TWIMMO 120: TESO Triumphant

Written by: Jason Winter (@winterinformal) | November 9, 2012 2:00 pm

46 Comments

On this week’s TWIMMO, there’s a lot to talk about regarding The Elder Scrolls Online!

Gary Gannon, Mike B, and Jason Winter dissect this nine-minute video, as well as taking a look at all the trailer goodness from Korea’s G-Star convention.

45:20

World of Warcraft

Patch 5.3: Blizzard’s First Ever Live Video Interview!

Legendary is joined by Blizzard's Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street and Brian Holinka for a live video interview!Read more »

17 comments
1:00:49

MMO News

This Week in MMO Ep 144:
WildStar, Rift, Dust 514

WildStar details finally coming out!Read more »

19 comments
1:22:33

World of Warcraft

Legendary Ep126:
Raiding Ra-Den Revelations!

This week the Legendary crew are talking patch 5.3, raiding, and more with World First raider Treckie!Read more »

25 comments

http://twitter.com/Vazzaroth Josh Hagood

An hour and 63 mins long… Anything sound a little wrong with that?
- http://twitter.com/RealTrollScroll TrollScroll.com
  
  Nope.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=21003660 Keith William Gretton

Was this pushed up from 1500 PDT?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=44008998 Johnathan Alexander

TESO looks absolutely incredible…
http://profile.yahoo.com/FPXO267IVAHL3MK4HRRNRQPNDA Bush Swanson, The American Dre

Why do you think the werewolves are just going to keep attacking? wow had fazing back in wotlk and that’s like 5 yeras old
http://twitter.com/Luke_Malcolm Luke Malcolm

So when does the hype train leave the station?, this game looks interesting.
- Damir Miric
  
  hehe yeah .. lets hype it up and then when it comes out play for 2 weeks after that go on official forums complain for few days about:
  
  OP
  UP
  lag
  bad performance
  not enough customization
  bad pvp
  not enough endgame
  
  and then leave the game very angry because it didnt replace our life
  - Jay
    
    LOL wow, you smashed the head of the nail on that one.
HartsHope

Jason Winter is absolutely astutely right about the combat… it still lacks that visceral feel of the tug of war that is Oblivion/Skyrim melee combat.. the chaotic, messy, for-every-action-there-is-an-equal-opposite-reaction feel.

but yes… its VERY EARLY and they are obviously dedicated to creating that feel. based on this direction, i think there is reason to be hopeful. do i want true first person view? yep. will i accept a really good 3rd person action combat. absolutely; an improved TERA combat system set in an immersive, danger filled Elder Scrolls world? sign me up.
- scottsummer
  
  In a way TES series especially Oblivion and Skyrim are known to have terrible combat and combat animation, while i do agree it looks bland but i personally don’t think TERA or Blade and Soul over the top style combat system suits the TES series.
- jayremy
  
  I myself really want that intuitive feel of combat, where combat is as fast pace as you may see as having to react to in real life. I hate seeing stand still NPCs that areally aren’t mobile or feel detached from the ground when they do move (on the ground). As the same for the player, I think having to “aim” attacks is always a fun part of gaming along with movement being a cohesive thing with combat. Aiming in the sense is not so much crosshair+shoot but actually being able to physically miss in a way which hitboxes are physically represented well but never worry about stat based misses.
  
  Physics emulation I guess is the best way to form around it.
HartsHope

one thing that worries me… “we make sure everyone is on equal footing in PVP”….

NOTHING kills the sense of growth and achievement and progress and immersion than level normalization. fuuuuuck this trend of everyone is just like everyone else bullshit. PVP more than any other aspect of MMORPG’s is about competition. competition in all forms… skill, deep class understanding, reflexes, awareness, teamwork with allies, time investment.

i am NOT a hardcore player and i dont play my chosen MMO more than about 15-20 hours a week. but i appreciate being defeated by better players, players who are higher level, have invested more time and thought than i have, who have better understanding of the game than i do. why? because that tells me the game has depth. and it gives me something to strive for. it gives me an adversary. it gives me a challenge. please dont make TESO a normalized boring farmville experience.
- Shogunz
  
  You sound like you really have no idea what you’re talking about. “everyone is just like everyone else” has nothing to do with level differential. “deep class understanding” has nothing to do with level differential. “reflexes, awareness, teamwork” has nothing to do with level differential. “better understanding of the game” has nothing to do with level differential. The only function PvE level has, is in gating PvE content as a form of pseudo-progression. It’s flimsy skinner box stuff, and has nothing to do with competitive PvP.
Revanhavoc

One of the main problems with the MMO genre is the non-persistence of any player actions or decisions.

Although many of us thoughtful writers hesitate to use the subjective word ‘immersion’ when referring to particular game elements, it is indisputably immersion breaking to return to a completed area and find your decision never mattered – your actions never took place.

This is the very nature of the respawn-reset MMO.

And it must change.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr
  
  Why? I agree that it would be good for devs to try and work around the obvious problems that prevent that from currently occurring in MMOs, but I don’t see why that should be the de facto design in every game here on out. Just like its good that Anet attempted to change things up with GW1 and GW2, but that by no means should indicate that the “traditional” way of doing things should no longer be done or is bad. I happen to enjoy both the “new” and “traditional” elements, and am glad I can still choose to play one or the other whenever I would like.
http://profile.yahoo.com/IJ72UJ7OKVEIGGXYAIN6NU7ZRM thomas

looks good. notice how the term “MMORPG” wasn’t used at all in the video? clearly the marketing folks told them to steer clear of that for pretty obvious reasons. given the broad appeal of Skyrim, i can’t really blame them.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Yep, I think they mentioned WoW in one of the first promotional videos and took a lot of crap for it.
http://twitter.com/DeadnCold Kevin Winger

Holly Balls does it look good but the insane grind just kills it…

Every Korean MMO ever made.
7BitBrian

You guys forgot to mention Eve Online, no shards in EvE either. One server, period.

Also the way he said it would group you with people makes me think it’ll be different instances, on the same server but in a different instance. Kind of like how GW1 did districts, or how GW2 does it with Overflow Servers. I hope they can get those algorithms right, because if it’s not perfect you are going to not be able to see your friends or people you want to group with, or other types of things. They better add in a manual option and not leave it up to the game to figure out where to put you, I can see it causing a ton of flak if they do it that way. Sure you’re all on one server but not really, you’re instanced with your group and that’s it. What if you wanted to meet someone in one of those other instances?
http://www.facebook.com/davidallmighty David Cohen

After SWTOR I am really scared to get caught up in an MMO prelaunch, but ESO does look great….. but I will hold playing it till I hear and see a lot more
Krzysztof Kotarba

Combat in TESO looks like crap if you compare it to asian mmos… I hate that when they talk about awesome combat and what you see is just ppl standing and using skills w/o even moving a bit. I wonder 2 things: will TESO have FPP camera and if combat will work like in vindictus.
- Jay
  
  Yup.. animations in this game definitely look stiff. Especially after playing GW2 and Vindictus. Even FFXIV has better animations than seen in this video, but people still play WOW and that has about 4 combat animations for each class lol.
Jay

It sounds good enough for me to play, but not good enough for me to pay a sub for… GW2 already has a lot of these things, and I prefer the art style and animations over TESO so far, and all without a subscription.

If they work on getting rid of that “stiff” look, then I think TESO could be a welcome addition to my collection… Without a subscription of course.
Sharuko

Good show couple of quick points. The server system in TESO is absolute genius really. The Mega server solves so many issues plaguing MMOs it is not even funny. TESO can get away with it because the game is designed that way they don’t need “PvP” servers because each faction levels in its own area like in DAoC.

TESO also won’t problems like what GW2 is having. People are complaining over dead servers and no one to group with 2 months after launch. TESO’s system won’t have that issue.

Also, it is amazing to me how so called MMO veterans are surprised at “the game opens up at max level”. Are you expecting heroic raids and dungeons below max level? The game should open up at max level. The game should start at max level. Because you spend the vast majority of your time in an MMO at max level. ”The whole game is end game” mantra failed a horrible death.

One last point about TESO, I hope they have subscriptions. I rather have a WoW system instead of a SWTOR or GW2 system. Games should not be designed around the payment system.
- http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.hornsby.7 Jonathan Hornsby
  
  I like how you troll GW2 with lies when your not even on a GW2 focused video. No one is complaining about dead servers because every server is still at high population.
  - Sharuko
    
    “High” means nothing devs manipulate it and can set it to anything. Go to the forums, the biggest recent posts are all about “dead servers”, “can’t find groups”, “merge servers”, “we want CRZ” etc. This was a problem with Rift with SWTOR and now GW2. TESO won’t have that problem.
    - saxophone15
      
      Where are you seeing all these posts? Even doing keyword searches you can barely find anything about what you’re talking about. There is only a small amount of the player base who feel this way. I know you really want GW2 to fail but from what we can see so far that’s just not the case.
      - Chris Pelham
        
        It’s because the dev’s/GM’s are nazis and delete those threads and love to hand out bans left and right to people who don’t like their game. They don’t like to read constructive critisim.
      - saxophone15
        
        You think the devs love to ban people who don’t like their game? They only ban people who don’t follow the rules (though if those people didn’t like the game, why would they care if they’re banned?). Also, they welcome constructive criticism (keyword being constructive).
    - http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.hornsby.7 Jonathan Hornsby
      
      Incorrect. A very small percentage of the player base if complaining that there are few people in the starting zones. The mid to high level zones are still very much alive and on my server Lion’s Arch is consistently packed.
      
      What’s wrong Sharuko? Too much of a noob to leave the lowbie zones?
      - Sharuko
        
        I don’t say things unless I have facts to back it up. You can test this out yourself. Log into GW2 during primetime and a weekend. Check out how many sPvP servers there are.
        
        The most sPvP servers you will see are around 30, maybe 35. There were 150 – 200 at launch. Now I will be generous and say there are 20 people per server in sPvP. So during peak hours and a weekend there are about 700 people in GW2 sPvP. Only 700…
        
        sPvP is supposed to be a core feature of the game. You explain that to me.
      - http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.hornsby.7 Jonathan Hornsby
        
        Currently, as of 10:58am on a Tuesday, there are 325 sPvP
        servers up.
        
        Secondly sPvP is NOT a core game type. Saying that GW2 is a
        PvP focused game is something trolls like yourself keep bringing up, and being
        proven wrong about, whenever you make the false claim of little PvE content.
        The recent focus on PvE event patches, including one coming this weekend,
        proves that point.
        
        Troll fail. Care to try again?
      - Sharuko
        
        You are straight up lying. Yes there are 325 servers but as of right now (10:15 PM EST) only 40 have players on it (most are 0/16). When I say players there are at least 1 out of 16.
        
        I will be kind and say there are 16 player on each of the 40 servers, even though in 50% of the servers there are 6 or less players.
        
        So the best estimate is 640 players in sPvP.
        
        Those are numbers that are honestly shocking. And when you pretty much are being deceptive like that you lost all credibility with me.
      - http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.hornsby.7 Jonathan Hornsby
        
        Straight up being deceptive? You mean like when you photoshopped pictures of the sylvari to claim GW2 was ripping off the movie Avatar?
        
        You seem to forget that you have no credibility and everyone regards you as a joke, so you’re trying to take the high road is laughable.
      - Sharuko
        
        Still ignoring the fact that during peak times there are less than 700 people in sPvP. Time to get off the denial train.
      - http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.hornsby.7 Jonathan Hornsby
        
        Likewise. GW2 isn’t even close to failing. Deal with it.
      - InvaderMig
        
        Zoos have signs that read, don’t feed the animals. The internet should have such a sign with regards to trolls. You’re not helping.
jayremy

For TESO:
Off the trailer alone, combat felt a little too rooted, not enough to scare me away from MMOs that play like WoW but less satisfied if that will be the final result. I like real world physics emulating combat, not exactly to the degree which would only work with single player balance but say a game like Vindictus has this aspect done well.

Fast paced combat is usually the result, intuitive gameplay (it plays how the controlling feels) and is also more dynamic by default. Say if you apply a game like vindictus, use one attack on a boss fight for 3 minutes, then go to WoW use one ability for 3 minutes in WoW it would be incredibly boring and you would often be rooted the entire time without being able to dodge or be dodged (not only by hitting a button either). Position and movement play a huge dynamic in combat this way.

Game at 50 -

On another note I disagree with the whole game “really begins at 50″. It often means, “you’re going to grind a bunch” just to reach 50 before you really enjoy the game. I want to be able to raid or PvP to lesser extents at low levels too. I also want to be challenged then, not wait until a month or few before the game “actually starts” or gets good, after spending a large time investment just to reach there. I would like endgame to be gradual and alongside with leveling. I can understand 1-10 maybe not being the most game.

Overall very intriguing game I just see there may be some more potential to be reached before release on what little I know.
protrolly

Looks like another show coming to gamebreaker tv elder scrolls online. Is it buy to play free to play subs be nice to know.
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

The Gamebreaker hosts seem to be really fixated on GW2 game design. Even when the game being discussed seems to share so few game design choices with GW2.

Did Gary really try to imply GW2 was using a mega server design like TESO? Even if guesting worked, you would still would temporary leave your current server and appear on the other server.

Jason was trying to compare mega server design to GW1. I thought GW1 was instanced, so just about everything was on different servers?

When discussing the defeat of a werewolf invasion and then returning to the village later as a hero. MikeB wanted the PVE werewolf invasion to be cyclic (nice, he didn’t say dynamic this time) and have the invasion every few hours. If the werewolves attacked every few hours, I would expect the villagers to run my character out of town for claiming to solve the werewolf problem not treat him like a returning hero.

To me, TESO level 1 to 50 sounds like world questing in a persistent world, with instanced PvP starting at level 10. At level 50 end game you can run dungeons, raids and what appears to be instanced questing zones.

Using mega server and three faction pvp, should run into some interesting problems. If a massive PvP guild enters the game, won’t they all be assigned to the same faction, resulting in some serious three faction pvp imbalanced If you are assigned to the map based on friends and guilds, does that mean you can change factions at will, leading to further three faction imbalanced.

The questing compass seem like an interesting idea. Didn’t it sound like you could only do one quest at a time. It also sounds like they were doing away with quest logs, quest hubs or even quest hearts. I could imagine some players will wander around the world ignoring the quest compass and complain they keep getting killed by high level mobs because they are behind in the leveling curve.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Kyle-Eggers/100000868131517 Kyle Eggers

I don’t like the classes thing. One thing I liked about the Eldar Scolls games is that you can make your own class. Is there a subscription, is this FtP or are they going the GW2 buy to play route (which I like the best)? I feel that the developers need to push the PvP more this should be the big point of the game, and it should be the whole world that you can PvP more like DAoC.
http://www.brandonkonkle.com/ Brandon Konkle

I left this running after the episode was over, and TWIMMO episode #1 started playing! So awesome! Gary’s mustache is epic. Mike B. jumps in without waiting for his intro, and has no video feed. Classic!
Jado Cast

Black Desert looks to be more of a TES game than TESO, (cause of the Open Sandbox design). I am still skeptical about some of Zenimax’s approach although scrapping the HERO engine was a good move. The comment, “the game really opens up at 50″ concerns me too. Right now from what I know so far, I think Black Desert is the better design but the proof is in the pudding. If BD comes out at the same time as TESO in NA, I would lean BD but I hope to get a beta for both so I can try them both out. Hopefully they both end up being awesome games.
Bluecewe

Star Trek Online has a “megaserver”. It sacrifices persistent open world content and server communities, but makes connecting with people easier. I prefer it.
InvaderMig

Was there a new Twimmo this week?
DoctorOverlord

Really nice getting a detailed breakdown of the TESO vid. This was certainly much better than the previous PR junk they were releasing and it’d gotten me interested in the game. Although I was worried about the ‘game opening at 50′ comment as well. Still I’m intrigued enough to start following the game.

Very cool trailers from G-Star, thanks for covering them. I never would have even heard about games like Kingz or Blessed otherwise. We’ll have to see if they’re actually appealing on this side of the Pacific.

TWIMMO 120: TESO Triumphant

Patch 5.3: Blizzard’s First Ever Live Video Interview!

This Week in MMO Ep 144:
WildStar, Rift, Dust 514

Legendary Ep126:
Raiding Ra-Den Revelations!

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