Hey everybody,

The GI podcast more or less confirmed that traversing provinces outside of your faction will not be possible in ESO. The main explanation was to keep World PvP confined to Cyrodiil and for players to have a safe zone of sorts in their own provinces to build faction identity. Now if I'm not wrong, DAoC had the same system where all three realms were separate and they could only meet in neutral territory to have the mass 3-faction PvP.

What are your thoughts on this development? From a PvP perspective, I think it's great ZeniMax Online wants to control where the world PvP is being fought and prevent gank squads and griefers from killing players leveling in the PvE game (huge issue in pvp-oriented MMOs). This also helps with the alliance building as you don't have an influx of people from enemy territories coming in and you have more of a sense of a home. That being said, as an explorer, I'm a bit disappointed as exploration is one of the reasons I love the TES IP. Obviously I'll just need to make a race for each faction to explore all of Tamriel that will be in the game at launch. But I was really hoping I could explore the entire continent of Tamriel on just one character.

Discuss.

It's disappointing in a way as I love RvR but also love exploring. I guess I will just have to make a character on each realm even if that means having one character on each server. I hope they make a Co-op server like they did in DAOC though. I would then only need 2 characters, one on Co-Op and one on regular RvR

Having played DAoC for years this doesn't bother me st all. It helps create a sense of alliance pride and improves the Cyrodiil PvP, which I'm all about. I definitely foresee a lot of pissed off TES fans though when they learn they can't see every province with one character. It makes sense though when you think about the 3 sided war setting the game is in. You can't have other alliances in another alliances zones. I'm sure that the provinces within each alliance will be so big there will be more than enough content. The three realms in DAoC (Albion, Midgard, and Hibernia) were massive.

On a side note, I think this pretty much confirms there will not be cross faction chat. That would really mess up PvP.

I definitely understand and agree with the points you are making. It's just a little disheartening for the explorer in me not being able to wage war on enemy provinces. That being said, compromises have to be made, and I think this will ultimately be for the better.

As far as cross faction chat is concerned, yeah I don't think it will be possible. It seems ZeniMax Online wants to confine factions to their own separate areas and only allow contact within Cyrodiil.

Although here is one question I have to pose: Is there really any point into taking control of the Imperial City and being crowned emperor? Obviously they already stated there won't be any sort of special powers or authority as emperor, and the only benefits will be for the faction as a whole. But being emperor of Tamriel should have some sort of impact? Shouldn't it? If anything, it would be interesting if whatever faction took the thrown could temporarily invade other provinces to declare their sovereignty over them.

What would be cool would be a mix of DAOC and Warhammer Online. Once the frontier has been dominated they could push into the other factions realm; setting up Warcamps at specific areas inside enemy territory. It would also lead to the dominating side being over stretched and open to flanking attacks by the 3rd faction. With one control point in each zone leading to the capital, if any point in the chain is broken they would eventually lose control and be cut off from supply, making them unable to deploy siege to attack the capital.

It could very well be possible. I could easily see something to this effect. However, we will just have to wait until they reveal more in depth information in the pvp system. We don't even know how pvp rewards will work either.

Lol great minds think alike. Yeah I was just thinking if a faction were to take the thrown, being able to temporarily invade enemy provinces would be a nice benefit for that hard work. Obviously as you had suggested, making such advances could be detrimental and strategically risky as empires often overstretch their authority and lose power.

Exactly. A perfect mix.

I think that what they are doing here is exactly what i expected them to do.

Follow the safe formulaic WoW system.

All those propaganda they had about allowing players to EXPLORE the world was just [censored].

Despite, what the GI article said, im sad to say that this game is WoW with Daedras indeed.

Has it been stated whether the crowned emperor will be player or NPC? If it becomes an NPC of your faction it would be awesome if you could find and equip them with artifacts to improve your factions power somehow. Maybe the artifacts like the Mace of Molag Bal could be found in the public dungeon and delivered to key NPCs that are in command of specific keeps.

If I'm not mistaken, WoW actually does allow for enemy factions to attack enemy cities, so that's not really a fair comparison. They definitely are following more of a DAoC system if we are going to compare the MMO to anything. Details are still sparse about PvP though, so I definitely can't wait to hear more.

It has been confirmed in the GI magazine that the highest rated player on the winning faction will be crowned emperor. There are no special perks to being crowned other than having the cool title and bragging rights.

It's not copying WoW formula at all, I really wish you would stop plaguing every thread with it.
What they have described is identical to Dark age of Camelots 3 realm faction. DAOC is 4 years older than WoW and nothing like it.

As I stated in another thread, no. WoW does have a faction war, yes, but you can actually visit the enemy territory.

As well, there are several open world PvP areas... Like Wintergrasp, or the Gurubashi arena; Both of those places are out in the wilderness, and both are for PvP.

If they had taken a "WoW with Daedras" approach, Cyrodiil would be a part of the world just as all the different alliance territories. It just would have an added "forced PvP feature".

I must admit, I should liked to explore all the world. BUT as my character... unless its completely neccesary... I will not leave the homeland. So no big trouble for me. But yes, I know lots of people will complain on this.

Which is sad if you think about it. All ESO is doing is follow DaOC.
The way im seeing this. ESO looks like a 2013 version revival of DaOC rather then an Elder Scrolls MMORPG itself.

Amen!

I'm so sick of people comparing everything to WoW because that's the MMO they started with or they think it basically created the MMO. As you said, DAoC was 4 years before WoW and guess what? It had a lot of mechanics in place that WoW later incorporated into its game. WoWcontinued to take ideas from DAoC and it's expansions for many years. It's just no one knew or cared because DAoCs numbers paled in comparison to WoW. Also you had EQ and UO before all that.

I think you are wrong here too. You cant say that just because they follow a similar faction-view. Each game is unique. And we need to play it to know how it fits together before make statements.

It's not sad at all as far as I'm concerned. It's combining two of my favorite games by having A 3 faction RvR MMO and Elder Scrolls lore and classes. That combined with 6 button action bar and active combat I think it will be one of the best MMOs this decade

I think it's the single worst decision they have made so far.

First, it's not fair to the Aldmeri Dominion and especially the Daggerfall Covenant, because they have much less area. Their answer that the "playable" area is about the same is nonsense: Eventually, we want the game to have ALL of Tamriel, don't we? If not, this means the Ebonheart Pact area is artificially shrinked down to not exceed the area of the Covenant.

Second, this is the absolute anthithesis of exploration. No. Just no.

Third, this doesn't contribute to my identification with my alliance. Quite the contrary. If I have to make at least three characters, one in each faction, to explore the whole game, why should I feel more connected to one alliance over the other two? On the other hand, if I could go into enemy territory with my Nord for some pillaging, this would make me feel more like a part of the Pact.

Fourth, not being able to play with 2/3 of my friends, just because they chose another race, is not only a fun-killer right there, it is the opposite of their goal to enhance the social experience of MMOs.

I just hope the community will give enough feedback during the beta to find a better solution. This is not going to work well.

Even as the loss of exploration pains me, this here.

A huge amount of positive factors outweigh the loss of one feature. Even if it might be disappointing, well, hey! Think about the good sides.

"Always look on the bright side of life."

So one minute you claim it's sad they are following WoW and then the next you claim it's sad they are following DAoC. You just love to complain.

This.
Imagine that. I love bretons and my friend loves Nords.
And we CAN NEVER PLAY together???? lol no matter how you justify this, this whole idea is just stupid.

In regards to exploration, yeah I can definitely understand a lot of what you are saying and it's kind of taking a back seat to trying to create a faction identity. The other big issue I can definitely see is being forced to play a particular race just to play with your friends. It's understandable that they want factions to look physically different, but it does take choice and freedom away from the player to play the game as they choose.

The great thing about MMOs is they are always subject to change, but yeah this could really be a dividing line for a lot of TES fans, even if this feature did work well in DAoC. I'm personally not going to throw out any ideas until we see it in action. If the game works perfectly fine with how they are currently setting it up, yeah we lose the ability of exploration and choosing ones race, but there are still a lot of other benefits.