There are couple rather obvious concerns regarding the development of Elder Scrolls Online, perhaps most people share.

ZeniMax Online Studio is a branch of ZeniMax Media Inc., which is the owner of id Software (developer of Doom and Quake), Bethesda Game Studios (developer of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout 3), Arkane Studios (developer of Arx Fatalis, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and Dishonored), Tango Gameworks,[2] MachineGames[3] and ZeniMax Online Studios.

Compare to its counterparts, ZeniMax online studio is a brand new developing company, and Elder Scroll Online is their very first title. Also, all the titles have published under ZeniMax Media has been predominately single player and oriented mainly toward the console market. The lack of experience in MMO genre might be somewhat problematic, even though many of their titles have a very immersive game play couple with rich background story, which have captured many RPG gamers' heart.

Will they successfully incorporate their immersive game play and rich background stories of their previous games into their new title, Elder Scroll Online? I certainly hope so. Those aspects of the game are rather easy to implement, in comparison with to implement the stunning graphics of their latest release, Skyrim. Due to the nature of MMO, graphic is usually lowered to mitigate the problems with server load.

The question ultimately comes to, Whether you liked Elder scroll games for their game play and immersive world, or for their breathtaking graphics. For the former, I believe they will have no problem enjoy ESO.

The development team for ESO has 250 members and lead by Matt Firor, a veteran of mythic entertainment and leading developer of Dark Age of Camelot. His involvement certainly added very much needed experience and skill to the already extremely talented team. It leaves us very little doubt, that this team will continue the legacy Bethesda Studios has put forth and add another high quality triple A title to their rich publishing history.

The speculation based solely on developer’s experience in certain genre is rather narrow-minded. A very good counter-example is Blizzard. Before WoW, Blizzard is mainly known for its RTS and dungeon crawler titles like Starcraft, Warcraft and Diablo. One can certainly reach the conclusion, which Blizzard had no prior experience in MMO before the development of WoW, but it has not stopped Blizzard from making an incredible MMORPG game. It proves the incorporation of the already popular warcraft universe into a MMORPG is an ingenious move.

On the other hand, Final Fantasy Online from the popular Final Fantasy universe ended up to be a massive failure.

I believe the majority of the speculations online for ESO will be proven to be false after the release of the game. It is impossible to predict what the final product is going to be like, especially with a brand new team like ZeniMax Online. They will certainly surprise us by adding some fresh and new perspective into the MMO genre, although it can very risky.

Another concern is whether the game will play more like a MMO or will it play more like an Elder Scroll. Even though it will be great, if it can incorporate both sides perfectly, but it is impossible. It will either be a MMO plays like an Elder Scroll’s game or Elder Scroll’s game plays like a MMO. It is a tough choice for the developers to make, and I am interested to see what their choice is. Are you more of a MMO fan or more of an Elder Scroll fan? Let us find out together which group they will value, and which group they will screw over.

The game has been kept in secret for 5 years, and was announced at 2011. Till today, there are almost none of game-play footage can be found over the internet. Compare to the other recent big pc titles like Diablo3, Simcity, SWTOR, even Pandaria, it is very low key. Some can argue those titles all ended up to be very disappointing when it finally came out, 7 or so years after their announcements. There is no doubt this is a conscious decision made by the developers of ESO. Whether they are trying to hide something or trying to avoid failures of titles like Diablo3 and Simcity, it is rather hard to speculate.

There are no doubt disadvantages with their choice of making the development process secretive. It disconnects with the fan communities, and ignores everything players have to say regarding the direction of the development. Will the final product reflect their choice to disconnect the fans? It is really hard to say at this point.

Can ESO live up to the reputation of ZeniMax Media and players’ expectation? I guess, we will find out next year.

Best of luck to all Elder Scroll Online Developers

Sincerely, your Fan.

My eyes hurt.

Not much to discuss. : \

/thread

Also welcome to the forums, here's yer ficky-stick: http://images.uesp.net/c/c4/Fishystick.jpg

There's too many wrongs here to make a right.

I am not sure what you mean, please elaberate.

Not sure what you're really trying to discuss here.

You said a lot without really saying anything.

What are your concerns? You hardly touched on them...

You just said alot of nothing, and most of the stuff you DID say was flat out wrong.

Concerns:

1. Lack of experience from the developers.

2. Weather it plays more like a MMO or Elder Scroll.

3. Disconnect with its fan base, due to its lack of publicity.

What is flat out wrong? can you point them out?

I am gladly to discuss with you, perhaps I can learn something from you.

You didn't flat out state your concerns. You rambled on about graphics and SP vs MMO playstyles etc. The only thing I took from it was you are worried that the devs might be inexperienced since the company is new. You do realize they can hire people with experience right? That for them to get big enough to buy all those other companies they had to have someone around that knew what the [censored] she/he was doing?

Also, the colors are distracting, and it almost appears red is arguing with blue.