Elder Scrolls Online

[Mharvey]

Let's face it... we all knew this was coming eventually.

I know I wished for it ever since I played Oblivion. Could be one of those 'careful what you wish for' situations.

I think this article sums up my feeling on it well.

Of course there's always the chance that the team at ZeniMax Online Studios will come up with something truly special — a way to meet the needs of an MMO without becoming just another Warcraft wannabe. But with the enormous budgets poured into big-box MMOs, developers tend to err on the side of conservatism. They go with what works, rather than breaking new ground. Early information leaked from Game Informer's June cover story about the game seems to confirm these fears, at least in part.

Third-person camera perspective? Check. Hotbar to activate player skills? Check. Multi-faction player-versus-player action a la Dark Age of Camelot or World of Warcraft? Check. Tried-and-true — and unspectacular -- graphics engine? Check (the game will use Star Wars: The Old Republic's Hero Engine).

Single-player Elder Scrolls staples like player housing, lycanthropy, vampirism, romance, marriage, and radiant AI? Nope.

 

[narmowen]

I will not be playing it. I hate MMO's with a passion, and will not play any of them.

 

[ajoker]

Agreed. I prefer my rpg's to have an immersive story, and ten thousand twelve-year olds running around in the world doesn't do it for me.

 

[Kaiser-Kun]

So they want to dumb down Oblivion's already kinda dumb story, tone down the fantastic graphics, let loose thousands of dumbass puberts on my game and charge monthly for it?

I used to like Bethesda games, but then they shot an arrow to my knee.

 

[LOG]

Known about this for a few days, didn't consider it worth reporting.

I'm very leery.
We have so few good single-player RPG makers, whereas MMOs are now a dime-a-dozen for the most part.
Unless it's absolutely astounding, I would prefer that TES stay a single-player genre.


Also, let me be very clear: the MMO is being developed by ZeniMax Online Studios, which was created solely to develop MMOGs; it's separate from Bethesda Game Studios, which is the group that makes the TES series, although they both belong to ZeniMax Media and are both published by Besthesda Softworks.
Again: Bethesda is NOT MAKING THIS.

 

[Kaiser-Kun]

That's a relief. With some luck it might be another Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, to be swept under the rug and never spoken of again.

 

[Captim_Spaghetti]

I was hoping something like this would come out

 

[LOG]

I was hoping something like this would come out

>.>

 

[third person]

Different strokes, people. I'm sure if you REALLY look you'll be able to find a server/guild where the ad-ults tend to congregate. The dealbreaker for me would be no first person mode. Everquest II had a full on 1st person view, body and all, so if they pull some "not possible with the engine" bullshit that'll be my big NO.

 

[KateSmash]

Knew about this for about a week now. Strikes me as basically WoW with a TES veneer. As a player that really dislikes the standard MMO play style, I was hoping for so much more from this. Would have been awesome to share the real Elder Scrolls experience with a live companion instead of an AI one.

 

[Maxinquaye]

Why does everyone try to emulate WoW? I don't get it. Every WoW clone tends to fail because the target audience already play WoW and have invested a lot in that game.

Now, if they made this TES MMO single shard where all the players played on the same server, with PVP as the main focus, and a solid market system, I'd be interested in playing it.

 

[Mharvey]

Knew about this for about a week now. Strikes me as basically WoW with a TES veneer. As a player that really dislikes the standard MMO play style, I was hoping for so much more from this. Would have been awesome to share the real Elder Scrolls experience with a live companion instead of an AI one.

I agree. I think ESO should keep the gameplay just like Oblivion/Skyrim and focus 75% of the content on being a single player or a max of 5-6 player game until max level. Then you can spread things out a bit.

Here's how I would do it. Base it in Elsewhere (always wanted to see the Khajit homeland. Seems really Dark Sunish). You instance the entire world other than 2-3 major cities. If you're solo, the world is soloable. If you're with a group, the enemies increase in difficulty, but so do the rewards. You can group with up to 6 this way. No quests other than repeatable ones you get in a town to go on dungeon hunts/dragon hunts. Exploring and practicing your skills is how you level up. Just make it much harder than Skyrim and remove some of the more obvious short cuts. (IE: No running around spamming Muffle to increase your illusion skill). Easy way to do that is similar in Darkfall. Make spells/skills used on enemies 500x more effective in leveling skills. You can either run around spamming Muffle for 2 hours... or hit one enemy with a Berserk spell... for the same effect. Then institute max skill gains per enemy to insure they practice their skills on several different foes.

This insures a very Elder Scrolls experience for 50-100 hours.

At level 100 (or level cap), you gain the right to enter a second part of Elsewhere that is uninstanced. Players are out in droves. You declare a faction that allows you to partake in PvP. This whole zone is devoted to it.

If you want the ESO experience or high-end PvE, you can go back to the regular world you leveled in. All the monsters scale up to your power level. A few additional places open up that you can only enter with 10-30 or whatever other players. There's your high end raiding.

Only problem you'll have is no World PvP while leveling up. Small price to pay for being able to do away with PvP servers all together. Besides, PvPers aren't your market with this one because Elder Scrolls are *THE* single player games of our generation. Biggest problem MMOs do right now is try to do a little of everything and never really please anyone. Hence, something like SWTOR suffering a 25% atrophy in 4 months.

Damn, I should be put in charge of this.

 

[defcon6000]

Damn, I should be put in charge of this.

Maybe you should be a game developer.

Can't say I'm excited for this either. If they did something along the lines of NWN, where you have single player, and then there are individual servers modded by community members, so you can RPG or do whatever you want with your friends. I'd be all right with that, and it's a nice way to let the community partake in the world and quite possibly improve on the story.

 

[Mharvey]

Maybe you should be a game developer.

I would love to be. Problem is, if it's hard to become a published novelist, it's 100x harder to become a game developer. Not only are you competing with every wannabe writer, but every artist, programmer, and gamer who has ever embraced their inner geek.

It's a situation where one can lead to another though. You get 1-2 novels published, suddenly, you have a resume in creative writing that gaming companies will take seriously. I would definitely consider it at that point.

 

[defcon6000]

Why not create your own team of game developers? I'm sure there are others like yourself who're floating around, have the potential but don't have credits to get the jobs. Obviously it'd be a tough start, but you'd have full control to create the games you want to see created, you could even use kickstarter to help support your cause.

 

[Mharvey]

Why not create your own team of game developers? I'm sure there are others like yourself who're floating around, have the potential but don't have credits to get the jobs. Obviously it'd be a tough start, but you'd have full control to create the games you want to see created, you could even use kickstarter to help support your cause.

Basically, the risk mostly and my own inexperience. While I've played video games since I was 5 and, I feel, I have a grasp of what details make a game good... what I lack totally is the ability to pull it all together. In order to spearhead a new company, I'd need to at least work in a gaming company for a few years to get a basic sense of the structure.

It would be like trying to write a novel with only a basic grasp of the English Language and not even knowing the difference between a noun and a verb, I think. Doesn't really matter if my concept is kick-ass... I wouldn't know how to execute it.

It's certainly something I'd consider once I knew exactly how to go about it and had established a network from working in the industry.

 

[defcon6000]

Basically, the risk mostly and my own inexperience. While I've played video games since I was 5 and, I feel, I have a grasp of what details make a game good... what I lack totally is the ability to pull it all together. In order to spearhead a new company, I'd need to at least work in a gaming company for a few years to get a basic sense of the structure.

It would be like trying to write a novel with only a basic grasp of the English Language and not even knowing the difference between a noun and a verb, I think. Doesn't really matter if my concept is kick-ass... I wouldn't know how to execute it.

It's certainly something I'd consider once I knew exactly how to go about it and had established a network from working in the industry.

Could always find someone who does have the know-how (former developers from companies that went under), or hire a consultant (but that's kind of spendy).

I guess I believe the motto: "where there's a will there's a way." If you really want to do it, you'd find a way to make it happen. I see new gaming companies pop up all the time, they may not always succeed (and many of them don't), but they found a way to stick their head out of the water.

 

[efkelley]

Why does everyone try to emulate WoW? I don't get it. Every WoW clone tends to fail because the target audience already play WoW and have invested a lot in that game.

They don't want to re-invent the wheel. Which is just fine. Warcraft is a damn fine ride with lots of shiny wheels. Trouble is exactly what you said though: I've already got that t-shirt.

SWTOR faithfully recreated BC-level Warcraft, but they did such a good job they recreated the flaws too.

The fact that ZeniMax is using the SWTOR engine is terrible news. It's a crappy engine.

 

[Snowball2695]

I was really hoping that they would break the traditional MMO mold, but I guess those dreams are shot.
I think I'll stick with WoW, despite my love for The Elder Scrolls series.

 

[Her Dark Star]

Would love a co-op mode in TES, me and my best mate going dragon hunting. Otherwise I'll stick to single player. PLayed wow and guild wars a while lost interest and frankly don't have the time to play an MMO anymore, not to mention how difficult it was to actually find anyone I wanted to play with on them.
I can see why they'd try it but I can't say I'm going to be excited over this.

 

[Dommo]

I think an elderscrolls game with co-op would be a lot more viable, and in general interesting. The monsters could be scaled to be a lot more dangerous, and puzzles could be co-op also. It would also be possible to set the plot to handle a pair of characters far more easily than a big horde of them.

I just can't see an MMO working well.

 

[Naz]

Though I would love to play an Elder Scrolls game with my friends, I never expected this to actually happen. I wonder if an Elder Scrolls game as an MMO can still be as good as a single-player RPG.

I see many people here compare it to World of Warcraft, but what about Guild Wars 2? That game is more real-time than WoW (as in, you don't just click and press 1, 2, 3, etc. You have to be more active than that).

I'd say it could work but if it doesn't, wouldn't it be really bad for the reputation of those amazing games?

 

[efkelley]

Guild Wars 2 is a truly superior game in almost every way. I was very impressed, and I'm hard to impress. I haven't anticipated a launch like this since Warcraft.

 

[Maxinquaye]

Speaking from personal preference alone, I would much rather have played a Fallout MMO than an Elder Scroll MMO. The fantasy RPG niche has already been cornered by World of Warcraft, and there are a bunch of clones already failing or struggling, like Conan and such.

A Fallout MMO would have been a much fresher take, and it would have crated its own niche in the market. That said, the player base would probably have hated idea – partly for lore reasons but also from the fact that many Fallout players have never forgiven Bethesda for resurrecting the franchise.

I almost want to crawl under the bed when I imagine that clan-war between the FO3+ fans and the classic fans. It's enough to drive you to the booze. With this Elder Scrolls MMO, the Fallout MMO seem practically dead.

If it fails, it will burn Zenimax from trying the genre again, because it will be bankruptingly expensive. If it succeeds, the all the availible resources will go to maintain this MMO.

 

[narmowen]

Now, a FO MMO...that could be very intersting! That's one I might actually go for.

I started playing at FO3, though, so I'm still in love with the series!