Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
The main reason why IS handled the BR though, was because they noticed that the community didnt like it and they cut their losses.
The eso content release every quorter is:
1)A nerf/buff cycle (update 23 we found DoT weak. Update 24 we found DoT too strong and so we made them weaker than 23.)
2)It is a lame story quest line of non challenging content you can finish in a day without wearing armor, in a new corner of the map.
3)A new release of $40 houses that are only useful for decorations, since all functions: crafting banking etc etc are 20s away from any location your char might be.
These decorations are a solo activity, all the way.
4)New $$$ mounts outfits and other cash shop items
I wont even mention the mess of the games performance, or the lack of variety in builds despite the play as you want moto. All fighters use dw/bow for pve and 2h/SnB for PvP.
I will mention that for 6 years ESO pvp has been the same.
Laggy cyrodiil.
Dead imperial city. Dead.
The only addition was battlegrounds which offer 0 reason to play them.
And let's look at the latest themes of content...
Hype-seeking CatsDragonsNecromancer back in May 2019 and we are looking forward to VampiresSkyrim for 2020.
Definatly not the content planning I would like to see from IS.
What eso did to their game has 0 to do with mmorpg content.
It is a solo rpg with an optional PvP zone and Trials for PvE
It seems you haven’t kept up with the game at all.
It’s not the same issues that are plaguing the game worst at this moment. The ESO dev team introduced very obviously nonfunctional mechanics in the latest patch, which were mentioned on the testing forums.
To meet their schedule, they shipped all the bugs, and introduced even MORE gamebreaking bugs (as in literally crashing the game) than the test server had.
And instead of doing the smart thing and doing a full rollback to the previous update for PC and delaying the console release to fix those issues before implementing the patch, they pushed the buggy update to consoles with no changes at all!
There should never in any sane developers mind be a moment when they thinks it’s worse to not meet a schedule date than it is to cause massive gamebreaking problems for their players.
This is also my first thought in terms of content additions.
I don't think I'd want to see new nodes added post launch unless they are added at the same time as new node types, and a reduction in the node maintenance required. Even then though, I could see older nodes and the areas around them becoming deserted very quickly.
I can see three other ways new content could be added.
The first is to just add new dungeon entrances to the world map, and have those dungeons act in a similar manner to others where node progression affects the content. To me, content additions do not always *need* to include overland areas - if the dungeon areas are good enough to stand on their own, they will.
The second is to add in an entire new landmass that has no node system to it. This would function similarly to expansions in many other MMO's, and is kind of boring in that regard.
The third is to add in a system between that second method above, and the full node system. Add in a new landmass with all the content, and give it a new system that functions similarly to the node system in terms of effects on content and player ability to influence and fight over, but don't actually put in any cities or player housing in with it, thus not rendering original areas redundant.
With that last idea, if the content is interesting enough and different enough based on the state of that new node system, people will fight over it just to get the content they want.
Certain content will almost definitely become obsolete as expansions are released, but even before that we'll see a lot of content popping up and disappearing naturally, due to the dynamic nature of the world. So I don't think it will be a big deal compared to the normal player-driven shifts in content.
I doubt they'll add new landmasses though. Unless they come with very new systems. For example, they might add a few underwater nodes. And if they do, they won't be designed such that everyone who wants to participate in the new content need to move to the new nodes. Most people will probably stay in their old nodes and just make trips to the new zones if they want to check it out.
They just can't do the typical thempark expansion where they say, "This is the new end-game zone. All end-game content goes in these new nodes now. Old areas are entirely neglected." Which brings me back to my original point: They'll probably focus a lot of their post-launch development on adding or replacing content (stories, quests, dungeons, events) within the original zones.
Maybe a colony like system? requiring a node parent to for material and support?
- Timelocked events. That would mean that they create a large scale event all over the known map, where for example volcanoes begin to erupt everywere and we have to fight against fire elementals etc. Give every metropolis a huge raid to clear and bind some worldboases to some open world events, with new resources that let you craft thematic armor and weapons another event type could be something with corruption or with aggressive mutated tulnar or something.
(Once every few months)
- island expansions. It is what it sounds like, they could implement islands of different sizes with new creatures and each island could only have one or two nodes on it (2 only if they are really massive)
(twice a year)
- WoW stile expansions. Exactly what it sounds like, they just add a new continent (like the island expansions but with more land, creatures and new resources)
(Once a year, but it would be better if they went with every 2 years and the first type in combination with this)
Those are rather specific. Any particular reason for those numbers?