Elder Scrolls Online

[Soulless]

Hi Shawn I'll take a stab at guessing how they plan on implementing/handling your concerns:

1.) The Mega server is most certainly a cluster of many servers running together. I'm sure they'll have a bit of overhead so that if one fails the rest keep running at a temporarily slower pace while they swap a new one in.

2.) The Graphics are definitely amazing, but if they do something similar to Tera, the graphics can automatically scale based on the amount of things going on the screen. Lets face it, we're worried because SWTOR's engine leaves a LOT to be desired in regards to performance, but there are several other engines out now that are rather snazzy. This is not to say there won't be lag, as this will be a huge factor for any game for the forseeable future.

3.) Their fully customizable classes will definitely suffer from cookie cutter builds that offer the best of what someone is searching for. People will naturally gravitate to DPS / TANK / HEAL roles because that is what people are used to. Eventually I see really skilled players making effective "jack of all trades" builds that will need to be nerfed with growing pains. But, I bet that initially people will try to build classes that do too much and suffer from the weakness that is "jack of all trades and master of none". The really interesting thing is that there is no more cooldowns. This means that if you don't play smart, it doesn't matter how OP your build is. You'll have no Mana to do anything. It won't be WHAT you're playing moreso as to HOW you're playing. If you're trying to heal and throw fireballs and shield all at the same time, bye bye Mana.

[Nabetse]

Satiata wrote:

too bad that whole 'third person is crap' already turns me off immensely and I was close to just pressing the x ;) I also don't understand why the hell he mentions GW2 out of all games as an example of 'combo skills'. the whole video sounds like the guy really isn't as much an 'MMO-pro' as he likes to think he is. he's more a skyrim fanboy and that's actually turning me off more than anything. so, the game looks great, that video turns sati off, though :P

Agreed but anyway I mostly cared for what he said about the alpha test reviews not his personal opnion/taste as that doesn't affect the game.

Nwahs Nirom wrote:

Ok, this all sounds awesome and sexy. But any educated viewer should be asking some real questions: 1. Mega server. How stable? What if it goes down? Do all 1 million players cry in horror, saying "fuck Zexla or whatever the hell teh company is called", all one million of them rushing to the official forums, only to crash those as well? How will the company deal with this inevitability? What steps are they taking to ensure it doesn't happen? 2. "Amazing Graphics" + 200 people on screen at a time: How will the game not melt most people's computers? I ask this sarcastically but seriously. If the game is this demanding, and you're throwing in the epic battles, what kind of super engine is this? There's a reason no game has done this before. Ask yourself why, and ask the game company how. 3. Fully customizable classes. How will it be balanced? Don't just assume you'll have full freedom. If so, they are going to have to be the first MMO to also never have balance issues, or you'll have a massive percentage of the community all rolling the same cookie cutter "claymore wielding, fireball throwing, healer assassin", or whatever is found by the theorycrafters to be OP and the best. Don't get me wrong, I'm also excited about this... but there are questions to ask before I spend money

1. If this mega server crashes you'll probably be transferred to the server you chose to play in the first place. Just like in the Secret World - you picked a server but even if it was different we were all in the big boy's belly. So if big boy's belly goes boom we go to the small belly reserve (not sure why I used this reference). This is my guess though, we have to wait for the sexy official response.

2. Using the Secret World as a reference as it was the most recent I remember/played that had this. They had a 70/70/70 player cap per faction(in the PvP areas) increasing in the future and as far as I remember I had no problems at all when playing pvp of this magnitude. Still remember getting rolled by Templars 10 to 1.

3. Again.. using TSW reference: Once you have your character you had the decision to pick a weapon of your choice (ranged = pistols/rifle, melee=sword, tank=hammer and many other combinations)
Once you selected your favorite weapon you went to the huge skill tree and from there made your skillset based on some presets or your own experimentations.




And that is how you define your character and could easily switch from a tan kclass to a dps by simply selecting other skills/weapon combos. Got the feeling ESO will do the same or similar thing.

I hope all of this helped a bit.

[Nwahs]

ah... well all those things still sound too good to be true... but if it is... this could be the best MMO ever and i will def want to play it

[Soulless]

Imo, Elder Scrolls excells at immersion and that is a key element in any game. It's what makes you lose track of hours spent doing something. SWTOR is great at it too, but I'd say Elder Scrolls is one of the best. All their games you lose track of the hours. In an MMO, with other people to engage yourself with... the potential is huge. Lets hope a lot of us get in on the beta.

[Dordrac]

As for how optimized the graphics are, I am actually learning a lot about how the optimization process works in my Data Structures and Algorithms class. Basically, how fast a program runs is completely determined by the data structure (or structures) that are used to store the data. Some of these work far far better than others, but they all have tradeoffs. Data structures are simply a container or a system of containers that holds a bunch of data.

So if the developer chooses the right one, it is very well true that you can get 200+ characters to render on a screen efficiently. It can be between the difference in a game being efficient for like 16-20 players (SWTOR) and efficient for like 200. However, a lot of developers don't understand the importance of this.

Also, there's a type of representation to actually tell how fast an algorithm can process things, called big O notation. It's actually pretty simple though. They are simply a mathematical model of the amount of time to execute on data with n elements.

There are something like 5 main types of Big o:
O(1) = Pretty much the fastest, 1 iteration to solve your problem
O(log(n)) = 2nd fastest, ex: if you had 8 items in your data structure, it would only take 3 iterations of your code to solve what problem you need solved.
O(n) = Takes a number of iterations equal to the number of items you have to solve
O(n^2) = This is where it starts to get really slow when you have lots of elements.
O(n!) (N factorial) = Really bad, definitely avoid if you can

Also, as for the fact that someone has never done this, is sometimes why new data structures are invented. The people working on ESO may have very well done this when building their game. I can't think of a recent game that has been optimized to this point, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.

[Soulless]

All I got from that Dord is that you volunteered to make a Pax Republica game.

[Dordrac]

/soul wrote:

All I got from that Dord is that you volunteered to make a Pax Republica game.

Yeah, I tried to make it understandable to people who don't know programming, but I think I obviously failed there lol.

[Nabetse]

Dordrac wrote:

There are something like 5 main types of Big o: O(1) = Pretty much the fastest, 1 iteration to solve your problem O(log(n)) = 2nd fastest, ex: if you had 8 items in your data structure, it would only take 3 iterations of your code to solve what problem you need solved. O(n) = Takes a number of iterations equal to the number of items you have to solve O(n^2) = This is where it starts to get really slow when you have lots of elements. O(n!) (N factorial) = Really bad, definitely avoid if you can

I guess I wont switch to game programming anytime soon.

[Crasic]

haha, all I know is- Elder Scrolls+Online= No life.

[Ciervo Wylde]

I figured I would update everyone since I got to see it during the friend and family beta time. The 200 character thing is really just the guidepost they are using to make sure there is no GPS lag with a decent machine. This game will also be able to use multiple CPU and Gpu technology. If you have a really good machine it will run amazing. The tech usage in this game is incredible. The mega-server idea here is supposed to just be a form of clustering. There will be one world, one server if you will, but many different phases or shards. In the final product you are supposed to be able to move between phases like what is possible in SWTOR.

There are not classes like you would usually see. I believe this will be the coolest as well as the most frustrating part. I am sure there will be people screaming that the assassin warrior Mage build is OP but from what I have seen it really comes down to how you specialize and play. If you make the type of character that you like, it will definitely keep more of your attention for sure. Just my thoughts.

The PVP in this game even gets me excited, and we all know how I feel about PVP, or in this case PVPVP. Of course I will buy the game regardless of the final product, but the real test will be if I keep a subscription after 6 months.

I was told that they are going to be doing closed beta invites around the end of march if development stays on track (looks doable). This will not be like the beta for SWTOR, where once you are in, you stay, they will open testing for a day or two for a group and then close it again, and invite a new batch for the next testing. You also will be very limited in what you can do in closed beta. if they are testing crafting, there wont be any chance to explore or pvp. Let me know if you have specific questions and I will see if I can get them answered for you.

P.S. Info is from a dev friend and may be subject to change
- Edited to expand on a few ideas...