I am bummed to hear that the thing no one has played yet stinks so bad in the opinion of people who have never tried it. It’s like how I hate chicken wings, I never personally tried them but I read somewhere that they are too spicy by another guy who never tried one and so I now know they are awful. Which is weird because I live in Buffalo N.Y. and they are selling those awful things literally everywhere.

I'm with you on this. I gave up on interesting PvE content ages ago. PvE has remained almost entirely the same in every MMO since Everquest, the only differences being in graphics, the amount of players involved, and the hotbar scheme used.

The Trials seem like a good start on making PvE interesting again, but in order to really wow me, they're going to have to develop real AI for enemy monsters. I just don't see Zenimax as being the company that makes that happen. Not bashing them or anything, but taking down bags of hitpoints more efficiently than the group precedent to you isn't really all that exciting. How quickly you can farm end game content isn't really an innovative enough addition to PvE to entice me.

I had posted this in a different topic right before it was locked:

I think the problem is that legos aren't popular anymore.

I'm serious. As a child, I had a gigantic box of legos- the box of legos lasted way longer than the instructions that had come with them that told me how to build a hospital or a castle or a pirate ship and, I'd sit by myself or with my best friend and we'd dump my box of legos on the floor in my basemant and spend the day building things on our own.

That world is gone, now. This generation of gamers has to have a clear road map all the way through to the end and are egocentric enough that they need to constantly have a way to show that their [censored] is bigger than yours- because mom always told them they were unique.

Gone are the games where you create your own stories and find your own fun- the equivalent of dumping over the box of legos and building something with other people without having it handed to you.

This.

I heard about these "trials", and not the dirt bike game.

I just read this and all I could think of the whole time is this: Minecraft

Some people just want carrots I guess.

fixed

Did you ever play Ultima Online? That game was a lot like leggos. You quite literally set your own goals and objectives. Eve online touched on this but failed to capture it. I don’t even mind some hand holding, but when it comes down to Raid Bosses on a timer and Daily quests, no thanks, that’s not play that is a second job.

I think you're completely wrong here, given recent trends. There has been a massive increase in the popularity of open world, sandbox games in recent years. Started with Minecraft, as someone mentioned, but variants are hugely popular at the moment. DayZ, Rust, 7 Days to Die. All going gangbusters and largely due to word of mouth. People are eating up the 'lego' games these days, and I think MMOs like ESO need to pay serious attention to this.

Every year EvE Online becomes more and more popular. Once a niche game celebrating 20,000 subscribers, now it's at over half a million and still growing.

Minecraft blew up with popularity, catching so many by surprise. Even a vain graphics nut like me loved the lego's feel of that game.

As Genomic points out, sandbox is quickly coming back into style, at least with a certain audience. We don't want to have our hands held, we want to choose. We are diverse and different.

Because lets face it, if we wanted raid content progression, there are a TON of games out there to choose from. Hell, Everquest is STILL going strong. WoW has how many years of content? Everquest Next will probably follow the same pattern as EQ and EQ2, which means very heavy on dungeon grinds.

I'm happy ... hell, I'm [censored] ecstatic ... that ESO is going to be different. Thank the eight.

Elder Scrolls isn't sandbox tho Sandbox games require it to be done internally not by use of a external program(Construction Kit/Creation Kit) to allow for the more sandbox area of games.

I am looking forward to more Sandbox games, ESO is not it though. If you are waiting for ESO to be a Sanbox game you will be in for a big disappointment.

As far as Themepark games, unless they have progression content people get bored and leave. True story.

That's right, but it is less 'theme-park' than other MMOs and has some sandbox elements. And I agree with Ruze, I'm very happy for that direction. We should be moving away from raiding for gear grinds and UIs that promote min-maxing. Away from shoving gamers into treadmills and hoping their OCD takes over, and more promoting a living, breathing world.

Good thing some of us like other stuff.

Anyone ever wonder that maybe the reason they haven't explained end game is because they want the suspense and surprise. Let's be honest they do listen to the community I'm sure they have something the masses want. And no it's not just crafting lol

ESO has none of the things you want. Just because there is no Raiding and gear grinds it does not automatically mean that there is something else there, especially not Sandbox features.

ESO right now is just your Traditional Themepark game but minus the Progression Endgame Content. Which is just ridiculous really - its basically WoW without the Raiding. lol

And they expect people to pay a subscription for that in the long term? yeah, i dont think so.

Must have changed a bit from the beta then, because I found it to be quite different, and enjoyed the difference immensely.

I dont see why some people think trials is just some leaderboard mini game. quite clearly its just a special name for raids. And I am sure there is some other game out there that has leaderboards for raids. For all I know WoW has it(I never played WoW btw). Besides, woul not having a leaderboard make it not a "leaderboard mini-game"? does having one make it so?

@Lycrates. THEY JUST SAID THERE IS RAID CONTENT! did you not read? maybe they are lying, but I trust them and if there is truly no raid content then call me a fool.

Or to pvp protect the enemie faction . Its not about ep its about Veteran EP then .

Yeah, I loved the feeling of exploration. I liked the depth of crafting. I really enjoyed the stories attached to the dungeons I've run (which is absurd to me, as I generally dislike dungeons), and am looking forward to how that story progresses at Veteran rank.

As far as user-generated content? EvE's user generated content is based primarily on the drama of holding and taking over swaths of empty space. Oh, and they've got a damn good market system. In the end though, EvE is still a sandbox game because it lets the players go where they want and do what they want, something every Veteran in ESO will be able to do.

Oh, and there will be some conquest in Cyrodill, though that isn't nearly as persistant as EvE (thankfully, because 0.0 stagnation is a major flaw in that game, even if it's simultaneously it's biggest advantage over every other game out there).

I've also got my card played that I like what the developers say in their blogs, and the reasoning they give for their decisions. The API call and explanation. Now the expansion of detail on their view of end-game, specifically the non-gear-driven focus. Hopefully they stick with their guns and expand on what the game is. IF that's the case, I'll be here for a long time.

If not? I'll try the next game out there until some developer actually gets the balls to go full sandbox again.

Trials are not Raiding. Just because you name a piece of bread as steak, it does not make it stake.

Raiding are progression PvE encounters where guilds slowly build up gear to progress through the Bosses. In Raids there are lockouts so that each guild would not simply reset the instance after killing the first boss over and over again and gear up everyone in no-time.

Trials are clearly described as a getting to leaderboard competition without any lockouts. Trials are not Raids - ZOS is just calling them that - just like they are calling Veteran Ranks as Endgame when in fact its just more leveling but with a different name.