Before SWTOR was released, I predicted that their story based progression was gonna fail. Looks like the gaming public agrees to this assessment. You can't make a game based on story telling ONLY for progression, because there is no replay value. It is a game, not an audio book. Similar to too many studios doing the... press this sequence of buttions to see next cutscene. It is game, not a movie. Put gameplay before movie. Even Metal Gear Solid games knew this. Although Kojima rather make a movie, he made sure in-between those too long cutscenes you had super gameplay, and a way to skip those cutscenes if you wanted. The gameplay was also longer than the cutscenes (key to letting him have free reign in making long cutscenes).

I don't know if hiring some of the SWTOR people for TESO was a good idea, but people do learn from their mistakes. So maybe they will purposely do opposite what they did in SWTOR and hiring people who knows mistakes is good. (but only if they admit it was a mistake). In any case subscription model is sort of out of fashion. I think iPhone freemium apps sort of drove gameplayers in this direction. I think they should keep one race free, and let people who like it pay for ability to play different races (so in each province you can choose one free race to play forever, or only play one faction for free. A MMO needs players, doesn't matter how many you got, eventually it will dwindle to zero if you don't add content or get new players. After the initial people who pay dries up it is downhill unless there is a freemium model to keep the game alive.

So basically - you want to isolate story and gameplay? That's suicide. People in most genres of games want to be told a good story- it's a key tenet of video games nowadays. It needs to be 50:50. Of course there should be an ability to level up outside the story - avoiding on rails approach - but throwing story to the side is a bad idea, especially in a series which thrives on lore and politics, with a complement of combat.

Niaw. Doesn't matter how good the story is. It will fail. Wrong gere. SWTOR failed, and they hired the best writers. They also have the Star Wars franchise to work with. This about that for a second... Star Wars! The most popular sci fi series. It failed because you can't use storytelling for progression in a GAME. It is game first, storrytelling second. Bad gameplay means failed MMO. Period. Doesn't matter if you hire the best writers in the world. If you sell it as a DVD or Blue-ray, maybe you can make some money but trying to shoehorn it into a game. No. Doesn't matter how many people they bribe to get approved. 90 percent of the people will only watch a movie 2 times at most. Nobody in their right mind will pay a monthly fee to see the same cutscenes over and over again. Maybe 2 months to see everything. Then go to youtube.

Nobody isolates gameplay and story. It is gameplay that has story. But story can be non-existent. Pacman has no story. asteroids has no story. But people keep playing them over and over again. You see a nice commercial. After 2 times, you will skip the channel. It is common instinctive reaction. A dog will notice a honking once or twice. Keep honking, it will start going back to its life and treat it as background noise. It is a stupid idea to shove a story into a game and hope people will keep paying to see the same story over and over again. Not gonna happen.

You seem to be referring to the new Battlecry studios - http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1414531-new-bethesda-studio/

Well you're in the wrong series, if I might be blunt, if you don't want to have a story. There's nothing wrong levelling up whilst you progress through the story- and I agree that you need to have facilities to level up without having to ever play through the story - but there's an incredible shift in the wind towards a need for story in games, and quite honestly to me, unless were talking about rare no-story games like mine craft or WOW, it's pretty low rent to cheap out on story. Besides, SWTOR didn't fail because of it's story based character progression, it failed because there was nothing to do at the end of the game. I loved the story, but quit when I had nothing to keep me committed. If this game throws story on the back burner it isn't worthy of the name TES - this isn't a WOW clone, and it's certainly not to please MMO vetrans, but TES fans first. I welcome you to your non-story pacman games - but with excellent story games like Mass Effect, Deus Ex, even COD, the time's coming when you'll have to quit gaming mate.

Come on... get with the times. 90 percent of the players who bought skyrim just to walk around and kill dragons level armor and weapons. Mostly they just follow the cursor on the map to the next destination. Only 10 percent actually go into the lore and read all the books. 80 percent don't even complete the two main story quests. They are wandering around trying out attacks with this weapon or not, or what to wear for protection. And no, I am not advocating no story. I am advocating gameplay for advancement. Storytelling secondary. What does this mean? It means you gotta kill this enemy using strategy to advance. Not click on a series of dialog boxes reading text over text for 10 screenfuls. I would rather find strategies for killing dragon A or dragon B that decides the next chapter, than choose between dialog boxes A or B, or flipping through dialog box trees, finding out which is the right one for advancement. If you advocate the game has 80 percent of the time doing dialog trees, then yes, it will fail like SWTOR. Fail badly. It is not gonna work. 80 percent of the time people need to be in a gameplay, in control. In action.

Sorry if this sounds negative to you, but that is the way it is. If you wanna sell the game to people that enjoys seeing the same commercial over and over again, or reading the same book over and over again, and keep paying. Then no, you are not gonna be in business very long.

In my feverish delerium I can read a lot into this. And I like what I see there. Though my head hurts from concentrating on aligning all those whirling letters. Back to bed!

The trend is completely the opposite of what you say. Ten years ago - games had very little in the way of story - now, it's practically a requirement. If you wondered around Skyrim killing dragons then kudos to you - you enjoyed yourself, but the majority of people bought the game, as with any RPG, for that unique blend of engaging gameplay and lore and story, which is why.I always advocate 50:50 in story combat, and that, with the increasing sales of games like Mass Effect, is where the Market is headed. If you want an MMO which is all about combat, go to WOW - but don't try to ruin a series which prides itself on detailed lore and immersion. If you did a poll, 90% of the people on these forms would disagree with you.

I understand you hated SWTOR because it forced you to try and appreciate a story you didn't want to see - and I can see how that attitude, with the freedom of choice it affords you, can be applied to Skyrim and seen as a success (even though devs didn't want you to ignore the story), but there's a compromise to be had here. You should be able to level up by going into dudgeons, and you should be able to skip dialogue - I do in some games when I'm replaying them - but the focus for a TES game shouldn't be for people like you. Each dungeon needs a unique story, each city giving the facility to explore its local politics and attitudes. Those things will make a unique and fun game. If you look through my post history, you can see that I advocate innovations in combat (I hope that Stamina and Magicka govern skills rather than cool downs), but there's got to be a compromise in a TES game, a facility for fun combat and lore and story.

Honestly, you're in the wrong game and series for what your after. You may play it, but TES fan base, me included, will run for the hills if they let up on lore and story, just as I'd run for the hills if the story was there but the gamely wasn't. Always 50:50. Have fun in WOW - this game won't be for you.