Ahh i didn't think of it that way. Makes more sense from a dev standpoint and would be easier to implement.

I would rather see arenas than world PVP which is just stupid. Besides it fits lore since there have been arenas in the singleplayer TES games.

The real argument is not arena or no arena it is instanced PVP vrs Cyrodiil RVR. There are several fears associated with Arena's and the opponents have seen what happens when Devs cater to the Instanced PVP crowd, we have watched and played other games and we have seen what happens to the community and the gameplay when instanced PVP creeps into a MMO, it slowly takes over then becomes the dominant force, essentially killing off an open world pvp which in this case would be Cyrodiil. History lesson, before instanced PVP wow offered open world pvp all over even on PVE servers. There was always a massive fights outside of tarren mill or elsewhere in game. A accidental flagging>ganking>friend helping>getting reinforced>big battle was common on my PVE server and it could and would happen anywhere. That died the day the battlegrounds were launched. When arenas came into WoW the game changed again and classes were violently changed to offer a fair and balanced representation in their e-sport battles. Warhammer online, supposed to be a blend of instanced and set RVR areas, however, failed in execution, the only time people did the RVR lakes were to take a keep to siege the city, then back to instanced pvp grinding. Those are just 2 examples.

People who run arena's will want a reward for winning. Then the losers will want something for their time. Then the Winners will want to buy gear or have access to special gear just for their arenas. The rate of rewards in an arena becomes constant, pretty soon people realize that sitting in a queue in their home city and either winning or losing an arena will gain them more Alliance points than running around Cyrodiil. After all I could die in Cyrodiil and that would be time lost to get back in the fight which is lost AP which isn't efficient. There is no risk involved in instanced PVP, everyone is a winner, It's like getting a trophy for 12th place in a soccer tournament. Cryodiil campaigns soon die off as everyone who doesn't run arenas crowd into the active ones. This will promote more zerg vrs zerg fights that may alienate the solo/ small group people even more driving more people to run arenas since the rate of rewards is constant.

This is what the Anti-Arena crowd is trying to avoid, this is what we don't want to happen. We want Cryodiil to be the only focus for RVR/PVP. Cryodiil offers all forms of combat, 1v1, 2v2 small group v small group, group v group, zerg v zerg, ganking someone while in a dungeon or doing quests. It is all there, one big field to play in letting people break off into clusters and do what they want.

WoW WoW WoW

Everyone's so worried about WoW

It's because that is what most people seem to associate with Arenas. I wouldn't mind arenas that offered nothing such as the little dueling pits found around in Lineage 2 or the little arena in the main city like Aion. Basically, things purely for fun, with no reward at all. Unfortunately, most would probably want rewards.

I heartily agree too. All instanced PvP in any form (BGs, arenas, etc.) does is take people away from open PvP.

If anyone wants arenas, they can go play League of Legends or WoW. It's all the less lag for the rest of us.

We are worried about the health of ESO and we recognize the issues and problems from other games even if other people don't. The arena crowd seems to either not care and turn a blind eye toward the health of the game when it comes to implementing arenas, they " want it because they want it" and that is a rather selfish standpoint.

Now, why in the world are you bringing in the casual vs. hardcoe debate into this thread, unless to troll?

I know a TON of "hardcoe" PvPers back in Wow, guys that wipe the floor with just about anyone they come across, who greatly dislike the Arena. Now, most of them do Arena, because they want the gear, but not because they want to. Doesn't seem to be too terribly "optional" to me. Sure, no one is holding a gun to your head, but if you want to be able to compete any kind of PvP you have to.

Interesting, if both sides, casual AND hardcoe, hate how WoW has set up the arena. Throw on top of that that Blizzard deems it a huge mistake, and that's a pretty good reason to say "no'.

Now, if ESO takes a long, hard look at it (which I think they will, because Arenas have a place in TES history), and they can figure out how to implement in such a way that doesn't create the problems Wow's Arena does, then they will share their plans with us and you just might be surprised how all these "casuals" may change their minds.

I do not see a big deal for NPC / PVE content -- but for PVP content, Arenas will not work very well as reasons stated above.

A PVE arena would work fine and many of the people against arenas would not have an issue with this. It is the PVP arenas that spark the debate and should remain in 'other' games.

Actually, in the previous games arenas (like the Imperial Cities) were only really active during general times of peace, at least in regards to inter-province warfare.

Seems kind of dumb to sponsor tournament-style fights-to-the-death when you have a real enemy to fight. Which is why there was no arena in Skyrim. So a 'fits lore' argument doesn't fly.

Having only one Mode of PvP will ruin the game.

If you want to have a healthy subscription base, you need to have content that appeals to various different tastes and not just one.

Right now, ESO only has zergfest type PvP which a lot of people don't enjoy as much (myself included). I would definitely prefer an MMO with structured small scale PvP

Rome felt differently.

Then the questions becomes:

What is better to have? Theme park Arenas or Sand box type Arenas? Besides PVE vs PVP versions debate going on now.

When you said, "structured small scale PvP" sounds like a theme park idea to me. I am not saying it is bad or good, just have I understand what you mean.

Now I want to get back into Cyrodiil, 8 more days!

TM were good times, people would travel the entire world map just to get there and join in. And they would indeed bust out at some of the most random times.

I wonder if we will see instances where some infamous guild on one faction will log into their Cyrodiil campaign, then the alarms will go off on the other two factions, and people will rush in and try and crush them. I could even see some fairly large-ish "peace treaties" happening, where the desire to see this infamous guild destroyed is so strong that players on the other two factions will purposely avoid fighting each other as much as possible, just so they can focus on the third.

Umm... you do realize his point is quite similar to the link you posted earlier, about emergent gameplay? Smaller, instanced arenas are by their nature very controlled, which doesn't leave a lot of room for players to create these additional layers of gameplay, like the example given in EVE.

I can see the argument about 1v1 arena, but let us play 5v5-8v8 instance matches like in warhammer online, also let us duel 1v1 in a designated area(or any where) just for the fun of it.

that was so fun in Warhammer. It felt almost like open world ,because the maps were decently sized, and had objectives. So much fun. Way better than zerging keeps.

Indeed, although I do enjoy the occasional zerging keeps and open world rvr, I'd imagine getting bored of it within a month. Instance PVP has always been my favourite.

Yep, that's what I was getting at. Though I do not see that much of a difference between "classes" and skill lines.

Yeah, the Roman Empire did a lot of dumb things.

You have the entire area of Cyrodiil to make what you want out of the pvp, to say it is only zergfest is limiting yourself and not using any imagination. Small scale instanced pvp is hand holding, there is small scale pvp however in Cyrodiil, you either need to find it or make it happen. We don't want the devs to bottle feed queue sitters.

Like democracy, martial law and irrigation. Stupid romans, on a serious not I've already expressed how I feel about Arenas on another thread, I don't care but I do want them in the game for people who're into that sort of thing.

Classes always get changed based on PvP, content gets changed for PvE by reducing boss cycles enrage etc

No it doesn't.

This series started in the arena and multiple arenas appeared throughout the series.
I don't like raids, doesn't mean they shouldn't be added.