Interview: Chatting Wtih Elder Scrolls Online Game Director Matt Firor About The MMO's Longevity | M

System · March 30

Interview: Chatting Wtih Elder Scrolls Online Game Director Matt Firor About The MMO's Longevity | MMORPG.com

The Elder Scrolls Online turns ten next week, and during GDC 2024 we had the chance to chat with game director Matt Firor about the MMO's longevity.

Read the full story here

LePetitSoldat · March 30

I fucking hate the game's engine.

Sovrath · March 31

PetitSoldat said:

I fucking hate the game's engine.

Why?

QSatu · March 31

ESO is a strange game. I don't like how the game looks, plays, it doesn't have any exciting features. But when I play it it looks beautiful, gameplay is fun and I enjoy all those boring features like companions and treasure digging.
It's completely opposite to other games which sound far more exciting when I watch them on youtube or read about them but when I play them I get bored very fast.

This year they are adding diferent animations for spells (right now just recolors but I'm sure they will be seling completely different animations after that). And this is very exciting for me. Different animations is one thing which I want in my games (I loved that in path of exile) so they actually keep adding stuff I want in a game.

Scot · March 31

"But I think the industry just kind of pivoted away from these kinds of games about when we launched because they’re difficult to make."

Never a truer word spoken.

"ESO has seen “nearly $2 billion" in player spend"

But this is why it is worth it, these days though studios won't take that initial risk.

“experienced team that’s done it, and not that many people have done it.”

Looking at New World here, not sure he was but I am.

"same tim we did." should be "time".

Not sending a PM to staff for silly stuff like that but the grammar nazi in me has to express itself.

cameltosis · March 31

I came into this article expecting a bunch of self-congratulatory bollocks about how amazing their game is/was.

Imagine my surprise! Right out of the gate: "we have no competition"!!!

Fuck me! It's so rare to see any sort of self-awareness from someone like Matt Frior (by that, i mean a higher up in a company). Not only that, he's spot on: the only reason TESO has survived, even thrived, is a massive lack of competition. If TESO had launched into a competitive, healthy MMO market, the game would have tanked because we'd have all quit to go to the next big thing.

But there was no next big thing! We'd have to wait until 2021 with the launch of New World before TESO got competition. That's 7 years that Zenimax had to fix/improve their game before they risked losing customers to competitors.

Could you imagine a world where something like Wildstar, or Warhammer, launched with no competition and was given years and years to bring their games up to standard?

Xiaoki · April 1

ESO was pretty close to GW2 in terms of gameplay style and features, and GW2 released 2 years before ESO. So, they did have some competition.

But, after ESOs bad launch they very quickly fixed problems, launched the Tamriel Unlimited update a year later, then the console versions shortly after that.

Meanwhile, GW2 was preparing to launch its first expansion, Heart of Thorns, which it would not recover from.

ShinyFlygon · April 1

The most boring MMO I've ever played. I cannot imagine why people like it, play it, defend it.
The combat is floaty, there are way too many currencies, the story is extremely hit-or-miss.

Worst of all, it's way too hard to find decent group content in this so-called "MMO." My friends and I thought it might be a good place to get a free multiplayer fix, but we couldn't find anything interesting to do together.

It is a very bad game, and anyone who says otherwise is feeding you a heaping plate of sunk-cost denial.

KnightFalz · April 1

ShinyFlygon said:

The most boring MMO I've ever played. I cannot imagine why people like it, play it, defend it.
The combat is floaty, there are way too many currencies, the story is extremely hit-or-miss.

Worst of all, it's way too hard to find decent group content in this so-called "MMO." My friends and I thought it might be a good place to get a free multiplayer fix, but we couldn't find anything interesting to do together.

It is a very bad game, and anyone who says otherwise is feeding you a heaping plate of sunk-cost denial.

Tastes vary is why, as per usual. If you want to regularly group join a guild of those like minded. There are always some recruiting.

ESO has no free fix. You must at least buy the base game to play, save for the occasional free weekend events.

Elidien_ga · April 1

After returning this winter, I have to admit ESO is the perfect MMO for me. I have played MMOS since EQ and DAOC and been with ESO since beta. I grew bored after the Skyrim expansion and did not even purchase the last three expansions until last year's Christmas sale. But now I sub happily and really enjoy the game.

To me, ESO is a multiplayer online Elder scrolls game. Other than a few quests or world events, I hardly group with anyone except for convenience. I spend most of my time solo with a companion to play the content I want to play. I enjoy the story and completions aspect of the game. I love ESO for what it is and what it allows me to do and experience and look forward to the new expansion this summer.

lotrlore · April 1

Scot said:

[...]

"same tim we did." should be "time".

Not sending a PM to staff for silly stuff like that but the grammar nazi in me has to express itself.

This is fixed!

KnightFalz · April 1

Elidien_ga said:

After returning this winter, I have to admit ESO is the perfect MMO for me. I have played MMOS since EQ and DAOC and been with ESO since beta. I grew bored after the Skyrim expansion and did not even purchase the last three expansions until last year's Christmas sale. But now I sub happily and really enjoy the game.

To me, ESO is a multiplayer online Elder scrolls game. Other than a few quests or world events, I hardly group with anyone except for convenience. I spend most of my time solo with a companion to play the content I want to play. I enjoy the story and completions aspect of the game. I love ESO for what it is and what it allows me to do and experience and look forward to the new expansion this summer.

One of the best elements for soloists in ESO are high end challenges devoted specifically to them. While it is easy to solo in many MMORPGs to end game the play once there is often heavily group focused.

Angrakhan · April 1

The one thing about ESO is the amount of content, and soloable content at that is dumbfounding. To finish one zone top to bottom takes me a week at least given my play schedule. How many zones are there? I mean it's really impressive given ever side quest is fully voice acted. I wonder how many lines of script there are?

Regardless once I hit 50 I get bored pretty quickly. Once you get that initial set of purple gear from the guild vendors, it's pretty difficult to progress further without getting into a guild that runs end game stuff. Plenty of solo content to do, you're just not going to see upgrades, really. You're just running content to run it and get achievements. Some people love that, but I start looking at other games at that point.

KnightFalz · April 2

Angrakhan said:

The one thing about ESO is the amount of content, and soloable content at that is dumbfounding. To finish one zone top to bottom takes me a week at least given my play schedule. How many zones are there? I mean it's really impressive given ever side quest is fully voice acted. I wonder how many lines of script there are?

Regardless once I hit 50 I get bored pretty quickly. Once you get that initial set of purple gear from the guild vendors, it's pretty difficult to progress further without getting into a guild that runs end game stuff. Plenty of solo content to do, you're just not going to see upgrades, really. You're just running content to run it and get achievements. Some people love that, but I start looking at other games at that point.

True. It's not well suited to those that wish to ever escalate in power as the game is not strongly focused on such. With something like WoW every time an expansion hits there is a power boost to chase but not so much in ESO. I'm sure many would find that an unappealing aspect.

Eldrach · April 2

The engine feels old, there’s also no real sense of progresssion due to the scaling. One of the big «oh yeah» moments of mmorpgs for me has always been trying to tackle higher level content when i «wasn’t supposed to» yet and goong back and slaying lower level content i struggled with before i became a high level bastard

KnightFalz · April 2

Eldrach said:

The engine feels old, there’s also no real sense of progresssion due to the scaling. One of the big «oh yeah» moments of mmorpgs for me has always been trying to tackle higher level content when i «wasn’t supposed to» yet and goong back and slaying lower level content i struggled with before i became a high level bastard

There is progression, just not endlessly and blatantly so. You can't go from level one to fifty with 160+ CP and not gain power.

If you're unsure take a freshly created character and see how challenging a world boss is for you compared to a max level character with ideal gear sets, tons of CP, piles of passives, fully developed companion, etc. and see how similar the experience is.

Progression exists but scaling normally conceals it well. In some cases such as the above the game can be forced to drop that veil.

To challenge yourself against more difficult content in ESO without resorting to such contrivance requires that you seek out that content which is above the baseline in challenge. Such is largely set aside in instanced content so that only those deliberately wanting such will face it.

Xiaoki · April 2

The world of ESO is very consistent. You can feel like every area of ESO belongs there and it makes ESO a more immersive MMO than others.

But, ESO is so solo friendly because it has to be as the end game group content is very exclusive. Recently, I got Arcanist to max level and I got a good set of armor from Normal dungeons and was doing Veteran dungeons when I decided to try and do some raids.

I am no longer playing ESO. I will be back for the next expansion but I definitely won't stay long.

ShinyFlygon · April 2

KnightFalz said:

ShinyFlygon said:

The most boring MMO I've ever played. I cannot imagine why people like it, play it, defend it.
The combat is floaty, there are way too many currencies, the story is extremely hit-or-miss.

Worst of all, it's way too hard to find decent group content in this so-called "MMO." My friends and I thought it might be a good place to get a free multiplayer fix, but we couldn't find anything interesting to do together.

It is a very bad game, and anyone who says otherwise is feeding you a heaping plate of sunk-cost denial.

Tastes vary is why, as per usual. If you want to regularly group join a guild of those like minded. There are always some recruiting.

ESO has no free fix. You must at least buy the base game to play, save for the occasional free weekend events.

Tiny quibbles that ignore my main points of bad combat, bad writing, and cumbersome, inscrutable, overly complex metagame progression. Also, the solo content is so trivial, you are literally just playing "Checklist Online" for hours and hours until you have reached a high enough level to find something challenging -- and you learn that the mere act of finding that challenge is the most difficult quest of all.

ESO and its enthusiasts make gaming worse by creating the impression that any of this is a reasonable standard.

KnightFalz · April 3

ShinyFlygon said:

KnightFalz said:

ShinyFlygon said:

The most boring MMO I've ever played. I cannot imagine why people like it, play it, defend it.

The combat is floaty, there are way too many currencies, the story is extremely hit-or-miss.

Worst of all, it's way too hard to find decent group content in this so-called "MMO." My friends and I thought it might be a good place to get a free multiplayer fix, but we couldn't find anything interesting to do together.

It is a very bad game, and anyone who says otherwise is feeding you a heaping plate of sunk-cost denial.

Tastes vary is why, as per usual. If you want to regularly group join a guild of those like minded. There are always some recruiting.

ESO has no free fix. You must at least buy the base game to play, save for the occasional free weekend events.

Tiny quibbles that ignore my main points of bad combat, bad writing, and cumbersome, inscrutable, overly complex metagame progression. Also, the solo content is so trivial, you are literally just playing "Checklist Online" for hours and hours until you have reached a high enough level to find something challenging -- and you learn that the mere act of finding that challenge is the most difficult quest of all.

ESO and its enthusiasts make gaming worse by creating the impression that any of this is a reasonable standard.

Varying tastes is not a tiny quibble. Appealing to that variance is the reason more than one MMORPG exists. Solo content is trivial when you do trivial solo content. It comes in a wide range of difficulty. You can challenge yourself at any level. Nothing prevents taking freshly made characters to content far beyond the base difficulty. All one need do is open the map as such is clearly marked on it.

Your claims about the game are blatant rubbish.

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Interview: Chatting Wtih Elder Scrolls Online Game Director Matt Firor About The MMO's Longevity | M

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Interview: Chatting Wtih Elder Scrolls Online Game Director Matt Firor About The MMO's Longevity | M

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