This could still be a great game, but it seems painfully clear from the first bits of info that it's not making any attempt to deviate from the WoW formula, and it doesn't appear to be taking advantage of any aspects that are unique to the Elder Scrolls franchise to build a unique MMO experience. A lot of MMO's have failed recently, and this game seems to be following the same development plans as those games were (most notably The Old Republic, with which it shares an engine even).

What you have to remember though is that this game was in the planning stages since before Oblivion even came out, and that it's been in development since 2007. That's a long time ago, and gaming was very different back then. I think most developers realize these days that they cannot replicate WoW. No one will ever beat WoW at it's own game because WoW is from another era. Nobody wants another WoW. The MMO genre is on the verge of changing it's format entirely with things like Free-2-Play.

I read an article before The Old Republic came out which basically said it was most likely going to fail, and that it would probably be the last game of it's kind (as in the last huge budget MMO to follow the outdated WoW formula in an attempt to de-throne it). It seems like the article was wrong though, this game is probably the true last game of it's kind.

Obviously this would have seemed like a brilliant idea when it was conceived many many years ago. The problem when developers commit to a game like this is that they're essentially building a Titanic-sized ship which takes so long to create that even if it becomes clear somewhere down the line that they should be changing direction, they can't, the ship's too big and it's on a crash course.

Anyway, that's just kind of my brainstorm on why this game is what it is. Feel free to disagree/discuss

I disagree because this game has one simple thing every other MMO lacks... The Elder Scrolls.

Everything about the lore and world is better and very liked and popular than other RPGs.

Also, for me, I just can't wait to explore the entire world they create. It may not be exactly every inch of every province, but I'm sure there's going to be skip loads of content in this game. And more and more added by expansions.

To do a "true to form" TES MMO would be much harder than people think.

You're right many of the technical aspects would be very hard to pull off even today (first-person, high level graphics) let alone 5 years ago. I'm referring more to the general design aesthetic. Decisions such as not letting the player own homes, or join and rank up in a guild. Or the class system, which is very restrictive and generic. Things like these would not be hard at all to pull off, it's simply not the direction they chose to pursue, and what I'm saying in the OP is that the reason they didn't pursue fresher, more creative avenues is because back in 2006/7 when they started this, a simple WoW reskin seemed like a good idea. Today it does not

It's clear that this game is retaining all the classic MMO terminology; terms like "DPS", "mounts", stuff like that. The whole environment created by MMO's with terms like that is pretty alienating for the average player. MMO's need to break out of this super hardcoe mold if they want to draw larger audiences. I know many of the millions of casual players who bought Skyrim would love to play a multiplayer Elder Scrolls game, but this won't appeal to them.

That basically sums it up.

Regards,
Eno

You're very much incorrect actually.

Player homes, if they were to stay true to how housing has been in single player games, would be incredibly difficult. How would you handle breaking and entering? How would you handle, if at all, making a player aware that their home had been broken in to? Do you really want to be able to come home to find the mega awesome Daedric sword you just found or crafted is now gone and you have zero idea where it is? If servers can hold 10,000 players or so, where are you going to put all the available homes? Are you going to put 10,000 homes in each major city? How about the smaller towns and in the wilderness? Etc, etc. Going with a more Skyrim approach to classes and skills would also be a nightmare for an MMO because you can have multiple players doing builds that are so wide spread and powerful that monsters would have to be overly powerful and this could destroy people who are more specifically specced.

No need its just wishfull thinking of a skyrim fanbo1

Actually its the complete opposite, if it indeed was a true to form TES game put into an mmo it would be one of the most hardcoe mmorpgs out today, something like Darkfall or Mortal Online set in TES world/lore.

Not really it has been done in 1996

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfVvxjbj8Ts

Exactly, but again it comes to what I was saying about breaking the mold. None of these things make sense within a traditional, WoW style MMO, but that model is outdated anyway. Obviously I'm just thinking off the top of my head here so I can't pitch a game concept that fixes all of those issues right now, but it would be possible. It would just require a different game model that thinks outside of the box and reinvents the genre.

If you're going to use this angle... can I please direct you to the Virtual Boy and the Nintendo 3DS?

Just because it has been done before doesn't mean it was done all that well. With current tech it may still not be done very well. Not to mention that the idea of it may simply not fit very well at the basic level for an RPG.


How easy do you think "breaking the mold" is? Let's take one MMO in particular that tried to do something different... Final Fantasy XIV. FFXIV uses, or was using, an FFII style of leveling, which is very much akin to how TES does their single player games.

And we know how FFXIV turned out.

Sometimes doing the "safe" way is the best way to garner interest and a fan base, which can lead to more daring projects in the future.

Skyrim really devoted fan lol? Except for the fact that Skyrim is my least favorite in that series i'm not sure where you pulled that one from. Add to that fact that TESO is nothing like Skyrim. Your post missed the mark completely.

sorry to burst your bubble OP but The old republic isn't a failure. with 1.3 million subscribers it has more than double the amount that the publisher said it needed to be profitable. Everyone in this forum seems to think that a game needs to go magically to over 11 million subscribers in the first few months so that it can beat WoW and that's just ignorant.

there's plenty of space for TES.

I absolutely agree with this particular line and sadly this might be very true.
Too much money and time had been invested in ESO for them to pull out now.
All they can do is keep doing marketing for this game and hope that it will carve its own market.

We can only hope that this decision does not tarnish the Elder Scrolls franchise tho.
I don't want future generations of gamers to only remember Elder Scrolls as yet another failed wannabe WoW MMO instead of the open-world RPG game it currently still is.

"DOOM! DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"



Show me companies, that were known for large franchise single player games, that have failed, shut down or been tarnished and "only remembered for their failed MMO."

How many people remembered that ironically the granddaddy of modern MMOs Ultima Online was itself originally an offshoot of a
very respected standalone RPG franchise the Ultima Series? It was right there with the Wizardry and Might and Magic series (sadly, these 2 are gone too)

Today, Origin Systems is no more and is now merely a name for EA's online platform.
Ultima Online's popularity has since faded, and not many new gamers even heard of the Ultima Series.

So, yea there ya go

Very true. However the company that did Ultima is not known best for how Ultima Online went.

Anyway im hoping Zenimax/Bethesda do not follow in their footsteps in creating an MMO that will destroy their series like what Origin Systems did.

Hopefully they'll follow Square Enix way of having both an MMO and Single Player franchise (example: Final Fantasy) co-exist together.
We can only hope.

It's a blind date until it goes into beta.

Toodles till then

There is one thing that I really, really hope gets implemented. Since there's a hotbar, there's got to be skills to fill it up with right? And so far, a warrior can get by with attacking and blocking, so I wouldn't be surprised if they added skills, like giving Nords Thu'um, and giving Redguards Shehai (this I really want)