elements. All these come from a frustrated gamer craving to play a mmorpg with the standards of UO, Shadowbane and other similar mmorpgs.

Hope you at least read these few first lines before rushing to post (and keep it civil!)

Must say a few things about some "de facto" gameplay elements in modern MMORPGs, as a fan of ES series since DF and an avid MMORPG player.

WOW, for better or worse, was the last "truly successful" MMORPG released, thing which is supported by statistics alone, so please do not be offended or annoyed by many comparisons - it's unavoidable and natural to compare games of similar genres. (Was it successful due to the things i mention? History has shown otherwise with recent MMOs popping up like mushrooms lately.)

I want to do this to convey my own feelings towards what *I* want ES to be and to express my concern about ES online going down the drain like so many other games of its kind which failed to meet expectations in the last few years (not that i believe this game will be any different but i'd like to hope so). Also i tried not to learn things about the game so you will find me uninformed about a lot of things that may have been leaked until this point. It is more of a "general perspective" and I do pray these below do not apply on TESO (edit: although I have to say that the more I learn about it the more I am disappointed as well).

So here we go...


Things which make me "physically sick" (pardon the expression) in modern MMORPGs or a "reverse wishlist":


The infinite quest grind

Because grinding fetching quests is so much better than grinding monsters.
They said, asian MMOs were too grindy. Even with me being a "lore freak" and all, I say that the quest grind is much worse than that. For one it defines the exact places you go, the exact monsters to kill, the exact path you will follow. Most mmorpgs are plagued by this - WOW was also plagued by it, but I must admit that it threw an engaging and actually enjoyable quest now and then. But still it's mindless/pointless quest grind from area to area overshadowed these good quests.
Still feel nauseus, for example, by leveling in TERA this morning. Speak to that guy, pick that up, bring it there, kill 4 hornless goats, kill 4 horned goats after that and so on.
Many quest lines you say? Still prefer to have alternatives like the monster grind or PVP leveling. Monster grinding is actually fun if you have a good combat system in place.

But in general let us be creative about the way we level up.
Well, at least i can rest assured that they will not make the mistake of adopting that dull excuse of a concept that is called dailies in the game (at least not without a lot of RNG) right...? Or not.


PVP and PVE gear separation and instances

Not if you want to simulate a fantasy world.

PVP gear. What? PVP gear are specially designed for PVP! PVE gear are designed for PVE!
What a horrible idea! It really gets the prize among all the things i've written in this post.
I can't even begin to describe how un-enjoyable is to have different sets for different kinds of activities.
The "epic armor of ultimate devastation" you got by slaying Dragon A? Useful for slaying Dragon B which you must slay to get the gear to slay Dragon C and so on.
It's powerful and epic but essentially useless in PVP compared to the equivalent pvp armor.
As for instances...
Good were the times with no instances. Best blend of PVP and PVE. Many may disagree with that ofcourse. Might be a little too hardcoe to be able to backstab each other in an instance but still made a game more interesting imo. I still can understand the need for embedding lore with PVE (at certain times) thus not wanting to involve PVP in it.


Punishment or rather, lack thereof

None likes "punishment" or "consequences" in a game. But it is them that give bloody meaning to everything you do in it.

I am not a masochist. But let's face it. When punishment exists, the things you do right have more bloody value. To clarify, I am not talking about the harshest of penalties like losing all your inventory or the like, but meaningful penalties that hurt just as much as it takes for things to have bloody meaning!

You have died. So what? No biggie, just a small repair cost.
But no! It cannot be possibly more! To lose anything more would make deaths meaningful and avoid-worthy! By no means!
On the contrary by all means respec whenever you want! Choose from any skill you want anytime. Choices? They don't matter because they are easily reversible so everything is safe (aka boring). Besides planning or character building is known to hurt the brain.
Want it this way to appease the imaginary masses? No money from me (and from the masses essentially getting bored with instant gratification with no consequences after a while).

-Yui Tanimura, bloody director of Dark Souls II


"Free" epics are NOT epics! (and the benefits of RNG)

Even if an average player does not immediately realize this, he eventually will! He is not a dimwit you know!

Obviously an item that everyone has in an online game, no matter what color or name or rarity it has, is something common (and bland).
"But if everyone can't get the best items, they will not be happy!" - A myth! On the contrary, even if someone may whine about not being able or not being lucky enough to get that great item, it still presents a goal for him and keeps his interest in the game.
I wonder if they will "have the guts" to maintain some "real rarity" and also, add some good amount of RNG in the game. RNG is the spice of a game, a great source of replayability and one of the greatest weapons against inactivity and boredom. And i don't mean the pseudo-RNG of semi-useless WOW world drops and crafting. Even that though (oh snap 5 flasks with one go!!!) added a good deal of entertainment. But yes... RNG can be as addictive in an MMORPG as nicotine in cigarettes.


"AFK in Orgrimar(/Ironforge)" phenomenon...and soloing

Because depending on a bunch of other people for meaningful playing is what everybody wants.

What does this mean? It doesn't nessesarily have to do anything with WOW. It's the phenomenon of having nothing substancial to do near the "end-game".
At last finished with the "infinite quest grind", god it was a drag! Maxed out my professions and got quite ready for raids... the only bloody meaningful thing i can do in the "end-game".
Why? Because solo is not an option in the "end game".
Why does it have to be this way? Can't solo be an option (for something actually meaningful) if it is properly balanced? Ofcourse it can. And no, this being an online game doesn't have anything to do with it. You can't always depend on others. But you can still give enough incentives for people to party and raid together. For the love of god though, don't impose this
dependance on us by saying something like "to progress as a character you have to grind raid instances".


Real Player Versus Player please

...not predetermined grounds and PvP-only zones!

Between factions only? In battlegrounds? In "open" pvp areas? In specific zones? Sigh... will this be another game with constricted pvp? Detained in some silly instanced battlegrounds or open pvp areas to control resources for which the player could not care less?
I can understand a few safe havens but i can't understand constricted pvp. It kills the realism, the element of the unexpected and the immersion of the game. Why has it stopped being an element in modern mmorpgs? It worked great in the past. Worked wonderfully for many games. Why, for the love of god, are developers afraid to have free pvp in the game?
Sorry but, in the end, the frustration free pvp may cause to a player gets outweighted by the boredom of constricted pvp (fact already proven by past mmorpgs).


The "end-game" and short level caps!

For the love of god, it doesn't bloody have to "end" until the next patch!

I hate this term (and i hate Blizzard for making it the standard recipe in modern mmos). People are expected to start playing and begin "the infinite quest grind" and then proceed to the "end game" where "the true game raid grind begins".
Let me let you in on a "secret": CONSTANT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT IS A GOOD THING FOR THE GAME'S LONGEVITY (sorry for the caps). It amazes me how most mainstream developers (many indie developers have gotten this point and have actually seen some success) fail to realize this basic concept, leading to fiascos like the one of Diablo 3 (a reason among many others == not a fiasco in its starter sales due to the franchise name but a major fiasco for its desired RMA revenue).
It has been made a standard thing for mmorpgs to have the "infinite quest grind" stage in order to reach a short level cap so that the player can continue to the "end game". Sad how most "salesmen" may think this is anywhere near addictive for players and even sadder for players to have not known any other pattern which would actually be more enjoyable for them.
Personally, i await for a modern mmorpg which will not have this dull pattern and allow for constant progression or at least a SOFT CAP. And i do because i know the alternatives and i have played many "different recipe" mmorpgs like Ultima or the 4th coming... heck even Lineage II did it right in that respect.

(update)

Patch and starting from scratch

It's a stupidly vicious cycle!

Let's talk now about the patch-nerf cycle "fraud", as I like to call it. Made widely known by, again, WOW, it is the cycle that keeps the game alive consisted of approximately this pattern:

A) People going through current content and exhausting it. Both pvp and pve.
B ) Bosses and challenges or rewards are nerfed to oblivion so that everyone completes them and reaches the approximate level of progress.
C) People waiting for patch/stop really playing until the next patch.
D) Next patch comes, distributing (from quests etc) items which automatically make everyone's hard work on the "last batch of content", obsolete, aka everyone essentially starts from scratch. Bosses are hard at the start, but are mysteriously weakened after a while and so on.

Two different personal point of views:

First POV: A decade, or so, ago I was playing WOW, among other games. I could afford playing a lot. I would raid and defeat bosses when they were released, devoting a big chunk of my free time. 2-3 weeks later my hard work and the time I put in became obsolete since these bosses were nerfed and, of course, everything I did until that point seemed futile as they could be now easily defeated. It was merely a race of "bragging rights" about killing a boss one day earlier than the rival guild.

Second POV: At some point I started a full-time job and my free time got substantially reduced. I then joined a guild of casual players, like me. When a patch was released, we couldn't defeat the bosses. But 2-3 weeks later, after everything was nerfed, we would clear them out with no particular effort. I never enjoyed the loots/achievements I got from these runs. They just seemed fake to me - besides, how great is an achievement if everyone else has achieved it?

Now after reading these, keep the previous paragraph, mentioning short level caps and "the end game", in mind. Also understand that mmorpgs did not always work like that. Instead, their current content "lasted" for more than a year or two. In addition their patches did not make everything obsolete - instead, they added to the current gameplay.

Juvenile animations and effects

Sacrifice all seriousness, lore and realism for a lower ESBR rating! Yes, go ahead!

As I mentioned at the start of the post I try not to learn much about the game. Because I am afraid it will be of the nature Hqthief described.

Huge blinding flashy effects, over-exaggerated skills and over-the-top animations reminding you of Dragonball. This is, unfortunately, quite a popular characteristic in modern mmorpgs.

Also, among there mainstream ones, there is a complete lack of blood. You hit an enemy and instead of blood, rainbow colors and sunshine pours out of him. How immersive is that? The least I could ask for, is a choice in the game settings between these two.

In general, many developers, tend to think that flashy moves will make you think more highly of yourself and your character and tend to go all out on this one.

To me it is just annoying and destroys immersion.

Diversity and balance
The solution to balance is not making everything the same!

Again, WOW, is a convenient example and point of reference. At first it started with very diverse classes. The actual mechanics of their skills were different and unique. As the time went by and balance changes had to be made, the developers chose an easy path - in a few words, they gradually made all classes the same. They added the, once unique, AOE, healing, crowd control etc skills to every single class and then standardized their durations and effects to the point that almost all classes were equally effective in everything. PvP, solo play, farming, raiding and so on. Diversity suffered for the sake of *lazy* balancing.

Speaking of balancing, to add insult to the injury, the game was never completely balanced. Each patch always favored a class, cycling through all the classes so that everyone stays happy. I find this ridiculous to say the least. Even worse, to put it more correctly, each patch favored only a single tree of a class (balance couldn't even be achieved among talent trees, so they cycled the buffs/nerfs there as well).

But the lack of diversity is not only among classes. It is in gear, apparel, trinkets, mounts etc. Mounts for example, in modern mmorpgs, are only diverse in appearance. Since most mmorpgs have also no collision, the only thing that changed was the texture. Even their speed is completely the same and only changes when it comes to a few different "tiers" of mounts. Having played old mmorpgs in which mounts had, different statistics, could fight, some could be used as storage, had all different speeds and unique perks, I find the lack of diversion in modern ones, unacceptable.

As for gear, every new piece of loot someone got would blandly upgrade his stats by a small margin. That's the extend of diversity of loot in most modern games. Pretty interesting and engaging kind of rewards eh? It would make a world of difference to add extra functionality on loot. More items with procs, passive buffs and unique properties. Not bland and boring hoards of loot so that you can upgrade your stats by 0.001% per piece.

Scaling

A recipe for dullness. "Let's standardize everything shall we?"

In any form, the most dreadful mistake of all. The easy solution to everything. But it takes so much away... It is the trend of modern mmorpgs and the bane of immersion and fun.

Leveling the playfield among players who invested different amounts of hours in the game cannot possibly be considered fair. But perhaps, most of the players against any kind of scaling will still play the game and scaling will keep most not so dedicated players happy and draw more of them in. So... it seems like win-win situation for the company.

So, let's make everyone equal! Why not? Sounds fair and doesn't seem to have any downsides. Right? Mark my words and remember them a few months after TESO gets released.

TESO will, eventually, have to become "free to play". Because with a mindset like this, it will not avoid becoming the typical overhyped, but now dull, mmorpg trying to cater to everyone and sacrificing immersion and basic RPG elements in the damn process!

Do I really have to explain in detail which basic RPG elements do I mean or how destructive scaling is for this game? How it demotivates you in pursuing your "quest for treasure" or how it throws character development (which includes gear) out of one of the most important parts of the game?

I plan to raise this thread from the dead when this eventually (and unfortunately) happens.

Concluding... I would like to mention how childish this "hardcoe vs casuals" internet debate is. But there is some truth to arguments by both sides and there is one goal - making money from the game.
What a lot of mmorpgs (and WOW after WotLK mostly) did, in my humble opinion, was to focus much on instant gratification, hand-holding and rewarding too much OR following standard patterns. Will players really get addicted and stay if you pat them on the head and cater to their every convenience? WOW was already secured for many other reasons maintaining its customer base (which still did regress after WotLK), while other big budget mmorps like LotRo, Aion, Tera, SW etc failed miserably (thing which you can realize for some of them by how many servers they were planning to launch some months after release and how many they eventually did *laughs*) following the same recipes.

Wasn't it time this changed... or... wrong forum?

PS: A funny thing is that months after I created this thread, I begun to notice various amateur or professional reviewers, youtubers and writers, among many, in several communities, have started to actually acknowledge the existence of this "typical mmo recipe" I am talking about, mostly mentioning the standard quest grind patterns and the (ridiculous) "PVP-only PVE-only" zones and, of course, better late than never, condemning them, since they already have started to become "dangerously" uninteresting elements in the nowadays mmorpg games (oh god, what a shock!).

"TLTR": Create yet another "conventional" mmorpg, trying to target every single kind of audience and it will be nothing more than an extremely late cash-in, in an exhausted part of the mmorpg market, riding in Skyrim's success, even disappointing its own fans and at the end, becoming "free to play" and eventually subject to a slow death, like many others before it.

All I read was that you think this game will fail.

Pretty much. If one thinks ESO will just be another run of the mill conventional MMO, I would suggest they haven't done enough or any research on this game.

I appreciate the time and effort that went into this post, but if you just can't be arsed to inform yourself about the game... then don't expect people to respond constructively. I know I'm not gonna bother. Half of your thread contains stuff that isn't relevant to ESO because it isn't in the game...

Well, we cannot really know for sure until the game is released and everyone who will be playing it is actually playing it. those in beta may have a better idea, but the NDA prohibits them from discussing it.

We do not know how the masses are going to react to this game. These forums represent only a fraction of the community that will exist post-launch. And that post-launch forum community will only be a fraction of a fraction of those who play the game and have no interest or incentive in visiting the forums.

Remember.... SWTOR got rave previews by almost everyone. It was only when it went live that it was revealed to be the steaming pile of crap that it is, and so many of those "In BioWare We Trust!" [censored] realized how badly betrayed they were.

I am not saying that TESO is going to fail. I AM saying that it has just as much potential to fail as it does to succeed. Only time will tell the full story...

Maybe originally. This is just a repost from months ago.

The OP's position seems based on perceptions of what the MMO genre has essentially become, and in spite of all these different gimmicks employed by this or that developer, is essentially remaining. And until we are all actually able to PLAY this game, we cannot really know for sure whether or not ZOS is maintaining the same old status quo. We have to remember that the instances of gameplay that people have been permitted to report on have been predesigned by ZOS for the purposes of those previews and are not necessarily reflective of what the game as a whole will be when it goes live.

The OP's concerns are valid until/unless TESO proves to be a genre-redefining game.

Well thought out and reasoned post. I agree with most items but I disagree on the need for solo content.

Leveling content is fine but ultimately the purpose of a MMO is to play with other people not by yourself. When you offer easier roads to endgame currencies or items or rewards in general most people will take that route. Easiest path and all.

A lot of games who offer solo friendly options all the way to the cap end up feeling less like a MMO and more like a single player rpg with a chat box.

Not sure how ESO will turn out at this point. Since it's in beta and it's hard to peer through the hype and dev speak. The continuation of progression (vet points) gives people something else to focus on rather than grinding rep or gear.

To be honest I doubt any MMO will fit perfectly for everyone all the time but so long as te time spent in ESO is "fun" it doesn't matter.

I didn't say anything about the game succeeding or failing. Simply the notion that ESO is just another run of the mill MMO is clearly a ridiculous notion to have based on the public info we have been given and seen.

Anything released prior to launch is potentially just smoke and mirrors. We see what they WANT us to see. Only when we see everything that will be AS it will be in the finished product will we know for sure. I am hoping that this game will everything it SEEMS to be shaping up to be. But I've hoped for the same thing for a lot of MMOs.

lol ok sure, yeah before launch they will take out the action based, active combat. Remove the minimal UI. Remove the RvR style PvP and insert a Raid or die End game. Yep all smoke and mirrors... Come on, just by looking at the major systems that will be in the game, yes we can say right now ESO will not be just another run of the mill MMO. To say otherwise is just being overly cynical and jaded.

What can I say... The genre as it has become has turned me into a pessimist. Developer after developer has made promises and failed to deliver. This one is no different to me UNTIL they deliver on what is promised. I will be buying the game and I will give it a real chance. I am simply not going to get my hopes up again, only to have them dashed...

And we have to remember that it isn't just what the game will have in it. It's also the stuff we have not learned about yet that will have an effect.

In Star Trek Online, player-fleet starbases sounded amazing. What was not made clear was just how HUGE of a mind-numbing grindfest they were for those who were not part of a large and active fleet of people wanting to work through the system.

Again, time will tell the whole story.

Dude.. Not everything is subject to change. They have a fundamental design for PvP for example. A huge open zone with all sorts of obstacles, keeps to claim and other stuff to do. It will 100% not be just the same old battlegrounds we know from WoW/SWTOR. This is pretty rockhard truth. Another example is gear separation. They have made a clear decision on which way to go and afaik they have chosen the way of equal gear. Changing this will force them to change more that just the stats of the armor. At this point in development, most things are just being polished and stuff is being balanced. They really are not going to make any groundbreaking changes at this point. Your whole post didn't take away the fact that the OP didn't bother to inform himself and that some of his points aren't even relevant.

This is your problem. Your perspective that came forth from your experiences. All fine, but for other people the outcome of a game after it's launch might be totally different. And it still doesn't take away from the irrelevance of some of the OP's points, which you seem to defend by saying it is all smoke and mirrors until you see it.

First off, I totally agree with Koen that some of the OP's points do betray a lack of understanding of how this game has been designed. However I can understand where you're coming from. I've seen it myself, all the talk and hype comes to nothing. Though I dread to say it, ToR is an excellent example of that.

Here's the thing though - at this stage of development, how many people were trying to warn them of the pitfalls they were running into? Pang and Koen could prob answer that far better than I, but from what I've seen, it appears that a number of alarm bells started going off when leaks started coming out of beta. Now this isn't to say that I don't have my concerns about ESO. Some of the armors in-game look very silly to be honest, and we still have very little info on AZs. Overall though, the feedback I've got from people that have actually played it is resoundingly positive. The alarm bells that were going off before are simply not there this time.

I know that no-one's going to be able (or, more accurately, allowed) to prove you wrong right now, but if nothing else, can you at least accept that all indicators *suggest* a superior game?

If you have the time to reply and are actually willing to deposit your thoughts, you should also take the time to actually read the post.

Reading only a few sentences will obviously make you misunderstand its meaning. I only added the TLTR sentence assuming that people reading it, do not also have time to post misorienting and irrelevant things.

I understand the urge to defend the game but you have totally misunderstood the post's meaning. If you have time to passionately post about how "TESO isn't like this or that", please take the time to read the whole post, if you want to make an actual conversation that is. I openly state that I do not want to be informed about the game. But this doesn't have to do anything with this post.

This post refers to the trend of mmorpgs in general thing which I shouldn't have to explain every time someone thinks I am attacking something without reading the OP.

Now that this is out of the way, please try to keep it flame-free.

Pretty much sums up the reason this post was made and my desire to play something with the standards of games like UO, Shadowbane etc.

Thing which I clearly mention in the OP, as well as the reasons for it. Which obviously also didn't bother reading. *Sigh* I guess that's the problem with the long posts.

Also I clearly make a hypothesis and mostly talk about mmorpgs in general in this whole post.

It's a repost of the OP in a thread which exceeded the post limit, yes.

dear Bleak.

i did in fact read every single word in your post. And i agree with Pangscar.

If you would've done enough research to what is currently known about the game you should know that half your OP has zero (none, nothing) to do with ESO. For example, there will be no difference in gear for PvE and PvP.

[edit]: Your fear of being disappointed yet again is clouding your judgment. Just as my anticipation for this game is clouding mine.

I understand what you are saying, and I admit I did miss the line where you said that this post wasn't directly about TESO. But then I ask you: Don't you need to post this in another section of the forum, or on another forum? This section is about ESO and if you are posting stuff here that isn't about the game.. then I really don't see the point. And just the fact you litterally said "Also i tried not to learn things about the game so you will find me uninformed about a lot of things that may have been leaked until this point" made me think like, what are you even here to discuss then..

+1

I don't get the point of this guy.

Smells like trolling.

Haha, suave edit

Yes, but there are reasons why I chose not to be informed. Because it will be then that my judgement will be clouded. I chose instead to talk about what I dislike in mmorpgs making a "reverse wishlist", discussing with the community about how they perceive that a good mmorpg should be, touching many subjects separately (I am aware that some of my paragraphs may be obsolete).

Edit: In your example of PvE and PvP gear separation, my paragraph can be considered to be a "thumbs up to this development decision of the game,

since it states that the opposite is a bad idea.

The answer to the question is more or less what I replied to Parangea. It refers to many different elements of mmorpgs. If some are obsolete, so be it. But we don't have the final product in our hands so all we can do is make a hypothesis, giving some feedback in the process and discussing what the "perfect" mmorpg should be, mentioning the things that frustrated us in mmorpgs we have already played (even if some are obsolete because they already have been announced - most aren't - but keep in mind nothing is set in stone yet).

As above. If this isn't specifically about ESO, you're in the wrong forum.

If this isn't about ESO then it doesn't belong in this forum.

If this is about the trend of mmorpgs in general, repost this in Community Discussion.