New Elder Scrolls Online Screens Emerge

scw55

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Exterminas said:
This is folly, in my opionion, since story and gameplay should not be kept in seperate areas of the game (Hello Guild Wars 2!) but instead should be a union.

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.
Plains of Ashford; Defending against the Flame Legion and Undead
Queensdale; Defending against Bandits
Caledon Forest; Defending Against the Nightmare Countrt
Metrica Province; Defending Against the Inquisition
Wayfarer Foothills; Defending against the Sons of Svanir
Diessa Plateau; Defending against the human sepratists
Kessex Hills; Defending against Centaurs and Bandits
Brisban Wildlands; Defending against the Inquisition, Nightmare court and bandits
Snowden Drifts; Defending against Sons of Svanir
.
.
.
.
Then when you get to the straights of devastation, narrative rears its head and from then on your have dynamic events where you are trying to claim the land.

Why must you get to 65 to get to this point? Because it's an MMO. You can't spread intense narrative across 80 levels. So they focus on the last 15. There are no quests at all at this level and your exp gain must come from exploration or participating in the assault.

Don't think the zones in WoW had a strong narrative for each zone. It was the narrative which I listed above in GW2's. A lot of defending against certain factions. What WoW had was violent distinctions in aesthetics for each zones. WoW came from the land of whackiness; TBC. Guild Wars 2 is more grounded in realism with regards to their landscapes (if you ignore giant crystals).

What will kill TESO is awful game play. You have many games now that offer large Co-Op which allows you to play with a small community of friends and the gameplay is good. Why would you want to play an MMO with worse gameplay and play with people who you don't want to play with?

Having a subfee won't help either.
 

Starke

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Elberik said:
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.
My issue was in regards to:

Elberik said:
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.
Now, I'll grant you that TESO does look suspiciously like some bog standard fantasy MMO, and that's a serious cause for concern. Especially given that there are design elements that have been abandoned or mutilated in those screenshots. But, what I was responding to was that all fantasy, all scifi and all shooters were just "labels on a t-shirt," they're really not.
 

Li Mu

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Andy Chalk said:
That's not to say that these screens aren't reasonably pretty, or that I think The Elder Scrolls Online will be a sub-par game. I just hope that Bethesda is able to do something more with it than re-hash the previous games in a contrived three-way conflict.

I really don't understand why Escapist writers are struggling with the fact that Bethesda are NOT making this game. Zenimax Online Studios are.
Pretty much every article about this game has talked about Bethesda being the ones who are making this game.

It would be the same as saying that Half Life; Opposing Force was made by Valve, or that Call of Duty was made by Activision, or that Fable 3 was developed by Microsoft.

Come on guys, you're supposed to be Games Journalists, you should surely know and understand the difference between a developer and a publisher.

Here's an example; Dawn of War 2 is a great game. It was 'developed' by Relic Entertainment. Now just to clear up any confusion; developers are the people who are making the game. They're the ones who put together all the coding and pretty artwork and make the whole thing run.

Dawn of War 2 was 'published' by THQ. This means that THQ are in charge of funding the game, distributing, localization and advertising it. (And in EA's case, rush the thing out the door before it's finished)

Oddly, nobody gets confused about Dawn of War 2. Everyone knows that Relic rocks as a dev and that THQ are pretty good when it comes to publishing. So why you're all struggling with TOS;OL is beyond me. But perhaps I should clarify a little more.

So in this specific case, Bethesda are allowing Zenimax to use their intellectual property, giving them some vast sums of money and will be distributing the game.

Zenimax are the ones 'developing' the whole game. See, they 'develop' and that's why we call them 'developers'. Funny that, eh?
 

Dandark

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lancar said:
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!
Bethesda are not making this, they have nothing to do with this, it's Zenimax online who is doing this, they are owned by Zenimax, the same company who owns Bethesda.

bringer of illumination said:
AW Yeah!

Who's prepared for another utter failure of a shitty hot-key MMO?

I know I am!
I could be wrong but from my understanding of what a "hot key" mmo is, this isn't one as they scrapped that to go with a new combat system.


OT: I seem to be in the minority who actually likes the look of this =/
It isn't getting my that excited but it does look like it could be fun and im happy enough with the art style, if they can make the character building and gameplay fun and interesting then I would enjoy this.

I still won't touch it untill they get rid of the subscription fee though.
 

evilneko

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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.
Par for the course for TES. Vanilla be thy name. Maybe with a few sprinkles here and there, but vanilla nonetheless.
 

ViciousTide

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UMM, i don't see the MMO aspect in these screenshots, they look like Skyrim to me.

Unless you have 16 V 16 in real time battle like War of Roses is doing, you won't be creating a new genre in the MMO sphere. I want to issue a general command/order to 1000 players, and they try to achieve this order and then add additional troops to the battle or order to fire arrows from those 200 players.

You could make a 500 V 500 MMO game with 3D spheres with a sword and arrow and minecraft graphics, and it would be the best most funniest game around.

Focus on the Human Network/ MMO Game play aspects. We have felt souless for the last 3 RPGs, and no guilt shooting an arrow to the NPC's knee, then shouting him off the ledge. I want to here someone shouting back, " NOOOO!!".
 

kodra

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Based on the various articles circulating the blogosphere from folks who have actually played a early version of the game, cries of this being "Just a WoW Clone" seem very similar to all of the cries that "Half Life is just another DOOM clone".
 

Rblade

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that dremora looks bad ass.

other then that you can't really say anything about this aside from the fact that making a MMO is risky business no matter how you spin it.

The thing this game has going for it over say, TOR, is that it makes much more sense to have a huge amount of high power fantasy hero's running around. Aswell as having a credible source of powerfull but lore approved enemies because of stuff like the deadra and dragons being a thing. So you won't have just NPC's or stuff you pull out of your collective arse.
In that regard it is more on a similar ground as guild wars and WoW.

add to that a gigantic fanbase and I wouldn't write this off
 

Matthew Ostman

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I know I shouldn't let myself get excited about this game... but damn if shot #6 isn't giving me some serious morrowind nostalgia...
 

Playful Pony

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Hmm, well I do know that although I've been a big fan of TES series for a very long time, this game is not for me. I'm not an MMORPG fan though, I've never gotten very far in WoW, and the same goes for games such TERA, TOR and Perfect World... Although I very much enjoy the lore of TES, that's not what draws me into the series. It's the entertaining gameplay, good presentation, interesting quests and compelling storylines. Just being a TES game isn't enough to draw me in!

Not what I'd want, clearly not ment for me or similar people. What I'd want is a TES with a small multi-player component, something like Boderlands drop-in coop feature. Just scale the dificulty a bit and/or add some more enemies to Skyrim and we'd have the time of our life... If they really do intend to kill WoW with this one, by having the same questing and combat system... You idiots X3.

kajinking said:
Just me or does the art style looks way too...soft? Maybe not the best word for it but this looks like a Fable game not Skyrim.
I'm getting the same feeling, though I too cannot really put words on whats wrong with the look of this game... It doesn't look right, is all I can say for sure X3.
 

joeman098

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This makes me so sad I hope they stop making this or overhaul the whole project. No one wants elder scrolls WoW. Now an elder scrolls online with the normal twitch elder scrolls combat thats something i want. Not press some buttons tab target some stuff collect loot =(
 

snave

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What I fear is that this will ultimately mess up the single player game series. As it stands, basically all of the lore in the franchise can be recapped by blazing through a bunch of single-player games. Specifically, four games, as Arena was mostly retconned apart from the blurb on the back of the box. And heck, that's such a minimal amount in the grand scheme of things, that they've pretty well managed to sum it up in books, in game.

Now look at Warcraft. If they were to launch another non-MMORPG in that universe... well, it would work because their MMORPG playerbase is so utterly, devastatingly huge. Uhm. Anyway, the point is, World of Warcraft is the majority of the Warcraft franchise's lore. So you've alienated any non-WoW players away from any hypothetical future single player installments. Again, in WoW's case, this isn't a dealbreaker, but if we simply assume that the Elder Scrolls Online doesn't fare too well, but fares well enough to maintain itself, then, in that case, it is. I'd even go as far as to say it is potentially disasterous to the main single player series' playerbase.

This is also the same reason why sequels that jump genre boundaries are also a certified Bad Idea.

My personal hope is that they'll can this project and rejig the work thus far into a more open, co-op and online enabled side project. Perhaps ongoing and episodic (kinda like how The Secret World really should have been).
 

SajuukKhar

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joeman098 said:
This makes me so sad I hope they stop making this or overhaul the whole project. No one wants elder scrolls WoW. Now an elder scrolls online with the normal twitch elder scrolls combat thats something i want. Not press some buttons tab target some stuff collect loot =(
There is no tab targeting in TESO.

In fact the game's control scheme is exactly like skyrim's with the exception being you cant swing your sword unless your aiming reticule is over a valid target.
 

Schizocorpse

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I'm really looking forward to this game, haters can suck it, see you at launch.

captcha 'always there'

At least captcha is supportive.
 

Eridani74

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snave said:
What I fear is that this will ultimately mess up the single player game series. As it stands, basically all of the lore in the franchise can be recapped by blazing through a bunch of single-player games. Specifically, four games, as Arena was mostly retconned apart from the blurb on the back of the box. And heck, that's such a minimal amount in the grand scheme of things, that they've pretty well managed to sum it up in books, in game.

[snip]

This is also the same reason why sequels that jump genre boundaries are also a certified Bad Idea.

[snip]
It's not a sequel, it's a prequel which implies that it won't add any major details to lore only fleshing out tangential details as nothing has been mentioned about the events of TESO in the single player games other than "stuff happened here".

Not to mention that Bethesda Game Studios has taken care to make all entries in the series stand-alone lore-wise. It isn't necessary to play the old games to enjoy one of the new ones and that will apply to the MMO and the following single player games as well.
 

Odjin

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Eridani74 said:
snave said:
What I fear is that this will ultimately mess up the single player game series. As it stands, basically all of the lore in the franchise can be recapped by blazing through a bunch of single-player games. Specifically, four games, as Arena was mostly retconned apart from the blurb on the back of the box. And heck, that's such a minimal amount in the grand scheme of things, that they've pretty well managed to sum it up in books, in game.

[snip]

This is also the same reason why sequels that jump genre boundaries are also a certified Bad Idea.

[snip]
It's not a sequel, it's a prequel which implies that it won't add any major details to lore only fleshing out tangential details as nothing has been mentioned about the events of TESO in the single player games other than "stuff happened here".

Not to mention that Bethesda Game Studios has taken care to make all entries in the series stand-alone lore-wise. It isn't necessary to play the old games to enjoy one of the new ones and that will apply to the MMO and the following single player games as well.
Not correct. TES-Lore matched up until Oblivion... then it got RetCon-Fucked up in the worst possible way. Up to then the main stories had been (albeit often crappy) standalone but in a consistent with TES-Lore. Then they all fucked it up. The only positive point on this MMO is that if it is prior to TES games they can't include the RetCon Fuck-up they did on Skyrim as this would horribly break the existing (and established) TES-Lore.
 

Zenn3k

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So much hate.

I'm generally interested in this game, I haven't played a good fantasy MMO since I quit WoW when Vanilla ended (first expansion). I'm an old Everquest veteran, and this game kinda reminds me of EQ in a good way.

I'll likely buy it and at least try it. The P2P doesn't put me off, as EVERY MMO I've ever tried has been P2P. TES is fairly recognizable for me, so I have a grasp on the history and the plot.

Also, I'm betting the end game involves killing gods, and thats always a fun idea :)
 

IamLEAM1983

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Fiz_The_Toaster said:
I'm still confused as to why they thought this is a good idea, and I really don't think they understand the MMO space like they think they do.

I'm utterly underwhelmed by these screen shorts, yeah they look pretty, but it just looks...dead to me. There's nothing in them that show how lively the game will be or even the 'character' of the game.
It's a profit deal attempt. ZeniMax's shareholders aren't all gamers, and they're probably going "You know this... World of Craft of... War, thing the kids play? That makes money, right? So let's make that with our own IP!"

As with The Old Republic, I'm fairly sure it'll fold within the first year and default to freemium. That's despite the sheer fanbase of the Elder Scrolls series. People tend to like and love Tamriel and its constituents because it's a place that can be explored at one's own pace. A single-player MMO with a single fee attached to it. I'm not sure they'll make the jump to an MMO all that easily.

Plus, underlining the fact that this is just an attempt is the fact that this is made from a different team altogether. Elder Scrolls Online doesn't seem like it will bother the production status of whatever comes next - either Fallout 4 or Elder Scrolls VI.
 

Fiz_The_Toaster

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IamLEAM1983 said:
Fiz_The_Toaster said:
I'm still confused as to why they thought this is a good idea, and I really don't think they understand the MMO space like they think they do.

I'm utterly underwhelmed by these screen shorts, yeah they look pretty, but it just looks...dead to me. There's nothing in them that show how lively the game will be or even the 'character' of the game.
It's a profit deal attempt. ZeniMax's shareholders aren't all gamers, and they're probably going "You know this... World of Craft of... War, thing the kids play? That makes money, right? So let's make that with our own IP!"

As with The Old Republic, I'm fairly sure it'll fold within the first year and default to freemium. That's despite the sheer fanbase of the Elder Scrolls series. People tend to like and love Tamriel and its constituents because it's a place that can be explored at one's own pace. A single-player MMO with a single fee attached to it. I'm not sure they'll make the jump to an MMO all that easily.

Plus, underlining the fact that this is just an attempt is the fact that this is made from a different team altogether. Elder Scrolls Online doesn't seem like it will bother the production status of whatever comes next - either Fallout 4 or Elder Scrolls VI.
I don't expect it to last longer than that either, and the cynical side of me totally thinks it's a cash grab.

If I remember right, I think they said they were gonna make it because the fans have been wanting an Elder Scrolls MMO for a while, so they're doing them a solid with this game. I'm not sure that's a good idea since it's a single player game and I have no idea how they're gonna translate that in a MMO genre.

I would imagine that a different team would be working on this, and I would assume that someone from the production team that has worked on TES would look in just to see if they're close to what the single player game is supposed to be.