ESO Struggled More to Break From Being A WoW Clone Than an Elder Scrolls Clone, According to Former

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ESO Struggled More to Break From Being A WoW Clone Than an Elder Scrolls Clone, According to Former ESO Creative Lead | MMORPG.com

Former Elder Scrolls Online creative director Paul Sage explained breaking out of the World of Warcraft mold was more difficult than standing out as an open-world Elder Scrolls title. 

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Scot

As I mentioned elsewhere it is easily more of a WoW clone than say GW2. But still the better MMO in my eyes.

"It’s easy sometimes to forget what the MMORPG world was like over a decade ago, with so-called “WoW clones” being a dime a dozen." - Not sure we have left that era yet.

“So whereas I felt that you could still really be creative, there were still those marks of like, 'here's what people expect from an MMO'." - It is that "what people expect" which as lead us to an overly uniform MMO template. Always takes two to tango, it is not just the studios which pushed MMOs to more WoW like, our expectations fed back into them making that decision.

CirroseBR

"But still the better MMO in my eyes."

Mines too.

Theocritus

It definitely wasn't Elder Scrolls enough for me.....I wasnt really impressed much with ESO at all.

drumchannell

Until the fix the boring and floaty combat, it's not worth playing.

Sovrath

Theocritus said:

It definitely wasn't Elder Scrolls enough for me.....I wasnt really impressed much with ESO at all.

I tried it many times but it’s rather dull, some of the writing, in my opinion, is bad, and I just couldn’t stick with it. 

I remember logging out and firing up Morrowind and thinking “now that’s more like it!”

Sortis

There are wonderful parts of ESO. However, the combat is pure garbage. Virtually unlimited resources and absolutely no cooldowns on any abilities. The game is practically a case study on if you gave a kid a super soaker, a water hose, and an entire bag of sugar. He's just gonna go ape.

cameltosis

The early 2010s were an era of experimentation?!?!?! That's not how I recall it at all! About the only real change i can recall is the emergence of action combat, as typified by ESO and Wildstar.

Everything else was still solidly in themepark template mode.

As to ESO still going strong? Easy to do with such little competition, the lack of new AAA MMORPGs over the last decade has been awful.

KnightFalz

cameltosis said:

The early 2010s were an era of experimentation?!?!?! That's not how I recall it at all! About the only real change i can recall is the emergence of action combat, as typified by ESO and Wildstar.

Everything else was still solidly in themepark template mode.

As to ESO still going strong? Easy to do with such little competition, the lack of new AAA MMORPGs over the last decade has been awful.

It is of course nowhere near the top two but is doing well compared to many other MMORPG offerings. ESO is nowhere close in action combat to what WildStar was.

Neoyoshi

Well, I can say from my experience that I felt like I was in an Elder Scrolls world more than anything else, so I do hope that the pressure Sage felt was more self-inflected than the actual reality of ESO's launch landscape.


In 2015, ESO felt to me very much like a game dripping with Michael Kirkbride's world influence and Ted Peterson's design aesthetic. It felt like an authentic Elder Scrolls experience.


So in hindsight, Sage trying to stick to that design philosophy is a great impulse, but I do wonder if he stressed about the whole 'WoW-clone' aspect unnecessarily. Wildstar had way more of those woes that plagued it than ESO would have ever had to worry.

vellron

Yeah i dont like the combat but ive played on and off for many years. idk wtf they were thinking trying to "break away" from an elder scrolls clone...? thats literally what we wanted assholes!

waveslayer

it is elder scrolls, shouldnt it be a clone of elder scrolls then? not sure why they wanted to "break away" from being clone of what they are supposed to be

the game is decent fun, some of the quest story lines are interesting some not, same as any other game

My biggest problem with the game is the lack of skills, basically using the same 4 or 5 combat skills gets boring really fast. other then that its fine

KnightFalz

waveslayer said:

it is elder scrolls, shouldnt it be a clone of elder scrolls then? not sure why they wanted to "break away" from being clone of what they are supposed to be

the game is decent fun, some of the quest story lines are interesting some not, same as any other game

My biggest problem with the game is the lack of skills, basically using the same 4 or 5 combat skills gets boring really fast. other then that its fine

No, it should not.

Elder Scrolls games are single player where ESO is a MMORPG. The two genres have different needs that must be accommodated.

You have 12 skills slots available from level 15 onward, 10 basic and 2 ultimate. If you're only using 4 or 5 out of those 12 that is a self-imposed limit.

Viper482

ZOS is a trash company and has poorly managed the game as well. They focus more on the cash shop than they do anything else. Cyrodiil PvP is the most fun I had since Daoc, but also the most frustrating experience because it could be SO much better. They neglected it and even insulted those who played it. Trash.

olepi

I never played WoW, I guess Vanguard and LoTRO were my WoW games.

I was in the closed beta for ESO and it did feel like an Elder Scrolls game to me. The combat was ok and the crafting was decent. It had three different sides and picking a race meant you played in that side's area, like DAOC. The world was beautiful and I liked the voice acting. I played almost every one of the early classes to 50.

Some of the sieges were fun and PvP could be fun in general; I stayed out of the top tier though. Housing was fun to play with.

I didn't like a few things:

1) lack of available skills. You get 5 skills to start with and you can get access to 5 more if you swap your weapon. That's still just 5 at any one time. As a caster, there was a skill that boosted dmg and you had to have it equipped even though it was just a buff. So that takes one slot away from both weapon bars. The classes on all three sides are identical. A pathetically limited experience compared to DAOC.

2) I never have liked the weapon swapping idea in any game, and in early ESO it was full of problems. Lots of times it didn't go off or else it took seconds to swap.

3) the pet classes were simplistic with almost no control over pets at all. Another pathetically limited experience compared to DAOC.

And then the changes came. Didn't like One Tamriel, hated loot boxes. Then it didn't matter what race you were, all areas were open. Then they nerfed stealth for the Wood Elf and gave it to the new cat race that costs money. The money grubbing became more and more obvious. Lots of new powerful drops making crafting barely useful. The lag in PvP could become oppressive.

I guess in sum it's a fun game at a good B level, limitations, loot boxes, and problems keep it from being an A game.

Phaedruslives

It's funny that they saw it in parallel with WoW when their entire mission statement was for it not to be a vertical progression focused experience. The game is kind of the ultimate treadmill because you're pursuing sidegrades for thousands of hours. How many dialogue chains with characters that don't matter can they add in place of meaningful aspirational content with exciting rewards?

Sovrath

Phaedruslives said:

It's funny that they saw it in parallel with WoW when their entire mission statement was for it not to be a vertical progression focused experience. The game is kind of the ultimate treadmill because you're pursuing sidegrades for thousands of hours. How many dialogue chains with characters that don't matter can they add in place of meaningful aspirational content with exciting rewards?

Meaningful? I would say rewards aren’t very meaningful. So many players play for rewards and it’s just a byproduct of Skinner box game play and design.

It’s like a constant pat on the head for the player that they’re doing “ok.”

Not to say there shouldn’t be any rewards. But when the design is always giving the player something for not doing much of anything it seems creepy to me.

The elder scrolls games are about exploration and finding your own path. From those experiences there are some rewards but the actual reward is the unique journey the player embarks upon.

At least within the confines of what can be added to the game.

Kirzan

I wish it was a WoW clone. It would have good combat

KnightFalz

Sovrath said:

Phaedruslives said:

It's funny that they saw it in parallel with WoW when their entire mission statement was for it not to be a vertical progression focused experience. The game is kind of the ultimate treadmill because you're pursuing sidegrades for thousands of hours. How many dialogue chains with characters that don't matter can they add in place of meaningful aspirational content with exciting rewards?

Meaningful? I would say rewards aren’t very meaningful. So many players play for rewards and it’s just a byproduct of Skinner box game play and design.

It’s like a constant pat on the head for the player that they’re doing “ok.”

Not to say there shouldn’t be any rewards. But when the design is always giving the player something for not doing much of anything it seems creepy to me.

The elder scrolls games are about exploration and finding your own path. From those experiences there are some rewards but the actual reward is the unique journey the player embarks upon.

At least within the confines of what can be added to the game.

One of the things I like about ESO is that I can get event rewards without having to grind away my play time solely in pursuit of them over the course of the event. It does get stretched out over several days, but only requires a small bit of time each day so I can still mainly focus on what I intended.

There isn't much exploration though. New World actually has a fair bit with their multi-tiered environments that can often be climbed. I've found a few things nestled away in small caves and the like that I wouldn't have found without essentially be right on top of them. It adds a lot to traversal, for me at least. I often forego my mount so I can take a winding path to my destination.