We can easily say the same thing for every single player or multiplayer game genre.


The Elder Scrolls: Online kind of disagrees with you.

as a veteran gamer I have come to a realization that games CAN NEVER be exactly like want them to be, the right mind set is to expect nothing and play the game as is...

if you had a blast then great, you can even tell the developer that some stuff need adding/removing/improving ...etc

if you found the game boring then that's life... and as the saying goes, you can't please the people of Athena and Sparta at the same time.

for me I found assassin creed boring after a few hours, and prototype HORRIBLE, and crysis 2 lame.... its just a matter of taste in the end (unless the game is a total train wreck)

I could call Twilight a "decent book", that doesn't make it one.
When TESO is going against the major principals of The Elder Scrolls series, in my not-so-humble opinion, that makes it not an Elder Scrolls Game.

I'm sorry, what?

I can't hear you over the fact that Mario Kart 64, Mario Party, Mario Tennis, Super Mario RPG, Paper Mario, Dr. Mario, Mario Super Strikers and Mario Paint are all not platform games and share very few "major principles" with Super Mario Bros. but they are all still very much part of the Mario franchise.

I also can't seem to hear you over the fact that World of Warcraft also seems to not be a RTS game, yet still somehow is part of the Warcraft lore. It's quite strange.

Oh, wait... wait, also Final Fantasy branching out into say... Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy X-2, Chocobo Dungeon, etc, etc seems to be making it hard to hear you.

Oh.. what's that you say? Sorry, Pokemon is shouting at me, something about Pokemon Dungeon and Pokemon Snap.

Oh... yeah, I hear you, yeah I'll tell them.

The entire Star Wars franchise of video games would like to say hello. Seems all they do is share lore also, since I'm fairly certain Episode I: Pod Racer and Knights of the Old Republic II aren't the same genre.

Lmao

Mario, that franchise that's been milked even more than CoD, lovely model for the Elder Scrolls to follow! We could have an Elder Scrolls mud-crab racing game! Woooo!

There's a stark difference from transitioning from an RTS to MMO, than from going to an RPG to an MMO. Lets look at Final Fantasy, shall we? Lets look at, for example; FFXIV,
-Same art style as the main series
-Combat is very similar, not a carbon copy, but similar.
-Lots of "core" FF features are included.
Yes, there are differences, but at the end, you could still stand back and say "This game feels like Final Fantasy", you could not say so for TESO.

Now, lets look at The Elder Scrolls Online
-Drastic change in Art Style
-Completely different core game-play. (Emphasis has shifted very far from being who you want to be)
- Many "core" features are missing. (Open exploration, skill-based progression, etc...)

We don't have to think of one, it's already been done. Look up Darkfall, Mortal Online and Meridian 59. Those are totally different forumlas all with first-person real-time combat as well as skill-based level-less progression systems and amazing detailed open worlds.

Also, zooming the camera into your character's head and having an actual first-person view are two different things. WoW has a zoom-into-head feature but isn't first-person. Skyrim is first-person (with third person option). Do some research and notice the difference.

Final Fantasy XI, which is a spin-off in itself but still holds to the main numbered series (hence the XI) would like to easily disagree with you.

Ahem:

Doesn't share the art style of Final Fantasy the modern FF games prior to its release other than being more "realistic" in appearance thanks to improving technology. By the way, Final Fantasy IX does not share the art style. Final Fantasy XI also draws more mechanics from Final Fantasy Tactics than it does from the main numbered series, which it is a part of, and does not play like the single player series.

And yes, I can easily say TESO feels like TES. Why? Because, quite frankly, I can make the recognition that since TESO is a spin-off (do you notice the lack of a roman numeral in the title: The Elder Scrolls: Online), gameplay changes are to be expected but the lore is what keeps it part of the franchise.

And :lamo: at throwing the "Mario is milked" in there.

You havnet even seen any gameplay; and the screen shots are very early and not many.

You're mistaking the minority as the majority

ESO will very likely be successful even though your narrow one sided view wants/expects them to fail


ES: Redguard was unlike any TES game, and it wasnt too bad. So far we have seen very little and are in no place to say that they'll fail.

I understand that, and have thus withheld the full wrath of my might nerdrage for the time being. I warn you though...depending on how E3 goes...my (nerd)rage shall burn with the fury of 10,000 suns, I shall bring it down upon the forums like a hammer of holy fury, weep, oh ye DAoC clones of the Earth, weep!

Why not?

How do we know it is not viable considering ever since WoW, nobody has bothered to try revisiting the sandbox side of the MMO equation which Ultima Online did well enough with to still be profotable today.

Star Wars Galaxies pretended to try, but SOE was so constrained by LucasArts that they could not add one single thing to the game without permission. And it was LucasArts who directed SOE to develop the NGE, though it was SOE who decided on the form it was to take. We all know what happened there. SWG did not fail because it was a sandbox game. It failed because LucasArts tied SOE's hands and refused to let them develop anything that would have helped it stay strong.

EvE Online is not a sandbox... It's a freaking meat grinder. Unless you are extreme hardcoe and cut-throat, you're not going to stand a chance in serious competition. If i ever play that game with any serious amount of devoted time, I'll keep my operation small and dedicated to servicing lowbies as they rise.

I long for a new sandbox MMO that gives me the same freedom to be as heroic or common as I could be in UO. Of course it won't be TESO. No developer has the balls to even try to do it.

The greater the risk, the greater the reward. When UO was developed it was a huge risk. No game had ever been developed like that before. But they risked anyway, and it still is alive and well today. They invented a new genre, and since then the corporate suits calling the shots have managed to stagnate it.

I'm hoping that Elder Scrolls Online, Guild Wars 2, and The Secret World will each do things to redefine the perceptions of what can and cannot be done with an MMO.

Games like Ultima Online, operating on servers that by today's industry standards were extremely limited, offered players more freedom than games on cutting edge servers offer. It's STUPID, I wish someone would come along, put all this technology to use and really show the workd what an MMO can be. Of course, that won't really help considering how much hand-holding exists in most post-WoW MMOs. It's created a generation of gamers who will pitch a temper tantrum if they encountered a game that they actually have to get involved with and use their brains. I blame the quest guide and quest tracker that puts a nice big arrow on the minimap leading the player right to whatever their objective is. If I were designing an MMO, that "feature" would get the axe. "Head north of town until you come to the huge oak tree with the corpses hanging from its limbs, then head due east," should be enough direction. And you know? If we relied on directions like that, we'd actually notice more of the world we're playing in, rather than just heading on a straight line across an open field and not even pay attention to what is around us.

I'm sorry... I really didn't want to turn this thread into a rant. But it annoys me when someone just arbitrarilly claims that this or that just isn't viable, when there have been no serious attempts to even explore the possibilities. And here's the kicker. A Sandbox gameworld does not rule out the existance of themepark elements. Let me be who I want to be, doing what I want to be, but if I come across a fortress or whatever and decide to check it out, I would be thrilled to find myself caught up in a storyline that leads me to use skills and abilities I gained through sandbox play to solve themepark problems...

like others said they arent tired of the same old MMO thing the bottom line is you got two camps here:

1)The Daoc fans who have been looking for a new home since EA bought Mythic

2)The TES fans who have been waiting for years for a real TES online mmo to come out

unfortunately this game is designed for group 1 with the name of group 2 I personally beling to group 2 and have no desire to play group 1

It is not too hard to see either. The strongest point of the elder scroll series is the open world sandbox style of game, without that the game will fail.

Not played DAoC at all, barely even heard of it. Yet still interested in seeing how TESO goes.

What camp does that put me in exactly?

TESO will do fine. And I'm a fan of TES.

What's worse is, because they had to go off and make this game, there will not be an actual Elder Scrolls MMO. Who would want to invest in an Elder Scrolls MMO when one is already running? Or who would want to invest in one when the last one failed?

My thread got locked so i'll post here since it looks this is the official thread. I really can't believe that this game will be another wow clone and it is said on the most game informer magazine page 39. What makes zenimax believe that this game can be successful being a wow clone?. What makes the elder scrolls games so great is the open world sandbox style of game. Haven't development companies learned from the failures of other mmo's that have tried to clone wow?. Look how Star Wars the old republic failed so "heroically" in less than six months. I can understand Bioware going on the wow clone model because all Bioware games are theme park rps. The Elder scrolls on the other hand without the main components that make players fall in love with the series so much is the open world sandbox world in which anything is possible, will fail. Call me troll or whatever, but the bad flavor wow clone mmo's have left in my mouth is enough. Good luck to all of you that will be waiting and getting your hopes up, but I'm not going to get hyped up again for nothing. Specially if I already don't like the direction this game took. I rather wait for them to make Elder Scrolls VI.

Ask The Old Republic...

Another wow clone that failed heroically.

1.3 million subs is a failure?


And there is an actual Elder Scrolls MMO.

It's called The Elder Scrolls: Online.

Are you serious?, Have you played lately or even log in and seen the server populations?. Don't believe everything they tell you, I play swtor and have seen with my eyes how bad it has fallen.

Statistically speaking they have 1.3 million subscriptions, i.e. about 15 million bucks in income per month. Their problem right now is that they have WAY too many servers for their population, and are taking way too long to fix the imbalances.

Subscriptions of players that are not playing and the reason they haven't canceled is because they hope that Bioware turn things around. If Bioware doesn't turn things around those subscriptions will be canceled it's just matter of time.

I apologize if I sounded rude, but don't believe me, just play the game and you will see for yourself.

We've already been over this, I stand by my statement,