"http://lorehound.com/news/the-merits-of-sand-box-versus-theme-park-mmos/? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBw25CrUS-o&ob=av3e."

Almost every MMO that has come out in this past WoW-centric era has failed in every meaningful way. Most of those have tried, and failed, to emulate the class and questing structure that WoW has spent it's lifetime perfecting. Lets face it: If you want to play an MMO where you pick a race, pick a class, and pick up every quest available to kill boars- rinse, repeat, level cap-, you're already playing, or have played and quit WoW, and don't want to play WoW lite. If a TES MMO has any chance of being even remotely successful it has to bring something new and innovative to the table. Something that isn't just setting or a few gimmicks to try and reel in a few subs. I don't care if this MMO lets me have a pet dog, I don't care if all the quests have voice acting, and I could care less if the game was made by James Cameron and set in 3D. The game, and the gameplay the entire way through, needs to be fun and refreshing.

Ever since the death of Star Wars Galaxies (Pre-CU) I've been dying to see another triple-A MMO title that is sandbox based, and I could not think of an MMO with a better basis to attempt this than a TES MMO. The Elder Scrolls has always been about open world, make your own class, adventures; and I see no reason this MMO should be any different. Classes limit you. Levels limit you. A TES MMO should not have such self imposed limits like this. Let the player, and thus the character, be free to be what it wants to be. Getting rid of this rigid class structure will do wonders to make the game replayable and more open feeling. No more picking an archer, only to have to reroll to become a warrior. Why not be both? Hybridization should be encouraged.

There are so many intricate factors that weigh into whether an MMO is good or not to begin to even touch the surface in this post. Questing should not be grind. The game should not "start" once you hit the level cap (I'd prefer no levels nor cap) because it always ends up with the player hitting a content cap in the game, and then you're stuck on farm status until the next update. PvP needs to be a major part of the game and needs to have viable rewards and appropriate motivators to participate (IE game world consequences for losses). Crafting cannot just be tacked on and the gear available from it should be equivalent to any gear obtainable in any other fashion, but balanced around cost and material requirements. The game needs to be fleshed out and robust in several areas and should not remain static. Game worlds that are too static are prone to getting an MMO-pedia, where every possible detail of the world can be written out on some website, telling you exactly where, how, and what to do at any possible point in the game, which completely kills any amount of mystery or immersion. The game ceases to be a game and instead turns into a set of mathematical input-output equations where money+time=desired outcome rather than fun.

Of course this is all just my opinion, but as someone who's played quite a few MMO's in his day, the WoW themepark trope has been played out. It's time for a true next gen MMO. Feel free to disagree/discuss/whatever. I hope once details are announced this doesn't turn out to be another WoW clone...

IMO, GW2 far exceeds the class/questing structure of WoW by miles.

I hope TES does its own thing to also be superior with a sandbox class approach like the SP titles.

If it will be anything like Pre-CU Star Wars Galaxies then I will be the happiest person in the world. Elder Scrolls is the perfect setting for a game similar to that, since it is very much like that in itself; a huge sandbox where you can pretty much do anything.

I do miss SWG though, I put 8 years into that game; Pre-CU was like heaven.

Tell me, ubernanna, what has WoW done wrong, with it's current 12 million subscribers? Where's it failing?

10 million and falling, if I am not mistaken.

WoW is a good game, I just don't want another clone of it.

This, essentially.

WoW is not a bad game, per se, I don't think I ever said it was a bad game, but it is played out. It is losing subscribers, now more so than ever, and it really hasn't done much to revitalize it's gameplay. Cataclysm did some things right, but WoW still has several fundamental flaws that questing revamps won't help. In some ways, it comes down to preference, and in this way WoW is still the king of MMO's. But, a TES MMO should not be WoW, it should not be like WoW, and it needs to get away from the things WoW is. TES has always been open world, open character, open gameplay. WoW really only has one of those things, open world, but even then since the implementation of instancing and phasing that's getting more blurry. Themeparks (IE linear questing and progression) is not the way to go. Sandbox games where you can choose your own path, pick your own quests (to a realistic degree), and make your own character and class is where MMOs should be heading. And with the recent success of Skyrim, a TES MMO seems like the best candidate to push the way forward towards a better MMO future for all of us.

As the op pointed all the wow clones will fail in the long run and i'm 100% agree, no more themepark, no more wow clones please. Make a true sandbox like the original ES sp series.

I've noted some things they can do, my post:
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1371398-some-tips-for-an-mmo-from-a-veteran/

And yes I'd hate to see a crappy wow clone or anything with "levels", classes and restricted game play.

Wait, how can we discuss if this will be a theme park or not?
Won't The Elder Scrolls Online be played in provinces of Tamriel? If yes, then there can be no theme park but only a open world you explore except outside of that province the game will take place in, at the start.

Except the provinces won't be true open world like a TES single player game. I just can't imagine that happening so you'll sightsee area's but not the whole thing. It's not like they would create all the provinces in true open world style. Would be nice to see if they did though!

World of Warcraft is still a themepark MMO, even if you can move freely from zone to zone. You still won't be going to Western Plaguelands at level 5 however (or if you do, your trip won't be long). The quests are linear and rigid and you are guided from zone to zone in the "proper" fashion given your level. That is a themepark MMO.


I don't see why they couldn't. It depends on what you mean by "the whole thing". Is the way the province of Skyrim portrayed in Skyrim really what it looks like? What about Cyrodil in Oblivion? They obviously don't use a real, full, lore accurate scale for those games, otherwise the provinces would be Daggerfall sized, and the Imperial City would have a million + NPCs. I think its possible for a TES MMO to at the very least have every province as detailed as you see in World of Warcraft.

While it's a good idea, the problem would be that every character becomes a jack-of-all-trades. That's definitely not something it should be.

A lot of this will depend on the payment model.

The annoying thing of MMO's is that most of the time they have payment models that make most profit if you keep players playing at a consistent rate, preferably all year long. This automatically steers the content in the direction of becoming a job/grind. It becomes quantity over quality.

Single player games usually do not have this problem. Just a single initial payment, and if quality content was delivered, you'll buy one or more DLC's. See how the company is differently motivated.

We'll have to wait and see the first trailer and screenshot tomorrow before we can even guess what it will be like.

Having said that, no WoW clone will succeed, we've seen it before, you can't beat bliz at it's own game. If this game is going to truely succeed it needs to be something totally different, something less remote, grittier, a real up-close and personal experience that doesn't lend itself to the Leroy jenkinses of the web.

Someone define: "Themepark"


MMO jive talk is completely alien to me.

I keep envisioning Orcs on roller coasters, and Elves selling cotton candy.

Exactly what I'm hoping to get people to discuss. The thing that scares me is that this MMO is supposed to be released next year, which makes it sound like they've already got an idea of what they're going to release. Even if the fans overwhelmingly want a different experience, if they've already developed a WoW clone there's no going back for them...



Yeah, sorry about that. I should have probably put some kind of description in the OP. This site has a pretty good write up though: http://lorehound.com/news/the-merits-of-sand-box-versus-theme-park-mmos/

Here's the deal with WoW and WoW-clones:

WoW came out 8(?) years ago. That means it's been in development for 10+ years, and it has through these last 10 years been funded by a successful, financially wealthy company and a large development team. What this means is blizzard has its game perfected and added on to the point at which making a WoW-clone would be a fruitless endeavor, as WoW will have already done it better.

TES-online's been in development for maybe 5 years, there's no way they could match AND top WoW in less than half of the time WoW's been in development. This means that if they try to do something in the vein of WoW, they'll do it worse, WoW won't lose any subscribers, and the game will fail. Just look at SWTOR if you need a recent example of this (remember how much hype there was for that game?)

Cloning WoW is the WRONG path to take. That's the reason people suggest that games don't do this. The only way an MMO will ever compete with WoW is if they take the generic MMO formula and flip it on its head. There's a HUGE portion of MMO gamers who are sick and tired of WoW and its clones and are looking for something different, however the only games that are fundamentally different from WoW are poorly funded with companies that have less than 20 workers.

TES online has everything required to change up the MMO formula successfully from funds to resources to workers, but if they don't the game's going to fail.

Well I don't mean full size I meant Skyrim, Morrowind and Cyrodiil sizes. I don't know anything about game design so I don't know if it was possible to create Tamriel open world with the kind of scale used in Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. I don't even know if that would be good or bad

You hit every point dead on. This is the overwhelming issue with every "up and coming" MMO that has been released in the past decade. gamesas has the money, they've got the size, and they should have the drive and inspiration to make a great MMO. I'd hate to see them release a DOA flop like so many others.

Darkfall and Mortal Online are unfortunate cases of good ideas at beginning but failed in the long run cause lack of developer skills and budget.


This. They have enought experience and budget to create a good sandbox game.

Now that i've read the article on Gameinformer i'm a bit scary about the 3 factions, seems a themepark direction but well, too early to judge.

Indeed if they try to gather the wow crowd this game is already doomed.

100% agreed.

Don't write off Mortal Online yet, they are practically still in Alpha stage. The next "expansion" has features that will drastically change the quality of the game (completely new basis for the UI and completely new AI (which was almost non existent so far)). If financially they can keep it up for some time longer, it might get pretty successful still.

The problem lie if they can keep the project ongoing with so few subscribers because Mo is still full of bugs. I'm curious about the next big expansion though.

According to some people who've managed to get ahold of some early scans, it sounds a lot like a Guild Wars 2 clone. Third-person only, limited to three "skills" at a time (determined by weapon loadout), skill combinations, etc. For obvious reasons, no, I can't give any sort of source on this.

So that's that I guess.

Thank you! I read the article and promptly hit YouTube to learn more about EVE Online.

TES Online ABSOLUTELY MUST be a Sandbox MMO.... or I refuse to play it.

In fact, I want EVE Online and Skyrim to have a baby together. That's what TES Online needs to be like.

There MUST be a real economy with user created crafted content. The guilds MUST shape the story. The whole Molag Bal thing just needs to be component in the wider user created experience.