So, how is this going to ruin the Elder Scrolls? : Othor Games

» Mon May 14, 2012 5:47 am

Third person hotkey combat with a more cartoonish visual style? It's exactly WoW. Not that you can post them here (or really even hint at it) but the GI stuff is floating around on the web already.

Until I see it for myself, I will reserve judgment.

If it ultimately turns into a WoW clone, I will end up extremely disappointed. I do think that Elder Scrolls has huge potential to be a great MMO, but not if it is reduced to WoW standards of gameplay. And if that happens, then my subscription will go the way of my last anticipated MMO, Warhammer Online - Age of Reckoning.

But again, as I have not seen anything, I will reserve judgment until I see it for myself.

» Mon May 14, 2012 1:44 am

Third person hotkey combat with a more cartoonish visual style? It's exactly WoW. Not that you can post them here (or really even hint at it) but the GI stuff is floating around on the web already.

they should be have a drinking game for how many times like WOW or other forms relating to WOW was mentioned in the article lol

» Mon May 14, 2012 7:50 am

The Nords and the Dunmer and the Argonians have an alliance in this game.

I think it's pretty safe to say they threw out the lore.

A golem was turned into Megatron, a god appeared out of nowhere, and one of the most elaborate Dues Ex Machinas was constructed to explain player choices. For Morrowind.

TES lore has always been fluid, constantly changing and updating with each game. TESO won't be any different in its lore WTFs than Skyrim, Oblivion, or Morrowind were.

» Mon May 14, 2012 3:37 am

Back in my day, TES Lore was fairly consistent. Still hat retcons, but was fairly consistent. Todd gave speeches about Video games being art.
The speeches are still there, but now the lore is all the crap over the place, with this MMO stuffing the Dunmer, the Nords and the Argonians in an alliance.

That, to me, is selling out. They've stopped even trying to PRETEND they take their lore seriously. The lore is basically dead at this point. It got sold out for profits.

I agree with you completely. If you'd said to me yesterday we would be talking about a TES MMO on the forums i'd think you'd be playing a sick joke. 'EA are the only ones to sell out that hard' but we've been proven wrong

» Mon May 14, 2012 9:39 am

It won't, for those of us who are likely to try it and go back to pretending it doesn't exist. New MMOs with these same tired mechanics aren't doing well. athey all start strong, people realize it's the exact same formula, and go back to their previous game. It isn't going to ruin TES for me as I can just pretend it never happened. But I do question why it was ever considered necessary. As if the MMO market isn't already flooded with this.

Making an WOW clone is an waste of time, WOW has more content so you could just as well play WOW.
They has to do something different for this to success, people will compare it both to WOW, GW2 but also Skyrim so having an huge fan base is not enough.

» Mon May 14, 2012 7:50 am

I just don't enjoy MMOs. When I play TES, I like to completely absorb myself in the game. That gets ruined for me pretty fast when there are other people running around chatting.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a260/freds4sale/multiplayer.jpg

Well, this is only the half quote. Especially this feature isn't much discussed, but always among fan-made response in form of beautiful landscapes and astonishing characters you are able to find in the comments.
A huge part of traditional ES lives from this impression, and art work has advanced most far in ES from Arena towards Skyrim.
I doubt that the developers aren't aware of this kind of aspect, truly evil this would be.

Concerns, quite reasonable, are a world without physics, without advanced combat mechanics, advanced character development, less possibilities for a single-role player.
A massive server lag is to be expected at kick-off, and lags are known not to improve the much acclaimed and unique gameplay ES Skyrim would offer.

On the other hand the ESO will please all those RPG players whose main concern is the social abilities above any other. And they are not sparse.
Fraction life and massive clan based battles have worshipers in the ES universe. Since MMORPG is still a money making machine, why not let Bethesda try to add some new things for a generation full of hope.
In the end even traditional ES could benefit from this joint venture, as the much acclaimed MMORPGs aren't able to last without good AI neither.

» Sun May 13, 2012 9:53 pm

Great post, OP, great post.

This will not ruin the Elder Scrolls. The MMO itself might svck. I am totally excited for it, but I do have my doubts. But even if TES:O bombs, the single player franchise will still be in tact.

There is literally nothing to worry about here.

A very rare constellation must grace the heavens and bathe the Aurbis with the light of varliance, because for once, and I dont think this has ever really happened before, but for just this once we are in complete agreement.

Thus the foundation of reality trembled.

» Mon May 14, 2012 9:18 am

They are screwing the lore big time. They simply use names alredy within lore to create factions and antagonists even though they have, nor would ever do such acccroding to lore.

I just wait to see when we get dwarves celebrating american christmas.

» Mon May 14, 2012 11:02 am

They are screwing the lore big time. They simply use names alredy within lore to create factions and antagonists even though they have, nor would ever do such acccroding to lore.

I just wait to see when we get dwarves celebrating american christmas.

I disagree on that.

The Dominion is the same as it always has been.

I can see the Breton/ Redguard/ Orsimer alliance happen out of neccesity and by the machinations of High Rock's arch politicians.

A similar good case can be made for the Morrowind alliance, if you take Morrowind as its most important and umbrella member, protecting the other two in exchange for slaves, favourable trade agreements, most favoured nation status etc.

» Mon May 14, 2012 3:52 am

I disagree on that.

The Dominion is the same as it always has been.

I can see the Breton/ Redguard/ Orsimer alliance happen out of neccesity and by the machinations of High Rock's arch politicians.

A similar good case can be made for the Morrowind alliance, if you take Morrowind as its most important and umbrella member, protecting the other two in exchange for slaves, favourable trade agreements, most favoured nation status etc.

Dumner adn Nord hate each other....Like jews and nazis would join up. The Tharn family that is ruling the imperials want to take over the world ....at this time of history werent the imperials ruled by Akaviri?

No this is a total mess and will probably poop even more on everything that is TES.

» Mon May 14, 2012 8:29 am

A similar good case can be made for the Morrowind alliance, if you take Morrowind as its most important and umbrella member, protecting the other two in exchange for slaves, favourable trade agreements, most favoured nation status etc.

Morrowind aligning with the others isn't that hard to believe (it's easy enough to say "Vivec did it"), but I still cannot fathom the Argonians willingly helping the Dunmer in any way. Nor can I really see Black Marsh as a whole being subjugated and forced to help, given the Hist.

» Mon May 14, 2012 8:06 am

Dumner adn Nord hate each other....Like jews and nazis would join up. The Tharn family that is ruling the imperials want to take over the world ....at this time of history werent the imperials ruled by Akaviri?

No this is a total mess and will probably poop even more on everything that is TES.

Dunmer and Nord have formed alliances before and will do so again after the events of the MMO.
The Nords are not too proud or stupid for an alliance of neccesity.

The Argonians, well, it would depend on the Hist, and we cannot fathom their motives or machinations.

At this time in history there is an imperial interregnum, the Akaviri potentate has been assasinated but emperor zero, Cuhlecain, not yet ascended.

I wrote this to explain the Ebonheart alliance:

'Its not impossible.
If the threat is Cyrodiil then it makes geographic sense for one.

The living gods of Morrowind are at full power, or very nearly that, and possibly the neighbouring provinces seek protection from them in the form of an alliance.
I can see Vivec or Almalexia agreeing to that, if they got something in return.
Hlaalu wouldnt mind favourable trade agreements, Dres could get slaves out of it.
Indoril would follow the Triune, Redoran wouldnt care one way or the other and be insular, and Telvanni would be firmly fragmented with an official stance taken by Telvannis but each mage-lord just doing what he himself wants anyway.

In fact, if the Dunmer milk their position as most powerful and umbrella member of this alliance for all they can get, it goes some way to explaining later hostility between the Dunmer and the other two.'

» Mon May 14, 2012 4:31 am

I couldnt agree more, even if it wasent as good as other MMO's, or even other Elder Scrolls games: 1 Good as others or not, its an es game none the less. 2 If it wasent as good as other MMO's we'd be in a different space time continium.

» Mon May 14, 2012 7:07 am

Morrowind aligning with the others isn't that hard to believe (it's easy enough to say "Vivec did it"), but I still cannot fathom the Argonians willingly helping the Dunmer in any way. Nor can I really see Black Marsh as a whole being subjugated and forced to help, given the Hist.

This I agree is a puzzle.

We simply do not know enough about the Hist to make an educated guess as to their motives.
It is possible they see the Cyrodiil threat as one great enough to warrant some short term sacrifices.
Perhaps their scrying abilities or machinations are so intricate that they already know that eventually they will get all their land back and then some, and exact vengeance on the Dunmer.

» Mon May 14, 2012 8:24 am

This company must be under new managment, they are going for any profits they can throwing out half baked buiscuts to the masses that people will buy and some will like but its not the quality of work they used to do. From this point on I expect their single player games to be even more dumbed down and rushed, announce the game release it one year later. Back when Oblivion was announced the game didnt come out for like 3-4 years. Now that all their games are online even their single player its not like that have to completely finish the game at release they can finish it threw steam patches like theyre doing with skyrim.

If they are going to charge 15 a month like wow its going to have to be a pretty unique game, otherwise it will be another johnny come lately with 45 players on all servers after a year or so waiting to pull the plug.

» Mon May 14, 2012 4:12 am

I'm pretty sure that 6 years ago, when asked about a TES MMO, Todd's response was along the lines of "over my dead body."
The hell happened to that?

Todd is dead and they are walking all over his corpse apparently

» Mon May 14, 2012 5:34 am

Haha let's not even begin with the "this will do a number on WoW" thing. Star Wars is a much bigger IP than TES and did very little. Rather than competing, I'd prefer they'd just do a good job and let the game stand on its own merits. Then again, it looks like this will be as much like WoW as SWTOR is, anyway.

» Sun May 13, 2012 9:56 pm

im worried that if they make tes online, they're gonna stop making real Elder Scrolls games. That would svck big time.

» Mon May 14, 2012 4:02 am

Meh you know what they say some people aren't happy if they aren't [censored]ing about something this game wont ruin the series it's more than likely just going to be an offshoot that has nothing to do with the console games at all so everyone just needs to stop whining.

» Mon May 14, 2012 12:51 am

I perceive that people enjoy TES games for two major reasons.

First is the sandbox nature of the world. People enjoy being able to wander without restriction and find hidden stories and secrets that the developers have placed in difficult-to-find or out-of-the-way areas. In a game that is meant to include the entirety of Tamriel there will far more land to design, and I fear that the developers will be unable to populate it all as realistically and thoughtfully as the single player games have been. Also, any leveling or PvP systems might detract from the freedom of exploration that we've come to expect from TES.

The second thing that I think makes the Elder Scrolls so enticing is their uniquely complex and developed lore. The idea that a Daedra Prince will be invading Tamriel in the Second Era (after Sotha Sil made his pact with the Royalty) isn't an altogether encouraging start. Even given such a dubious pretext, it doesn't make sense for there to be no records or references to this invasion in the other games. A Daedric invasion is something that you'd think would be remembered even a thousand years into the future. I worry that these inconsistencies might be indicative of a haphazard appreciation for the lore on the developer's part.

I remain cautiously optimistic, but it is in my nature to fear the worst and what I have heard is not easing my mind.

The second bit is simply because the writers have no clue how to write a good story, so they pull the "end of the world" card like WoW has done in the last 3 expansions.

It's an easy way out if you don't know how to involve the player without making them an 'epic hero of the ages'.

Granted, this is where Skyrim's main quest fell down aswell...

Oblivion's main quest was good in the sense that Martin was the hero, not the player, basically.

» Mon May 14, 2012 6:20 am

Console sales, TESO has none.

And we all know that MMOs don't exist because of this...

» Mon May 14, 2012 2:24 pm

Geez, I hope at one point, people who aren't playing won't be able to post in the TESO forums. This hate is getting ridiculous.

BTW: Hi killmoms! What do you think?

» Mon May 14, 2012 1:29 am

Todd is dead and they are walking all over his corpse apparently

They've captured Bethesda. Once plan MMO take over is completed they can finally call the end to innovative gameplay and openworld sandbox adventure games, everyone can then buy and game and pay monthly... forever!!! *Evil Zenimax Laughter*

^
The above may or may not be true

» Mon May 14, 2012 1:52 pm

Geez, I hope at one point, people who aren't playing won't be able to post in the TESO forums. This hate is getting ridiculous.

BTW: Hi killmoms! What do you think?

Dev in the thread?
Please set our minds at ease, many of your fans are scared and horrified at the moment. I havent decided yet. Killmoms do you think they are going in the right direction?

» Sun May 13, 2012 11:47 pm

...it could do a number to (though certainly not surpass) WoW.

This is a very good point. WoW has become a better game because of pressure from SWTOR. And it will have to step up to compete with TESO as well. As much as I want TESO to be good and successful, even if it isn't, it will still improve things in general for those of us who like MMOs. Competition is not a bad thing.

I do understand the worry, though. I am somewhat upset about the failings of SWTOR because I thought it was about time we had a big mainstream Star Wars game. I mean, come on, who DOESN'T want to be a part of the Star Wars universe? But as usual EA put so much into the, admittedly fantastic, storytelling that they seem to have forgotten other important things that are also necessary for a successful MMO. It is entirely possible that Bethesda will operate under the assumption that they must mimic the others in order to be competitive instead of breaking the mold. BOTH directions are a risk and either way about half the community won't be happy with the final result anyway.