Zero Punctuation: The Elder Scrolls Online - We Can MMO Too

[nyysjan]

2 things to preface my comment on this episode.

1. I pre ordered ESO, and the only reason i am not playing it now, is because servers are down for maintenance
2. I think the game is, for the most parts, awesome.

But getting past that, i found this episode funny, and in some ways to the point in its criticism.

It is, however, worth the price of admittance imo.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

I know you probably won't be reading this Yahtzee, but Pandaren were in Warcraft 3 (especially Chen Stormstout the main pandaren hero) before Kung Fu Panda was even made so your joke about that part falls rather flat.

Of course there are few that actually know this, but hey..all in good fun right? Right.

Not really, because why did Blizzard introduce the Pandaren AFTER Kung Fu Panda's success? It's not really coincidental.

They didn't. The Pandaren first appeared in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne in 2003. And before them there was a martial artist who changed into a panda named Genma Saotome of Ranma 1/2 which came to the US in the 1990s.

I'm perfectly aware of that. I'm saying why were the Pandaren introduced as a playable race in the wake of KFP's success?

 

[maximara]

This IMHO is nonsense. WoW had anthropomorphic animals as a playable race from the get go: the Tauren. Never mind you had the Worgan in Silverpine Forest back in Pre-cata when they were an NPC only race. And between them you had the Space Goat race in The Burning Crusade.

None of which are a direct appeal to the Chinese, which was part of the point that I made (the part you ignored). So, way to miss the point.

That is like saying the best way to apply to the US market is to have a bunch of anthropomorphic Eagles running around.

Also I am trying to figure out this "rise of anthropomorphic animals in popular media" you are talking about as I sure didn't see it around 2010 which is when Mists would have gone into planning. If anything that happened back in the 1980s and 1990s.

Do you really want me to dig up a list of every animal-related film featuring animals who are anthropomorphized in one manner or another (either with human speech or gestures/behaviors), not to mention TV shows and other form of media in the last 5 to 10 years? Or can we both agree that there's been a lot of them and save us both the time effectively wasted with me trying to "prove" the obvious?

Seriously, I don't know how you can even try to pretend this isn't a "thing". Happy Feet, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar, Rio, just to name a few of the countless flood of such films. It's not like there's any lack of examples I can offer. I think you'd find it far harder to prove that this isn't a trend in popular media, especially nowadays, than I would have proving that it is, since all I have to do is keep listing examples until you admit that you're wrong.

Please note that all those films are computer generated and so far those only those work with "people" if those people are really something else ie toys or video games or the movie is a comedy. When they are the main character or "serious" you get that uncanny valley effect seen in Polar Express and Spirits Within and even to some degree in Beowulf.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Oh well. Seems the naysayers were right all along.

I was open to the idea of an Elder Scrolls MMO, but this one it is not. ESO seems to fail in the two areas that it had to get right most of all: Provide the most beloved feature of Elder Scrolls, this sense of freedom, the feeling that you can do, that you can go wherever your heart pleases, and encourage and support playing together with others... since that is pretty much an Elder Scrolls MMO's raison d'être... to enable you to experience Tamriel with your friends. But instead we get an M M O with a story & quests that are even more single-player-like, linear, and restrictive than the actual Elder Scrolls single player games ever were.

So I'll add my voice to the choir of the many who expect it going down just like SWTOR. Actually, I even hope that happens, for I cannot wish a game to be successful with such a shameless business model. Full box price AND high monthly fees AND de-facto Day-1-DLC with integral game content (a whole race for God's sake) AND a cash shop already in place (with otherwise suspiciously expensive horse) AND forcing the players to subcscribe right away even though the first 30 days are actually free (a practice for which Zenimax has been admonished by German authorities? No. Just no.
It's almost as if someone doesn't trust his product being good enough for people actually wanting to buy it...

What a shameful display.

 

[Razorback0z]

ESO like so many post EQ MMO's suffers from "experienced gamer fatigue". If you've been gaming more than 45 minutes you have seen everything ESO has to offer 12 ways to Sunday.

All they had to do was make Skyrim 2 and everyone would have been happy..... you had one friggin job Bethesda!

 

[endplanets]

The Red Guard are not-Arabs as opposed to not-Africans. Arabs were in Europe so the Red Guard existing in Chyrill makes sense (not sure how katanas, paper, and potatoes got there though). They even kinda dress like real world Arabs.

Bummer that some people are not liking the game.

 

[CloudAtlas]

This is hardly the first MMO to do so. Guild Wars 2 has been stymied from introducing Cantha (its Asian-influenced continent) into the game because of fears that the Chinese market would consider it offensive.

Cantha in GW1 was a weird mish mash of mostly Chinese and some Japanese, Nomad, and probably some other cultures. Or what someone from the West who doesn't know much might imagine them. It was just all over the place.

I cannot judge whether it is offensive to Chinese or other Asians. But if I played a game with an "European" continent that mixes the various European cultures together in a similar unsophisticed fashion, it would certainly not be a plus to me as German.

 

[maximara]

ESO like so many post EQ MMO's suffers from "experienced gamer fatigue". If you've been gaming more than 45 minutes you have seen everything ESO has to offer 12 ways to Sunday.

All they had to do was make Skyrim 2 and everyone would have been happy..... you had one friggin job Bethesda!

Oh well. Seems the naysayers were right all along.

I was open to the idea of an Elder Scrolls MMO, but this one it is not. ESO seems to fail in the two areas that it had to get right most of all: Provide the most beloved feature of Elder Scrolls, this sense of freedom, the feeling that you can do, that you can go wherever your heart pleases, and encourage and support playing together with others... since that is pretty much an Elder Scrolls MMO's raison d'être... to enable you to experience Tamriel with your friends. But instead we get an M M O with a story & quests that are even more single-player-like, linear, and restrictive than the actual Elder Scrolls single player games ever were.

So I'll add my voice to the choir of the many who expect it going down just like SWTOR. Actually, I even hope that happens, for I cannot wish a game to be successful with such a shameless business model. Full box price AND high monthly fees AND de-facto Day-1-DLC with integral game content (a whole race for God's sake) AND a cash shop already in place (with otherwise suspiciously expensive horse) AND forcing the players to subcscribe right away even though the first 30 days are actually free (a practice for which Zenimax has been admonished by German authorities? No. Just no.
It's almost as if someone doesn't trust his product being good enough for people actually wanting to buy it...

What a shameful display.

One does get the impression of trying to fit the square peg of single player RPG into the round hold of MMO via hitting it with a hammer made out of money.

What people going with this business model don't seem to understand is they hurt their game in the long run and build up resentment.

What I don't understand is the quality of the game. MMOs are not cheap to make (Extra Credits put it at 60 to 100 million) and if rumors are true ESO cost a staggering $200 million to make so why not take the thing though the beta testers a few more times and get it better then seeming shove it out the door half baked?

From what I saw on Angry Joe's video ESO needed a lot more work and you see glitches that remind one of Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing in 'how did that get through Q&A?!?' Groups quest have been around for ages so how does one manage to mass that up?

 

[CloudAtlas]

What I don't understand is the quality of the game. MMOs are not cheap to make (Extra Credits put it at 60 to 100 million) and if rumors are true ESO cost a staggering $200 million to make so why not take the thing though the beta testers a few more times and get it better then seeming shove it out the door half baked?

Zenimax denied the 200 million figure... for whatever that's worth. If the figure is correct then it was certainly not money well spent, considering the overall lukewarm reception. I'm inclined to believe them though, as - judging from reviews and gameplay footage - it's just not readily apparent on what all that money could have been spent on. Maybe someone who is actually playing ESO can point me to something, but from the outside I'm just not seeing anything here other than the voice acting.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Sometimes the Online thing is a good move. I think GTAV did it well; you have a sizeable (a bit short for a GTA but long for your average game) SP experience, then an online variant in the same map.
The thing is, I like TES but I'm not used to paying a monthly fee for it and I don't think that is something I could get used to. What would've been cool was (as a few others suggested) a small party co-op game like a Borderlands: a few people play together online or in splitscreen.

 

[maximara]

What I don't understand is the quality of the game. MMOs are not cheap to make (Extra Credits put it at 60 to 100 million) and if rumors are true ESO cost a staggering $200 million to make so why not take the thing though the beta testers a few more times and get it better then seeming shove it out the door half baked?

Zenimax denied the 200 million figure... for whatever that's worth. If the figure is correct then it was certainly not money well spent, considering the overall lukewarm reception. I'm inclined to believe them though, as - judging from reviews and gameplay footage - it's just not readily apparent on what all that money could have been spent on. Maybe someone who is actually playing ESO can point me to something, but from the outside I'm just not seeing anything here other than the voice acting.

Well SWToR supposedly clocked in at $200 million (well over its original $80 million projections), Enter the Matrix (counting license and marketing) was $67 million in 2003 money or about $86 million in 2014 dollars, Age of Conan was 200 million kroners or roughly $33 million, the never released Halo MMO supposedly had $90 million to work with, and Disney Infinity is rumored to be around $100 million. So $200 million for ESO would not be outside the realm of possibility and even at the low end of 60 million a lot more play testing should have go into ESO.

 

[faefrost]

This is hardly the first MMO to do so. Guild Wars 2 has been stymied from introducing Cantha (its Asian-influenced continent) into the game because of fears that the Chinese market would consider it offensive.

Cantha in GW1 was a weird mish mash of mostly Chinese and some Japanese, Nomad, and probably some other cultures. Or what someone from the West who doesn't know much might imagine them. It was just all over the place.

I cannot judge whether it is offensive to Chinese or other Asians. But if I played a game with an "European" continent that mixes the various European cultures together in a similar unsophisticed fashion, it would certainly not be a plus to me as German.

So you don't like ANY "medieval" fantasy themed games then? Because pretty much every one of them center on some generic European stylings of knights and castles and kings and swords etc, with no respect or even an attempt to actually model them from history or a specific culture. Heck TESO is 100% the generic European continent you are talking about.

 

[CloudAtlas]

This is hardly the first MMO to do so. Guild Wars 2 has been stymied from introducing Cantha (its Asian-influenced continent) into the game because of fears that the Chinese market would consider it offensive.

Cantha in GW1 was a weird mish mash of mostly Chinese and some Japanese, Nomad, and probably some other cultures. Or what someone from the West who doesn't know much might imagine them. It was just all over the place.

I cannot judge whether it is offensive to Chinese or other Asians. But if I played a game with an "European" continent that mixes the various European cultures together in a similar unsophisticed fashion, it would certainly not be a plus to me as German.

So you don't like ANY "medieval" fantasy themed games then? Because pretty much every one of them center on some generic European stylings of knights and castles and kings and swords etc, with no respect or even an attempt to actually model them from history or a specific culture. Heck TESO is 100% the generic European continent you are talking about.

No, I like them. They're a blend of cultures though, usually, their game worlds don't consist of one distinctly Scottish village, one distinctly Venecian village, and a distinctly French capital, and with some odd Russian names sprinkled in between. That's what Guild Wars 1's Cantha basically is though. On a fairly small island on top.

 

[gridsleep]

Does Yahtzee know they are playing his People's Webby Awards promo spot twice after the video? Someone in the front office has ignore-the-law-of-diminishing-returns disease that makes them believe that if it was funny once it has to be twice as funny twice.

 

[SweetShark]

Ugh, I got bored of Kung Fu Panda jokes about Mists of Pandaria, oh wait I never found them funny. Granted if anybody has actually played the thing they'd realise that the Pandaren are much more than that and it has a rather grim tone, albeit poorly written.

What about the motorcycles? Does they have ANY kind of reason to exist in the story?

 

[wAriot]

Friendly reminder that, although Bethesda does own the TES franchise, it had nothing to do with this... thing, and is actually alreaady developing the next Elder Scrolls game.

If you want to blame someone, blame Zenimax.

 

[Vicioussama]

I still don't get why ANYONE thought ESO would be fun...even the single player games weren't good. Morrowind was prolly the best of the "newer age" elder scrolls. But even then, all Elder Scrolls games had bland npcs, terrible stories, uninspired dull combat (ooo I swing my sword, back away, move closer to swing my sword in the same way! YAY!!! ...). What does Elder Scrolls series have for it? Large worlds that are interesting to explore for awhile, but don't really feel alive imo [I'd say Gothic had a world that felt more alive for western style action RPG, but man that series has gone to hell too ] and a really impressive lore to the world. It's just too bad they keep retconning the lore. So ya, I had no hope for Elder Scrolls Online and not surprised for how it turned out.

 

[Evonisia]

Ugh, I got bored of Kung Fu Panda jokes about Mists of Pandaria, oh wait I never found them funny. Granted if anybody has actually played the thing they'd realise that the Pandaren are much more than that and it has a rather grim tone, albeit poorly written.

What about the motorcycles? Does they have ANY kind of reason to exist in the story?

Not really. The reason they exist (as far as I can remember) was that they're like scout or combat related vehicles developed by Gnomes or Goblins (depending on the faction). The motorcycle was also introduced two expansions before Mists of Pandaria (which has it's own fair share of silly mounts which can either be in the story or not).

 

[blackrave]

why does everyone of those 150k+ are "chosen" ones?
Makes so little sense.

 

[MrBenSampson]

I would have liked for an Elder Scrolls game to have co-op, or a multiplayer system like Dark Souls. I think that would have suited it a lot better. I'm still curious to see how ESO turns out on consoles.