I looked it up and i can't find any history of Zenimax ever making a video game before.

Does anyone know what they've worked on before?

They were formed for ESO; but they have some devs that have made good games. DAoC is the only one I know off the top of my head.

Depends on which Zenimax you mean?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZeniMax_Media

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZeniMax_Online_Studios

This is there first game?

So we have a bunch of rookies making this game?

It's the first game the Zenimax Online Studios develop. That, however, doesn't mean the people working at ZOS never made a game before though, there are plenty of people there with past experience, like DAoC as Konata_wasMine mentioned.

Like Eidos Montreal released Deus Ex: Human Revolution last year, it was their first game. But the people working there had worked on other games before that, so they weren't "rookies".

No

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZeniMax_Online_Studios

They've never made a game before.

They just profit off of other studios.

No, this is Zenimax Media going around with big fat wads of cash and hiring the best, most experienced people they can find to make an MMO based on the Elder Scrolls IP.

Matt Firor, the game director is a former Mythic employee and was one of the lead developers of Dark Age of Camelot. Paul Sage, the creative director worked for Origin systems of Ultima and Ultima online fame.

I don't see how this is weird or somthing.

They've never made a game before.

...The people working for them have?
That's like saying, I've never lived in a state before, because I moved to a new one. >.>

So they have a good staff here?

Glad that there will be people from DAoC working on this.
Also being a big Bethesda fan I bought the game Hunted which Zenimax was a part of. I enjoyed the game, but it didnt seem to do that well.

The studio itself is new and was formed for the development of ESO. But, many of the actual developers are veterans in the industry and came from other AAA MMOs. It's essentially a team of experienced MMO developers coming together for their love of TES to take it to the massively multiplayer level.

Yep.

Bethesda was interested in pursuing an Elder Scrolls MMO, but they didn't have staff on hand with this experience. MMOs are a tough genre to get into so they hired people with extensive MMO developement experience and formed Zenimax Online Studios for the project. While the studio itself is brand new, it's staffed with a large number of MMO veterans.

Hunted was developed by inXile Entertainment.

This game is being made with zero input from TES fans. Bad sign

And who are you to speak in the name of the "fans" ? Im a fan and I like how it is going.

Wait - they didn't ask you for input, so they got 'zero input from TES fans?' Actually I bet most of the devs are TES fans. I bet they also had focus groups. Sorry you weren't a part of them. Neither was I, but I like the way it looks so far.

Actually, I consider it to be a good sign. For the most part, "the fans" of an IP have a preconceived notion of what would be a cool game for THEM, but not what it takes to make an MMO that WORKS. And it HAS to work.

I remember a time when the best games were made without the public knowing one bloody thing about them until right before they came out, if even then. And in some cases things done by the marketing gurus would make you not even interested. For example, I avoided Legend of Zelda for a long time, because http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-qBkWerZDg was the advertisemant I saw for it and as a kid I thought it was stupid. Now I cannot imagine my journey throughout the world of gaming without it. But anyway, The point is that at one time there were no forums to go to or web sites to get information off of. Sure we had gaming magazines, but we only got new information once a month, and there was no guarantee we would see new info on a particular game. EVERYTHING we saw was doled out by the company making the game. There was no two-way interaction. They made the games and we played them. We either liked them or we didn't.

The internet has given rise to a subculture that thinks that it has the right to dictate what developers do. They always throw out the "make a game we like or we won't buy it!" line. Which has reallt always been the choice they have had all along, but they think that for some reason developers will just quake in their boots if it gets put in writing... OF COURSE, if it's not a game you like, you're not going to buy it. And no matter what ZOS or any other developer does, someone isn't going to like it.

So I think that ZOS is wisely developing TESO with those who play both the TES series and MMOs in mind. And if they can make it so both aspects are reconciled to each other, then it will be solid enough.

Matt Firor's (ESO's game director) resume is pretty extensive however he has only had one mid-level success in "Dark Age of Camelot" which was the MMO that introduced RvR combat mechanics. The rest of his resume unfortunately, shows that DAOC's success was the sore thumb. Everything else he has worked on has been...not good and barely even heard of. Aliens Online, Godzilla Online, Darkness Falls, all of which were critical and commercial failures as well as being, from a qualitative point-of-view, badly designed games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Firor

Paul Sage (ESO's creative director) worked at NCSoft for a long time but his history is with one of the first successful graphical MMOs Ultima Online, which stands as a seminal MMO template that is deemed "too hardcoe" for today's markets.

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/paul-sage/1/3a4/b7b

I get why these guys got the job but I can't imagine they were the first choices BSW or ZMM had to head up ZOS and make ESO (so many acronyms!!!).

As for input, they are getting plenty of that now and more will come when beta starts.

I'm sure a lot of the development team are TES fans as they claim but I'm also sure that their microcosm of development for the last five years has not been good for their game at all.

If the developers for TESO previously worked on DAOC then that is a pedigree I am personally quite happy with. i enjoyed DAOC for a couple of years before moving onto various other games.

This is one thing I'm really worried about.

I personally believe that it seems like Matt is making TESO too much like DAoC (the factions in particular), which I can understand, when it's his only (mildly) successful game, but I think it's gonna bite him in the ass.

Not just him, all of us.

Spoken like some fellows who haven't played the glorious and unmatched RVR of DAOC. Nothing before and nothing after has come close to matching it. I'm thankful that the people at Zenimax were smart enough to pick up Firor.

Firor's other games may not have been huge successes, but lets keep in mind he was trying to make online games before the internet was really considered a 'big deal.' DAOC was one of the first few MMO's and it was way ahead of it's time. Maybe too much, to be honest.

I admit I haven't played DAoC before, but that's not the point. I'm not saying RvR will be bad, I'm saying he's copying his only successful game.