Because they want to be a part of the world instead of just a visitor.

well once the official site is up im sure you guys will indeed inform them

If the game world is actual full scale, 10 million people can each own a place each and not cover the land mass of a single province.

Tamriel is twice the size of great britain at about 460,000 sq km. A province is about 50,000 sq km. Each of the 10 million person can have 5000 sq meters. 5000 sq meters is almost exactly the size of a american football field.

We know TESO isn't going to have 10 million players, and they could have districts/servers.

but again, the game wouldn't be full scale, thats unreasonable.

For the players, "owning" a part of it strengthens their bond with the game world, and is wildly popular where available. UO devs didn't anticipate just how strong this psychoogical effect is (and neither do you, it seems), which led to there being not really enough space on the game world, and to overpopulation/over-urbanisation. By the time of SWG (which had the same lead designer - Raph Koster) rolled out, this problem was solved. Even in Minecraft, people are fiercely territorial about "their" piece of land.

For the game company, this means people are likely to stick around longer, which translates to higher profits. Also, items for the house builders and decorators - new colours, patterns, items to decorate the house with - are easier to introduce, since they don't affect game balance, and can be more easily monetised via a microtransaction shop.

But

-if they put in an instanced player house area, people will complain that the houses aren't part of the normal game world
-If they put in non-instanced player housing, people will complain that the houses are going to take up to much space
-If they limit the space that player housing can be put on, people will complain that only the old-guard or richest people can have houses
-If they dont put in player housing people will complain about having no player housing

It's a lose lose lose lose situation

Do not attempt to justify TES's lore with no sandbox. The real lore includes conflict, murders, treachery, bandits plundering, strip club brawls and so on. It won't be doable without sandbox environment.

None of those require a sandbox game to have.....

Freedom of choice, in this case to attack anyone at any given time is required. Not to mention its a fundamental part of the Elder Scrolls series - as a game.

Except all those unkillable people in both Oblivion and Skyrim.

as being able to attack anyone does no require the game be a sandbox eaither

Who were killable in Morrowind.

And even if it wouldnt be sandbox, a TES title requires FFA PvP.

Point is.... you don't need to be able to kill or even attack everyone for it to be a TES game.

Also since no TES game has had large scale PVP you cant really say it requires FFA PVP

An old wisdom of online game development is: Somebody is always complaining. That's no excuse or reason to do or not do anything.

As to the third point: Make it that houses decay if not maintained (to the point where they are totally gone and the lot freed after a few months), make them freely tradable between players, and make sure there is place for at least ten times as many houses as the players can play on the server (times the number of houses per player, if they can own more than one), and you fixed that.

That is a lot of space for a feature that even if everyone on the player used would still leave massive amounts of empty space that could be used for caves, dungeons, and other ruins that EVERYONE could enjoy.

And still a lot of players would keep their homes fixed all the time leaving little space, if they spaced it reasonably and not 10X as you suggested, for new people.

Poor game design.

Why is "empty" (of course it isn't really empty; before someone sets their house on it, there are trees and shrubs and rocks there, wild animals roam the countryside and random goblin bands use the space for temporary camps ...) "poor game design"? MMOs, more than any other game type, need this "empty" space to not feel crowded.

There's a difference between having some empty space, and having a large section of the world full of this "empty" space because its the place they want players to build homes.

Having empty space is fine, but to have a space for homes owuld require a vast part of the game world be empty space with little in it, and when they could have used some of that content for things that could help peopl level, the later option should always be chosen.

The question is still: Why?

If someone wants to level, they'll just teleport to their levelling spot, do what they want to do there, and teleport back to town. They don't mind or care how much "empty" space is inbetween.

On the other hand, house builders, explorers, PvP players? They want to have lots of it, for finding just the right spot for their dream house, for having the exploration feel meaningful, for having space to out-manoeuver the opposing forces and space to fight in and about.

I believe more than few TES fans will disagree with you.

There shouldn't be "leveling spots", all locations within the same area should provide equal chances at leveling, not using that space is wasteful.


Well "fans" aren't who get to determine what makes a game what it is.

i think more than a few TES fans do not play TES for its pvp.

There will, however, be levelling spots. Even if not designated as such by the game designers, the players will create their own.

Wishing it isn't so doesn't make the facts go away.

And again: You provide some statements, in this case "all locations within the same area should provide equal chances at leveling", without explaining why this should be true. Having worked on MMOs on and off since 1994 ... I don't think you ever were involved in designing or programming one.

Does it really need explanation?

Is having as much content as possible to let people level so they dont have to repeat the same dungeons, caves, ruins etc. etc. such a un-obvious thing?

It's a nice ideal. As so often the case, it breaks when dealing with real people. Players will quickly find the "perfect" spots for their group or solo activity and flock to them, they will quickly create "classes" (though they might surprise even the game designers) even in a game with purely skill-based advancement. It's the old 90-10 rule at work again: 90% of your content will be used by 10% of the population, and the other 10% by 90%. Not because you designed it so - but because people are very much social animals.

First off: How is it impossible to explain in TES Lore, that new settlements are foundet or that cities grow getting new districts added? Housing/settlements are difficult in TES:O context because of a lot more technical reasons. Lore is no reason at all to say housing can't be done.

You also take the OP far too serious and too much by his word when he talks about world building as you can do it in Otherland. Of course such stuff makes no sense at all in TES:O, still elements of that for example when talking about mining could be worthwhile additions.

Also remember that sandbox does not necessarily mean dynamic world. The world in TES games allways was a static thing. Still they're considered sandbox games, because of the non-linear storyline and the dynamic in player-NPC and Player-Faction relationships.

At this point regardless of the fact that we know that the gameplay will be point and click with skillbar and we we most likely will not see housing at release, there's still a lot of room for sandbox elements from TES single player to be adopted in TES:O. For instance instead of having instanced battlegrounds they could take an open PvP approach enabling Guilds/Clans to take control over the various castles in world. That is a degree of freedom that adds sandbox feeling as the players choose where they fight and with how many people and they can call in reinforcements if need be. Or add more factions in the coming year and allow for dynamic change in play-faction relationships. And don't you come and tell me "That's impossible in MMO's" because I've played MMOs that did it just fine.

In my opinion Open PvP in the non-instanced world and non-instanced PvE are a must have if a MMORPG wants to earn that title. It's schizophrenic to talk about massively multiplayer if most worthwhile activities (raiding dungeons for loot and PvPing) are limited to 8 or 16 players. That's why I didn't like WoW from the get go it simply was Diablo with proffessions added. Having instances limited to 8 players did not sound the least bit interesting. I still do not like those games for that very reason, though I played a few, but I usually don't stick around for long.

Instancing is a fine and easy way to be able to brag about thousands of players on the same server without having to think about the problem, that the game world in reality is not even close to being large enough for that number of players.

Why would some empty space for housing take away the space set aside for grinding mobs?