In the MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online has allowed players to travel to guild members or friends since release. Two clever minds thought to use this feature for a practical add-on. We spoke with them about their work and what they enjoy the most.
What are add-ons? Add-ons refer to extensions for ESO that give players the opportunity to enhance their gaming experience. This includes things like user interface customization, buff and skill trackers, or extensions that collect data in a clear manner to determine average prices for guild stores, etc.
There are actually no areas where add-ons are unthinkable. Existing add-ons differ massively in complexity. It starts with add-ons that display a particular font in a different color and ends with add-ons that extract countless amounts of data from guild records.
However, add-ons must adhere to certain conditions and rules set by ZeniMax Online Studios. Therefore, they are also reviewed by developers to ensure they comply with the allowed conditions (via ESO website).
Unlocking wayshrines while saving gold
We spoke with the developers of the add-on “BeamMeUp – Teleporter” about their work and what they like most about it.
What does BeamMeUp – Teleporter do?
In ESO, you can travel to another player without gold costs through the guild or your friends list. Once the process is started, the corresponding wayshrine for teleporting is unlocked. However, you have only discovered it when you complete the traveling process.
BeamMeUp utilizes this function and provides you with a clear list of locations you can currently visit when traveling to one of your friends or guild members. Additionally, there are other functions that read your treasure maps and discovery reports and then output the possible travel destinations.
With the wayshrine function, you can unlock all possible wayshrines by selecting all players in your lists within the same area. This method of traveling also saves you a lot of gold because if you do not travel via a wayshrine yourself, it costs you something.
Who are the developers of BeamMeUp?
They are David (@DeadSoon) and Josef (@Gamer1986PAN), who have divided the work areas for the add-on among themselves. In our community interview with the two, we asked about what motivated them and which areas they particularly enjoyed.
Is this your first time doing something like this?
Josef: “I previously created various Excel spreadsheets with background calculations for different games, but mostly distributed within the guild I played in that game. The scope of BeamMeUp is something completely different and would not have been possible without David, as learning to program became too dry for me after a short time, and the successes did not come quickly enough. “
David: “For me, BeamMeUp is my first large leisure development project. I also develop professionally, but that’s obviously something different. Thus, we both grew into ESO add-on development together.”
You both have divided up the work on the add-on a bit. Do you have specific areas for each?
Josef: “Since I have almost no idea about the code and can only roughly estimate how something affects, I prefer to let the professional handle that while I gather information for him. This includes the IDs of zones and what type of area it is for new DLCs and chapters. This way, David can fully concentrate on the changes he has to make in the code.
Especially early on, I looked for weaknesses in the base game, which we then adjusted together to make it more intuitive and clearer. This also includes adjusting individual icons, the graphic editing of the screenshots including short explanations on the ESOUI page.
However, you should still read the description as BMU offers so much more. Additionally, I mainly manage 4 guilds each on the EU and NA servers.
However, even these 2000 slots per server are usually not enough, so we also asked the community to trust us with their guilds as partner guilds – these can be accessed with the second icon at the top left – including your community guild “The Magical Miezmuschel” on the EU server.”
David: “I would say we complement each other excellently. Since communicating and interacting with the community (guilds, Discord, etc.) takes up a lot of time, I’m very grateful that Josef diligently takes care of the majority.
In this area, he is truly a natural talent as he always communicates in a friendly and constructive manner and pays close attention to the integrity (e.g., compliance with rules) of our guilds and our Discord. Furthermore, it’s very valuable for our discussions to have a “non-developer perspective”.
When we talk about new potential features, I consider everything from a programming effort and technical feasibility perspective. Josef then adds a clear and technically independent perspective as a user. The composition or sometimes compromise of both usually leads to a really good idea.”
For add-ons in ESO, there is the add-on manager Minion. How does the whole process work when someone wants to offer their add-on there?
Josef: “The ESOUI website guides you very well through it. Since anyone who can program usually speaks English, there should be no problems here. Ultimately, you have to fill out a detailed description to allow the operators to check it. With the appropriate changelogs, you should briefly describe each change if you want to post updates.
The operators of ESOUI then check whether there are any prohibited files in the download to exclude viruses or malware or to ensure that the author does not automatically send gold from each user.
This means that if someone wants to misuse it, it is prevented through ESOUI and Minion; how well this is done through other sources, I cannot judge. Minion and ESOUI are definitely the most up-to-date sources for add-ons.”
David: “ESOUI is the only official add-on platform for ESO, run by ZOS developers and the developer community. Minion essentially only uses the interface to the ESOUI platform to provide simplified browsing, installation, and automatic updates of ESO add-ons to the user’s PC.”
A well-functioning add-on requires continuous effort
This is what BeamMeUp looks like in-game:
Programming and maintenance always require corresponding effort. When and why did you decide “let’s do this”?
Josef: “There are several reasons – to name just 2:
- We are our own biggest customers: I have saved over 4.5 million gold since our first beta. We benefit from having the add-on provide as many comprehensive and clear functions as possible.
- You want to do something for the game you love to play, or at least for fellow players.
David: “I can only agree with Josef. I can’t imagine not having our add-on and our download numbers (already over a million, thank you dear community) show that many other users worldwide feel the same way. The fact that our add-on has now been translated into 8 languages by users from all over the world is proof that it is a tool for everyone.
Of course, we don’t want to brag about it, but one is a bit proud. In particular, the feedback from users during the early development phase (whether positive or negative) has motivated us to invest our free time into the project further.”
While we are on the subject of effort, how much time do you approximately spend per week on the add-on and everything around it?
Josef: “To manage the guilds, I need about 10–30 minutes daily. For the upcoming update, I have additionally invested about 1 hour – which should represent only a fraction of David’s contribution.”
David: “Where Josef has a very regular, almost daily effort, for me it is more bundled. Of course, I also check my in-game mails and Discord almost daily to respond to direct questions. But these do not come in every day. It becomes really time-consuming when we want to implement a new feature or have to fix an elaborate bug.
When we want to implement a new thing, I often get the drive to do so, which often leads to me losing myself in the code for 10 hours a week. However, once the update is out, I also need a 1-3 week break where I invest significantly less time.”
Have there been any changes to the base game that have impacted your add-on?
Josef: “Oh yes, when it first really took off, shortly after that came the map progress/area guide. Fortunately, David quickly found a way to switch between that and BeamMeUp.”
David: “Apart from the map progress, changes to the map and travel system due to a base game update are usually minimal. The API functions that we use are very rarely altered by ZOS. However, new options are sometimes added that we then want to fully utilize.
For example, ZOS introduced the functionality to travel to your own house (i.e., to the front door instead of inside the house) not too long ago. Since we already displayed all of the player’s houses in a clear list, it naturally made sense to incorporate the new functionality of the base game into our add-on interface as well.”
What aspects have you had to really sink your teeth into?
Josef: “Subzones, such as the Brass Fortress in the Clockwork City or the combination of Auridon/Summerset or Wailing Prison/Graveyard/Broken Docks, are always a challenge because ESO constantly comes up with new hurdles that David has to react to. But the interaction with other add-ons is also a tough nut to crack every now and then.”
David: “We are generally very agile. We want to respond to user wishes and also need to consider changing technical aspects (including performance and changes in the base game). Implemented functionalities are therefore often rebuilt or expanded.
And with some problems, one can really sink their teeth into it. Whether it’s because you made a typo (self-inflicted) or because an API function or an element in the game does not behave as expected. This happens again and again, and fortunately, there are very few problems where one eventually gives up and looks for an alternative or workaround.”
Gratitude and feedback from users are worth the effort
In every activity, there are both positive and negative aspects. How does it look regarding the work on add-ons? What are the negative or frustrating aspects, and which aspects give it value and motivate you to continue?
Josef: “Especially some dungeons where ESO somehow makes it impossible to travel in, like the open caves in Blackwood or the Grimhollow Reformatory in the Wailing Prison, always bother us personally since all we can do is hope that ZOS takes care of it themselves.
Next to the personal motivation to make things easier through technology – during my training, we had a saying in the classroom: ‘Technology is the effort to save efforts’ that still drives me today. This means you put work into something to optimize it and afterwards save a lot of time and nerves.
And players keep showing us how grateful they are for our work – whether through donations, exuberant thanks in application texts for our guilds that have brought me many smiles, or also YouTube videos from our users where they praise the add-on highly.”
David: “I don’t have much to add. If I had to create a prioritized list…
These are the aspects that motivate me the most:
- Feedback and gratitude from users
- Finding algorithmic solutions to technically challenging problems
- The feeling of having created something enduring for the community
These aspects frustrate me sometimes:
- When I cannot find a solution to a technical problem.
- When I look at some old code blocks and think that I should actually rewrite all of that.
The programming language for add-ons is even beginner-friendly
What are the prerequisites for programming such add-ons? Are YouTube tutorials enough, or do you need to delve deeper into the subject?
Josef: “With enough time and the willingness to learn, that would be a good start, and with useful tips, a large part of the authors’ community is available. For us, it was mainly Baertram, whom you might know from FCO ItemSaver, and who wrote LibZone for us, which saves us a lot of work – another big thank you if he reads this. But for complete newcomers, it might be difficult with an add-on the size of BeamMeUp. One should first build small add-ons – maybe initially just for oneself – and grow from those successes.”
David: “I can only agree with Josef. You grow with the challenges that arise from developing the desired functionalities. You should have a bit of programming understanding. The scripting language LUA, which is used, is quite forgiving and, like Python, very beginner-friendly.”
Programming will certainly not be all that is required. What soft skills should one also bring?
Josef: “In my case, it was primarily persuasion and perseverance to convince David to adapt and improve the add-on that BeamMeUp is based on (Luminary Teleporter) to the then-current game version. Once I got him on board, I just had to feed him with new ideas about what we could improve and help him track down bugs.”
David: “Along with a healthy dose of ambition, communication is key to success. Of course, the following greatly depends on the purpose of the add-on, but generally, communication with the user base and with other developers is extremely helpful and valuable for all parties.
On one side, the ESOUI forums or chat platform provide all developers with the opportunity to exchange ideas, help each other, and connect with the game developers (ZOS). On the other side, there are no boundaries to the communication and interaction with the users of one’s own add-on.
The possible channels range from forums, Discord, to in-game guilds, as in our case. The gratitude and feedback from the community is the greatest reward and motivates us to continue investing our free time into the project.”
Do you have any tips for aspiring add-on programmers? What should one definitely pay attention to or plan for?
Josef: “Stay ambitious if the idea comes from you and you hope for a certain ease from it, from which you can later benefit yourself, the effort is definitely worth it. Just make sure to include as many comments in your code as possible, so you can quickly get back into it or others who may take over your add-on later can find their way around more easily.
And find a few people who frequently deal with add-ons and try to win them as beta testers for you. The fewer bugs make it into the Minion version, the better it will be received by players.”
David: “Josef has already hit the nail on the head. I would only add:
- Always try to think long-term. Prevent having to manually maintain any data as much as possible. Instead, try to source everything dynamically from the game’s interfaces. This keeps your add-on current even when a new update to the base game is released, with new zones, new items, etc.
- Reach out to the developer community, whether personally or via the forum. Many questions have already been asked, and many technical issues have already been solved by other developers. Additionally, the exchange is usually beneficial for everyone and motivates finding new solutions together.
- Have fun with what you do. Even if it’s often sensible to respond to user wishes and ideas, it remains your add-on. Develop what you want, how you want, and most importantly, at the pace you want. Only then will the joy of the project remain for a long time.”
If you would like to support the two of them, you are warmly invited to join their BeamMeUp guilds or especially the partner guilds as they have even more slots available.
Do you use any add-ons? Feel free to tell us what your favorite add-on is and whether you have heard of BeamMeUp or if you became aware of it through our article for the first time. I (MiezeMelli) for my part, am a huge fan of add-ons. You can read about it in my article about my 195 add-ons in ESO.
