I've never read anything about Todd saying that. IIRC his response was always "we're more experienced with single player games, and we enjoy making single player games", and he would only refer to his own studio. But now we have ZOS, which does make multiplayer games, and has experience in making multiplayer games.

Not going to happen. Unless all the developers and execs are replaced with the stupidest people on the planet. The Elder Scrolls games make money, draw crowds and praise from all over. People still play Morrowind and Oblivion despite the outdated graphics. Just because they are making an MMO does not mean they are abandoning a successful business model and risking their future on another potentially sucessful one. This MMO is an expansion of Bethesda's territory, not a replacement. Unless, like I said, all of Maryland has suddenly suffered massive brain damage.

I think The Elder Scrolls SP games will continue more toward action/adventure type games. And I think they will use the MMO as a supposed outlet for RPG'ers.

The major problem is when Bethesda cater and craft the legend of the Elder Scrolls universe towards supporting the MMO rather than specifically creating a compelling single player story. It would, or perhaps is even now compromising the integrity of the single players games by creating lore not through logical story telling art, but to cater to needed MMO gameplay mechanics.

I say even now because it may already have started with Skyrim, the world seems to be in turmoil and divided specifically to cater to a three sided war. By `coincidence′ it happens to be the most popular openworld PvP game form.

The game is set in the 2nd era. I'm pretty sure that they won't catch up to the single player games for a while...

From a MMO to co-op in future games is just a small step. Next it wil be "You NEED to play co-op to play TES VI.".

Yes. That's a totally rational assumption.

It's just like how after Blizzard released WoW, every game afterwards required multiplayer. It's just like that. Exactly.

This is unpractical beyond belief. Let's go over why

- You know how unbalanced the skill systems in TES games is? Remember how you could powerlevel your way to daedric armor by crafting leather bracers? This is just one example of how impossible it is to fluidly and fairly balance a system with practically infinite combinations. One of the good things about a restrictive class based system in multiplayer is that it allows for better balance.

- In the Elder Scrolls sandbox, I can do anything I want to the world and it will stay that way. If they applied this to the MMO, it would either a - require an outrageous amount of instancing or b - result in every city on every server being covered in corpses by the end of the launch day

- Free PvP isn't everyone's dream. Some people play MMO's to cooperate with players, not just spill their guts.

- No instancing is kind of difficult when you have thousands of players. Plus instancing creates repetition which, sadly but surely, makes MMOs good. Can you honestly say WoW would be better if you could only run (insert dungeon here) one time?

You have to remember that this is a full-on, massively multiplayer game, not an Elder Scrolls title with a few of your friends.



Selling out would be destroying TES as it is to create TES:O. You could very well argue that Blizzard sold out the Warcraft franchise, or EA sold out on the KOTR franchise, because those MMOs ended the story. This one will not. Single player games will still be created - Todd's team is not involved in the MMO, and the MMO is deliberately set in the second era to allow further single-player development. They aren't selling out - they are simply adding another type of game to the Elder Scrolls franchise, which may or may not end up being a good idea, but won't harm us as single players.


I don't know the exact context or quote, but I would imagine Todd was saying that he would never participate in an Elder Scrolls MMO. He is not participating in it, nor is it directly affecting his team's work.



Can we please stop judging the lore so suddenly? If I told you that the Empire had helped the Dominion outlaw Talos worship, that would sound like utter garbage. But if there was a war in which the Dominion conquered the Empire and crafted a treaty to demand such bans, then it makes sense. The fact of the matter is, we know very little about the context of TES:O, despite all the leaks and "leaks" we've seen. Even the worst of enemies can become allies if they find it mutually beneficial or unavoidable necessary. Let's wait until the full game is released and we see the entire context and story before we judge. And even still, if it is bad, it will end up being a bit of poorly drawn lore in the middle of the Second Era. Not a world-shattering ordeal.



I'm going to skip sides of the fence here for a second and argue against this. We, as the players, have funded Zenimax since day one. Without the Elder Scrolls franchise's fans, there would never be a dream of a thought of an MMO. Furthermore, people are going to pay a subscription for this game, so they damn well better listen to their players if they want it to succeed.



So suddenly a system of instancing and hotkey combat = WoW clone? Sorry? Already I can point out differences

- three factions
- open instancing
- works within established lore, not after established lore (WCIII > WoW)
- Activision isn't involved

So let's not hop on our NOPE horses until there is sufficient evidence to prove it is a WoW clone. Which probably won't be at least until the beta




Again, we don't know enough about the context and story of the MMO to judge the lore. Perhaps the circumstances will legitimately be so extreme and bizarre that unlikely scenarios could reasonably occur. Or perhaps it will be garbage lore. But we can't say yet.

Haha. Wut? Oblivion was released in early 2006, around 4 years after Morrowind. Skyrim was released in late 2011, around 3 years after Fallout 3 (their previous game) and 5 after Oblivion. The release interval has remained roughly the same, the announcement of the game doesn't directly coincide with any particular development stage. Hell, TES:O has been in development for longer than Skyrim has and it just got announced. But perhaps my favorite part of your logic is that Oblivion was somehow more complete than Skyrim? They had to patch Oblivion just like they're patching Skyrim. Except, the most up-to-date version of Oblivion still has, to my knowledge, more gameplay bugs than the vanilla release version of Skyrim.

And all of their games will be online? Really? How do you suppose that? Because one title will be?



No, I am quite confident he and his team are alive and still kicking, ready to bring us more of the ever more innovative and expansive single-player, sandbox, open world RPGs that we have come to love.



Let me put your fears to ease. They won't. The Elder Scrolls will still exist as a single-player franchise. Let's look at why.

- It will be a hotkey-based MMO (or so all sources show), so the likelihood of a console version is very low. Oblivion and especially Skyrim were marketed towards, guess who, consoles!
- The team that will be developing TES:O is not in any way shape or form affiliated with Todd Howard's team other than in that they are both under the ZeniMax banner. Who knows, maybe they'll toss a couple of ideas at each other, but they won't be running each other's business.
- TES:O is set in the Second Era. Meaning they have to, for the most part, stick to the lore of the Second Era. Why in hell's blazes would they do that when they have such a bright and promising, open, lore-restriction-free future ahead of Skyrim? Simple. The Elder Scrolls: Online is set in the Second Era, not after Skyrim, because ZeniMax/Bethesda fully intend to continue the still-developing Elder Scrolls saga in single-player games. It really is quite obvious.




Continue? That's odd, considering Skyrim is perhaps the most open and reactive RPG of the series. Even just in terms of character builds. Because they got rid of classes and birthsigns that locked you into a specific role at your character's creation. Because they got rid of long-outdated statistics that really didn't allow for any fluctuation unless you want to find yourself severely disadvantaged against scaling foes. I have so much more freedom in how I play my character in Skyrim than I ever had in Oblivion.



They may completely butcher half of the Second Era's lore, but they will not touch anything past that. I don't see where you're coming from. The MMO will take place even before the Elder Scrolls I. The Thalmor/Empire/Stormcloak feud has absolutely nothing to do with the MMO, and unless we invent some sort of daedric time machine to go back to the Second Era, the events past the first Elder Scrolls game will not influence the MMO, and thus will not be catered towards the MMO.

Sorry, but I don't really see the reasoning here. TES's lore is immense and they are choosing to focus on a particular time period. Letting us explore the entirety of Tamriel in a particular time period isn't going to make me not want to explore regions in other periods...