As a long time player for MMOs I understand the need for factions in an MMORPG. Their has to be a enemy. But I'm curious as to why a faction is race based instead of picking one after character creation as part of the main story.

Me and two of my friends have been fans of The Elder Scrolls series since it started, we've always said that the only thing the games were missing was the ability to play with friends online in a local multiplier or on a server.

When we heard about ESO we were excited, not only were we getting a new Elder Scrolls to play, but now we were able to play it together.

Or so we thought.

Right after we escaped the prison we realized that the only way we could play together is if two of us played races we didn't want to play.

Personally I would like to play Redguard and my friends would like to play Wood Elf and Nord.

Each one of us prefers a race from a different faction so we will be unable to play together unless we decide to only let one of us play the race we want while the others are forced to get less enjoyment out of the game just so we can enjoy it together.

We've been in a few betas now and from what we've played in the previous ones compared to this most recent one, the game has become amazing. It truly feels like an Elder Scrolls game with a few unimportant elements missing (like being able to kill any NPC).

That being said,

The three of us decided that as good as the game is, we will not buy it if we're unable to play what we want and still play together.

Suggestion

Maybe make it so there are still three factions and they are at war, but they're not race specific. Any race can be a part of any faction but once joined, your stuck. Then at level 50 you can do quests for the other factions.

By doing this you don't limit people from playing with each other and you can still keep the three factions.

Even if story wise the factions are race specific, who's to say my Redguard can't give the finger to his races faction and join a different one? It is a role playing game after all and it's based on a sandbox style game where anything is possible, yet my character can't disagree with his races choices and turn his back on them.

Anyway, give it some thought. Because I'm sure many people are turned off to the game simply because they can't play with friends unless they sacrifice how they want to play the game.

not gonna happen

Strong argumentation

I agree with the OP, but on the other hand I like to keep things simple. It is not so bad that one can see which faction it is judged by a race. It is easier for an NPC to respond according which race you joined. If this is any way like WoW, guards will shoot first and ask questions ............................... sorry, no questions. So it's just shoot first and than nothing.

Like in RIFT and many other games.

His points are valid though.

1: Because of racial skills your choice is limited (Orc best Hvy Armor, Nord best 2H etc)

2: Your personal taste for races is interfering with the option to play with your friends.

3: There are a considerable amount of players who do not care about PvP at all.

Conclusion:

Bethesda should make a betray quest to play with your friends.

that questline will prolly be introduced in some distant future, if even then.

It's not unheard of that MMOs focused on PvP and alliances won't allow you to interact with the other alliance.
I can cite a bunch of them, not sure if it's allowed though

I'm sure ESO won't be the first one to betray that concept and let enemies be friends
It would cause far too much trouble. Remember, you're not a alone in the game. There's gonna be thousands upon thousands of people with the same train of thought as you. It ain't gonna do much for the alliance rivalry if nearly every player of every race out there was friendly to each other, which would be more than likely to happen
You guys are gonna have to pick one alliance, and that's that.

if they don't change the faction system, same as thousands upon thousands of people with the same train of thought as I, won't buy the game and that's that.

Looks like you're not buying the game then.

I'm not trying to upset you, but they really can't do it. It would kind of break the whole point of the game's story and concept.

I've heard in one of their interviews that at lv 50. you'll get to visit enemy provinces, but never before that.

and that would be solution (may be not perfect but always): You need level up to 50 with your faction only, but later on to do active zones/50+/++ content you could team with any player including all races.

While PvP is actually only possible, I mean of course you could imagine players changing Alliance, but well, I do not know how would it look like.

1. IT would ruin the entire point of the faction system in the first place

2. not happening

3.it is not the games fault you and you're friends are unwilling to compromise.

4. it is not happening

5. racials are not THAT important

5. it is not happening.

Want, want, want... like little kids. Also it has come to my attention, that guilds will be faction-spanning, so one can at least chat with their beloved ones.

Little to nothing is known about PvE endgame, but once you hit 50 they let players from different factions join up in Raids/Dungeons.

Plus I couldn't care less, if some butthurt people didn't buy the game. Will be definitely less nagging about the overall game in the public chat.

Why would one want to be anything but Khajiit? This quandry baffles the mind.

Well I can see where you're coming from I still believe-

That raises a good point sir. I think that answers above all questions.

I think what they'll do is let the players come together when the alliances realize the threat of Molag Bal's plan.
The beginning will be focused on the war, and as the story progresses [lv 50 as they said] the attention will shift to Bal and everyone will have a common enemy. Or something like that.
Makes sense that it'd be endgame...

Pretty much all this. Add in the fact they would have to redo all the quest voice/text that say anything about your race or cut it all out. It's not going to happen.

It would make sense for everyone to go against Bal, but what of the Throne. They will still want to fight against each other in hopes to take Cyrodiil.

Yeah, no idea how they'll work on that.
Maybe they become separate stories at lv 50 or something.

In the main story you're the canon special snowflake Souless One who gets free access to the provinces, and in the war story you're just a soldier like everyone else.
So since we're snowflakes and every PC is a snowflake we'd get to get together with other snowflakes from all races for the main story. And in the war story where you're not a snowflake, you're still following orders.

Also, is the Souless One a unique being? Like, canonically, there's only one Souless One, but since we're player characters, we become an army of non-canon special snowflakes?

In every game since World of Warcraft introduced the word: "casual" in mmorpg's, my predictions were right.

Whether it'd be Warhammer that wanted to create RvR like in DAoC (oh didn't we hear this recently somewhere?)

but horribly failed and still everyone attached to the game was counter-arguing the facts pre-launch.

The game died because there was no point in doing anything at endgame.

We had the same discussion for Age of Conan, Rift, Aion, SWTOR etc etc... and it's always the problem

that casualizing the game too much ends up with people leaving the game forcing devs switch to f2p or shutdown

(Tabula Rasa, SWG (prime example NGE) etc..). At first when millions of people are interested the Developers

same as the "Fans" are like: "gtfo if you dont like it". Couple years later they beg for attention.

I like the game but it has a lot of nono's I haven't seen in it's competitors.

While I agree to you with end game, what nono's does ESO have?

It has a lot of casualization in it's build, partly not making any sense to the way the devs build up the system.

i give you one example that hits me the most right now:

the Class system limits player in their choices to play what they want, at the same time you can skill anything

you want without even the need of using one of the class skills to be decent. If you think about it, why do you

limit an else open ended game? The answer is the class system has been implemented to guide casual players.

A casual player has no time nor any wishes to read thousands of stat calculations to min/max cookie cut his character

the way he wants to be very effective in the discipline he likes. Those players are the vast majority of customers.

Those players want to have an easy to understand gameplay experience, too much customization = headaches.

This is the reason why they remove Attributes and replaced it with the HP, MP, STA system from Skyrim.

It is easier to understand and thus more broadly accessible for a huge quantity of customers.

I don't say evil Bethesda, evil Zenimax, or blame them for that, all I say is the way how they do casualize the game

is not optimal. I see it possible to improve individuality without losing casual players.

Suggestion:

you could go ahead and leave the class system intact so that casual players are guided with tutorial and archetype

classes where they can't really screw stuff up. While at the same time make it so that when u select experienced mode

you have access to any class skills in the game and you start classless. You can't have more then 5 +1 skills anyway

so whats the point in limiting people who want to play something exotic?

The point is potential loss of customers else they would have gone without class system at all.

My suggestion wouldn't conflict with casual players, and if you think about balance well I think all hardcoe gamers

agree we take a 10% power loss for every ability in the game as long as we can mix stuff together.

I am not going to touch the ignorance and elitism in that post with a +5 ten foot pole of poking

The class system does not limit players at all - failed point.

The Attributes system - I guess there will be also something like defense from armor and attack (and damage?) from weapon. It can not just stay with health, stamina and magica.

So?

This way you could make every class mighty healers and that would break the game totally.

but it is how game is done, the point is that you can not be healer and dps the same time.