Bethesda Announces The Elder Scrolls Online

[blackrave]

Few concerns:
1. Maintaining MMOG usually leaves no resources for developing further titles
(after release of WoW I lost all hope to see Warcraft4)
2. Developers might try to clone WoW (3rd person POV only, cartoonish graphics, similar HUD, world inhabited only by quest giving NPCs and players, choices that doesn't matter at all or changes only your game, etc.)
3. Risk of typical development for Bethesda (provinces will be small, not all races/creatures that inhabits Tamriel available, bugs, exploits and broken game)
4. Freemium payment model (I would prefer to pay for my game instead of paying for game content)
5. Respawning doesn't fit the setting (anyone else thinks that it would be great testing grounds for dead-is-dead model? Basically you pay only for character creation, and play until your character gets killed, after that you pay to create another one)
6. No mods (yes I know, expecting mods for MMOG is ridiculous, but still, I like mods for Bethesda games)


P.S. And those who claims that roaming Tamriel with friends would be fun are wrong. How soon will it be flooded by gold farmers, beggars and characters who run around naked? For me TES experience is roaming around in fairly adequate game world without being constantly interrupted by half naked chicks (with ridiculous/offensive names) that offers 1K gold coins for 5$. On the bright side if it is full PvP with dead-is-dead model, I can turn into werebear and tear them apart

 

[pppppppppppppppppp]

Remember when the Jimquisition made that video called "How Skyrim Proves the Industry Wrong"? I guess he was wrong about that after all. :/

 

[Meight08]

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Its being made by another studio and not by bethesda get your facts straight.

 

[John Funk]

I'll be watching with interest to see if Bethesda can manufacture the fabled WoW killer the peasantry has spoken of in whispered legends for the last 8 years.

Short answer: No.

Long answer: No, because while this is a fantasy property beloved by gamers (an excellent seeding ground for an MMO, to be sure), TES Online is up against WoW with 8 years of content upgrades, streamlining, and development under its belt. That is quite literally an impossible hurdle to surmount. If *Star Wars* couldn't kill WoW, what chance does TES have?

WoW will slowly decline on its own over time. At this point, I remain skeptical that any game could ever dethrone it via force - maybe not even Blizzard's own "Titan" project.

WoW is declining fairly rapidly, with it's user base continues to drop. With so many free MMO's (and a couple of good ones) their is less and less reason to fork out 15 bucks a month for an eight year old game who's gameplay mechanics are at least a decade older than that. MMO's are finally trying to make combat FUN (such as Terra online) and more about reaction then skills with hot keys. So many high profile MMOs are coming out all just this year, each fighting for dominance with an advantage that WoW just completely lacks.

Elder Scrolls online isn't going to be the WoW killer, WoW will be on life support by the time it comes out.

"Rapidly" is a matter of perspective; WoW still has far and away orders of magnitude more players than most other MMOs, and while you're absolutely right that it is an aged game, plenty of people still obviously find it fun or it wouldn't be so consistently popular. It's interesting that you bring up TERA, which I'm playing right now and having a blast - but for all that I love the combat and action, the overall experience in WoW is so much more refined and streamlined that it really does make it look better by comparison

SWTOR stung WoW, but I won't be surprised to see subscription numbers dropping there as the luster wears off. TERA may sting WoW; Diablo 3 will certainly be a giant blow (not that Blizzard minds...), and GW2 will probably wrest a number of players away. But I reiterate that it is exceptionally difficult to compete with a game that has 8 years of polish under its belt, and while all of these games do offer big advantages over WoW, they're also deficient in areas compared to the big daddy of MMOs as well.

So no, I don't think WoW will be on life support by the time TES comes out. I don't even think it will be close. Will it have fewer players? Almost certainly, and MOP is just a little bandaid in the natural life cycle of an MMO.

But people are still playing Everquest 1, you know.

 

[blackrave]

Its being made by another studio and not by bethesda get your facts straight.

7. Game is developed by another studio (prepare your shitbrella for lore inconsistencies)

 

[Astoria]

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Its being made by another studio and not by bethesda get your facts straight.

Was that really worth quoting us for? Yes I know it's being done by Zenimax but TES is always Bethesda in my mind that's why I said them instead.

 

[SajuukKhar]

7. Game is developed by another studio (prepare your shitbrella for lore inconsistencies)

According to the gameinformer scans Todd and other lore people drop-in and check up on the lore side of the game every now-and-then.

Also Michael Kirkbride, a former Bethesda dev who practically wrote Morrowind and still writes lore for Bethesda every now and then, said he thinks its in good hands.

Also Bethesda can just claim a dragonbreak to explain any lore they dont like.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

Will people stop dropping to their knees to give Skyrim fellatio, please?

Morrowind comes out -- "Omg, this game is amazing!" Oblivion comes out: "Morrowind had such shit combat and graphics! Oblivion is so much better." Skyrim comes out: "Omg, how shit was Oblivion. Remember the terrible graphics and horrible dialog? The combat was so bad, too." Ten bucks says in five years time everyone and their dog will talk about how shit Skyrim was and tear every one of its mechanics apart like a dog to the Christmas turkey.

Morrowind was fine. Oblivion was fine. Skyrim is fine. Stop jumping up and down to proclaim each installment the second coming of Christ, only to tell us all how shit it was two years later.

Ugh!

 

[Artemis923]

My reaction is as follows:

 

[w00tage]

It was never a question of "if", it was only a matter of "when".

Actually, it's been "iffy" since before Morrowind. Somewhere in my old backups I have a copy of the email I sent to Bethesda's lead programmer and the reply I received from him (the Internet was so new that companies listed important emails right on their websites. Ah, the good old days.). I strongly recommended that their new game in development (by the name of Morrowind) be coop multiplayer. We had lots of other multiplayer games out, and I had friends that were playing Daggerfall at the time and it was frustrating to not be able to hook up with them.

His reply was along the lines of "nope, we think singleplayer is a fine market for us". Nothing about the customers' wants or needs, alas, and so it has been since then - singleplayer only, because that's what was good for the company.

So I had given up hope of multiplayer at all unless modders made it happen, and am watching the fine folks at Skyrim Online to see what they can do.

 

[w00tage]

I'll be watching with interest to see if Bethesda can manufacture the fabled WoW killer the peasantry has spoken of in whispered legends for the last 8 years.

Short answer: No.

Long answer: No, because while this is a fantasy property beloved by gamers (an excellent seeding ground for an MMO, to be sure), TES Online is up against WoW with 8 years of content upgrades, streamlining, and development under its belt. That is quite literally an impossible hurdle to surmount. If *Star Wars* couldn't kill WoW, what chance does TES have?

WoW will slowly decline on its own over time. At this point, I remain skeptical that any game could ever dethrone it via force - maybe not even Blizzard's own "Titan" project.

WoW is declining fairly rapidly, with it's user base continues to drop. With so many free MMO's (and a couple of good ones) their is less and less reason to fork out 15 bucks a month for an eight year old game who's gameplay mechanics are at least a decade older than that. MMO's are finally trying to make combat FUN (such as Terra online) and more about reaction then skills with hot keys. So many high profile MMOs are coming out all just this year, each fighting for dominance with an advantage that WoW just completely lacks.

Elder Scrolls online isn't going to be the WoW killer, WoW will be on life support by the time it comes out.

"Rapidly" is a matter of perspective; WoW still has far and away orders of magnitude more players than most other MMOs, and while you're absolutely right that it is an aged game, plenty of people still obviously find it fun or it wouldn't be so consistently popular. It's interesting that you bring up TERA, which I'm playing right now and having a blast - but for all that I love the combat and action, the overall experience in WoW is so much more refined and streamlined that it really does make it look better by comparison

SWTOR stung WoW, but I won't be surprised to see subscription numbers dropping there as the luster wears off. TERA may sting WoW; Diablo 3 will certainly be a giant blow (not that Blizzard minds...), and GW2 will probably wrest a number of players away. But I reiterate that it is exceptionally difficult to compete with a game that has 8 years of polish under its belt, and while all of these games do offer big advantages over WoW, they're also deficient in areas compared to the big daddy of MMOs as well.

So no, I don't think WoW will be on life support by the time TES comes out. I don't even think it will be close. Will it have fewer players? Almost certainly, and MOP is just a little bandaid in the natural life cycle of an MMO.

But people are still playing Everquest 1, you know.

Allow me to suggest that it's not the game that keeps people playing an MMO, it's the other people in it I held on for a long long time until there just weren't any people I cared about logging in anymore, and then it was a nothing decision to quit a game I'd played for 5 years.

I think MMO makers consistently forget that fact in the massive amount of work it takes to create an MMO at all, and that's why very cool MMOs fail. Lately they even seem to just give up on making an MMO an experience to be shared with others, and try to create substitutes for other people like SWTOR's companions :\

 

[Jiffex]

I think the best thing for a TES online feature would be a Borderlands style multiplayer where you and 3 friends can quest and explore.

 

[arcade109]

Jesus.... there are ENOUGH FUCKING FANTASY ONLINE GAMES!!!! Don't take the awesome single player games and just cash in...

 

[Cry Wolf]

Sigh, doesn't Bethesda understand that the only reason their games are popular is because modding is incredibly easy for them? There writing is sub-par at best, and they game play is mediocore. Apart from brand recognition, this MMO has nothing going for it.

Except maybe it will look pretty.

You know what would be cool? Multiplayer Elder Scrolls like what was done in Neverwinter Nights.

Technically, it is being by Zenimax Online, but since Zenimax Online and bethesda are both subsidiaries of Zenimax, the distinction is rather slight. Bethesda makes wide open sandboxes with pretty graphics and robust modding communities. morrowind also had good lore, but ESO looks to have only the first one of those four, and seriously, wide open sandboxes can be found in any MMO. They are throwing out everything that set ES apart from the herd by making it an MMO. I have to wonder why they thoguht this would be a good idea.

Yeah, I probably should have picked up on the Zenimax thing, but it's splitting hairs at that point. I know exactly why they thought this was a good idea.

A) It's not about to hurt the franchise.

B) The brand is insanely popular almost giving a garuntee on a return of investment.

I'm glad it's not being made by Bethesda as well. It means any development time wont be wasted on it.

 

[Faerillis]

I'm saying that if, as is the plan, Molag Bal tried to pull all of Tamriel into his Daedric Realm of Coldharbour at any point in history there is no way we wouldn't have heard of it.

Again

Dragon-break

multiple parallel timelines are formed that are then merged togeather with most of each erased.

the entire game could be set during a dragon-break and just be one of the limitless timelines that got erased

I guess it is possible for that to be the reason, but talk about a lame one for an MMO. Little things I can understand happening, or even using it as a back room trick to make certain things work, but to base an entire MMO on something that has all the universe impact of a dream sequence still seems like a bad idea.

 

[The Maddest March Hare]

Oh God damn it, I was going to try being productive this decade..

 

[BroJing]

Noooooooooooooooooooo!!

Well, maybe only a partial Noooo. I'll remove my objection if they continue to make full single player Elder Scrolls games and I can let the MMOers get on with their whole 'no sunlight' deal.

I've never gotten the appeal of these games, I've tried a few and it always seems like I could have more fun with my friends at the pub or playing games in the same room.

 

[Meatspinner]

Sooo... Does that mean that Beth wont make any more single player elderscroll games?
You know, just like Blizz did with their Warcraft RTS games