New Elder Scrolls Online Screens Emerge

Starke

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Mar 6, 2008
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Tanakh said:
Eridani74 said:
LINKS!!!
Part 1 [http://tamrielfoundry.com/2012/10/eso-media-event/]
Part 2: Combat [http://tamrielfoundry.com/2012/10/combat-in-teso/]
Part 3: Gameplay [http://tamrielfoundry.com/2012/10/gameplay-impressions/]
Part 4: Interview with Game director and creative director [http://tamrielfoundry.com/2012/10/interview-matt-paul/]
Part 5: Interview with lead PVP designer [http://tamrielfoundry.com/2012/10/interview-brian-wheeler/]
Ohhh, that PvP seems interesting indeed. This is a weird game, named Elder Scrolls but reminds me more of DaoC or GW 2, that is, a lot of it is PvP focused.... no wonder people around here are cold to it.

Edit: Ohh god! Climbing walls might be back! Drool. No class specific is fail... but whatev.
The Dark Age of Camelot vibe might be because their lead PvP dev and game director are both DAoC alums.
 

I.Muir

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Jun 26, 2008
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It was already condemned to failure in my mind
It will not survive just like every other mmo that accountants think should work but it just won't
The only thing it could have done was interfere with the creation of other elder scrolls games and that is it
 

Tanakh

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Starke said:
The Dark Age of Camelot vibe might be because their lead PvP dev and game director are both DAoC alums.
Yep, was posted here a long time ago. Funny thing no one knew who that lead director was, and there was a bunch of QQ about the proyect, even more than here -.-

If they make assassins the only class who can climb walls, then I am in!

Edit: And I do get why the fans of TES here are not that pleased. It just irks me that they say "ToR clone" or "WoW clone", if they knew a little bit about the lead devs they would know the game might suck, but at least will not be what they say.
 

bliebblob

Plushy wrangler, die-curious
Sep 9, 2009
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Some of those actually look really good by mmo standards methinks. As for the genericness, haven't all elder scrolls games been sort of generic looking? (Except maybe morrowind) You just don't notice because the lore and the gameplay are what set it apart.

Conclusion: I reserve judgement until I see gameplay.
 

synobal

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Jun 8, 2011
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Art style looks remarkably boring, but I do like the recreation of Classic TES locations.
 

Seneschal

Blessed are the righteous
Jun 27, 2009
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omicron1 said:
Online, off-radar.

Seriously, though, does every MMO these days have to look like a Dreamworks film? There are no EDGES in these screenshots! No grit! No detailwork smaller than a person's thumb!

It's the same problem SWTOR had - like Star Wars, Elder Scrolls games have a definite feel to the artwork - and Playmobil ain't it. Compare the snowy Skyrim-esque screenshot to anything from Skyrim, for instance - the differences are immediate and glaringly obvious. Everything's rounder, smoother, dinkier. Sure, you can say it's stylized - but it's stylized in (in my opinion) the wrong way. Elder Scrolls games are about immersing yourself in the world. This? Looks like it's about immersing yourself in the hotbar.

That's not to say that different art styles are bad - but this one's definitely not overtly good. It just looks like an Elder Scrolls-themed version of Amalur - and I'd had enough of Amalur (and by extension WoW, SWTOR, WAR, and half a dozen other bloom-and-bevel-'em-ups) by the time I reached the swamp region.

(Yes, I'm aware I'm exaggerating somewhat; also that Oblivion had a penchant for very smooth edges, especially on stonework. I much prefer Morrowind's and Skyrim's art styles, though)
I don't think you're exaggerating that much, especially if we take all the Korean MMOs and file them under "stylized, clean, with dinky details." They all have the same tone, if not the same style. I've always wondered whether there's an inherent limitation in visual design of a large online game that makes everything look 8 years out of date and suited for ages 5 and above, or do the designers spontaneously grow a brain tumour where their imagination should be. Maybe it's a Blizzard-concocted curse. Either way, Guild Wars 2 seems to be averting the trend a little.
 

Gennadios

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Exterminas said:
WoW might be pretty dry on ideas by now, but you can still tell what each area's story and theme are. I dare you to do the same for Guild Wars 2.
It's really not all that hard, read the flavor text on the various hearts and do a couple of dynamic events and you get a pretty good idea of what the major players in the region are trying to accomplish.

In addition to that, Guild Wars 2 has 2 at the end of it. Meaning it's a sequel. Won't help people unfamiliar with the original, but there's a heaping ton of lore all over the place. Familiar towns and temples that have since fallen into ruin, grave stones of henchmen and famous NPCs and so on.

What GW2 did was assume that the vast majority of players don't care and just made that stuff subtle. The only way to get a wall of text to explain what you're seeing is to check the wiki, which really isn't that different from being whacked over the head with a 3 paragraph quest log.
 

lancar

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I don't suppose we can pray to whatever Deadra might be listening to make Bethesda stop producing this?

Seriously, enough with the goddamn MMO's! Take those art assets, spruce them up and recycle them into the next singleplayer Elder Scrolls instead. I don't want more generic MMO's to die brutally at WoW's onslaught, I don't want to see Bethesda waste truckloads of money on a game that'll never achieve the popularity or success of the other TES games, and I certainly DON'T WANT TO PLAY IT!

For the love of god, please stop!
 

KeyMaster45

Gone Gonzo
Jun 16, 2008
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Okay guys real funny. Now put the Guild Wars 2 screen shots away and give us the actual TES online screen shots.
 

TheSapphireKnight

I hate Dire Wolves...
Dec 4, 2008
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Sigh, I can't stand your typical MMO gameplay so right from the beginning I didn't care. Am I against multiplayer in general for TES? No but not in MMO form.

I would absolutely love to run around and explore a territory or two(hopefully all of Tamriel eventually) with one or MAYBE two of my buddies. I would never want to run around with strangers but with two friends I know I can't think of anything better than exploring a TES with a few friends.
 

karoliso

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Apr 14, 2009
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Exterminas said:
And story is what keeps people playing your MMO. It can even be a silly story like that of WoW, but it works.
I'll jump in here and disagree. You do not need to cram in a story into an MMO for people to play it. In fact, most MMO's have horrible stories, but that does not stop millions of people from playing them. Why? It's because the two main reasons why people play MMO's are gameplay and social interactions.

In these games, people forge their own stories by interacting with people within the game. I put forward that it's emergent narratives and/or gameplay that make MMO's special, not stories and lore written by the developers.

My most memorable moments playing MMO's like LOTRO, Lineage 2 and Guild Wars 2, were ones involving interactions with people. Stories of Guild feuds, traitors and friendships were all by-products of giving us (the players) a set of tools and letting us experiment within the boundaries set by the game.

Case in point: http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1220094&p=38145935&viewfull=1#post38145935
 

Techno Destructo

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Jul 18, 2010
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I think I'll follow Yahtzee's view on a game and expect it to be shit. If it's not, then I can at least be surprised when it doesn't make my hard drive want to hurl itself into the closest sharp object around.
 

lacktheknack

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Jan 19, 2009
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I think this game could use a new "Warp In The West" to spice things up. As an added bonus a "Warp In The West" would work very well in an online game, what with it being the only kind of even to drop-kick continuity off the planet and make every player choice contribute to the madness.

I'd play it if it did that.
 

Elberik

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Apr 26, 2011
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Starke said:
Elberik said:
Starke said:
Elberik said:
Andy Chalk said:
There's admittedly not much to see here and if it wasn't for the presence of the Ordinator, the Centurion Sphere and the guy in the Nord helmet, they'd be entirely indistinguishable from just about every other generic fantasy MMO/RPG on the market.
That's because Elder Scrolls is generic fantasy, just like Halo is generic SciFi and CoD is generic FPS. It's the IP, the logo, that matters. Like t-shirts: T-shirt are identical in structure & functionality, all that matters is what is printed on them.
Yeah... no.

Especially not with SciFi. You can't stick the Pillar of Autumn, the Enterprise, the Millennium Falcon, and the Litany of Fury next to one another and pretend that they're "all the same." Sci Fi involves a lot more than just a logo. And no one in their right mind can take Mass Effect, Halo, and Dead Space, look at all three games and say they're all the same with a different logo on the cover.
*had to look up what the Litany of Fury was*
I am taking about the visuals, since all we have are pictures. Those ships you listed, they are all big ships (i would never put the Millennium Falcon next to the Pillar of Autumn, maybe a Star Destroyer though). Mass Effect and Halo are different types of games, obviously. It's the visuals, you could put Issac Clarke next to Commander Shepherd & there'd be no evidence to say they were from different universes. The Normandy could buzz DS9 & no one would think it out of place unless they had previous knowledge of Mass Effect & Star Trek lore.

The Elder Scrolls is a generic fantasy setting. Medieval era tech, dragons, magic, & some humanoid and/or bestial creatures from Celtic/Gaelic/Scandinavian folklore.
Of course, where this started was about substance and structure, not just visual aesthetics. So, while you're right, you could stick the Normandy next to DS9 and say it looks the part, the underlying philosophy of the settings are incompatible, even with the Normandy basically being a reskinned Defiant.

Even the Shepard/Clarke thing sort of underlines the issue, both at a visual and a thematic level. Shepard is (usually) presented with sleek top of the line military hardware, everything has a circular aesthetic to it. It's a bit worn, but it's still high end. That aesthetic carries over into the setting as a whole.

Clarke in contrast was aesthetically designed to look like, well, power tools. That's the fundamental aesthetic, which informs most of Dead Space's visual identity. The problem is, of course, that that fundamentally goes deeper as well.

The real disparity between the settings is that Mass Effect is a world where the designated hero comes along to save you, while Dead Space is a world where everyone dies horribly. You can stick them next to one another and say "sure, they could be in the same universe", but the fundamental identities of their universes are incompatible.
My issue was in regards to:

Andy Chalk said:
There's admittedly not much to see here and if it wasn't for the presence of the Ordinator, the Centurion Sphere and the guy in the Nord helmet, they'd be entirely indistinguishable from just about every other generic fantasy MMO/RPG on the market.
All we have right now are pictures. Still images out of context. The same things we originally had for every single video game ever made. It's a bit early to be making remarks on whether or not a game will be innovative or at the very least "good". Skyrim looks like generic fantasy, same as Mass Effect looks like generic SciFi. It's not until you actually play them that you can make an assessment.
 

Saegrim

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Dec 11, 2011
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I still want to know more about the gameplay. I could care less about the screenshots-gimme gameplay details. Is it gonna be traditional Elder Scrolls based, or am I going to be playing with a hotkey piano and grinding for days on end?
If they go traditional Elder Scrolls based but also put in something like Rifts in Rift, and the player base has to go to war with Daedra or something, I'd fork over cash for it.
 

oldirtymongrrel

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May 16, 2012
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I'm not sure, I will give it a go but I'm not into MMOs,I would rather they got started with a Elder Scrolls 6 with co-op, a friend can play as a merc. Just hope this doesn't damage the series.