Dear Zenimax.

I hope this mail will get forwarded to the people that run this company since this message could prevent this company from getting a significant loss.

As I see it, The Elder Scrolls Online will fail and become a significant financial loss to the company and will damage the name of The Elder Scrolls game line as a whole. I will explain this.

I may not be someone that is known in the industry or had any recognition in the things that I have said, however I am a very intelligent person and highly skilled in pattern recognition.

The announcement of The Elder Scrolls Online has recently come to my attention and after examining the news and screenshots a very troubling scenario has come to my mind that I have seen before.

From the news I have read the developers have described The Elder Scrolls Online as similar to World Of Warcraft, and will have functions similar to World Of Warcraft to make it easier to play for people that are already familiar with those features.
From what I can understand from this is that The Elder Scrolls Online aims to draw people away from World Of Warcraft and into this game.
This is something that I have seen many times before with MMORPGs and almost all of them have failed, for very simple and understandable reasons.

I'm probably right in guessing that the financial plan for this game is a monthly subscription based payment for players, similar to World Of Warcraft. This means that it is in complete competition with that game.
Now here are the problems with this.

To get new players.

1. TESOnline as I have noticed will look and play similar to WoW, however it is an untested game that hasn't been around for many years, like WoW. People have seen many MMORPGs fail in the past while WoW kept on going. They are not inclined to invest money and time in a new game that is in a field that has seen a great deal of games go bankrupt, many of which have had large names behind them (like Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa). People would much invest in a game that they know will be around in several years.

2. WoW is the biggest game out there, with the largest player base, this is a very attractive idea for many players since there will be people that they can get along with and accept them into their group. There is no assurance that the same can be said of TESOnline.

3. If someone wants to play a game like WoW, they will play WoW. It's like someone who wants to buy a Mars bar. If you let them choose between a Mars bar and a knock-off copy of a Mars bar, everyone will choose the real Mars bar, since it has brand recognition and they know what to expect. This is similar with MMORPGs.

To draw away player from other MMORPGs

1. People do not play multiple MMORPGs at once, they usually stick to one game and keep playing it. They do not switch between games easily and certainly won't keep up with multiple MMORPGs.

2. People have invested a major amount of time and money into a game such as WoW, they are not inclined to throw all that time and money away to start over in a new game completely from scratch. That is why WoW is so successful, players keep playing and paying since they don't want to see all the time and money they put into the game as a complete loss, so they will keep on playing that game.

3. To draw away players, you'll have to offer a significant difference or improvement over the game they are playing now. Creating a WoW clone does not offer much of a difference or improvement over their current game.

4. People that play MMORPGs have their friends, guild and clans in these games. They have a community there. They are not inclined to switch to different games because of their ties to that community and their friends. They rarely leave their groups, since they create a familiar setting and place for those players to which they will stick. They might rarely leave their community to try out something different, however this usually is only for a short time and then return. The only way in which you can keep those players in your game permanently is to draw in the whole clan/guild/group and due to the other reasons, this is highly unlikely to happen.

Drawing in Skyrim fans.

1. Skyrim was a massive hit, and quite probably something that draw a lot of new players into The Elder Scroll series. People that would want to play TESOnline are expecting it to be like a Skyrim Multiplayer game. TESOnline is not that. The playstyle, artstyle and everything else is much more like WoW than like any Elder Scrolls game. This is not what Skyrim fans want to play.

2. Skyrim is a one time money investment, like all of The Elder Scrolls games, people that play those games are much less likely to accept a monthly subscription fee. They are much more likely to buy Guild Wars 2 than play TESOnline as it stands now.

3. People that play Skyrim almost always explore that world with one companion that they attracted in the game (or several ones in case of a few very popular mods), a world like TESOnline is now showing does not seem very appealing and is a huge break from their normal experience while playing Skyrim. A system like Guild Wars uses (instance based) seems much more in line with the way they experience Skyrim.

Well, those seem to be my points. I hope people will read these and understand my points and the consequences of the current designs of The Elder Scrolls Online. I do hope things can still be saved since it seems like a good plan, however as it is now a very badly thought through and executed one.

I thank you very much for reading, and I hope to see that the people in charge can see my points and reason.

The only thing I would say is that MMO fans are very fickle at best. Getting them into a game is pretty easy, but getting a commitment out of them is very hard. I have bounced around most of the MMO market, having spent the most of my time in EQ and Vanguard. Aim for your core fans is the best bet you can make imho, because a lot of people who bounce MMO's are people who are like herd animals. If you can get a lot of your core audience involved and have them be long term subs, then a lot of the other audience may stick.

From what I've seen, and based on my own presumptions, this game does not seem innovative.
I wouldve preferred a first person view.

There is so much they couldve done with the main series, rather than branching off into the MMO world.

That said, I will withhold further judgement until more info is released.
Pete Hines said he is not worried about the backlash, therefore it is safe to assume that they know alot more then we do.

I think it could work. I like the three realm combat system. I just want the game to have the total TES flavor and feel.

Well, i hope somebody will read this, but, all you need to do is, making the game that most of the WoW player is missing, like me.
If you gona copy wow, copy the vanilla WoW, the real wow that everybody is being missing, then i guarantee you you will succes, all you need to do is making the game in a way first wow did, challenging, and hard, rewarding.. definitly include 40 man raids! dont include a dungeon finder, dont include an easy talent system, dont let druids talk to npcs in animal forms, these were the little details what made WoW the WoW!!

These little details was the "thing" that kept us players along with the game, cause we were giving effort to it, everything was so perfect!

I, i remember reding the game guide that came from battle chest, and being exciting about the zzeplins!!! "OMG, the game is so big that i will travel to zeplins".

Infact, in this sentence, i wasnt exciting about the damn zeplins, i was exciting about to go from a place to another place, i had to take routes, difrent transportation ways, being together with other people in zeplins and ships..!

But now, now i can just press the num lock button and do something else while my cahracter FLYS.. That is how you will defeat wow, and, i'm actualy sorry to say that, but and that is how you may give us players another legend.. Wow, i became emotional again, the wow was a pure legend.. wow, no no, you cant beat wow, nt this way, not this time, not today..

Anywaaay, also the musics, music is so damn important, if i still hear the orgrimar's song every single time i think about it..

Also another the most important thing is the modelling, you see the wow using same dragon model and animations for years? and you know why? Because it make us feel we are at HOME! that is why all the mmos svck now a days, they do it in the wrong way.. mmo is a place where we spend hours and hours with all those amazing peoples we get along, it is not a game, it is a home to us..

So basicly, dont try for making it a good game, try to making it a good mmo.. if you know what i mean.

And all those people will say "omg this guy have no life he is silly stupid etc.", i would tell them, honestly, it is the last thing you may in understand in this damn world..

Everyone who has a specific opinion about gameplay features with zero information to go on is participating in the knee-jerk reaction party.

There is literally no way that anyone could have an informed opinion about this game, since there's almost no information available. People are ranting about hypothetical worst-case scenarios. Just like they did with Skyrim. Just like they did with Oblivion. Just like they did with Morrowind...

So...I mean....the GI article is nothing to go by?

They aren't copying vanilla WoW. WoW did not have three faction PvP.

Not really.

I mean, did we really get that much solid information about gameplay mechanics? Hotbars. There will be PvP. There will be guilds. We have a few screenshots.

We haven't even seen a live demo of the game yet, much less had an opportunity to hear feedback from the testing. It's ludicrous to think that anyone could have any idea of what the final product looks like based on one article that is basically just hyping up the existence of the game itself.

And the vanilla wow wasnt all about the 2 faction pvp.. was it O.O?

Exactly. For all the comparisons to WoW, this game is focused more on PvP, and three faction PvP at that. People see dungeons, mobs, a hotbar and assume it is WoW clone.

I agree that it probably wont work. It will cause a story gap in fans that don't play through it that they will not appreciate.

With a name like your user name would you hope that they copy Vanguard?

Actually, thinking of Vanguard I am thinking of very detailed customizable character creation, a huge open world, first and third person perspectives and realistic, non-colorful graphics. Not that dissimilar to what an Elder Scrolls game should be.

I am sorry that my user name came around before they made their server name. Vanguard could have been good but the game wasn't fun. I don't care how an MMO looks for the most part, so long as it is fun for me. I don't spend hours on Champions Online's forum talking down about that game because I didn't enjoy it. I spend time on games I think I will like.

If they want to do detailed character customization and a huge open world, I am fine with that. Third person is fine but do you mean first person in the sense that you can see your hands? Because I thought in a few cases there are MMOs that allow you to zoom in to the point you can not see your character.

You can play in first or third person in Vanguard, your choice, and have been able to since release in Jan 2007. You can see your hands (and mount etc) in first person and have the ability to switch occlusion on or off. You can also play in first person and then zoom out if you need to look around, same as you can in Skyrim and other TES games.

Varking is also a raid mob in Vanguard.

Well, I waited with replying to see the response to my thread and see what direction it would take. I would like to thank you all for reading and replying to it, and I will now respond to several of you that stood out.
Thank you again for reading this thread and participating in the discussion.


Interesting points. Thank you for adding those, it gave me something to think about. I might have to review some of my points based on this. Thank you very much!


I agree with that this could be better, and certainly more in line with the Elder Scrolls series. That was the main reason for making this. I do hope something could come out of it, but I'll await more information, after which I may alter my views if it doesn't re-enforce them. But I will remain sceptical.


The fear that it doesn't have a total TES flavor and feel is what I'm most worried about. But we'll see.


This is true, but as more information gets out, we'll see what happens.


Right, and that was all that WoW was about? It didn't have 3 faction PvP?


Thanks for your reply, glad you agree.

Well, that was it.
I would like to hear more feedback, constructive is preferable. Especially on the points I have made, I would like to hear if other people see these things differently than I do. The more information I get would naturally bring a more detailed anolysis on the situation.
So again, thank you all for reading and replying.

After the moderators removed some unfortunate comments that they found objectionable (I usually find them quite amusing actually, gives me a chance to get creative with replies and sarcasm) they were nice enough to reopen this thread, for which I thank them.
So please, if anyone can offer any constructive feedback on my points, or would like to engage in a civil discussion about the points I made, or anything in general, feel free to post.

I would however ask everyone to remain civil, the moderators have been very nice in reopening this, and I would like to keep it that way.
Thank you.

Myself I think it will work just fine. Lets give the game a chance first before saying it svcks. Remember how lots of people said Skyrim was gonna svck but it turned out to be pretty good?

I think this game will be good. And I'm not hopping on the bandwagon, I actually want this game to be successful. I'm an MMO fan and a TES fan. A great fan actually.

I absolutely agree.

It's good to see some genuine support for the game, but based on my original post, could you give me some feedback on why you think this game will be a success in contrast to the points that I made.
I'm really curious to hear the other side of this from a real supporter.

I don't buy a lot of video games. To make the point, prior to Skyrim, the last game I bought was KOTOR, as part of one of the Star Wars pc collections, so probably about 4 years after it had been originally released. I played that game for years, which amounted to several playthroughs. Prior to that, Star Wars Rebellion (released in 1998, really) which I played till Windows 7 (in which I could never force the game to load properly), and SW: Empire at War (which I did NOT like nearly as well as Rebellion, even given the infinitely better graphics).

My wife then went to veterinary school, so I started playing CoH about 3 months before the Cimerora (sp? the quasi-roman expansion) hit, whichever year that was. I've had an active subscription there till present, though I haven't actually played since before Christmas. My prepaid subscription is up in June and I won't be giving NCSoft any more money.

So, for 'modern' RPG experience I have SW:KOTOR and Skyrim. I'll be playing Skyrim for many many more moons, with only modest modding. To be clear, Skyrim is the first game I've ever played with mods. For MMO's I have CoH, where I achieved all the common MMO highpoints: 1) Worked myself up to lead officer in a Virtue top 100 guild, 2) in the top 10% or so in terms of economy use on Virtue, probably top 25% across all servers, 3) created a private chat channel made up of a fair selection of Virtue's best rp'ers and was an invited member of Virtue's top rp/raid channel, and 4) had multiple level-capped toons.

I play few games because I REALLY try to only buy games that I know I'll play for significant time. Having fallen for Skyrim completely I am more than willing to give TES:O a fair shake. Because if this new MMO can provide me with the years of social entertainment that CoH gave me, I will be most pleased. Not sure this adds anything to the discussion, other than the basic idea that we really don't know ANYTHING yet. I at least am prepared to withold judgement till we do.

Brian

See, your points are very well thought out. I do agree with most of them. It would be hard to get people in to this game, because:
1. It's an ES game, and an MMO. TES fans are stuck on non MMOs.
2. It would be hard to draw attention from WoW to this game, seeing as people invested lots of money into WoW and would not want to just quit and switch. Coming from an ex-WoW player, people take that stuff seriously.
3. People don't want to pay monthly, they would want F2P. My opinion, it brings in older audiences. But that's just me.
But regardless, I'm going to try this game. I don't mind paying monthly. I just wish more people would give it a chance.
I really want to see this game successful. I think it would be a hit if it brought in awesome elements of both ES and mainstream MMOs.

i think the bottom line is here is the an ELDER SCROLLS GAME needs to play like an ELDER SCROLLS GAME.

i think the bottom line here is that an ELDER SCROLLS GAME needs to play like an ELDER SCROLLS GAME. not like world of warcraft. a mmo game does not have to be modled after world of warcraft. it can still play like elder scrolls and be a mmo. i want my hack and slash, first person shooter type targeting/play style .

That's the very gist of it. As much as I want to see this game succeed, I just don't want it to be modeled like WoW.