Elder Scrolls Online

I agree with all of that. I didn't say they were worse after Morrowind, as that's the one TES title I never finished They just changed. It was no longer a small tight knit group, it had become more company, less a friendly group of like-minded folks. I'm still a big fan of all things Bethesda. ESO isn't Bethesda though, but it still sounds pretty good. The lore in ESO is Bethesda.

Okay, not the veteran or hardcore bits; at least in comparison.

As large companies go, I think they've managed to stay remarkably in touch with their playerbase.

But you're right, they're no longer small enough to be able to have that kind of daily interaction. It's the nature of growth.

Growing the dev team from 8 to 30ish to 60ish to over 100 people and going from a few hundred TES fans to over millions might have a lot more to do with the lost of "tight knit group" feeling than anything else.

At some point there is just too many voices on each sides. Trimming through all the echos is not easy and then you also get many discordant voices, because players's taste differ a lot.

For example, in TESO, there are a group of players who want the Veteran Ranks gone, but other who are super happy with getting more of them in the next patch (that come with the Imperial City DLC).

Originally Posted by Thaurin
I don't really remember any story lines, but I do remember every zone and what they felt like. When WoW was new, it was really great to explore the world. It helped that I was in a nice guild ever since beta. Now I kinda long to check out to vanilla WoW again—and apparently this is possible with a torrent of an old version of WoW and a private server… hmmmm.

Just to quickly elaborate on that, I agree with DArtagnan that WoW was something special that you won't recapture today even more so because it was the first MMO of thousands (millions?) of players.
I also don't remember a single quest story from Vanilla because there virtually wasn't any, only background stories to setup the mood. The point was to immerse players in the huge WoW universe with familiar landscape and characters but fully explorable and persistent, with friends (Blizzard added story arcs with the expansions, resolving conflicts from Warcraft III and creating new ones).

I've kept in touch with a few of the team from the Morrowind days and they're a good group of folks. I haven't talked to Steve Meister in a while though, but I hope he's still there. Gotta see if I can reach him, if just to say hi.

I'm not sure how much interaction they have with the ESO team, but from what I read from DArt, it sounds like the lore is in good hands. There are so many single-player games coming out, that even though I have some interest in trying ESO, finding time will be difficult. I normally play one game at a time, but I've played 10-12 games in the last couple months, finishing nothing, just trying to keep up. Oops, finished Borderlands. That was the only one.

This thread is proof enough that DArtagnan on Zenimax's payroll! If he is not then they should hire him ASAP since he seems to have more passion for ESO than all of their devs put together

Originally Posted by crpgnut
I've kept in touch with a few of the team from the Morrowind days and they're a good group of folks. I haven't talked to Steve Meister in a while though, but I hope he's still there. Gotta see if I can reach him, if just to say hi.

That's cool. You should try and convince them to Kickstart a spiritual successor to Morrowind. Hand-placed, hand-crafted, minimal level-scaling, open world.

Work some magic, 'nut!

Originally Posted by azarhal
For example, in TESO, there are a group of players who want the Veteran Ranks gone, but other who are super happy with getting more of them in the next patch (that come with the Imperial City DLC).

Wait, I don't really know what the VR levels are being new and all, but I thought those were going away and something like "Champion Points" or something would take its place? I should probably get into the latest news around ESO more.

Originally Posted by Luckra
I also don't remember a single quest story from Vanilla because there virtually wasn't any, only background stories to setup the mood. The point was to immerse players in the huge WoW universe with familiar landscape and characters but fully explorable and persistent, with friends (Blizzard added story arcs with the expansions, resolving conflicts from Warcraft III and creating new ones).

Actually, I do remember some of the story around the child King in Stormwind and Onyxia, hahaha. That was probably one of the biggest story moments in vanilla WoW. I also remember visiting places from Warcraft III and knowing the history of it, that was fantastic. People claimed that they could hear the voices of ghosts from WC3 there, but to this day, I'm not sure if that was really true or not.

Originally Posted by Thaurin
Wait, I don't really know what the VR levels are being new and all, but I thought those were going away and something like "Champion Points" or something would take its place? I should probably get into the latest news around ESO more.

That was apparently the plan, but it clearly changed with them adding 2 more VR ranks with the Imperial DLC that release in August/September. Champions Points are just added to VR ranks at this point (so the gap between VR1 and max VR is even greater).

Originally Posted by azarhal
That was apparently the plan, but it clearly changed with them adding 2 more VR ranks with the Imperial DLC that release in August/September. Champions Points are just added to VR ranks at this point (so the gap between VR1 and max VR is even greater).

Well, I've never been very competitive in my MMO's so I don't care much. I do hope ESO has level-range PvP areas, though, like WoW and DAoC, and that not every character is twinked out (not even sure if that's possible in ESO). Hey, I remembered a nerd word.

Originally Posted by Thaurin
People claimed that they could hear the voices of ghosts from WC3 there, but to this day, I'm not sure if that was really true or not.

It is! In the ruins of Lordaeron you can hear some lines from the WCIII opening and closing human campaign cinematics (Medivh warning the king and Arthas "succeeding" his father)

Originally Posted by Luckra
It is! In the ruins of Lordaeron you can hear some lines from the WCIII opening and closing human campaign cinematics (Medivh warning the king and Arthas "succeeding" his father)

I'm not sure if I actually ever heard that myself. But that is very cool touch.

OK, I am feeling lonely and would like some company to do dungeons. Anyone interested in joining me on the US server in the Aldmeri dominion, userid is Thrasher91604. Playing an altmer DPS sorcerer, level 17.

Not sure about texting. This game really needs a group voicechat.

Also, looking for guilds to join. Any mature, fun, and openminded ones for suggestion?

Originally Posted by Thrasher
OK, I am feeling lonely and would like some company to do dungeons. Anyone interested in joining me on the US server in the Aldmeri dominion, userid is Thrasher91604. Playing an altmer DPS sorcerer, level 17.

Not sure about texting. This game really needs a group voicechat.

Also, looking for guilds to join. Any mature, fun, and openminded ones for suggestion?

I thought about but as we like a lot of the same games and music. Though 70.00 for the game seems a bit much as I haven't played a Online game since 2001(Counter Strike).

How fun is it?

I'd say that Dart's observations above are spot on. A few things aside.

The lore is diminished. All these pests stealing the best loot kind of ruins immersion and thoughtful reading. Bit of a rat race. Not to mention enemies can rarely respawn on you while you are reading.

I bought it on sale for $20. Seems worth $20 to me. Haven't tried any pvp yet.

Lots of back and forth to sell and deposit loot. Luckily way shrines allow fast travel. Still would like a mount, but need all my gold for inventory and bank space upgrades.

Lots of skills to choose from. Am enjoying the crafting although it is grindy.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
I'd say that Dart's observations above are spot on. A few things aside.

The lore is diminished. All these pests stealing the best loot kind of ruins immersion and thoughtful reading. Bit of a rat race. Not to mention enemies can rarely respawn on you while you are reading.

I bought in on sale for $20. Seems worth $20 to me. Haven't tried any pvp yet.

Lots of back and forth to sell and deposit loot. Luckily way shrines allow fast travel. Still would like a mount, but need all my gold for inventory and bank space upgrades.

Lots of skills to choose from. Am enjoying the crafting although it is grindy.

How can people steal the best loot from you? Does it not have individual loot?

Locked chests and glyphs and heavy loot bags are shared, not instanced.

OK, crafting was fun, until last night I got a new crafting writ. Crafted/acquired the required stuff, but couldn't turn it in, even though the quest said I could. Tried re crafting/salvaging to no avail. It turns out I had to go to entirely different area to turn it in, but there was no indication in the quest text that the location had changed.

Couldn't get into the game, just wouldn't do it for me. Having tremendous fun with Guild Wars 2, so I guess to each it's own

Did my first 4 person pick up group dungeon in the last night. Banished Cells, at level 18. Took a while to arrange using the group tool. Did have some decent loot. I died twice. Other players rushed through the content without even listening to the dialog. Not very satisfying from a roleplaying point of view. I suppose after while most just grind through these, over and over again for the loot and XP.