ESO Alpha Review

[Zavon]

Good news?

[Marou]

I'm dubious, maybe I just don't care about MMO's anymore. I'm especially dubious about the class system. The things this guy is describing are counter-intuitive.

[Wulf]

I really hate MMO's these days other than some time on GW2 which has no subscription fee and is just a chill type of MMO experience.

[VKhaun]

He said primary offense and defense are the mouse, key word defense! Active block MMO = win. I also picked up on the point about dodging and blocking giving XP. That's important because it immediately makes big fights more worthwhile. They're not all-or-nothing win/lose anymore if you can run over and start farming XP taking shots and dodging.

CAN become a vampire/werewolf
CAN change classes on the fly.

Very, very encouraging... but just talk at this point.

[Andile™]

As much as I like Skyrim, the tone of the review was too "fanboyish" for me. Would rather see more description and less "omg that was so awesome you guys".

[Marou]

I have 622 hours in Skyrim over the past year, and I played DAoC for years on top of helping to run this site. You'd think I'd be the prime target for a TES game, and in fact I am. However, what's wrong (to me), is the scale and the gameplay goal. The TES games are all about freedom, cause they give you a metric assload of content, some dubious but ambitious SIM-like AI, and then you can tackle or ignore everything in the game in whatever order you want.

I'd always envisioned if an ES game came out it would be in a massive landmass the size of the original Daggerfall, it'd be one server, and everything outside of major towns, PvP objectives, and a few epic dungeons would be phased so that it could employ the same type of scaling the single player games do. Dungeons, most quests, and alot of land would haveto be RNG'd, but that tech has come a long way since the old days. A dungeon or even hamlet that exists in my version of the world doesn't have to exist in yours.

What would be crucial to such a game's success is:

1. Modern attempt at randomized content (TESO doesn't seem to have this)
2. Sandbox Elements (build a house, take over an RNG dungeon for yourself) (TESO doesn't seem to have this)
3. Inspired AI, and randomized events (TESO doesn't seem to have this)
4. One "Server" (It has this)
5. GM's empowered to spin out content and possess NPC's in-line (Voiced NPCS rules this out)
6. Randomized faction quests that can optionally pit players against each other (TESO doesn't even mention factions at all)
7. Immersive first person perspective and gameplay (TESO may or may not have this)
8. Clutter and crafting systems (TESO doesn't consider this a core feature so it's not in the alpha build)

It doesn't need to support 200 players on-screen and it certainly doesn't need to have fully voiced SWTOR quests to drag you to level cap so you can RvR forever. That's fine for another game, as a TES game it just leaves me underwhelmed. The secret sauce of the TES games is the unexpected shit you can run into even 600 hours into the game. Yesterday I ran into Babette in Skyrim eating someone on the side of the road. I'd never seen that. Discovery, bits and pieces of lore, and epic gameplay moments that weren't scriped but happened due to the framework in which the story lives. That's what makes a Bethesda Softworks' game special.

When I saw this video I was thinking, "What TES games has this guy been playing that he plays them for the story?". Don't get me wrong, I love the lore, but it's obvious he's not playing the same way I do, which is fine...but, it makes me question everything else he has to say.

[VKhaun]

^
Did you watch his vid? 3 and 6 are in the alpha.

Obviously the PvE faction quests in PvP areas are subject to the perils of just being poorly done gather/grind quests... but it's there.

[Marou]

^
Did you watch his vid? 3 and 6 are in the alpha.

Obviously the PvE faction quests in PvP areas are subject to the perils of just being poorly done gather/grind quests... but it's there.

To be clear, I don't mean combat AI. I mean mobs that travel from place to place with a purpose and lifecycle that aren't always quest content. Combat AI means shit if the enemies just stand in a field and patrol a 20 foot loop until attacked.

Examples from Skyrim

1. Bandits
2. Necromancers
3. Poachers
4. Imperial Patrols
5. Stormcloak Patrols
6. Couriers
7. Vigilent of Stendar
8. Dawnguard Patrols (Road patrols, message couriers, supply runners, etc)
9. Escaped captives
10. Fugitives
11. Thalmor
12. Dragons
13. Vampires
14. Assorted faction/quest related (babette eating people, companions killing monsters, DB coming after you before you join. Thieves getting caught robbing merchants in towns, etc)
15. Drunks
16. Drug dealers
17. Old Orcs
18. Mercenaries
19. Peddlers
20. Assassins
21. Pilgrims
22. Refugees
23. Caravans
24. Forsworn raiders
25. Ghosts
26. Daedra Worshippers

All of the things listed above are going around doing their own thing under the imperative of the AI. If you shadow for example, Vigilant of Stendarr, they will eventually lead you to vampire or necromancer hideouts. If you follow bandits they will eventually attack a peddler, giant camp, hamlet, farm, or guard tower. If you kill a courier you can find notes they were delivering that lead to interesting places, etc etc. For 6 I meant something like person/group A being sent to a dungeon for 1 thing, and person/group B for the same thing. Or, two people/groups being sent to steal the same item, or one group being sent to kill someone, and another being sent to protect them.

When I said inspired AI I didn't mean good combat tactics. I meant you haven't really experienced what Skyrim has to offer until you've enforced a rule on yourself such as limited fast travel and spent a long time wandering the roads and trails, and this is nothing new to Skyrim. Random world shit going down has been around since Daggerfall and really came into it's own in Morrowind when a mage trying to perfect a flying potion drops out of the sky to his death on the road in front of you near the first town.

I've seen a random Stormcloak patrol fighting a Thalmor hit group sent after me, and had a dragon swoop down to fuck things up right as the fight is finishing off. I've seen vampires set up an ambush on the road and Vigilant of Stendarr take them on. I've seen an escaped woman running from bandits tell me about her escape, and upon arriving at the place she mentioned find an imperial patrol already engaging the bandits. I've pickpocketed a letter off a courier and found the shipment referenced in a cave where the peddlers moving the "dead bodies" decided to rob them of jewelry and instead found vampires. I've seen haggered families going to towns because their isolated farms were burned down by dragons. I've had mercenaries jump me as I exited a tomb because I fucked over someone and they hired people for revenge. What purpose does any of this stuff serve? It makes the world feel alive. Like it's going on independent of you, because on some basic level it is. It's not like an MMO where I can stand in the road AFK for 3 hours and come back to see the exact same shit loitering in the field that was there when I left. If you did that in Skyrim, you'd most certainly come back dead.

It's not the scripted sequences with Alduin that keep Skyrim fresh for 600 hours. It's that you are liberated to go anywhere you wish, and can't predict what will befall you or how badly sidetracked you will get going from point A to point B, even on a journey you've already made 20 times. That time-wasting nirvana is powered by AI that does it's own thing, encounter scaling, and massive amounts of quasi-randomized events and sidequests.

The guy in the video said "combat AI is impressive as you move between quest hubs". That so totally misses the point. To the guy at Besthesda Softworks that really brought this type of content to the next level in Skyrim I'd say bravo, you knocked it out of the park to the extent that I have no desire to play the previous chapters of TES. This sort of stuff exists in earlier games, but not nearly to the extent that it does in Skyrim.




tldr? The very idea of following a linear "Mists of Pandaria' style leveling path through zones to quest hubs is anathema to the concept of gameplay freedom inherit in The Elder Scrolls series. If there was a linear path that had to be followed through Skyrim I'd have stopped playing 500+ hours ago.

[VKhaun]

I disagree.

Skyrim is tiny random events mixed with tons and tons of NPC's with life cycles. I think that's backwards, and I think that's been done backwards intentionally to make up for the fact there is only one player.

If the combat A.I. is crazy good (Or, you know... just good enough to not get stuck on rocks and stairs or try to spam slow snipe spells in small rooms full of pillars like in Skyrim...) then all you need are very simple and easy to random generate stand guard / patrol loop / wander NPC's in the world and large random spawns that chase a player because they will naturally adapt to what they encounter along the way and what the player is doing when they reach them.

Bandit group spawns way out of visual range and attacks without warning:
In a city/castle? - It's now being raided by bandits! Lots of guards and players in trigger area = HUGE bandit spawn
In a bandit fort? - They have reinforcements! (Bandits + Bandit Ambush = Allied factions)
Fighting a Dragon? - They target the dragon until it's dead, then turn on you. (Dragon = lower standing faction than players.)
In a dungeon? - Bandits are looking for a new hideout! (Bandits inside neutral buildings set up camps and booby traps, post guards.)
In a small town? - Bandits bump into merchants and start killing/robbing them. (All merchants = lower standing faction than players.)

Trade caravan spawns out of visual range and travels towards the player at low speed on roads until another random even takes it's place. (maybe you never see it, but other players do)
In a city/castle? - Caravan arrives since the main roads go to the cities and all players can trade with it when it stops for you outside.
In a bandit fort? - Caravan is passing by and it's guards come to help you if they're close enough to see/hear fighting.
Fighting a Dragon? - Dragon attacks and kills their horses or guards, dead guards = they'll pay for protection to get to the nearest town. Dead horse = they'll pay a crap ton for a horse.
Ina a dungeon? - Stops on the road outside looking to see if the suicidal adventurer finds anything worth trading.
In a small town? - Caravan arrives since the roads go there, and all players can trade with it.


Note: Nothing going on here but extremely basic behavior. Bandits kill stuff, caravan guards kill stuff, caravan merchants and bandit chiefs pick up loot and put it in their chests when hostiles aren't around (stuff is dead). Ambush/caravan both stop if they reach a friendly area while trying to come after you (town for merchants, another bandit camp for bandits). The NPC's in the ambush have a faction and that faction has a standing rating with all the others in the game that it could bump into. Just two behaviors: Kill and pick stuff up. Just two movements: Travel towards player, stop and hang out. The only thing that would be complex would be dungeon interaction (bandits set up booby traps/guards and try to make it a new hideout?).





You think because they are coming after you, it won't feel like a real world but just lots of random crap being sent after you, but you won't be the only player! You will cross paths with MY bandit raid. I will bump into YOUR caravan. Number of enemies in the ambush and the distance it travels would be much greater than in Skyrim (because they would presumably have the A.I. and pathing to make such a trip, rather than flip out when they encounter bushes or teleport when they see a stream. If there are 100 players in a region, you wouldn't even need stand-in-field mobs. All the players and groups spawning crap would fill the area with bandit patrols, faction battles, merchants with ROG gear, hungry vampires at night, etc.

You will be a Stormcloak and I'll be an imperial... my RNG turn comes up and I get an imperial ambush, since I'm their faction I just got a spawn of reinforcements in our PvP battle! Or maybe you get an ambush of some other faction, but Imperials are a lower faction standing than the Stormcloaks so you just got reinforcements but they may not be your friends when it's over if you don't kill enough imperials to boost your faction standing with them. Or maybe you kiting me back down a road lets your trade caravan catch up, and they start taking loot off of the players you killed in the open field by the road. You can now buy what should be yours or fight them for it!






More random + good A.I. > NPC's with sims lives

[Marou]

I disagree.

Skyrim is tiny random events mixed with tons and tons of NPC's with life cycles. I think that's backwards, and I think that's been done backwards intentionally to make up for the fact there is only one player.

If the combat A.I. is crazy good (Or, you know... just good enough to not get stuck on rocks and stairs or try to spam slow snipe spells in small rooms full of pillars like in Skyrim...) then all you need are very simple and easy to random generate stand guard / patrol loop / wander NPC's in the world and large random spawns that chase a player because they will naturally adapt to what they encounter along the way and what the player is doing when they reach them.

Bandit group spawns way out of visual range and attacks without warning:
In a city/castle? - It's now being raided by bandits! Lots of guards and players in trigger area = HUGE bandit spawn
In a bandit fort? - They have reinforcements! (Bandits + Bandit Ambush = Allied factions)
Fighting a Dragon? - They target the dragon until it's dead, then turn on you. (Dragon = lower standing faction than players.)
In a dungeon? - Bandits are looking for a new hideout! (Bandits inside neutral buildings set up camps and booby traps, post guards.)
In a small town? - Bandits bump into merchants and start killing/robbing them. (All merchants = lower standing faction than players.)

Trade caravan spawns out of visual range and travels towards the player at low speed on roads until another random even takes it's place. (maybe you never see it, but other players do)
In a city/castle? - Caravan arrives since the main roads go to the cities and all players can trade with it when it stops for you outside.
In a bandit fort? - Caravan is passing by and it's guards come to help you if they're close enough to see/hear fighting.
Fighting a Dragon? - Dragon attacks and kills their horses or guards, dead guards = they'll pay for protection to get to the nearest town. Dead horse = they'll pay a crap ton for a horse.
Ina a dungeon? - Stops on the road outside looking to see if the suicidal adventurer finds anything worth trading.
In a small town? - Caravan arrives since the roads go there, and all players can trade with it.


Note: Nothing going on here but extremely basic behavior. Bandits kill stuff and put loot in their chest. Caravan guards kill stuff, caravan merchant sets up shop if it finds you or hits a town. The NPC's in the ambush have a faction and that faction has a standing rating with all the others in the game that it could bump into.



You think because they are coming after you, it won't feel like a real world but just lots of random crap being sent after you, but you won't be the only player! You will cross paths with MY bandit raid. I will bump into YOUR caravan. Number of enemies in the ambush and the distance it travels would be much greater than in Skyrim (because they would presumably have the A.I. and pathing to make such a trip, rather than flip out when they encounter bushes or teleport when they see a stream.

You will be a Stormcloak and I'll be an imperial... my RNG turn comes up and I get an imperial ambush, since I'm their faction I just got a spawn of reinforcements in our PvP battle! Or maybe you get an ambush of some other faction, but Imperials are a lower faction standing than the Stormcloaks so you just got reinforcements but they may not be your friends when it's over if you don't kill enough imperials to boost your faction standing with them. Or maybe you kiting me back down a road lets your trade caravan catch up, and they start taking loot off of the players you killed in the open field by the road. You can now buy what should be yours or fight them for it!






More random + good A.I. > NPC's with sims lives

We'll disagree on this. Nothing pulls me out of the Simulation aspect of a game more than purposeless lifeless loitering NPCs/Monsters. Random events are great, and I like them. I'm fine with compromising sim-like NPCs for major (shared space) towns, but with the rest of the world being phased, there is little reason they couldn't do much more with it. Pulling 10 Daedroth spawns off a hill would make me want to puke. When npcs and mobs are static leveled and located, farming and farm-like mechanics become the core aspect of the game. Scaling, Sim-like NPC behavior, and location/dungeon randomization defeat this. None of which seems to be present in the thus-far revealed TESO features.

[VKhaun]

Sorry for mega edits.

You wouldn't need stand-on-hill daedroth spawns if a hundred players were spawning one thing each all over the map. Given a good distance, you would probably never see your own ambush and would spend your time encountering other people's ambushes, maybe finding two that had bumped into each other.

[Zavon]

One way or the other, it seems like they made great strides away from all the things we originally heard.

I doubt they could make the kind of mmo that marou would be happy with and still make the game a hit.

The fact that they reacted, at all, to the extreme backlash is a good sign imo. Ill be keeping an eye out.

[Marou]

One way or the other, it seems like they made great strides away from all the things we originally heard.

I doubt they could make the kind of mmo that marou would be happy with and still make the game a hit.

The fact that they reacted, at all, to the extreme backlash is a good sign imo. Ill be keeping an eye out.

Yeah, it might end up being a good MMO. If I play any MMO in the near future it'll probably be Pathfinder Online.

[Valec]

Yeah, it might end up being a good MMO. If I play any MMO in the near future it'll probably be Pathfinder Online.

It's funny that the only MMOs in the future that i'm even interested are both derived from pen-and-paper RPGs(World of Dakrness, Pathfinder).

Truth is, they'll probably suck too, but whatever. Time will tell. I suppose these days, the main experience for me, is getting in early on a good MMORPG and playing it for the first few months until the really glaring problems are apparent, then shelving it.

[Marou]

It's funny that the only MMOs in the future that i'm even interested are both derived from pen-and-paper RPGs(World of Dakrness, Pathfinder).

Truth is, they'll probably suck too, but whatever. Time will tell. I suppose these days, the main experience for me, is getting in early on a good MMORPG and playing it for the first few months until the really glaring problems are apparent, then shelving it.

I think the key thing is that they are both trying to be open ended sandboxes instead of theme park content with some PvP thrown in. Maybe I'm just not cut out to be a hoarder, because I have more fun dicking around and doing random things like eating bugs, collecting books to fill out a home library, or stealing crap than I do trying to farm XYZ piece of honor or raid gear. If a game is structured as a theme park and all the content is developer scripted, it's gonna be a grinder period. I think I'm too old for that shit. Crafting, land ownership, robust AI, and gear degradation are all key to a multiplayer sandbox formula.

Anything with raids and hard limits on PvP is going to turn into a gear/valor/honor/scoreboard grind. I'd rather just play something *fun* where I can fuck around and while away time without worrying about artificial milestones I must pass to participate meaningfully in whatever content. Sometimes looking for your next meal, a missing volume in a book collection, or trying to prevent your character from dying of hypothermia (go modding) are more entertaining and engaging than gang-banging a raid boss for 20 minutes to roll dice and maybe get something you need to have to not get 1-shotted in PvP. While TESO is focusing on this safe well trodden path of theme park with PvP zones, I long for a cross between TES, DayZ, The Sims, and Minecraft.

So, I'm with Valec on this one. Pathfinder Online and World of Darkness are literally all I'm even interested in (MMO-wise), and I don't have much faith those will turn out right. The traditional zoned themepark + zoned PvP model is entirely done for me, as a result the only thing TESO could say to capture me as a fan is "Psyche! This is the real game."

[Pyrrhus]

"I long for a cross between TES, DayZ, The Sims, and Minecraft."

Take out the sims and you've got a follower... Why the the sims?

[Marou]

"I long for a cross between TES, DayZ, The Sims, and Minecraft."

Take out the sims and you've got a follower... Why the the sims?

NPC behavior AI. The Sims is on the bleeding edge of it. Instead of following a set script and set paths they instead execute on a complex set of behaviors that describe their wants/needs/life motivations.

[Alex Mars]

NPC behavior AI. The Sims is on the bleeding edge of it. Instead of following a set script and set paths they instead execute on a complex set of behaviors that describe their wants/needs/life motivations.

Why do you think no one has adapted this AI tech for other games? It sounds really promising.

[Valec]

Why do you think no one has adapted this AI tech for other games? It sounds really promising.

I'd guess that doing that on top of everything else a normal game does might be a bit taxing on your average computer. Just guessing, as I really know absolutely nothing about this.

[Marou]

I'd guess that doing that on top of everything else a normal game does might be a bit taxing on your average computer. Just guessing, as I really know absolutely nothing about this.

It's not taxing at all on a modern system, as it can easily be spun off into additional threads. It just doesn't lend itself to the type of "cinematic" experience most game companies are aiming for. All their resources are spent on VO, graphics, etc. Also, it only really makes sense in sandbox games. In linear games it's just fine for the NPC to forever stand in the same place, or follow a pre-scripted patrol route indefinitely.

A dragon swooping down grabbing a whiterun guard and attacking during Jarl Balgruuf's victory for Whiterun (Empire Side) speech in Skyrim was a perfect example. Since the whole scene turned into a melee, I had no idea what he was supposed to have said was until my 3rd play-through of the game. I thought it was greatly amusing. However, I'm sure it was not the "cinematic" moment the developers had planned.