As both a long term Tes player, and MMO player I want to ask something. Does anyone really like how most MMO games play? I mean, I was willing to put up with it during EQ and EQ2 because that was pretty much the limitation. I was more enthralled with the idea of actually being able to be a part of a group in a living world than anything else. But If I was too design a single player game the Hotkey layout would be about the last thing that I would want to use personally.

Some MMO games have drastically different gameplay than others. I thought DAOC and DDO were far more entertaining (gameplay-wise) than some others - Rift, EQ, EQ2, SWTOR. Lineage 2 was also more fun mechanically, though the fights were too slow and leveling way too slow. That said, we'll have to wait and see exactly what the mechanics of this MMO are. I'm hoping they are more along the lines of DAOC or GW2.

I sort of liked AoC setup, at least the Melee aspect of it. I never tried any range classes for that game. Something along the lines of a combo system I found enjoyable. The downside to something like that though, is group communication is difficult unless you put in voice setup because you are so busy manipulating keys that you cannot type.

The simple answer is no, and hence why I quit WoW.

No matter how different they make the gameplay from WoW or other MMO's, there are still things they have to do in order to balance it for a multiplayer world which, to me, ruin the game. And those are:

• Limiting player skill through a skill tree or hotkey system- One of the things that makes the Elder Scrolls series so enjoyable is that you are the hero, you are chosen. As such, you can become as powerful as you like, only limited by player consideration. In an online, multiplayer universe, skills have to be limited in order for all classes to be balanced. Spells, weapons and effects will all be limited to the damage set by gear and enemies. PVP forces developers to 'nerf' skills that prove to be effective against certain classes, in order for everyone to have 'fun'.
  
• 'Grinding' for gear- in the TES world, several sets of armor can be obtained in a number of ways. Once you discover a certain place for armor, you can go there on different characters again and again and obtain the set. In the MMO world, the subscription is key. They need to keep you playing over time, so armor, gear, and weapons will be much harder to obtain. You will have to put in hours and hours of gameplay in order to acquire complete sets of gear, which will then be obsolete when new enemies and gear are added.
  
• Having to group- this is a big one for me. The 'point' of an MMO is to adventure with likeminded people online. Forcing people to have to find groups in order to get that nice gear requires you to locate decent players, and schedule time to run dungeons. Then, you have to share the loot in order to keep getting those people to go with you. Most MMO's make gear a random drop, so you're not even guaranteed to get something that your character can use, and the chances that another person will ALSO need that item are high.

All of these things are common across the board in all MMO's, so they're not WoW specific, and all of them are horrible game mechanics that are required to keep MMO's working.

Those are certainly good reasons, the thing I have always disliked about the style is the button pressing. Having cooldowns, ability firing and about 1/3 of your keys are very situational at best. The thing I love most about MMO's is being with people and working together. The thing I like least is the hotkeys and LF healer/tank please.

I don't like MMO games, I would have expected them to make something different in a TES MMO game. Sadly it appears we are mistake:

-Openworld Sandbox
-First person mode
-No levels/caps, level like you do in TES
-Being able to play solo 24/7 through every single part of the game
-Different engine, it appears in my opinion generic cartoony high fantasy

We'll have to see about the way abilities and cooldowns work, but that might not be an issue in this MMO. The GI article quotes a dev saying they want all skills to be worthwhile or something like that. Also, another quote talks about how they want to do away with the need for specific classes to complete content. I believe the quote was something like: any 5 reasonably skilled players should be able to complete content.

Some of these might be addressed, but I bet some won't. You have good, specific reasons for not liking MMO gameplay; this game might not be for you, but I'd give it a try

Lets see here.

-This game can still be an Openworld sandbox, well as much of one as Skyrim was.
-All TES games since MW had and played fine in 3rd person, but its easy to add a zoom in to first person in an mmo, most do and im sure this one will too.
-All TES games have had level caps and skill caps.
-Single player solo play does not apply here in any way at all, thats what the single player TES games are for, this is built from the ground up for multiplayer and that is the focus of the game .... a multiplayer TES ......
-Kinda agree on the Engine, but we get what we get and i would rather be excited for what it can be, not disappointed in what it isn't.

(side note, i DO like the hero engine and have always said i would like to see more MMORPG's made with it, just didn't expect it for an TES MMO)

Despite some problems, I generally lack how Lineage II plays, and liked EVE Online when I was trying it out (I just have no time for yet another open-world free-for-all PvP MMO). A Tale in the Desert with its social and group dynamics (and total lack of a combat system!) is just awesome as well; and World of Tanks a nice little game for when you just want to blow off some steam (having the "if your tank is destroyed, it is destroyed - no respawn" mechanic helps a lot). Finally, Minecraft servers are always a good way to waste lots of time and the block-based game mechanics, while often counter-intuitive (especially with fluids) works very well.

Sadly, we won't see any of this in TESO.

Caps yes, but in normal TES when you do 129 damage to mudcrab '11xp' does not pop up out it's head.

I'm just dissapointed they aimed this at MMO players rather than TES players.

Well I guess gameplay footage will be it's reckoning

I've never been interested in MMOs. One of the reasons I love The Elder Scrolls was that they were so decidedly single player games. That said, if anyone could interest me in a MMO, it would be The Elder Scrolls. I would expect an Elder Scrolls MMO to be deeply based on the Elder Scrolls lore and world, innovatively and creatively made into a MMO. Instead, from the things I have read here from people who play both MMO's and The Elder Scrolls, from reading the magazine scans and looking at the screenshots, it seems to be a generic MMO thinly disguised as The Elder Scrolls. I will check back every now and then to see if things turn out differently, but at present I don't believe it will.

I'll answer your question with another one: How many single player games use MMO gameplay mechanics?

None? That's right. Because it's not fun or engaging.

That's right - millions of us gamers just paying money to a company and logging thousands of hours in a game, cause we aren't have fun or being engaged...

That has NOTHING to do with the gameplay mechanics. It has everything to do with the social, competative, and achievement aspects of MMO's. Great strengths of the genre, but there IS a reason no single player games have similar gameplay mechanics.

You mean single player RPGs don't have experience? You don't kill monsters? You don't explore dungeons? You don't solve quests? You don't explore the map? You don't find new equipment? You don't gain new abilities to use in combat?

Your premise is silly. The things in MMOs that aren't in single player RPGs are there because there are more than one player.

Are you being intentionally dense?

I'm talking about the combat and world interaction mechanics. IE things like how you fight, with hotbars and clicking on targets then everything happening with background math. MMO combat is more akin to a strategy game than an action game. Whereas TES is most definitely an action RPG. I seriously challenge you to name ONE single player game that mirrors the combat mechanics of your standard MMO.

What do you mean with "MMO gameplay mechanics", in this case specifically? If we are talking about 3rd person + hotkeys, there are several single player rpgs like that. You might have heard of Dragon Age, for example.

Likely, I have yet to see someone defending TES:O come up with an argument that isn't based around strawman or ad hominem logical fallacies. But that's the internets for you.

Strategy games are the closest thing, like you said, but even that's very different. Older turn-based RPG's are very remotely similar as well. Haven't played DA:O.

Maybe I'm older than you. I played many, many, many RPGs that were not real time. Starting with Wizardry, probably. Bard's Tale, Ultima, Might and Magic, seriously.. dozens and dozens. That said, I've played the more modern games like Skyrim and Diablo, and I can tell you, hands down, the combat in DAOC, especially the pvp combat is far more engaging and fun. Yes, you have to target your enemy, but who cares? You are then responsible for positioning yourself, depending on what style you want to use, timing your reactionary styles, your style chains, etc.

Let me stress this again: Skyrim combat was a snorefest! Swing, backstep, swing, backstep, swing, backstep. Wow!!! Or if you are a mage: fireball, fireball, fireball, fireball. Wizardry in in the early 80's was far more engaging strategically.

Gimme a break.

Again, if that style of combat (not saying I didn't like DAOC, it's PvP with positional based chains was a lot more engaging) is so much fun, why haven't any single player games mirrored it? DA:O isn't the same because it's more of a turn based (pausable) strategy RPG, not an action RPG like the TES series. MMO's are a strange hybrid of action and strategy. Technology is to the point where you should be able to get rid of the conventions of auto-targetting your enemy and not having to aim for sake of tech constraints. MMO's mechanics as they are now are purely to go around those specific hurdles, but technologically we should be at the point where you can have full on action combat in an MMO, without having to rely on auto-hitting abilities.

Games like Tera and BnS or FPS games like Planetside (and the tons of other upcoming FPSMMO's) are great examples. We no longer send messages via morse code because tech has evolved beyond that. We no longer need MMO's to be auto-hit hotkey games because technology has advanced beyond that. And I'm in my 30's and been playing MMO's since Meridian 59 and Ultima Online (even further back if you include Legend of the Red Dragon on BBS', lol). And single player RPG's since Dungeons n Dragons on TRS-80.

The problem I see with all the MMORPG games that I've played (save for one), is that are way too transparent. It's almost as if at some point these games were hijacked by competitive people, so they just started making all the systems too self explanatory to aid in PvP balancing, essentially just turning them into big e-sports (not RPG's). In these games everyone is working towards whatever optimum build has been identified for the current version of the game based on the extremely detailed information on simplified combat systems, and/or grinding for loot to give them more of an edge in the e-sport events.

The major indicators I've seen of this in games are:

1. Combat distilled into DPS: If you can describe your entire combat system with DPS and cool-down timers, it's way too shallow. Of course it's better for e-sports, since you can quickly see what load-out is best for you at a glance, based off of only a few numbers, and easily optimize your character.
--- Combat should have many factors that you cannot evaluate without experimentation. This adds elements of exploration and discovery to combat. Also, equipment should be less straight forward in power and benefit. It would be more interesting if different kinds of weapons had different kinds of advantages but the individual power levels was very even.

2. Formulaic spells: Very similar to combat (partially since most magic systems are WAY under-utilized and focus only on combat). If you can describe all your spells using DPS, elemental damage types and cool-down timers, it's too shallow.
--- This is a pet peev of mine since I like playing a mage character of some sort. Magic should be flexible and versatile. Powerful, and not always predictable. In order to be able to successfully use it, you should need to understand your spells, and your characters specific abilities. As such, it too should have many factors that you cannot always evaluate without experimentation. Also every spell description should not detail exactly what it does on a system level. How do specific spells interact with other spells (offensive or not)? Will it behave the same way if their character is wildly different than what I am used to dealing with? This would add elements of exploration and discovery to magic.

As it is now, the elements of exploration and discovery are reserved for geological aspects of the games, and that only lasts as far as the boundaries of the world map. Other aspects of the game intentionally require no exploration. Unfortunately it is far easier to add more things for the player to do if understanding spells/abilities/weapons requires discovery, just by adding more spells/abilities/weapons. As it is now, for more exploration, they literally have to add more maps.

i used to play WoW like everyday almost all day. It got old tho, like i grew out of the whole MMO scene. Not saying MMO's are bad, because if really made well they can be very good. /i don't mind button smashing if the fights are made very well in raids.

Yet the 11 exp is still there. TES, through its entire history, has used the RPG genre standard of level through exp gain.

I wouldn't call it the RPG standard. Most RPGs use a bulk "XP pool", and when you surpass a certain threshold, you level up and raise your skills based on a set number of points. ES has always used kind of an inverse system, where you level up the skills specifically in order to level up. There's a MMORPG called Dragonrealms that uses a similar system and it works very well in that setting. All its other systems are also very different from 'standard MMO's'. The only draw backs are that it's a MUD (all text) and it has a really REALLY high subscription fee. . .