I'm confused. This is a TES game, but the gameplay isn't like a TES game? I don't see why the current gameplay mechanics couldn't work in MMO form, I mean, Fallen Earth (though not successful for other reasons.) uses it fairly successfully with 1/100th of the resources Bethesda has at it's disposal.

Not only am I now concerned that this game will be as buggy/glitchy/exploit filled as thier single player releases, but now I don't even get the sandbox FPS combat that I've come to expect from playing basically EVERY TES game (from Arena on)? I think I'll echo sentiments I'm sure expressed elsewhere here, and pass on this one and hope to god that it doesn't mean an end to the single player TES games that actually have the gameplay I've come to expect and enjoy instead of yet another hotbar game with low skill (probably theme park as opposed to sandbox as well).

I went from extremely excited when I saw the teaser, to now extremely sad when I found out the mechanics, too bad it's so late in development, and they can't change it at this point. Such a waste of development resources, money, and time, I'll wager the single player games will end up being more open and sandbox than the MMO, *SIGH*

Yeah it's all about the mechanics. Shame considering they have had 5 years to make something closer to the single player experience.

Please don't start another thread just to voice your opinion. There are already hundreds of threads this post would apply to.

From all the screenshots I've seen, there was not one open vista the size of Skyrim's.

Ditto. I move, once again, to make the search function multicolored and flashing to grab attention of new members.

And remember that Redguard and Battlespire, the two other large spinoff prequels (ignoring Travels ATM) had significantly different gameplay and style from the main chapters, so why not this spinoff prequel?

Cuz it r WoW clone!1!one

And like Redguard and Battlespire we can forget they ever existed

Seems foolish to ignore an entire part of the series' history because you didn't like it, but that's just me.

How successful exactly were those game? Compared to the mainline TES ones? Oh yeah, that's right... I don't see why almost all their games have this gameplay now, including Fallout and the upcoming Dishonored. I think it's a gross mistep to make an MMO, and make the mechanics less interesting than the single player, and also less open. I don't expect to be able to grab and move and pick up everything like I can in single player games (would be a real challenge in an MMO with many people) but at least the basic combat should stay familiar instead of trying to non-innovate and be just like the crowd.

Still it's going in the 'forget it ever happened' corner of my mind

Other than supposedly the lesson learned, even Bethesda themselves would like to forget about those games. Seems perhaps the lesson was not learned though.

Todd Howard, re: Battlespire and Redguard: "Oh, sure. Over my 13 years here, that's a long time, you're going to have bumps. The years immediately following Daggerfall were probably the worst. We made some bad decisions and some bad games."

The combat from the SP games would alienate anyone with a less than stellar connection, or rig. You'd be teleporting across their screen, and they'd have no chance to track you and make their hits connect. The whole point of an MMO is to get as many people in as possible.

DF, MO, have done it, and it works. Sure, it's even fun to play. Doesn't change the fact that it's not the smartest move a company could make.

TESO looks amazing! Can't wait!

And with the massive amount of screenshots out, I'm sure we've seen every possible angle and world vista they may have, right?

Quite obvious then that's not what they wanted, right?

I'm very sick of hearing this fallacious argument. A game revolving around combat does *NOT* need to be equally accessible to paraplegics and people on 1995 Packard Bells to be successful. The Call of Duty franchise sells way more than any derivative hotkey based MMO ever dreamed of.

But it's what their legion of fans mostly wanted, which do you think is more important at the end of the day re: sales numbers and fan retention?

I'm really concerned that people will try this game out, hate it becaue it's not what they want (especially if it's as bug/exploit/glitch filled as their SP games), and then swear off Bethesda games in general, which will result in their amazing single player games (bugs aside) not being made, or made as often or as well. They are taking a huge risk here, so I understand wanting to mitigate that risk by making the game like the rest of MMO's, but I just don't see how they will compete on name alone, without innovative mechanics to draw players away from other games, and appeal to their current fans of their Fallout/TES games.

My favorite part is when you put words in my mouth. That was really good.


Please, point out where I said, or alluded to, the only where a combat driven MMO could be profitable was to do that? No where. What I did say, however, is that from their standpoint, it makes more sense to make the game accessible to a wider audience. More people = more money.

Also, Call of Duty has, what, eight people on each team? We're talking 100v100 in PvP. Just a little bit more of a strain on your system.

"The combat from the SP games would alienate anyone with a less than stellar connection, or rig. You'd be teleporting across their screen, and they'd have no chance to track you and make their hits connect. The whole point of an MMO is to get as many people in as possible."

The only way to succeed today is to think different, the market for derivative MMO's is completely saturated. Another "accessible" MMO is doomed to flop. Even with EA and the Star Wars brand behind it.

Well, what the fans want isn't necessarily what the shareholders want.
You're probably right, the TES label alone will not make this game. It has been announced 72 hours or so ago? Despite the Gameinformer article, we haven't really seen anything yet. I imagine we'll get to see and hear first actual reports at E3.

His point was that CoD and the TES games do not have weak minimal requirements by themselves, yet sell tons of games. Why do you need the MMO to run on a Trash-80 (props to any that get the reference ) in order to be successful.

This also depends on if the hotkey combat is still aiming based, or if it's auto-targetted like WoW. Blade and Soul and Tera Online both are hotkey based, yet have aiming systems for combat to a degree. If they go that route, great, but if it's theme park at all, and slow hotkey auto-targetted combat, then it's not an Elder Scrolls game, it's just taking up space when they could have made a real good single player one instead.

My greatest concern is the same as when an IP I love gets a crappy movie: It means that IP won't have a chance at a GOOD movie again for quite a while. My fear is that if this game is a hotkey auto-targetted theme park, it will prevent them from making a single player game in the TES universe for a decade.

Well yeah, however I think a lot of people would have liked to see something a bit more in keeping with the single player. Now i'm not saying copy single player to multiplayer format but add enough things to make it recognisable as a TES game. We've not seem much yet so maybe I'll be proven wrong by the gameplay footage, I would welcome that.

Again, point out where I said, or alluded to, that the only way to be profitable was to make it accessible.

I readily brought up how past games have done it, and done it well. My point was that they alienated a few potential subscribers in doing so, and therefore, it isn't exactly a shock that investors who don't know a lot about the medium look at that, and decide not to do it. It's basically turning away money - at least that's how it seems on paper.

Also, believe it or not, SW:TOR is doing just fine. Last I heard, it was stagnating at over a million paying customers. $15 x 1,000,000 is quite a lot of money.

Well techniqually it is. If anything the shareholders care more about what the fans want than what the dev's want to make. The dev's spend their money, the fans give it to them. If the fans don't like it, they won't buy it, thus they won't profit. So yeah, making a game that the fans want is FAR more important to the shareholders.

And yeah, as stated above, even the Star Wars and Bioware labels haven't taken SWTOR to the next level, and it might end up flopping at the rate it's going, not to mention the damage (along with the ME3 ending fail) it has done to the brand of Bioware and thus it's future purchasers. To assume the TES and Bethesda names will carry the game alone without a truely innovate game design is foolhardy.


I really do hope they release information soon, and find out the combat is more akin to Tera or at least Blade and Soul as opposed to WoW, and that the world will be open ala SW:G or Fallen Earth as opposed to theme park again like WoW. But based on what I've seen so far, that seems like a wishful dream, that will turn out to be a nightmare as it will prevent any more quality TES single player games from being made.

Well that svcks, because it's exactly what we wanted.

Try again next time.