Play it. Don't play it.

See the difference?

Let's see... Lord of the Rings: Online deals with lore fairly well. As I understand it The Old Republic deals with lore fairly well. World of Warcraft deals with Warcraft lore fairly well.

If you can't separate the MMORPG from the single player franchise then maybe you're just a little bit too attached.

The lore of TESO is set far enough away from what we've had in the single player games that it leaves a fairly nice amount of wiggle room for the MMO to work with.

Not only that but it even leaves wiggle room for future single player games, like TES: VI, to create narratives that fall between the MMO (and even based off it) and prior games.

Think. Before. Responding.

I'm sorry - are you serious about this? The game has been in development for several years. Do you think they'd drop the entire thing (with millions of dollars put into it, most likely) because a few hardcoe fans dislike MMOs?

Yeah...I am pretty attatched to ESO...so much that I will try it out when it comes out...I rather it never came out though. Name the bad, mostly unavoidable qaulities of an MMORPG and then put them into Nirn....no. I don't want it. But I'll get it.

I don't dislike MMOs. I have been playing them for 12 years. EverQuest since launch..WoW since beta then launch getting all their fracking CEs..Anarchy Online for a few years as well...other more random, less played MMOs...prepurchased GW2 CE as well...So no, I love MMORPGs.

You can't blame Zenimax or Bethesda for how people act online. The community's 5 year old knee jerk anonymity reaction is meaningless to me if the game is solid.

I could care less if I see XxSephiroth420 the Nord running by calling me a "fogot" if the game is good and I am enjoying it.

Guys, this thread has gotten really heated - let's please try and cool off. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but flaming is not acceptable. If you feel someone is wrong you're welcome to civilly and constructively criticize their opinion, but you can't attack someone for having it in the first place.

I'm fine with there being an MMO as long as Bethesda continues to stay out of it. I'm sure some people have been helping Zenimax Online which is fine. This might be the first MMO I ever buy on release, depending on how it shapes up.

Honestly, that would be horrible. Much more likely to "infect"/destroy the standard TES series. Having a separate company make a separate MMO in a separate historical era seems much more likely to keep regular TES "undamaged".

Those games clearly didn't take off. My main concern here is that TES will go the way of Warcraft.

Warcraft 4 has never seen the light of day because Blizzard realizes that WoW is catering to most of the fans of that IP, and so instead their dev teams focus on other IPs like Starcraft and Diablo. I'm worried that Zenimax will say to BGS "TES Online is taking care of this IP, so focus on Fallout (and perhaps a new IP?) instead."

Or it's because Blizzard is well known for releasing sequels around 10 years apart.

Warcraft III came out in 2002.

How would a co-op option be more of a problem than a MMO for TES?

Because then it would become more COD like.

But if you want Co-op you could always call I'm-Leet The Argonian.

Meh, whatever. Zenimax is developing it so at best it will be a decent addition to the Elderscrolls series and at worst I can just forget it ever existed.

No no no...not COD co-op...I mean you have friends...real life...living in the same house or different state...you have an option to say "hey friend/husband/sister...let's go play Skyrim together...alone...just us"...ok kind of creepy with sister added in that but you know what I mean...Diablo-like system./..Never did I say a random-match-up system...that would be HORRIBLE!!!!

I could be wrong, as I don't know much about the internal workings of Blizzard, but perhaps the developement team that worked on the Warcraft games became the WoW team. With TESO the studios are separate.

It's also possible that Blizzard has an MMO team and an RTS team, in which case we probably haven't seen WC4 because the RTS team has been working on StarCraft instead.

The problem with co-op is it's unlikely to be the entire focus of the game, which means you're splitting developement between single player and multiplayer. An MMO, on the other hand, is entirely focused on a single play type - as are BGS's RPGs. If BGS were to make another Elder Scrolls game with multiplayer many of the resources they could have spent on single player would be directed to multiplayer instead, and vice versa.

Don't get me wrong, co-op RPGs can be a lot of fun. But it's a tricky niche to develop for. Consider NWN, it had some great ideas but many of them (like the ability to DM) were awkwardly implemented.

Because then you would have to balance the entire single player game to accommodate for co-op.

There is a boat load of balance difference when you have a single player + single companion (and potentially a summon) versus two players who could both have a companion and a summon.

Not to mention, Bethesda isn't very good at balancing single player games as it is. Can you imagine the current crafting system being abused by two players at the same time?

Why would they worry about balancing just because it went co-op? They don't worry about you OPing your toon through mods/consoles in their single player? The only trouble they would be facing (and honestly a serious one) is user security issues like malicious exploitations that can brick a game....but that's what people have risked in the past when they co-oped in games like *cough*Animal Crossing*cough*

Yeah tell that to Warcraft after WOW was released. As far as I know they never made Warcraft 4 and replaced it with Starcraft 2.Don't get me wrong Starcraft 2 is amazing but I would really like to see Warcraft 4.

Because adding multiplayer functionality to the singleplayer TES games would have more of an effect on the singleplayer TES games, than a completely separate game that's designed for multiplayer.

In one case (adding co-op to TES) you now have other things competing to screw up your singleplayer TES.
In the other case (completely separate MMO), there's nothing interfering with your singleplayer TES.

Second case seems much safer.

Yeah, they also replaced StarCraft II with Diablo III... wait a minute... it's like they do their sequels and franchises in some sort of... one at a time order type thing...


No.. there's quite a lot they'd have to consider.

If you and I play a co-op game, and I join into your "world," i.e you invite me into a save file you are currently playing, you know I could just go on an NPC killing rampage and ruin things for you. Did you like that merchant? Too bad, he's dead. That quest you wanted to take? Already did it for you. Oh, you wanted that Daedric Sword in the chest? Sorry, mine now. Say, isn't this your home, that's a nice set of armor on your mantle, think I'll help myself...

co-op would be optional
MMO would not be (unless you bite the bullet as a hardcoe TES fan and simply not play it).

Balancing would not be an issue in co-op because balancing was never an issue in TES games. You always have the option to OP your character. Co-oping shouldn't change this. If you play the game the way you think it should be played and you choose to GM your husband into your version of Skyrim and he's kitted out in OP mod gear.........I see that as a non-issue...1) you chose to play with him 2) If he/she is disruptive you kick em out. Allow the option for a revert to settings before co-op if things get hairy...but if things run nicely, it's beautiful.

One of the gripes my husband has about me playing Skyrim is because h can't play WITH me...I feel the same way...and I wish we could go dragon slaying together. I am sure others feel the same way about their partner, family, friends who are fellow gamers.

Hah! Well I wouldn't be inviting you to my world ever again and I would revert to a previous save after I kicked you in your Deadras and sent you packing. Anaimal Crossing had a revert option when things went bad FFS!!

Right and that's one thing they'd have to consider, let alone combat balance.

Not the point.

Adding all the crap you'd need to make co-op work (engine adjustments, world scaling to account for people coming and going, NPC and quest interactions with multiple people there, enemy spawn adjustments, etc, etc, etc) would all 1. take additional time and effort (reducing the amount of time & effort to allocate to the just-singleplayer-thanks game), and 2. increase the complexity / bugs / problems.

Having a separate company make a separate game with the separate goal of specifically being multiplayer - much less chance of screwing up singleplayer TES.


(also, making default TES have an MP option would likely be the end of modding on the PC. Because otherwise.... what are the odds of the people you want to play with having the same mod setup?)