One Tamriel Discussed and Japan Launch Announced

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One Tamriel Discussed and Japan Launch Announced

Matt Firor has announced that Elder Scrolls Online will launch in Japan. The team also discussed the system of One Tamriel will allow players to join together in adventures by removing level restrictions for players to enter different lands together.

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Salute

At last!!!

winghaven1

This is amazing

Phry

It can only improve things imo, the whole segregation thing was a mistake from the start, as many have already said, as for the rest, in SW:TOR players levels being affected by the zone they are in, works extremely well imo, bringing this feature into ESO can only be a good thing.

josko9

In ESO you play for the Story, you don't play to level up.

This change is opening the game, so you can actually "level" wherever the hell you want to. Leveling was never challenging to begin with anyway. And it won't be any less challenging with all the scaling.

Besides there is still Champion System in place, which provides horizontal progression going forward. It's nice for once leveling in your "background" as you do all kinds of activities at your own pace.

Dragnelus

josko9 said:

In ESO you play for the Story, you don't play to level up.



This change is opening the game, so you can actually "level" wherever the hell you want to. Leveling was never challenging to begin with anyway. And it won't be any less challenging with all the scaling.



Besides there is still Champion System in place, which provides horizontal progression going forward. It's nice for once leveling in your "background" as you do all kinds of activities at your own pace.

Thats your opinion ^^

SpottyGekko

Not sure what to make of this coming change. Does it mean that all quests will be re-written to make them "faction-neutral" ? That would be a massive task, but how else can you allow a player to hop freely from zone to zone without making the story seem schizophrenic ??

gervaise1

7M "players" completing 13 billion quests - so nearly 2,000 quests per player - suggests that a lot of people do play for the story. They can't all be daily crafting quest!

It has taken a while but Zenimax seems to have decided its new Elder Scrolls game has done OK.

SpottyGekko

gervaise1 said:

7M "players" completing 13 billion quests - so nearly 2,000 quests per player - suggests that a lot of people do play for the story. They can't all be daily crafting quest!

It has taken a while but Zenimax seems to have decided its new Elder Scrolls game has done OK.

The interesting thing is that it seems to have done really well DESPITE the original game design, which they are clearly abandoning now.

ESO's original design was aimed at funneling everyone into the PVP centerpiece by building faction-loyalty from L1 to L50 and then pushing the player to Cyrodiil.

That very obviously didn't work, so now they're ripping-out all the faction-related railroading and really saying: "Just play the game the way YOU want to, we're no longer going to try to force you into a specific direction".

Best move ZOS ever made.

Greatsword

This finally turns this into a true Elder Scrolls game.
Well not really, but at least the world will feel a lot more open now... Especially for someone like me, who is still level 17 after more than 2 years.

Coman

antarek said:

So no more need of leveling and people rejoice about such a thing? Nowdays people wanting everything without any effort from their part to obtain it is really... baffling. That's sad.

I am also Baffled! People wanting to play the content they like, with the people they like and ignore the stuff they do not like. A real shocker!

I personally will be playing the game from beginning to end (started yesterday) and not skip content or go directly to the DLC content. But if people want to, and get more worth from the money they pay, then why would that be sad?

Actually now I could join a guild, do high level stuff with them and then come back to the low level content to do that myself.

toolak

They are simply trying to better manage the dwindling pop. Cutting servers is too overt and makes players jump ship faster. By implementing level buff you can make better use of a lesser pop and that makes it seem like you have a bigger pop than you really do.

gervaise1

SpottyGekko said:

gervaise1 said:

7M "players" completing 13 billion quests - so nearly 2,000 quests per player - suggests that a lot of people do play for the story. They can't all be daily crafting quest!

It has taken a while but Zenimax seems to have decided its new Elder Scrolls game has done OK.

The interesting thing is that it seems to have done really well DESPITE the original game design, which they are clearly abandoning now.

ESO's original design was aimed at funneling everyone into the PVP centerpiece by building faction-loyalty from L1 to L50 and then pushing the player to Cyrodiil.

That very obviously didn't work, so now they're ripping-out all the faction-related railroading and really saying: "Just play the game the way YOU want to, we're no longer going to try to force you into a specific direction".

Best move ZOS ever made.

Agree about the original design. The result of it being designed - if it was - to have a subscription maybe? PvP campaigns can be self-perpetuating and if people are happy to pay .... jackpot!  

The "success despite the design" (as far as sales go) I think is more straightforward: they scrapped the subscription. No one can say for sure of course but I would't be surprised if first year sales were under 1M.

Zenimax were very "silent" back then. Now after a year of good base game sales and - presumably - some "millions?" of DLC sales ZoS must be much happier place to work.  

RemyVorender

Great move. Being able to group with friends, no matter what level they are, is awesome.

Iselin

antarek said:

So no more need of leveling and people rejoice about such a thing? Nowdays people wanting everything without any effort from their part to obtain it is really... baffling. That's sad.

Leveling is not going anywhere. ESO has always been about leveling individual skill lines to unlock more powerful abilities and passives instead of just you numeric character level - that will still be the same.

All they're doing is making all areas "max level" and bolstering anyone who needs that bolstering up to that content level. This is already the case with all the DLC zones, now it will also be the case everywhere.

From the way it currently works with a mix of lower level zones and bolstered zones, I can tell you that many new players will have their asses handed to them in short order because they have not yet unlocked and learned to use the better abilities that are higher up i the skill lines.... which they still need to level.

Expect much grumbling about that when this change happens and all low levels are "forced" to play in max level zones everywhere.

Distopia

toolak said:

They are simply trying to better manage the dwindling pop. Cutting servers is too overt and makes players jump ship faster. By implementing level buff you can make better use of a lesser pop and that makes it seem like you have a bigger pop than you really do.

Cutting servers? LOL... Have you played this game? Everyone is already on the same server.. Meaning population isn't an issue to begin with. 

calibek

This is the way most games are going, and I couldn't be happier. The ability to do the areas you want in a particular order instead of being railroaded from one area to the next is great. It provides A LOT of replayability for alts and cuts down on fatigue. I know the new expansion of WoW is doing this as well, being able to explore each zone and it scale to your level, except for the last zone which is meant to be top level. I know that taking each charter through the exact same zones at the same levels leads to burn out. This allows the user to play the game they want and experience things how they want. This coupled with the removal of veteran ranks brings the game closer to true elder scrolls.

Asellia

Maybe I'm confused- but wont this just segment people from their friends more? The instancing was hard enough before, being one step in a quest ahead so often meant I couldn't play with my friends. Wont it be more confusing since now we will not even have guidelines via what level we are? Since you can do any quest at any time.

Sovrath

SpottyGekko said:

Not sure what to make of this coming change. Does it mean that all quests will be re-written to make them "faction-neutral" ? That would be a massive task, but how else can you allow a player to hop freely from zone to zone without making the story seem schizophrenic ??

People play the quests in all "faction areas" anyway. Once you get to level 50 you then go to another faction area.

What this does is make it so that you have access to those areas at any level.

josko9

MisterZebub said:

I can't in any way say this is a bad thing but isn't this something many of us asked them to do since launch yet were totally ignored?

How easy do you think this is? ZOS has done some serious improvements to the game over the past 2 years. Sure they should have launched the game at a later date, but anyway, they've done so much, I haven't seen anything like it yet. I mean they obviously don't care only about the profits, or they'd just continue selling new DLCs every month. They have a right mindset about this, a ton of QOL improvement with every DLC. Win-win for everyone. And that's the reason why ESO is growing, while other MMOs are dying.

Kajidourden

This is going to work so incredibly well with all of the new system changes such as the veteran rank removals and the improved champion system.  You'll be able to jump in and play with a friend who is brand new and still be earning XP towards champion points, getting drops appropriate to your level, etc.  Phenomenal.

Sovrath

josko9 said:

MisterZebub said:

I can't in any way say this is a bad thing but isn't this something many of us asked them to do since launch yet were totally ignored?

How easy do you think this is? ZOS has done some serious improvements to the game over the past 2 years. Sure they should have launched the game at a later date, but anyway, they've done so much, I haven't seen anything like it yet. I mean they obviously don't care only about the profits, or they'd just continue selling new DLCs. They have a right mindset about this, a ton of QOL improvement with every DLC. Win-win for everyone. And that's the reason why ESO is growing, while other MMOs are dying.

Yeah, but what he's saying is that at the start there was a contingent of people who wanted a "more open world" as opposed to locking everything behind each faction area.

this was an initial design decision that was questioned by players.

Anireth

While i didn't play ESO so far and probably never will, i didn't like the mechanic of automatically adjusting levels to the area in any game it was in so far.

If you want to have a open world, don't distribute enemies in concentric circles around a starting point with ever increasing levels with each circle, but mix them up. You leave the city through the wrong door and or at the wrong time, and you're dead, because the giant's club didn't just smash the gate, but also the gatehouse. Whether it was the club or the gatehouse that hit you is kinda moot...

And if you choose the right path, you can cross the entire continent without ever coming across something more fearsome than a butterfly.

Even with auto-level adjust, areas are single use only today. Instead of doing them in order, you can do them all over the place, but once you are done, there is no point in coming back.

Instead it should work like this: You are trying to reach the next city, but you might get followed by some bad guys, so you take your chances with the woods. You stumble across an orc camp, but you neither have the time nor the equipment to take them on. So you avoid them. Once you are in the city, you meet up with some friends, take out the bad guys who by now are drunk in the tavern because they arrived like an hour before you and got bored. You sell their equipment - you don't use heavy armor, and their trappings mark them as belonging to some cult anyways, so basically unusable for you or your friends, but good metal for a smith who can melt it down.

Then you log off for the day.

Next day you have a letter from the head of the local merchants guild, offering you a 10% discount with all guild members for the next month, because you took care of that orc problem and this evil cult, apparently both had been praying on merchants.

The sad thing is, this was (and in some few games, is) possible. You do not have to take it all the way, but some parts can easily be implemented.

Instead, games only give you quest hubs, all loot is character-bound, if it can be sold at all, enemies are arrayed in concentric circles with ever increasing level... (heck, even GW2 did this, only with each city as starting point, so it was not as clear cut on a first look).

Automatic level-scaling only solves problems we wouldn't have without those design issues - or if we didn't use levels (or anything else that works exactly the same but isn't called level..)

Distopia

Kajidourden said:

This is going to work so incredibly well with all of the new system changes such as the veteran rank removals and the improved champion system.  You'll be able to jump in and play with a friend who is brand new and still be earning XP towards champion points, getting drops appropriate to your level, etc.  Phenomenal.

I do agree with this, my wife is far behind me, I have let my main go for a long time playing with her, we're going to wait to play again together until this goes into effect, I definitely see the benefit in that regard.

Seelinnikoi

If they do this, I will come back.

Kajidourden

Seelinnikoi said:

If they do this, I will come back.

What do you mean "if"?  It was announced at an E3 Bethesda Press Conference.............