I can't believe i forgotten the legendary Ultima Series!!! omg thanks!!
Yea how i missed Ultima 7 Black Gate, and Ultima Underworld. And all of those are gone because of UO.

The once famous Origin Systems is now merely the name of yet another EA online purchase platform.
So sad. so very sad.

None of those games I know before, but as much as I have read and seen about TES:O I fear we have absolutely wrong man leading this project.

The once 3 big names of PC RPGs were:
The Ultima Series, The Wizardry Series, The Might and Magic Series.

There were like the creme of the crop, the best of the best.
Any old school RPG gamer would look upon them with fondness man.

Mistakes were made, bad decisions were created, and now, NONE of them survive to this day.

And yes, judging from his resume, Matt Firor is the wrong man for this job.

I trust Bethesda Game Studios, and If Zenimax gives them a free hand, and doesn't force them to do stupid things in the upcoming games, I'm sure the franchise's going to do fine.

I didn't recognize those series from the game names. Ultima series I know - heard about Ultima 2 when it came out and have played The Lord of Ultima. Might and Magic sounds somekind of familiar but can't remember where or when I have heard that name.
Anyway when most of those his games were new I still played rpgs only with pens and dies. Morrowind and Blaze & Blade were the ones that took me into virtual rpgs - before that I thought virtual rpgs were only waste of time.

The problem is that once a new SP elder scroll game comes out people will expect it to be an MMO and therefore severely dissapointed, leading to less sales, leading to making TES MMO only.

Yeah. Sword of the Stars was AMAZING. Literally no tutorial. So complex it was impossible to play without spending hours trying to figure out how [censored] worked.

Complex =/= good game. Complexity is just another level of gameplay that should never be forced, but be present for those that want it.

Actually him being the developer IS the only redeeming feature we have. You can hate everything about TES:O if you want, but the guy in charge of DAoC? Really, that's the wrong angle. Now I'm gonna sound like a hipster for saying this; but I bet you didn't even play DAoC. What gives you the right to judge this man?

Yes i admit i did not play DaOC, and yes i have heard that DaOC is an excellent game with good reviews.
But. The fact remained that it is no WoW. It never sold like WoW and it is no longer a contender on the MMO market.

So why is it no longer the king now? What made it die?

Im sorry i have to reference WoW, because it is the king of the MMO market whether we like it or not.

Edit:

Blizzard themselves are preparing for war with their unannounced Titan Project.

Sad to say, the only WoW-Killer that will kill wow, will most likely be Titan, NOT the Elder Scrolls MMO.

I had actually forgotten entirely about Titan. Thanks for reminding me!

A MMORPG veteran is absolutely required for an world-wide release MMORPG to succeed. There are countless balancing issues, game design issues, hacking and fraud issues, regional licensing/laws/language, customer support and a thousand other issues not present (as massively) in producing a single-player game.

I have not played DAOC, but as far as I can tell, it is a good game. Matt Firor has the resume to produce a good MMORPG.

Unfortunately, he cannot make a great TES MMORPG. This is because he has no idea what TES players want when they buy a TES game.

Im not impressed with this guy. DAoC had some good mechanics but overall I think it's safe to say we can expect another traditional MMO with more or less grind.

Don't get me wrong, I am as much a fan as you if not more... but let me get this straight.

You want to ask this ONE guy, to put down his livelihood, his career, his self-respect, and put him out cold to look for a new job, ALL because you aren't getting what you want and feel that this fantasy world(yes I said it, its not real) of yours is somehow your special domain? And you are calling that the "good fight?"

Thats not only asinine its delusional and hateful, and you are basing this off a few past mistakes(totally skipping over his achievements) and some secondary source magazine scans?

When you find your conscience, come back and reread your post. Seriously, if you are living in this amount of fear, you really need to take a reality check. The world will NOT end with this MMO, not even TES will end with this MMO. It'll be ok, and even by some crazy chance this ends TES... so WHAT. Its had an awesome run so far, and you can't have greatness without risking it all sometimes.

Lol yea i do sound abit mad in that post, but nevertheless i am dead serious about drafting my letter to them.

Anyway if this ONE guy is to be sacrificed to protect the Elder Scrolls series, then so be it.
I cannot abide seeing such a respected RPG series be destroyed just because 1 guy gonna lose his job.

Look, im not trying to attack Matt Firor or anything, but this is a guy, whose resume did not include any top games.
Names like "Aliens Online" and "Godzilla Online" dont exactly give alot of confidence.

But lets say if Rob Pardo were to come onboard instead it will be a whole different story and i will shut my mouth.
The producer of WoW, the current king of MMOs coming on board for Elder Scrolls MMO would be something special indeed. (of course that is impossible)
It'll be much better then this guy who did games like "Aliens Online" or "Godzilla Online", who have NEVER did any Elder Scrolls stuff and all of a sudden he's head honcho of the MMO???

Also, i am completely baffled at WHY Zenimax wanted to do this other then the obvious fact that they want a piece of WoW's success.
Why can't they have at least waited until the current MMO King Blizzard releases Titan?
I may be a die hard Elder Scrolls fan, but i am not naive. And as hard as it is to swallow, anticipation for Titan is ALOT higher then this MMO.
An upcoming MMO done by the TOP TALENTS who did WoW, the current most profitable mmo on the market is absolutely impossible to ignore.

Zenimax should have ventured into a smaller multiplayer project first, for example, why not make a Multiplayer Skyrim DLC
to test the market first?? Why a full blown MMORPG developed for over 5 years?? and why announce it now???

I haven't come down once on one side or the other about this project as a whole, but as far as MMO goes, having the producer for DAoC at the helm is anything but a bad thing.

DAoC was a huge hit in a time when MMO's were a fringe, niche market. People still play it (last I heard).

*Edit*

While the Mythic listing could (and probably should) be a red flag to MMO players, I do not believe he was involved with Warhammer. He appears to have left Mythic before it nosedived into the crapper.

Ultima died because of Ultima IX's failure, not because of Ultima Online. There is also very probably the fact that EA was at the time more or less occupied by killing Origin too, but the MMO didn't kill Ultima. As this Online ES will be developped by a different team, I don't doubt that offline ES still have a future that's firmly in Bethesda's hands. I agree with the fact that trying to put Wowesque mechanics seems to be a terrible idea, but so far, we know virtually nothing about the game, so let's wait for the beta before judging it.

Right, but seriously are you telling me that if you had the means and opportunity, you would march over to Zenimax and fire the guy on the spot? For a fantasy world(that I care dearly about, no doubt)?


You are doing a decent job at it. Your sole argument for this entire this is his resume. Game development is so much more than just the lead designer. You think Todd Howard is solely responsible for what we have gotten in TES? Not even close. Todd, no doubt has a huge influence, but its the team as a whole that is making these games. Because of this, change is inevitable, as we gain and unfortunately lose members of that team.

The success or failure of any product is so much more than just the quality of said product. Marketing, target audience, competition, and even world events are going to factor in.


Wow... I think the outrage on this forum might explode if anyone specific to WoW was leading this project. Now rationally, does having a person who worked on WoW mean we'll get a WoW-like game. Absolutely not, but thats only because of the same argument I just made above. However, by your logic this is what would happen.


There are a lot of great ideas out there in the world, but facts are facts. For any of them to make it to reality, they need money, and to get money for them you have to convince others it will be profitable. Yes, in an ideal world, we could all create anything we want and have it be successful, but that simply isn't the real world. Without the money, it simple isn't going to happen.

Instead of looking at it like Zenimax is seeing a chance to make money, you can equally look at it like this; Zenimax sees an opportunity to make a concept a reality. Are they in it for the money... of course! Doesn't stop people from investing their dreams and concepts into it though.

I wish i share your optimism in this.
How i wish i can show you the leaked Gameinformer article. I will want to see your opinions then.

DAoC was the only fantasy MMO I played. I played it with my brother for about six months.

I quickly discovered that the play formula was a trap. I was killing better monsters, to get better loot, so I could kill better monsters, to get better loot, etc. I saw that no matter what I was doing the game had become an endless cycle. I couldn't even figure out what my end goal should be anymore, other than just get tougher so I can go to the next area with better monsters.

This may be the issue all MMO's have, I don't know. To be honest I really don't know myself how you would break that cycle. Maybe other MMO's do it better but like I said DAoC was the only one I've played.

Trying to image a TES game where I just grind for better loot ... ugh.

No need, I've seen it.

No lying, I'm not a WoW fan and I am definitely a proponent of sandbox MMOs(I play EVE), but I am by no means a doomsayer.

Case-in-point, SWTOR was denounced as a WoW clone, but so far its been a hit, and a lot of fun personally. Its only now encountering problems because they lack end-game content, specifically a robust and dynamic PvP system. To be honest, the PvP system described in the article is EXACTLY what SWTOR needs to survive, though its really to late to implement a 3rd faction, at least the conquest mechanics could be done.

I rarely make sweeping judgements, and almost never cry "its the end of the world" before I've actually gotten my hands on a game. You can read all the reviews, see all the screenshots and watch all the videos, but none of them will definitively tell you what a game is like till you play it. Finally though, my biggest asset is that I don't let stuff like this get me down. I got enough things to worry about in life than if Zenimax is making the game to my exacting standards. Does it mean I don't care, no, but its not the end of the world for me either.

Matt Firor was not only a huge part of DAOC, he was the man behind the BEST parts of DAOC. You havn't heard of his other games before that because they were small, and guys what? So was the internet back then! EQ, Asheron's Call, UO and..... DAOC were the grandaddys of the MMO world, and DAOC was hands down the best and most innovative.

You guys need to chill and just wait for some interviews with Matt and some gameplay vids. I'm 100% sure that this game is going to be far better than any magazine article can make it sound.

Trust me, though - you should be thanking Zenimax for hiring Matt to helm this ship, and I can't think of another I'd want in charge.

Yes im sure Matt Firor is a capable man, just not sure if he's the Right Man.
Can he convince us to hand over this series to him?

Prove it to us Mr Firor, show us a Multiplayer Skyrim DLC, show us that this franchise is in good hands!

Well .. I admit I Absolutely disagree with you.
UO was absolutely superior in every aspect.

But Aside from that.
Sure DAoC was a great hit, but does DAoC mesh with Elder scrolls Series well? I say no...
I mean .. they could hire Seth Killian and say "Wow, this guy is behind street fighter" ok .. but how will TES benefit from that?

And in fact this 3 factions thing reminds me of DAoC
So make a new DAoC... that would be the right thing to do...
Of course is not Matt Firor fault... he has Ideas, he was hired for his ideas and Zenimax was ok with it.
Clearily, since Matt has not the possibility to make a new DAoC he put his DAoC Ideas into another franchise.
The fact remains .. Elder scroll online will have nothing about elder scrolls

After cooling down and rethinking about it, im not gonna write the letter to Zenimax.
Partly because i know it probably won't do any good since it has already been 5 years in production,
partly because im a lil sleepy, and partly because i wanna go back to my skyrim mod scripting lol.

All i can do is pray hard that we will see more single player Elder Scrolls in the future.
And yes, i will still buy Elder Scrolls Online just because i support Bethesda, but whether i'll play it or not is really a big question now.

So, about Matt Firor, anyone got more juicy details about him?
He is the head honcho of Elder Scrolls Online afterall, might as well start getting to know him.
i never played DaOC, did he handle that game well?

Wow cannot be killed anymore it's over. Wow won, definitely, over every game created after it and now it's dying of old age. Nothing will ever kill wow because it's too late, not even titan.
For DaoC it's the same. If it's not the king anymore, it's simply because it died of old age. In its own genre, I don't think any mmo ever beat DaoC.

So yes, this man is one of the reliable point on this project, not someone to hate. he's our ally in this.