With the recent announcement that the venerable single player franchise, The Elder Scrolls, will be joining the clammoring hordes hammering at the gates of WoW's golden palace to steal his throne, a question arises.
Will we ever see a single-player TES game again?
Since World of Warcraft, Blizzard has let the entire franchise stagnate. A brilliant franchise of slightly-silly fantasy RTS's, with a decent story to them that kept the player interested, has been allowed to degenerate into a series of fetch-quests, 10-bear-spleen grind fests, and high-level raid encounters. All the studio's effort towards its old workhorse has been thrown into leaching further money out of subscribers. A smart business model, but a tragic loss for fans of the franchise.
Now consider The Old Republic. Knights of the Old Republic was one of the definitive RPGs, and KOTOR II ended on such a cliffhanger that the game deserves, nae, -demands- a third installment. What we have instead, is WoW with lasers. Those fans eager to see what the Exile would find in his search for Revan will be sorely dissapointed, unless they subscribe to TOR, level up, start raiding and hope Bioware releases a new raid that explains what happened through a multi-phase boss encounter. Not my idea of a good time.
And now The Elder Scrolls rises to join the masses. The idea of Skyrim + multiplayer appealed to me. Companions are clunky and useless, prone to getting themselves killed. Having my friends be able to jump their characters into my own perpetual world to lend their skills to more difficult challenges sounded like my idea of a great time. LAN parties would no longer be constrained to mindless shoot-fests, but could become a grand adventure spanning the vast lands of Skyrim.
Instead, we can look forward to gathering twenty atronach cores for our choice of a new bow, a piece of enchanted heavy armour, or a magic staff. And that's if we're lucky.
Taking the MMO market is very much the Trial by Fire for a modern game. WoW is old, but she still has fangs, and is ready to tear the guts out of any young upstart that dares to challenge her. And MMO players are creatures of habit.
When TES Online inevitably falls at the feet of the vanquishing Blizzard titan, the franchise will have exhausted its last breath. When the huge investment of a new MMO fails to pay off, investors are forever scared off from the tainted name of the franchise. Assuming the studio even survives the fall.
And if by some miracle, WoW is indeed knocked off its Throne of Skulls, what then? TES Online is raking in the money of the masses with very little development effort needed from Bethesda. Why bother putting more time and effort into expensive, expansive single player RPGs, when they could just put it all into a new expansion with a raised level cap, redesigned gear, a few tweaks to PvP, and some silly collector's items for people who pre-order it.
MMOs kill the single player aspect of their franchise. This is the sad future I foresee. Do you have a more optimistic outlook? Please share!
Will we ever see a single-player TES game again?
Since World of Warcraft, Blizzard has let the entire franchise stagnate. A brilliant franchise of slightly-silly fantasy RTS's, with a decent story to them that kept the player interested, has been allowed to degenerate into a series of fetch-quests, 10-bear-spleen grind fests, and high-level raid encounters. All the studio's effort towards its old workhorse has been thrown into leaching further money out of subscribers. A smart business model, but a tragic loss for fans of the franchise.
Now consider The Old Republic. Knights of the Old Republic was one of the definitive RPGs, and KOTOR II ended on such a cliffhanger that the game deserves, nae, -demands- a third installment. What we have instead, is WoW with lasers. Those fans eager to see what the Exile would find in his search for Revan will be sorely dissapointed, unless they subscribe to TOR, level up, start raiding and hope Bioware releases a new raid that explains what happened through a multi-phase boss encounter. Not my idea of a good time.
And now The Elder Scrolls rises to join the masses. The idea of Skyrim + multiplayer appealed to me. Companions are clunky and useless, prone to getting themselves killed. Having my friends be able to jump their characters into my own perpetual world to lend their skills to more difficult challenges sounded like my idea of a great time. LAN parties would no longer be constrained to mindless shoot-fests, but could become a grand adventure spanning the vast lands of Skyrim.
Instead, we can look forward to gathering twenty atronach cores for our choice of a new bow, a piece of enchanted heavy armour, or a magic staff. And that's if we're lucky.
Taking the MMO market is very much the Trial by Fire for a modern game. WoW is old, but she still has fangs, and is ready to tear the guts out of any young upstart that dares to challenge her. And MMO players are creatures of habit.
When TES Online inevitably falls at the feet of the vanquishing Blizzard titan, the franchise will have exhausted its last breath. When the huge investment of a new MMO fails to pay off, investors are forever scared off from the tainted name of the franchise. Assuming the studio even survives the fall.
And if by some miracle, WoW is indeed knocked off its Throne of Skulls, what then? TES Online is raking in the money of the masses with very little development effort needed from Bethesda. Why bother putting more time and effort into expensive, expansive single player RPGs, when they could just put it all into a new expansion with a raised level cap, redesigned gear, a few tweaks to PvP, and some silly collector's items for people who pre-order it.
MMOs kill the single player aspect of their franchise. This is the sad future I foresee. Do you have a more optimistic outlook? Please share!
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