Let me start off by saying that I registered on these forums to specificially make this thread. I'm a huge Elder Scrolls fan, and a huge fan of MMORPG's.

This is not an Elder Scrolls MMO. This is a generic MMO with the lore and character names of the Elder Scrolls series. How can you take a universe and game series that is DESIGNED to made into a sandbox and completley go in the opposite direction? At what point in development did you think that it was a good idea to add classes, use this terrible engine, remove housing, and limit races to one of three factions? Let's take a look at the major features that have been leaked so far.

PVP:
The PvP system you've described is already being done in Guild Wars 2. It is also far more limited than what Guild Wars 2 offers. 100 vs 100 vs 100 is nothing special and has been done for years now. Hell, even Darkfall was able to hold more than that and they had a real time combat system, which you described as being 'too hard' to put into TESO. How is it that an indie developer with a much smaller budget is able to implement this? It's called lazy development. Finding the easy way out. Point being, the PvP system described thus far has been done before. There is nothing that sets it apart.

PVE:
Raiding and heroics? Really? I don't even have to describe this and tell you that this is has been going on in every MMO for nine years already. There is nothing that makes this stand out or even sound appealing to anyone who isn't new to MMO's. While not having a quest hub is a breath of fresh air, it still isn't as dynamic as the dynamic events that are implemented into Guild Wars 2. So again, what makes TESO stand out from the pack in this aspect? Nothing.

Combat:
Your reasoning for not having real-time combat was technical limitations and being too hard to implement. I can't even begin to tell you how disgusted that excuse made me as a fan. Darkfall and Mortal Online have implemented real-time combat with a MUCH lower budget than what you have. Again, it seems like you took the easy route during development and there's nothing in the combat that sets it apart from other MMO's. TERA online, Darkfall, Mortal Online, and Guild Wars 2 all have combat that is far superior than what is described so far.

What you need to do is sit down and actually think about what sets TESO apart from the rest of the MMO's. There is a MASSIVE niche waiting to be filled in the MMO market, and that is a AAA fantasy sandbox. We have EVE online for Sci-fi, but it seems like no one has taken the time to make one in the fantasy setting. When I first heard of the announcement, I thought of player made factions, housing, FFA PvP with a jail system, dark and gritty graphic style, skill based character progression system, non combat professions being as viable as combat professions, player run economy, full or partial looting when a player is killed in PVP which thrives a player economy.

What you have here is more of the same. Nothing that sets it apart. Kind of makes you scratch your head as to how anyone in development thought this was the path to go down.

TLDR;
http://i.imgur.com/gyLJa.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s
Vader beat you to it.

But I agree with your points. I'm upset they even decided to make this. Worse still they did nothing to try and make it like TES or add a special factor to make it fresh.

I don't understand this real time combat thing. When you press a hotkey, the character performs an attack. Is the enemy paused while you do this and then takes its turn? I thought that was turn based. Isn't the combat like WOW?

To answer your question, they pretty much did this (but with Elder Scrolls instead of COD):

HYPOTHETICAL PRESS RELEASE EXCERPT:

DOUBLE HELIX GAMES, makers of "Battleship: The Game" are currently developing a brand new MMO for Activision's acclaimed, signature first-person shooter franchise: "Call Of Duty."

Built upon the WORLDFORGE engine, COD: ONLINE, will feature a new and exciting third-person view from which to control your soldier! Pair that with the same MMORPG mechanics so many veterans are used to, with hotkey, timer-based combat, cooldowns, but in the fast-paced, hardcoe military environment of World War One and we can't lose! The story of CODO will be a pre-pre-prequel to the Call of Duty single-player games, that sees many familiar faces on dead old French people from the first COD WW2 game, as actual main characters that you and thousands of others will control across the theaters of WW1. Why not the core FPS combat of previous COD games? Well because in an MMO that would be technically IMPOSSIBLE! (Don't google "Planetside" please).

From the Sommes to Gallipoli, you will march across decimated wastelands and war-torn landscapes to finally fire one round from your bolt-action rifle and be immediately cut down by incessant, AI driven machine-gun fire that will guarantee a historically accurate outcome to the war. Keep in mind though, the rock-paper-scissors of hotkey-based 3rd-person combat! If your opponent uses his "Mustard Gas" AOE DOT then you counter with your "Gas Mask" Interrupt and press the number 2 to fire your gun at him. svck at aiming? Don't worry, all you have to do is tab target your enemy and you will hit him in the face every time. Battles will be staggeringly huge, sometimes up to 100v100 in the same battlefield! Did we say battlefield? We meant Call-of-Duty.

Also, we've decided to approach the art-style with a more cartoony feel to it. Considering the success of games like "Team Fortress 2" we've decided to basically copy that. It'll be great, you'll love it. You have to! It has "Call of Duty" written on it! You don't want people to think you don't LOVE Call-of-Duty do you? Think of how bullied you'd get in school, and that cute girl in class would never look your way again without a lifetime subscription to CODO! Since we also own Blizzard, we'll also be able to do some cross-promotion with you WoW veterans, who will feel right at home in the trenches of WW1 since all the battlefields are basically re-skins of Arathi Basin. You can even earn some new unique gear in CODO that will give your WoW character some new looks like, a German WW1 helmet with that cool spike on the top! Imagine your level 85 Goblin wearing one of those! Badass!

Last thing, the shareholders at Activision have said that if this doesn't blow away WoW's lifetime sales in the first week and score at least 103 on Metacritic, they will close the book on all future COD projects, regardless of genre or developer. It's only fair, since we've invested more money and manpower and time into this game than any other COD before. So if you want COD to continue, you will buy this game and subscribe to it. Forever.

Love, your "bestest pal ever^tm,"
Robert "Bobby" Nicholson J. "I was in Moneyball with Brad Pitt" Kotick



I'll explain: Real-time combat is where you control the actions, timer-based combat is where you direct the actions. Timer-based allows you to queue up multiple actions one after another and then the character you're playing performs the actions in the order received. So in that scenario, your character is not reacting in real-time to your actions, they are waiting for the first action's timer to finish before moving on to the second. In real-time combat, you can't queue anything per se so you have to time your attacks, blocks, parries and other movements properly or risk being put at a disadvantage. It is much more based on reflexes and tactical, on-the-fly adaptation. In WoW and most other MMOs you have a "rotation" so much so that you can create a macro for it. In Real-time melee combat you could never have a single macro or rotation to any given situation because the actions occur in real time.

Yes ^
I saw your thread was brilliant. Please keep using that as the ulimate example

Unfrotuatly that example is flawed on so many levels that aynone who takes even a mintue to expamine it can see why it is such a poor example.

Did you read the same article that I did? It almost felt like I was reading an identical GW2 article, plus blocking and sprinting....

I'm not being a really devoted fan, I don't like this game's direction one bit, but can we also stop the blind hatred and being factually wrong?


To be fair GW2 pvp is heavily influenced by DAOC, guess who is creating this game?

Please proceed and tell me why satire is flawed, in your opinion

pointless spam removed.

Well, for one, CoD is horrible and anything would be superior in its place

DAMN! FOILED AGAIN!

But seriously, the intention was to give the same effect to actual fans of COD as was the details of ESO to so many fans of TES.

Who, exactly, does the OP think these "You" / "They" are?

Thanks for the explanation, now I get it

Arenanet actually has more people from DAoC on their development team than Zenimax.



Clearly I'm talking to the development team. I thought this was implied?

You can go further too: Timer-based combat also relies heavily on dice rolls, for dodge, block, parry and other such things, where as real-time combat relies much less on chance and more on the player's direct actions. That's why Morrowind is a Hybrid system. It is direct-action combat but with the hit detection handled by a dice roll, not by physics and ray-tracing. Morrowind is definitely an interesting anomaly design-wise.


Wow I'm really ruffling some feathers today, huh? Touchy, touchy. Still, it's quoted so anyone can still read it. It was less spam and actually a request for elaboration.

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They're taking this stale series in a much needed new direction.

Fantasy mmos are as stale as its possible for a game to get.

Ha that's like saying: You know what we should do for the next Mount and Blade? Do it in WW2! That's new and interesting!

NO.

+1


+1

Yup, exactly. I mean Todd Howard compared Skyrim with Bioshock. Jesus...

I love TES because is my single experience (as with any other player in their consoles o r pc's) why are you doing this??? why??, MMO is in a stall, they can't inmersive like TES series until now, so again my question.. why are you doing this

Yeah, we′ll see about that......

To me this "new direction" seems to be same ol road mainstream MMORPG′s are treading up and down for about a decade now.

When I first read about about TES going MMO I was somewhat expecting to read about how we are going to see all that that makes the TES series what it is (in no small part its gameplay) in an MMO environment. When I read about hotbar combat and whatnot I was like "What ?!, u serious?"

Granted hotbar may mean many things (except ofc the type of combat where used to in TES), I mean AOC has a hotbar, TERA has one, GW2 has one, and their combat systems are different from a standard MMO. Has there been any heads up on that one?

And what′s definetly disappointing is the comic look. Get rid of it srsly. Probably aiming for teen ratings again.....

I′m sorry what? Better leave the series where they are than bring it to a new "direction" that ends in a cesspit full of crap.

MMO is not entirely a bad thing...yes technically MMOs are bad games... they are grindy, repetitive, stagnant and their only purpose is to milk as much money as possible. But sometimes some of them take a much needed new route and innovate...some are actually good games.

TES fanbase doesnt necessarily hate it because its a MMO, they hate it because its YET another bland fantasy MMORPG without innovation and, worse of all, it doesnt feel like TES...the features that we love about TES are not present in here.

If they bothered to innovate I would say that this was good...the reception would be way better...maybe 1st person view, real-time action combat and the most important, a huge beautiful world filled with wonderful stuff to explore, with lots of stuff to interact and total freedom to the player to do whatever they want...
Instead we get 3rd person, hotkey combat and a bland art style and weak graphic fidelity...and the world has already boundaries...chunks of provinces will be inacessible for future content...Skyrim is fully acessible, except the College of Winterhold for future expansion/patch.

And sooo many people saying that it doesnt need to be like TES...its a MMO and needs to be like a MMO and cater to that genre so the criticism is dumb...what the hell?? Thats one of the stupidiest things i′ve heard around these forums.
.
"Its an Elder Scrolls title but meh...doesnt need to feel/be like an Elder Scrolls game at all".

And worst of all is that its the same damn genre of game...just with multiplayer added...the TES series and TES:O are both RPGs so the transition shouldnt be that hard but yet they managed to screw it...If they were diferent genres it would be expected to happen, like WoW...Warcraft was a RTS series and they went to RPG with WoW, so similarities are slim (disregarding setting and lore) but in this case that shouldnt have happened and the criticism is valid because its the same bloody genre.

Technical issues are not a valid excuse...many MMOs pulled action based combat and some even have 1st person view...I even remember some MMOs being more sandbox/exploration oriented so if they didnt put the stuff that TES is known for its just from pure lazyness...it could perfectly be like TES.
And even from a MMO standpoint this game is not well received...its just more of the same...no innovation just a bland fantasy game that doesnt even try...just like 84283747 other MMOs.

This saddens me as both a TES player and a MMO player (3 years of WoW and looking for another MMO atm): first because its nothing like TES and second because its yet another money-svcking leech MMO that doesnt even try to add something new to the genre.

I was looking forward for this game but not anymore.

Updated the OP for a summary.