This is the problem I have with this type of game, if I am supposed to be the Soulless One, and I am running around with a million other Soulless Ones, it really takes away fromt he impact of that part of the story.

What do you guys think?

It doesn't bother me at all though I don't know why

Do you think it would have been weird playing online with a thousand Dragonborns?

It depends on how the story is told. In TOR the main quest is so deep and rich that it causes issues for me. However, I've played other games with a solid main quests like LotRO or GW2 where the story is vague enough that it does not take away from the social aspects of the game. Given that compared to Bioware Bethesda/ZOS is not known for that depth of storytelling I am hopeful that it will not be a roadblock.

Yes. But soulless ones had their soul taken by Molag bal so it makes since him taken everyone's soul. Or many souls.

Good points from both of you. Will this issue stop me from buying the game? No. But I'd be lying if I said it didn't take something away from the experience as being an Elder Scrolls game for me. A necessary evil, though, I suppose.

My [censored] isn't big enough to assume that a daedra would pop down and take just my soul and no one else's.

"Salvation cannot come from one hero alone, but from many."

This is the problem with everyone being the hero, or in this case the Souless One who will be the hero when he or she finds their soul again. This is why it would be far better if everyone is just an average person who can achieve greatness but not in the eyes of the games NPC's but instead in the eyes of their fellow players.

You become a great crafter and people know this and seek you out for your expertise in weapon crafting or armor crafting, etc

You become a great leader and strategist and are highly sought after to lead PvE raid groups

You become a great war leader and have many victories to your name and when push comes to shove your alliance wants you to lead them to take the throne in Cyrodiil.

That is what the game should be about, and all that crap about being the hero in the eyes of the NPC's in the game would pale in comparison to that. That is what is missing in MMO's and developers have completely lost sight of it.

I agree 100%

Personal story quests will be solo, so lorewise every other player is just a regular adventurer, you're the one and only soulless one.

Sure all those other players might do their soulless personal story quests as well, but you don't get to see them do it, and vice versa.

didnt this thread just die?

So, for a significant feature of the game you can't play with your friends or be social in an mmo? That sounds like a terrible idea. Also unlikely. I expect it to be more like the Old Republic, where by default, solo is the assumption, but you can be joined by others (even of the same class if you change the default settings, though obviously that doesn't apply here).

Does not really bother me, it's an mmo, and one of the draw backs is no one can be a special snow flake, I know where you are coming from but it just don't work in mmo's.

Would be nice if we could all have a story just for me and you and the next guy, but I don't know how they could program that..

“First, the main story about your soul being stolen by the Daedric Prince Molag Bal is 100% solo and instanced, so that you never see other players while doing it,”

-Matt Firor

All MMO's are like this really.

Everyone is THE hero.

What happens when you beat the main quest then

You're soulless, and I'm soulless

The Elder Scroll doesn't specify which Soulless One saves the world, only that one of the many soulless people saves all of Tamriel.

There's always ambiguity with heroes in TES. Whether you are the Nerevarine, the Champion of Cyrodiil, or Dragonborn, there is always vagueness in terms of actual details in regards to the hero. This will be no different in ESO, and really the main story is just a single player story for you, the player, to join. It's what you will experience alone through phasing to make you feel that much more special, while still remaining in a massively multiplayer environment.

If you really want to feel special though among your entire faction, just become the Emperor and you will be one of a kind.

The thing is though when MMO's first began they were not like that. Everyone was just an average person and to be somebody you had to achieve that. I am talking about games like Ultima Online, EverQuest, and the early MMO's and most likely 90% of the people on these forums have no idea just how great those game were compared to the simplistic drivel that MMO developers serve up in modern times.

No, not really. Some do it, unfortunately, but it is quite frankly a failure in story/quest design. There are a lot of ways to pull people into the plot and story without making it entirely personalized to a single person. The absurdity is the story doesn't have to be just about the 'Chosen One.' Given the circumstances (Imperial/daedric bargains, dark anchors and molag bal's minions basically grabbing people for their souls), it would easy to have mass abductions followed by a 'prisonbreak' from Coldharbor engineered by one of his rivals. But at that point the escapees know too much and... events follow.

Huh. Well, that is just silly. For an MMO, putting a spotlight on a single player experience is rather counter-intuitive. I even play MMOs solos for a large amount of the time, and I think this is fairly ridiculous. 'Sorry, friends, but I have to go get my Soulless One quest rewards. You stay here 'til I get back.'

The story d riven content is there to provide structure when you want to enjoy that type of content. old mmos used to just send us out farming mobs solo to grind xp while waiting for someone to adventure with to come along. remember the good old dqys when you put in 60+hrs for one lvl? now you get to do some personal quest line stuff.

The thing is though I can already do that in Skyrim and I will be able to do that in the next single player TES game, I don't think TESO needs to be like that at all...and if they design the game right there would be no need to grind mobs for EXP, instead give us interesting things to do with other players, like exploring the cold harbor story as a group all experiencing the storyline together as a heroic group experience instead of a "Skyrim" experience which I have already had and have....

You are not THE soulless one. You are A soulless one. That's how I parse it, anyways. There is not a professed chosen one, the interpretation is wrong. Instead, it will take armies of them to defeat Molag Bal. Chalk it up to transcription error.

My point is though that its a single player story in design and that is the mistake that was made in SWTOR and I think that is the mistake they are making in TESO....please notice that I said "I think" not that you think or anyone else thinks its wrong, I think its wrong and I say this from my experience of being in SWTOR beta from the beginning and realizing it was all wrong because no developer can possibly come out with enough new story content to keep the player interested long term if it is designed from a single player game design philosophy.