I honestly don't think anybody wants to see this game fail, or at least didn't until they learned too much of the details.

The "leak" was lacking so much advertising that I found it hard to believe it was authentic, until it was confirmed to be.


I suspect that somebody in the development process, or maybe just a journalist, wanted to share his/her concerns in order to affect development.

Given that this game has been so secretive, it really does not come as a surprise that it was been under lock and key to prevent further damage to the games rep.


The outcry has been pretty much consistent with what anybody would have expected, especially at Bethesda (the publisher, not the developer, although in a sense much more influential).

Maybe the leak is a sort of exhortation: Maybe they are trying to prod the developers (ZO) to get something done, or make sure their product is more polished than its current state.




Bethesda is not clueless. They know who and what they will be competing with.

The competition is staggering with known quantities like GW2 and TERA and downright frightening with possibilities like ArcheAge, TSW (to a lesser degree) etc.


Furthermore it's so far down the development phase that whatever has to be done to change the mechanics has to be done now, or will never make it into release.

The release makes, or breaks the success of an MMORPG.




While this might have seemed pointless, let me ask you the following question to stimulate discussion: What could they do at this point?

What feature not mentioned in the "leak" (no, dear mods, this is not illegal, since by definition it is NOT in the leak and the set of things not in the leak is VERY LARGE) could be added to make this game appealing to you and other disgruntled TES fans who wanted the TES gameplay experience rather than anticipated EQ one?

If you are happy with playing something derived from EQ, then good for you, but most of us aren't, because we've been at it for a while now and need fresh blood.

Bethesda isnt making the game........

but anyways, I don't think most people will be happy until the make it first person, despite all the other games that did it failing and having poor gameplay.

Considering I have very little information I can't really say but I like things to do in my spare time. I usually craft but some many games that are enjoyable would be a nice way to spend downtime in between quests

Where did I state that Bethesda was? I said they are going to publish it, not develop it.

You said

"Bethesda is not clueless. They know who and what they will be competing with."

Which implies there are in some sort of place to affect the gameplay of TES Online, or are directing Zenimax Online on what to do to make it stand out against the competition, which they aren't.

Really, all that is needed is first (and third)-person real-time gameplay. That right there would have stopped a majority of the whining. At least it would have two of the more important core TES gameplay elements.

Because being able to block, in a non-diceroll way, and sprinting, are not "real-time" gameplay elements?

You really think that publishers don't have any say? They determine release schedules; the how and when of the revenue. They have a stake in it as much as the developer, if not more, since their reputation is in the mix as well.

Yeah, people would have stopped whining about that but you know what. They would have found something else to whine about. c'est la vie

Pretty sure Bethesda is a subsidiary of zenimax, and Zenimax Online is a seperate subsidiary of Zenimax, but are not underneath Bethesda.

Bethesda Softworks =/= Bethesda Game Studios

BGS the people who make the ES SP games's reputation isn't at stake, since they aren't doing anything with the game.

furthermore Bethesda Softworks, and Zenimax already have the game covered, if it fails it isnt going to ruin them.

The publisher does nothing with the game? Are you serious?

Why would they want it to fail? They don't want it to fail. It's not critical to their existence, but having it fail only hurts the company and by extension themselves. No publisher wants a failed product on their hands.

Did I ever say that? no I didnt.

Also if they thought the game was going to fail they wouldn't have kept it under wraps for 5 of the 6 years they are making it, It's too late to go back and redo the gameplay in any meaningful way

Not really sure I understand what "leak" you're referring to, as the GI cover wasn't "leaked", it was revealed.

If you want to use that as your basis, you're welcome to.

I was refering to the whole of the gameplay being real-time. Just two elements of the gameplay being real-time does not make the whole of the gameplay real-time..

Not even Skyrim's gameplay was fully real time.

Also we have no knowledge on how attacking works in the game.

It's unclear whether they meant the standard concurrency issues faced in every other MMO like WoW where two players might concomitantly press a button, while they are actually both queued up and one precedes the other, or .. if it's somewhat turn-based.

Given the comparisons that were made, I think that it's fair to assume the former.

That's not feasible in an MMO. At least not in a way that leaves either one satisfactorily done. How would you balance PvP with both of those in mind? You would have to construct two entirely different ways of doing something just to accomplish the same thing. I prefer 3rd person in this case. Because until something is truly 1st person it is just a limiter. FPV always looks off because there is no such thing as peripherals. There is no focus effect. There is just a flat painting look.

They would also need to severely bump up the res of the textures if they did everything in 1st person. 3rd person was the right decision by Zeni IMO. Unless they could do something with FP like what I hear Darkfall is like(my brother plays it religiously) with a 3rd person merely as a vanity camera then I am glad it is 3rd person.

There are a number of people who cannot even play 1st person games because they get dizzy. No ones going to get dizzy often because of a 3rd person view. I am kind of shocked at how shortsighted some people are about this. Why would you expect the gameplay of an arguably simpler single player game in a more complex one like an MMO that has to worry about blance and thousands upon thousands of players stomping around at the same time in the same game? That is much more difficult to pull off satisfactorily.

Honestly, I want an MMO in the mold of the original vision that was Star Wars Galaxies, and I feel like Elder Scrolls would have been the perfect IP to do that with - especially after Skyrim added their perk trees which was pretty damned close to SWG's original skill trees.

This ^

I really can't get excited about a TES game without these elements. From all we've read, TES online will be another WoW clone, with all the lock-on, click-and-wait, hotbar boredom that implies.

I want to get excited about it, as I've played everything since Daggerfall, but with that as the combat, I just can't. I for one wouldn't be complaining about anything else if the game had those elements.

because the real time blocking, and sprinting, which very likely could be used to actively dodge is the same "click and wait combat" that WoW uses?

Choice. Both first and third-person have their advantages, even in single player games. If a situation call for it, a seemingly competent gamer would switch views.

Wandering around town? Use first person. Get into a brawl with an NPC/mob outside the city gates? Use first person. Get into a PVP senario? Use third person.

All I want is to choose. If I want to limit my view for whatever reason by picking first person, why should I not be able to? Why take away choice? Because gamers are too incompetent to choose between two options that have different pros/cons depending on situations?

Because sometimes game design requires the limitation of choice.

Even the most sandboxy sandbox game, like minecraft and garry's mod, has some limits

Actually, in a sense it is. WoW doesn't have "click and wait combat" either. The intervals are generally very small, latency dependent and in the neighborhood of hundreds of milliseconds assuming you have a great connection and the server isn't overloaded etc.

WoW is renowned for its smooth combat, which is definitely twitch reliant as you get into the competitive scene. Timing is crucial in WoW, AoC, etc.

I would argue that it is definitely part of WoWs success and SWToRs failure (in the sense that SWToR couldn't get everything of WoWs down correctly).