I watched Jared Carr talk about how the art style will be, how the world is going to be made around it, how there will be no photo-realism because they want 200+ players on the screen at one time. All understandable. But for no huge mountain ranges part....eeehhhhhhhhh
with no mountains it doesn't really feel like an Elder Scrolls game. I'm not biased, I understand there will be some people who'll get frustrated with trying to get to a location over a mountain range, but that's how it's supposed to be right?

I thought any elder scrolls game, Morrowind+, was supposed to make the world seem a lot bigger than you, so there was sooooo much to explore and do and really honestly I love it, but of course this is me, just 1 person giving an opinion.

But what do the rest of you think? Because it seems like every developer is taking things from true gaming to casual gaming, just gets even more boring and there's no fun because there's no challenge.

Of course, this is a blatant and obvious lie.

Photorealism (or lack thereof) is a question of art style.

Amount of characters on screen at the same time is a question of graphic technology.

Those are unrelated. You can have a photorealistic game without it even being a 3D game - simply display actual photos of locations and people ...

its not casual sorry its a pvp game

I wasn't flaming him for that, I actually agree that it's a good idea...

Yes I know, what I'm asking is do you want casual? Because it seems like this community would say no, and I really hope they don't make it casual.

It is a good idea for an MMO, but not for the reasons he brings forward - those are just lies.

The truth is, photorealistic graphics (especially in 3D) age very quickly, cartoony or stylised graphics don't, and MMOs are expected to run for 10+ years. That's the whole reason behind it, not the "we want to render more characters on screen" [censored].

Immersion is not all about graphics to me - it is about a world I can live a life in, make money as a travelling food critic and marmalade seller, believable interactions with NPCs (and good interations with other players). A world that feels real because of the things that happen as well as, to a certain degree, the way it looks. A photorealistic world where nothing happens or things happen in a way that doesn't feel real is not going to immerse me no matter how pretty it is. Morrowind was the most immersive of all the ES games (I feel and many people feel too) and it was not about graphics. It was about the world and the towns and the hours spent walking to Pelagiad picking comberry to make pies.

guys your making the mistake I did lol thinking this is an Elder Scrolls game this is nothing more than DAOC 2

I gotcha now ty guys for the input

I am anti-casual but its the casual players who help fund the game for me to wreak havoc on the battlefield of it.

Oh yeah I get what you mean, and I really like that a non-npc player can be emperor, it really matters on how good you are in your faction, because you gotta keep rep up.

battle field 3 is casual

mmos are NOT casual friendly, learned that the HARD way in wow...only had 1 main character and I could barely keep up with the insane gear grinding that I just gave up after hitting 85, the leveling up with my friend was pretty enjoyable but at end "game" we just got left in the dust because we could not play 24/7

I just hope TESO is more about the game and not the gear

In an Elder Scrolls game I want immersion, sadly, this game doesn't seem to be offering that.

oh yah I just hope that the world is so beautiful and lore friendly we will find it impossible NOT to be immersed in it

I don't want games that hold my hand, i want games so difficult i tear my hair out in frustration and there's already enough series that have been casualized so i would like if it's being hardcoe designed but it won't.

I agree. I'm sick of this "dumbing down" or "streamlining" games, especially MMOs and RPGs. It should be difficult and open to all kinds of tinkering with characters. Like, what ever happen to base stats and having to manually input what stars you want to upgrade? (strength, dex, intel, constitution, etc). We definitely won't have that in ESO. From the sounds of it we won't even have class specs. It just sounds like everyone of a class gets everything as they level. Then they just choose what 3 abilities they will use. I guess that can make things diverse, but you won't be hearing stuff like "what's a good spec for a battlemage?" "any rejuvenation healers lfg?" "full ice wizard lfg".

PvP on a good server will be more difficult that PVE in a single player game.

I would gladly be casually immersed... Which most likely does not end up to be the case; I extend my little finger, TESO pulls my whole body.

Also:

I agree with that notion. I've never found PvE -ever- as hard/complicated/demanding/hectic as PvP.

Though, from what I've heard about the combat system, PvE will most likely feel like casual PvP - against an AI.

Mmos can be both casual and hardcoe. Its all about the path you choose. If you were grinding for gear, you obviously was not enjoying the casual aspect of the game and have no real reason to complain. My wife played wow very casually for over a year and never once got wrapped up in the get grind. She, quite literally, played casually.

They need to drop this lofty goal of having 200 players on screen...

The recent King of MMO's, World of Warcraft, doesn't even try to be that audacious. In the pvp, the most they've tried to do a 40 vs 40 battleground where those 80 players are spread out across the entire zone. Still, I generally think that being realistic about graphics is a key to an MMO's success - there are many different players with many different rigs, and the more inclusive you are, the better usually. I am worried, however, that if people pick up Elder Scrolls Online expecting 'Skyrim Online', and then find that they've gotten 'Cartoonworld Skyrim: Online' then that will cause some problems...

Yeah see this is exactly what I'm talking about I want something like Ultima before EA took it over (not exactly like it lol, I mean in the sense of uniqueicity is that a word? No.). There was so much freedom! Now it's like "you're going to start here and go to here and do this, here" and with the single player it's not like that, you can break off and I really want that for the mmo but I know it won't be that way. If I had the skills to, I would build my own rpg universe from scratch but I'm just a sound engineer I know nothing about hard-coding an engine or anything.

Try Mortal Online or DarkFall. Both games svck terribly but they offer you freedom.

Darkfall was kinda cool and MO you had to workworkworkworkwork to get what you wanted, magic/swords/armor/etc.

I'm sorry but WoW PvP is a joke. It's like CoD; just rinse and repeat in an instance or arena. And Blizzard couldn't balance their low number of classes if their life depended on it. WoW is PvE driven. PvP was always an afterthought in WoW.

DAoC started years before WoW and you had multitudes of people fighting each other while siege weapons destroyed a massive medieval style keep. There would be 50+ ppl inside the keep defending while another 50+ assaulted and rammed down the keep gate; or punctured a hole in the wall. Then you'd have a massive rush as 100+ ppl beat the piss out of one another inside the keep and inner tower. Swords clashed, Thor hammers reigned down in an aoe, arcane spells blasted enemies, stealthers popped on casters and one shotted them, achers slew healers from the walks, guild banners shown on every other person character, healers avoided enemies and healed like no ones business, CCers tried to land a 50 sec mezz on groups of people, boiling oil poured down in the attackers. And then in the heat of this epic battle, THE THIRD REALM WOULD SHOW UP WITH THEIR 50+ PPL. They'd flank the two sides and suddenly you have complete chaos as 150 ppl are fighting and dying all around the keep.

And this doesn't even cover open area battles on your way to a keep or tower.

All of this epicness was happening back in 2001 and it rarely lagged. For the most part, it was magical. We can only hope ESO will come near that.

Also DAoC had like 21 races and 47 classes!!!

Say what you will about World of Warcraft, it's wildly successful. Part of the reason for that success is it's accessibility - it's generic fantasy, with something in the lore for everyone, and it doesn't take itself too seriously. Plus, from the beginning it's tried to be on the lower end of PC Specs requirements, again with the idea that accessibility is the key being held in mind.

I promise you that with modern graphics, fights with hundreds of players simply aren't possible with the great variety of different rigs out there. I've played World of Warcraft (though not recently), and I have a pretty badass desktop, and even I had occasional lags and slow downs on Isle of Conquest, where maybe 60 players would clash together, spamming high particle AOE effects all over. ESO will have better graphics, or at least comparable graphics to World of Warcraft, it will have people will computers far inferior to mine, and apparently it will have even more players on screen. Logically, there is no way that lag will not be an issue.

Plus, in my experience MMO launches are always a bit messy, and plagued with latency. ESO is being made by a brand new company, created especially for making this game, probably with less breadth of experience than the average company. Why exacerbate at-launch problems even further with overly ambitious goals?