The Campaign Builder's Guild

I've only watched Youtube videos of it thus far, but in response to crow:

QuoteI honestly don't get all the talk about Skyrim's alleged "freedom of choice". Yes, you can move around the map, but that is about the only damn freedom you are given. Missions are linear and choice in combat boils down to whether you are sneaky or offensive. You get to choose the order in which you do missions, but rarely do you get to choose how to do missions. In the rare instances where you are allowed to go a bit outside the ordinary parameters of the game, it is in heavily scripted events (like a certain big social event in the middle of the game).  

Rarely did the world seem "alive" to me, and I envy you for the moments of immersion most of you have mentioned. The NPCs where artificial, the voice-acting kind of uninspiring and they rarely acted as expected. Also, the companions were ridiculous and suicidal.

I agree- it seems it would be difficult for me to get into. The dialogue lacks the insinuation and references to your actions that Mass Effect or even Fallout does at times. It doesn't seem like there's much to do with a character after you help them... the NPCs don't seem to grow or be affected by what you do at all?

Also, the writing appears to be fairly poor of the Bulwer-Lytton type- overwrought grandiloquence.

What I'm looking forward to is seeing modders add in more interactions in the early parts of the game that change peoples' reactions based on your choices in the mid or late game or based on if you complete certain 'flag' events. For example, I'd really like to see later interactions with the archer or the bard and the bard's mother based on things that happen at the beginning rather than the end of the line being ok now the Archer is your ally.

Speaking of allies- how hard is it to keep them alive? I would fear to use them due to their apparent fragility?


Steerpike- [spoiler]in that thing I worked out for you I tried to do a little of later reactions being informed by your choices and I realize it takes a lot of time to code for something most people will miss (b/c they don't trigger the flag through their actions) but adding things like that really helps versmilliltude. (Also note- In testing I found that in the version you have the Tavern speeches are a bit bugged in that the 2nd and 3d and 4th encounter dialogues aren't triggering; but I think I hashed it out to work in the next one that I'll send in a little bit. I'm considering getting the program so I can add more, but the combat options and some other limitations of the base program (like the miniscule space for dialogue) are a bit disappointing.)[/spoiler]

Quote from: Light Dragon
Speaking of allies- how hard is it to keep them alive? I would fear to use them due to their apparent fragility?

Not too bad. It depends on what kind of character. Most allies are marked "semi-essential" by the game, meaning that they get knocked down rather than killed by enemies, and enemies will stop attacking them after this. However, you can kill them yourself in this state. So careful with the AoEs.

QuoteThe dialogue lacks the insinuation and references to your actions that Mass Effect or even Fallout does at times. It doesn't seem like there's much to do with a character after you help them... the NPCs don't seem to grow or be affected by what you do at all?

Mostly, yeah. Though people do talk about the things you do all the time. "Hey did you hear some old woman got murdered at the orphanage in Riften?" "I hear they finally cleaned up the trouble with the College." "Oh, are you the guy that..." That kind of thing. Which is a little inane, I guess, but a step toward immersion.

Mass Effect (only played the first one), was more immersive, but I found it less fun to play. Fallout 3 was less fun and less immersive, to me, though still entertaining.

>>Not too bad. It depends on what kind of character. Most allies are marked "semi-essential" by the game, meaning that they get knocked down rather than killed by enemies, and enemies will stop attacking them after this. However, you can kill them yourself in this state. So careful with the AoEs.


Thanks! That was a concern I had- now it's eliminated.

Note: I use Mass Effect as an example because it was brought up previously in a different post.


Freedom in TES games comes from the fact that you can go any where and do anything. Most games give you a fairly discrete area in which to game; these areas amount to a level in which you are expected to defeat the given challenges. Look at Mass Effect, every area is tiny. The Citadel is supposed to be one of the largest hubs of civilization in the galaxy. What do you get to explore? A tiny, insignificant area (especially in ME2). Every world you travel to is basically a level with a bad guy you have to beat, after which the story advances. How do you approach challenges in Mass Effect? Resolve through dialogue or pull out your gun and kill people. Mass Effect's background characters are just that - background. Most cannot talk and many can't even be clicked on.


Honestly, neither game is perfect. Skyrim fails in the immersion through story department while Mass Effect fails in the immersion through a large, realistic world that reacts and responds to you. 

The only game I can think of that sort of bridges that gap is Star Wars: The Old Republic but it has its own failings as well.

I...I just don't know what to say about this.

Quote from: Phoenix
I...I just don't know what to say about this.

Well on the upside it lets you kill ponies so I am ok with this.

Quote from: Phoenix
I...I just don't know what to say about this.

Man, I went to 4chan back in the day, so I've been around the block when it comes to fads and memes and shit on the intertubes.

But I have to say, I don't get this My Little Pony shit.

Big news everyone! They just announced The Elder Scrolls: Online!

I have no idea whether I should be ecstatic or depressed...

Both!

I fear for the social lives of many of my friends.

- not developed by Bethesda
- features like these below
- is a MMORPG

= game will suck

Quote-Releasing 2013 for PC/Mac
-Developed by ZeniMax Online Studios
-MMORPG
-250 Person Team
-Started development in 2007
-"This time, saving the world from the awakening of ancient evil is only the beginning. What happens when hundreds or thousands of prophesied heroes all think that they should be Emperor?"
-The game is fully voice acted
-Third person perspective
-The game uses a hotbar to activate skills like other traditional MMOs
-Visually it looks like other Hero Engine MMOs like SWTOR
-The general art style is kind of like RIFT or Everquest 2
-You can't be a werewolf or vampire
-Crafting, alchemy, and soul stones will exist in an unrevealed form
-There will be Daedric Princes like Molag Bal, the primary antagonist, and Vaermina, "whose sphere of influence extends to the dream world and the nightmares of mortals", along with some unnamed others
-Constellations will be in the game a la Mundus stones (which work like guardian stones) and also give the answer to things like block puzzles where you step on the blocks in a certain order
-Tons of towns ranging from Imperial City, Windhelm, Daggerfall, Sentinel, Mournhold, Ebonheart, Elden Root, Shornhelm, Evermore, Riften, and a lot more
-Radiant AI will not be present
-There will be mounts, but no flying mounts
-Fast travel exists in the game in the form of wayshrines, which are also your ressurection point, and you can teleport from one wayshrine to any other wayshrine you have already visited
-There most likely won't be dragons
-Sneaking will be in the game, but how it is implemented is undecided
-They're not talking about pets right now
-There will be no player housing
-There will be no NPC romances or marriage
-"It needs to be comfortable for people who are coming in from a typical massively multiplayer game that has the same control mechanisms, but it also has to appeal to Skyrim players."
-Features most of Tamriel including Skyrim, Morrowind, Summerset Isle, and Elseweyr.
-"Not all provinces are included in their entirety; Zenimax Online is keeping large areas inaccessible to save them for use as expansion content. Nonetheless, every major area is represented to some extent."
-As an example, Windhelm is fully implemented, but Winterhold and the mages' college won't be in at launch.
-There are three player factions:
--Ebonheart Pact: The Nords, Dunmer, and Argoninans
--Aldmeri Dominion: Altmer, Bosmer, and Khajit
--Daggerfall Covenant: Bretons, Redguard, and Orcs
-"Recreateing the freedom Elder Scrolls players expect within the World of Warcraft-style mechanics Zenimax Online is using for this MMO would be impossible without changing the way that players interact with the world."
-As such, the game uses a hubless design
-For example, you don't necessarily pick up a quest to do the following, but if you kill all the necromancers in an undead barrow, a shade you free at the end will reward you.
-However, to help you find these events, various NPCs you talk to will tell you where they are happening and put a marker pointing them on your map, which is obviously totally different than receiving a quest.
-Not all quests will have NPCs that indicate where they are
-The game uses MMORPG genre standards such as classes, experience points, and other traditional MMORPG progression mechanics, but they try to present it "around the core fantasy presented by traditiona Elder Scrolls games" such as traveling around and righting wrongs or seeking riches
-The game world is very large relative to Skyrim
-You can explore almost anything you can see
-the game is set 1000 years in the past
-You can't master every discipline
-The imperials are an enemy to all three factions, lead by the noble Tharn family and the King of Worms, Mannimarco, and are hatching a plot to take over all of Tamriel
-But BEHOLD, Mannicmarco is scheming with Daedric prince Molag Bal to take over the world behind the Tharn's back
-Also, your soul has already been stolen by Molag Bal, which is the reason you can come back from death over and over again, and the starting plot is that you're fighting Molag Bal to get your soul back from him
-Hitting the level cap takes about 120 hours
-Each faction has their own leveling content
-An example quest is the story of Camlorn, where you have to stop evil werewolves who have their eyes set on conquest. First, you have to do a "standard MMO kill and collection quest" to sto ghosts from attacking some mages and soldiers. The ghosts are reliving a battle that the werewolf leader was in. You summon a ghost to find out what's going on, and the ghost tells you to wear her dead husband's armor to re-experience the battle he died in. You then get transported hundreds of years into the past to fight this battle. During this battle, you can choose to save the dead man's wife or to pursue the Werewolf leader. ZeniMax chooses to save the man's wife, who then tells you that the Werewolf leader is weak to fire. This information is helpful when you fight him, but you don't actually need to do this quest before fighting the werewolf leader if you don't want to. Basically, you can skip parts of quest chains if you want, but you get some benefit for playing the whole thing. Also, whenever you go back to the town you just saved, everything there hails you as a hero.
-The game features three faction PvP where you fight to take over keeps and use trebuchets and other siege weapons to help do it. At the high end, you can have 100 v 100 battles. There are also farms and mines you can try to take over. Mots of this happens in Cyrodiil where your goal is to take over and hold the Imperial City to get faction wide bonuses for it. If you have played Dark Age of Camelot, this probably sounds familiar. For those who haven't, essentially the entire zone is a giant PvP area will all sorts of points of interest.
-The most accomplished PvP player on your faction becomes emperor whenever you take over the capital
-When you take over Cyrodiil, you will be able to adventure in it as a hostile city a la Kvatch
-The game will have raids and heroic modes for its dungeons as end game content in addition to faction PvP
-There is also balanced PvP for people who prefer eSports
-The game will also have high end public dungeons
-Public dungeons are essentially instances that aren't actually instanced, so anyone can be in them, so imagine a World of Warcraft dungeon that featured everyone on the server in the area instead of just your party
-There are standard instanced dungeons as well
-Back on the topic of the skillbar, you have a limited number of skills you can use at any given time, and can change them whenever you're out of combat
-The number of skills is equal to (paraphrase) "a light and heavy attack with your current weapon that take up the first two slots, a few more spells related to your class, and an ultimate in the last slot".
-The ultimate is used once you gain enough finesse, which is earned by doing well in combat
-You also get a bonus loot chest if you're soloing and max your finesse, and you can also build finesse by comboing with other players
-For example, a rogue can put oil on the ground that a mage can set on fire
-A fighter can also spin in the firestorm a mage puts down, which sends out fireballs
-If you've seen Guild Wars 2 videos, the above will seem familiar
-You can't combo with the abilities of enemy players though, so if an enemy faction player drops an oil slick, you can't set it on fire
-The Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood will be presented, but in what form isn't detailed as their contnet is hard to recreate in an MMO setting
-NPCs will try to work together and use player like behavior when fighting you, and (at least to my understanding) have stamina as well
-They want the AI to be good, so instead of enemies in a dungeon sitting around and waiting to be pulled, you will be attacked by the entire room and they will try to react to how you are playing
-The claim was not demo'ed to Game Informer
-You destroy dark anchors to gain reputation with the Fighter's Guild. They are large hooks that fall from the sky pseudorandomly and have Daedric guardians next to them. They are easier to kill with a group, and once destroyed, everyone who participated gets a reputation boost with the Fighter's Guild, and eventually nets you rewards like new skills and abilities.
-The combat model will not be real time due to latency
-The combat is based around a stamina bar which you can use to sprint, block, interrupt, and break incapacitating effects
-Blocking is the primary focus of these abilities, and can do things like stopping the secondary effects of attacks such as an ice spell slowing you
-Stamina also applies to PvP, so stamina management (and wearing down your enemy's stamina) is important, as your crowd control abilities might be on a long cooldown, and if you use them before the enemy player runs out of stamina, they will probably just block the effect
-ZeniMax feels that having the stamina bar will help break down the Holy Trinity as stamina allows you to do things like tank
-However, healing is still a big part of the game
-There is also no aggro mechanic in the game, which is part of the reason stamina blocking and healing exist

It sounds like they are trying to make the game feel less like an MMO, which is good. That was my biggest complaint with The Old Republic; that for all its shininess and voices, it was just another MMO where I hit 1, 2 and 3 repeatedly to win. I dislike that there are going to be classes but I understand why they have to exist. MMOs would not have successful PVP if everyone could use every weapon, every armor and every spell. I like the fact that it will feel more like guild wars with limited number of combat options while in combat. Also, it sounds like I might be able to actually use an X-Box controller instead of a mouse and keyboard, and that's great news!

Real time combat is a pipe dream due to latency but I hope they make the game feel less turn based than other MMOs.

So this game will be set in the 9th century of the second era. Probably the middle part of that century, after the Aldmeri Dominion is formed but before Tiber Septim uses Numidium to conquer Tamriel in 896. So, the game will have to take place between 830 and 896, probably closer to the latter as it allows the Imperials the chance to really threaten their neighbors.

Quote
-"Recreateing the freedom Elder Scrolls players expect within the World of Warcraft-style mechanics Zenimax Online is using for this MMO would be impossible without changing the way that players interact with the world."
-As such, the game uses a hubless design
-For example, you don't necessarily pick up a quest to do the following, but if you kill all the necromancers in an undead barrow, a shade you free at the end will reward you.
-However, to help you find these events, various NPCs you talk to will tell you where they are happening and put a marker pointing them on your map, which is obviously totally different than receiving a quest.
-Not all quests will have NPCs that indicate where they are

To be honest I'm not too hot about this whole thing, however I will admit that this is pretty cool. I like the concept and it does break a bit with much of the traditional MMO fare.

Quote from: Elemental_Elf
I dislike that there are going to be classes but I understand why they have to exist. MMOs would not have successful PVP if everyone could use every weapon, every armor and every spell.

See I kind of disagree with this. Both Runescape and Eve Online do quite well allowing everyone to access everything. There's some tricks to doing it well but I feel that they both do (or in runescape's case did, I'm thinking mainly of the old days with the original pvp system).

Quote from: Elemental Elf
Real time combat is a pipe dream due to latency but I hope they make the game feel less turn based than other MMOs.

Maybe, depends on how it's done. There are actually a couple real time multiplayer things like that (m&b multiplayer for example). The big limit is in how many players you can handle in an instance at once without slowing things down. I've seen it successfully done with up to 128 people in one area but it requires serious optimization. Who knows though, as technology marches on the pipe dream may become more and more of a reality.

Quote from: Nomadic

Quote from: Elemental Elf
Real time combat is a pipe dream due to latency but I hope they make the game feel less turn based than other MMOs.

Maybe, depends on how it's done. There are actually a couple real time multiplayer things like that (m&b multiplayer for example). The big limit is in how many players you can handle in an instance at once without slowing things down. I've seen it successfully done with up to 128 people in one area but it requires serious optimization. Who knows though, as technology marches on the pipe dream may become more and more of a reality.

Check out TERA Online as an example here. Yes, you still have your hotkey abilities, but those abilities have to be aimed. I play a lancer tank, for instance. I need to block with my shield to prevent damage, and as expected I can block only frontal attacks in such a manner. Also, if I want to stab with my lance or use any other ability, I have to drop my shield in order to do so. Archers need to aim, healers need to aim. At first, I thought it would be a huge mess, but it's actually fun, and I mean fun in the way that I can ignore the HIGHLY forgettable quests which is a huge leap considering how invested I get in story (story was why I could forgive SWTOR on their genre-standard combat execution.)

Class systems tend to exist in games like this more as a result of the player base and not so much the developers just copying a tried and true system. When you leave the options wide open, you let players take the risk of having an underdeveloped character into their own hands. If they don't meet the standards of the players around them, group content is going to be difficult to tackle. Not to beat a dead horse, but World of Warcraft is a prime example of this. If you didn't conform to specific talent sets, you weren't "on par" with others of your class and far less likely to get invited back to a group. Blizzard did one major revamp of talent trees for Cataclysm to allow more freedom to the players while ensuring characters retained their core skill sets. With Mists of Pandaria they are revamping talent trees yet again to make them less important in the characters prime role.

Breaking with traditional MMO fare, as Nomadic pointed out, is finally what it's all about. We had a long stretch there of forgettable MMO design based of the 800 pound gorilla in the room. The smart developers knew it wouldn't work and threw their assets at something new. SWTOR gave us STORY, lots of it, and delivered it in a meaningful and memorable way. Guild Wars 2 is doing away with the traditional quest structure and holy class trinity (tank/healer/dps.) TERA gives us actual combat rather than mindless button-spamming.

I sincerely hope the folks at ZeniMax Online are taking a good hard look at whats on the horizon rather that whats "tried and true." Elder Scrolls is an awesome IP and I'd hate to see it's popularity dwindle due to a poor MMO offering.