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[Column] Elder Scrolls Online: Asymmetrical Factions
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Creativity flourishes within fixed boundaries.
However, within the MMO space I feel it is strengthening to the community logevity to let these things be born from action and not planning.
EVE has massive factions created by huge groups of players that came together like particles of dust forming planets in space.
In fantasy one can imagine any species excelling in any field. There are always the flukes and the mutants. If you limit the players too much you will create troughs in which players will find themselves falling into.
From a story sense it makes a lot of sense to have 3 distinct starting zones and storylines that blend with the (we hope) open world. Characters (NPC) within the game can attempt to lead the players down certain paths of development depending what species/faction they belong to. If at leat some of the players are suade by this then you will see a difering relation of character types between the factions. Something we would all welcome from an immersion standpoint. There should be more Altmeri Mages than Barbarians, that's cannon.
I prefer a psychological motivation rather than a mechanical one when it comes to trying to sculpt diferences in the factions.
We all know too well that balancing is always the biggest issue. If there is to be a RvR type pvp element to the game then mechanical differences can be a nightmare to manage.
Either way I dearly hope TESO maintains the racial skill and attribute bonuses from the series. Even if they are a new amalgam of the previous stats that are better suited to a MMO.
Yeah but the war should have never been racial, it should've been 3 different groups. Everyone would start in the same area as they do now. Each of the factions would own said areas. It would be easier to join the faction in the area you started out with but you shouldn't be limited to that faction. The racial war doesn't even make sense cannon-wise.
The one thing that I keep seeing is the argument about the class differences on the factions. Keep in mind that in this game, there aren't any classes. The races may have a predisposition to a style of play, so that Elves, for example, may have a larger number of mages, but that doesn't preclude them from donning heavy armor and picking up the sword and board and becoming a truly formidable warrior.
I honestly don't think the factions are going to play a major factor in who's better in RvR, since the choice on how you are going to play your character is based soley on how you play the character. I think the hardest part, personally, is going to be sticking to one thing, and not creating a character that's just a complete mish mosh of skills and abilities.
As for the groups that are the factions, if you read the lore about how they came about, and the time frame the game is in, it does make sense. It's not about race, it's about location. If you take the Dark Elf, Nord, Argonian alliance for example, ESO has flat out stated it's an alliance of convienience. The Breton, Redguard, Orc alliance pulled the orcs in as heavy lifters, because they knew they'd need it. There's no racial connection. The only alliance that is racially based is the Elf/Khajit alliance, and that's just because the elves are so long lived they've basically decided it's time they took it all back, especially since they built the place to begin with.
I do like the idea of being able to switch factions, but I'd make it insanely hard. Something that would take a long time to complete. You have to figure that the first part would be getting from one land to the other, without the inherent *regional* biases stopping them. Then the person would have to prove that they were loyal to the new faction, and overcome the same biases before they were allowed to join.
Purely from a gameplay standpoint, I could see one issue being that this same thing would make RvR more complex and more confusing. Not necessarily a bad thing from a player perspective. Is that wood elf part of the normal faction or my enemy? It certainly would be more realisitic to be sure.
This, a thousand times, this! I don't know how many times I've used a class or weapon and everyone complained how OP it was and it gets nerfed...but I'm still using it, and still wrecking shop.
The locked factions really shouldn't bother anyone for a very simple reason - the devs have created a world that has a particular political standing at the time we enter it as players. The alliances, etc, exist before our character is "born".
The game is based around war - a war with random factions for personal, random reasons has no weight, and does not tug at the sense of injustice or wrongness that motivates diverse people to participate. You can RP your views, whatever they are, and try to change the world - that's also part of what makes a game great! Changing the world is epic, whining that God (or the devs, in this case) didn't make it right and sulking is just dumb.