DAO's closer to WoW than it is Baldur's Gate, honestly.

This is a WoW clone, pure and simple. You level up, you go to dungeons and get equipment. You can't talk to the people who you pvp against, and you can't pvp against people on your faction. The only carrot that keeps you logging in once you hit that level cap is getting new gear. Every season, they'll give you a new set of gear to grind for, maybe do some lore magic so they can open up a new dungeon. That is the WoW paradigm. Whether or not WoW created it is irrelevant - WoW made it successful, and that is what "WoW clones" are trying to mimick.

There are only 2 old-school MMORPGs that are still around and still subscription based: WoW and Eve Online - which, coincidentally, just turned 9 years old, and has as many subs now as it did back then. Eve Online is still around because it fills a niche that nothing else does. WoW is still around because the dozens of games that tried to mimick it fell short. DDO, EQ2, LotRO, Aeon, and many others - all decided to compete with WoW rather than create something truly new, and all fell short.

For any game to be a success in this post-WoW world, it has to either fill a niche that WoW does not, or it has to do what WoW does, but better. I prefer the former, as I am not interested in eating a WoW sandwich on white bread, hold the everything. I don't want my reason to log on being a shiny new bracelet and I will not be buying this game if it goes down that route. This is from someone who has had 2 Eve accounts active for a total of over a decade's worth of subscription fees - you can have a game that will have a loyal subscription base of 40k-50k people who will sub to your game until the servers go dark, or you will have a game where 1 million people sub for a few months and then trundle off when the next shiny game opens up.

What I would like to see is a game focused on commerce and PvP. Contestable, conquerable lands and harvesting nodes (mines, etc). Equipment loss upon death, half of it destroyed and half of it left on your corpse, forcing you to replace player-crafted gear with more player-crafted gear, allowing for an extensive crafting and player-based economy. Nothing seeded that isn't absolutely necessary to be seeded. I want to see trading as much a viable profession as killing. Player-created content - forts, towers, equipment, etc. I want my reason to log on to be defending my clan's territory from invaders, or attacking someone else's territory.

This.

I totally agree with everything you said, and it's what I've been thinking a long time.

Okay. I don't care that WoW wasn't the first hotkey game. I could compare TES Online to other, older hotkey games that nobody but you remembers, or I could compare it to something where people actually know what the hell I'm going on about.

And you'd have to be an idiot not to notice the MMO influences in DA:O. Hotkeys, skills cooldowns, etc etc. Yes, I said WoW before. So what? Because I didn't acknowledge that WoW wasn't the first to do it, I'm automatically wrong?

I love how everyone is jumping to conclusions so early. The game was just revealed. This is like whenever a new MMO is announced and everyone gets so hyped and claims the game is a WoW Killer only to flop upon launch and get a few hundred thousand box sales and go F2P months later. Developers lie too much about their games before launch. Be happy TESO is being undersold.

Would you prefer us to jump up and down and call it a WoW killer? We're Elder Scrolls fans, and we're passionate.

Many of us have also seen a great many MMOs in our time turn out to be just more of the same, and we don't want a franchise we adore to end up like that.

Let's face it, we're scared.

This can't be quoted enough times.

He's not the only one thinking that way. The idiocy in creating ever more MMO's based on the concept of a point and click skillbar theme-park with some PvP is that

• For most people that like such games WoW is more than enough
  
• you just compete with ever more competitors about the same target audience
  
• you miss all those people that are desperatly waiting for something else.

I mean is it realy that hard to believe that more people do not like and play games like WoW than the X million that do so?

No, I said don't do it to either side of the fence. Stop getting overly-optimistic or pessimistic. It serves no purpose until further information comes out. That is what I have been saying in every thread and every post. It makes no sense to get worked up over a few screenshots after the first reveal.

I agree with this to a certain extent. I agree that it's overkill when people say 'ARGHH WORST GAME EVER' based on two screenshots and a "trailer" (which wasn't much of a trailer). For all we know, this could be an excellent MMO.
But at the same time, we have a right to post our opinions. Preferably with reasons as to why people have their opinions and providing constructive criticism, rather than just plain old 'I don't like the screenshots'. But we should post our opinions - that's what this forum is for, after all

mike34ism is spot on and what you said about the point and click is also my main worry I been wating for years to play TES the way TES is online but now I cry beating my fists with anger and pitty for such a wasted opportunity

Anyone with an ounce of knowledge about these matters knows that there is no lack of vision going on in any of these studios. The fact of the matter is the more money and risk there is attached to a project the less the moneylenders want to see innovation.

So try something radically new and then suddenly your money disappears and you cant pay your employees, the cost of the premises your company owns, the electricity to run computers, the server farms to host your data, etc etc.

The people with money flat out do not care if a few thousand people on a forum throw a fit over the combat. All they want is a return on their investment, now 90% WoW clone MMOs might die out in the long run when held up against WoW and the like, but they almost always make a return on the investment that publishers put in.

Furthermore for all this wailing of the end times and sacrilege, I know and they know, and you know you'll probably sink at least the box cost or one month sub / whatever small amount in to the game to try it out.

PS: I hate the Art, I'm heavily reserved over the combat, and I am just generally put off by the idea of an Elder Scrolls MMO, so I agree that it looks pretty bad, but I can't abide people suggesting that this is because of the creative minds behind the game being drooling monkeys.

Simple calculation: I make double programming business software of what I'd make programming games, with half the stress and almost no overtime.

So I program and mod games in my free time for a bunch of friends and hang out at http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/ to give advice to those less jaded who are still trying.

Just watch Wasteland 2. Now that's a real old school project that deserves respect. They raised a million bucks through Kickstarter in two days, and three mill in two weeks. A small creative team will always make better games than all these big moneywh0re corporations which want a piece of the WoW cake.

Indeed. Im surprised Beth/Zeni didnt go for Meridian 59 type format. It is much closer to the traditional TES experience than making another ortodox MMO.

Its not a dark gritty full loot open world pvp/pve game everyone would expect from an TES mmorpg, but it could be a great EQ/DAOC style RVR/PvE mmorpg set in TES world with TES lore/gamestyle and rules/laws and thats just fine too.


Be excited for what it could be, not disappointed in what it isn't.

Indeed, I expect good PvP like that of DAoC/GW1. But not much else.

...iv only seen a screen shot and a vid, i dont get how everyone seems to know it is a WoW clone (can you guys point me to the site you're getting the news from, please?). so far it seems like a good game, i just hope it doesnt butcher the lore (if i dont see sarpa and if i cant fight/see the whet-fang i will be a sad panda) and maybe have it player driven (player-based everything, players run the economy, the politics and mabye, to an extent, the environment) to make one of the best mmos of late

never mind, got an update on it, seems it will only be decent for the release, heres hoping they make it better in the future. (but i am still looking forward to it)

If only I wouldn't feel like there are already thousands of those "EQ/DAOC style RvR/PvE MMORPG"'s, while I haven't seen a dark gritty full loot open world pvp/pve game that actually delivered and did not fail due to underfunding and early release in almost a decade. A TES MMO kind of was my last straw to see it happening.

To comment on those "if you think you can do better go to kickstarter" statements: Independently creating single player games is piece of cake stuff in comparison to making multiplayer games or MMOs. You won't see a MMO developed from ground up funded by kickstarter. The amount of money needed will be difficult to get if you tell players: we ill make it but it will take prospectively 3 to 5 years until you are even able to enter a beta.

Point of the matter is, they could have kept the same mechanics, ie, the combat system.

I play World of Warcraft. In my opinion, its a great game.

But the said "Like WoW combat system" which means, 1,2,3,4,5, drag n drop skills into the box. No, just...No, it shouldn't happen.

• Keep the same mechanics you have now, which is use your mouse for basic Left/Right attack. Assign 1-9 for keybinds on switching weapons, armor, poisons, potions etc.

• They should keep the statistics from Oblivion, and the Skill Chart from Skyrim. That way when you level up, you have stats to improve, and a skill to put into.