But why would we want to? Why would we want to keep something alive that flies in the face of all we love about this franchise?

It can be argued that the franchise TOR was banking on was not just Star Wars, but the very popular KOTOR series of RPGs. They were incredibly successful Bioware games and the MMO was seen as a natural progression, although there was some discontent over the idea that it might destroy the possibility of a KOTOR 3.

Luckily, TOR was not much different to a multi-player KOTOR, in fact it felt more like a co-op KOTOR than an MMO. This formula should have worked but it didn't. Nothing about this is conclusive but who knows, maybe TESO will turn out great, although that's very unlikely.

I also agree, its in the ES fans. Zenimax should do whatever they can do to please that mass. This is quite different but not enough, probably why theres so much doomsaying already, lol, can you magine what it looks like when we're closing to the release date, what a mess really its even possibe to do when this is 3 faction PVP game.

Well Im gonna pre-order as soon as possible and go for 6 month sub plan straight away, such a long time fan of ES Im.

why would you force a game thats not good to stay alive? rather try make it good so you dont have to force it. also no the masses are not the deal here. yess im selfish. but niche games have a tendency at beeing better, hell TES is actually quite a niche product, with a realy large niche. But it usually kept doing its thing, with weird lore and inconsistent gameplay.

Force to fail? lets do it guys!

Its still early days (despite the dev time so far) and there are plenty of avenues this game can go along. It could be the best thing since sliced bread / it could be nothing more than burnt toast.

As has been said above: Read everything, make suggestions about what you would like to see in the game, formulate your own opinions but keep an open mind prior to release.

Honestly I think you're vastly over blowing things. I followed SWTOR from Announcement to launch and I guarantee it saw the same amount of haters and criticism. The same type as well. Fear it will ruin the IP, that it won't live up to fans overhyped expectations, that they should just make a single player with online co-op not an MMO.

No, what we see here is nothing new and what any MMO leading up to launch can expect.

RockPaperShotgun did the best interview, being actual journalists rather than paid marketing.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/11/interview-zenimax-defends-elder-scrolls-online/

Yeah, and that game was a resounding success. Five years development, up to 500 simultaneous employees in-house, biggest budget ever... and it doesn't even make it into EA's top five franchises for forecast annual profit. Gee, that fan criticism sure was unfounded.

Not sure why you quoted me as what you posted was off topic to the point. FYI, so can keep up, the point was pre-launch hype and community reaction and the amount of it, not how successful the game turns out to be.

His point was that the only other game close to this negatively received was SWTOR. The differentiator for SWTOR is that there was a really devoted fan for every detractor. The gamers outside of this forum are nearly unanimous in displeasure at what has been revealed thus far, because many of the "new features" that will supposedly make this successful are the same "story centric single player" experience stuff SWTOR did successfully. Story centric results in a game fun to play for about a month *once*. While that would be a great success for a single player game, that's not a success story for an MMO.

The TES games are so successful because they are *NOT* solely story centric. They give you a huge sandbox to tell whatever story you wish.

I'm drawing a conclusion based upon some matters you've raised that I think relates back to the original topic, regardless of whether or not it's precisely what you had in mind to discuss. It's relevant and provided a pretty good segue.


Effectively this.

"nearly unanimous"? Sure there's a lot due to the fanbase being large I'll give you that, but from what I have seen its rather split.

I guess the main point of difference here is how much stock you put into critics at this point in the games dev cycle. Personally I put pretty much no stock in it atm because no one has seen very much if any of the actual game. Most of it is simply based on some screenshots and fly through game footage, hardly what I would call a proper basis to make a good judgement about the game.

Please link me a site or news article where opinion is nearly split instead of overwhelmingly against. I haven't seen one and I'm genuinely interested in where such a thing is occurring.

There was a thread for E3 with links to various write ups that several media outlets did from the show floor. It should be on the next page of threads.

A few sure were skeptical about certain aspects sure but none of the E3 coverage I saw was overly critical or at least not to the point were you'd think everyone is overweeningly against like you and others claim.

ESO showing at E3 2012 is supposed to shut the mouths of naysayers like me about it. It has so far FAILED to do so.

Gamespot
"The Elder Scrolls Online looks big and beautiful. It also looks like games we've seen countless times already"
http://asia.gamespot.com/features/the-elder-scrolls-online-keeping-it-familiar-6381313/

Rock Paper Shotgun
"The action-based combat looked hollow and unconvincing, and we spent the bulk of our time watching a perplexingly
un-Elder-Scrolls-like quest chain involving ghosts, time travel, and “collect X amount of Y item” prompts unfold."
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/06/11/interview-zenimax-defends-elder-scrolls-online/

PC Gamer
"TESO looks like an interesting MMO. But it certainly looks like an MMO – this doesn’t feel or function like Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls games."
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/06/05/the-elder-scrolls-online-impressions/

NDTV Gadgets
"A visible disappointment, even at this early stage, is the presence of only third-person elements. Paul Sage defended this by saying
anything else would've been too much for users to handle." TOO MUCH FOR USERS TO HANDLE??? WTF??
http://gadgets.ndtv.com/games/news/elder-scrolls-online-preview-at-e3-2012-does-it-hit-the-spot-or-disappoint-228903

Shacknews
"E3 was our first look at the game, and it should have wowed the crowd. Instead, I was shaking my head, with a bit of a face palm thrown in."
http://www.shacknews.com/article/74275/editorial-the-elder-scrolls-online-disappointing

Kotaku (Winners and Losers of E3 2012)
"Your game has serious problems when even a brief cinematic trailer - something even the worst titles can
look good in can only remind people yet again why this is one of the most crushingly disappointing games at the show."
http://kotaku.com/5916106/kotakus-winners--losers-of-e3-2012-day-two

Even Butt Kisser IGN says:
"Much of the game remains a mystery at this point, but from what’s been shown so far it seems like Zenimax Online isn’t taking any big risks with The Elder Scrolls Online’s gameplay." Read: Generic MMO
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/06/06/e3-2012-the-elder-scrolls-online-preview

- sorry i retract this post. i apologize for this angry post as it doesn't contribute to this thread.

Paul Sage:

And I will tell you that I love the PvP system, and why I like PvP is because that always feels like “That is really cool.” Especially the three factions. I’m sure you’ve seen that in another game, but it’s so much fun to be able to play it and crown an emperor – to have these things going on. I don’t want to speculate about number of hours, but I would say I’ve played a game like that where I’ve spent more than several hundred hours.

Hmmm, does he mean DAoC??

In any case, these reviews are a good chance for Zenimax to get more of a pulse on what people's general hopes and expectations are. That they are not glowing should give them a bit of a kick in the butt in the right direction. They may turn out to be good for the game after all, in a roundabout way.

But I still say peole should reserve judgment until they've played it themselves.

If I play it then it means they won. I will instead watch YouTube videos.

Unless it's the beta. Anyone who truly cares about getting this game changed NEEDS to be in the beta. As Paul Sage says, that's when they're gonna start listening (which might be too late imho).

Cleaned up some posts in here. Let's keep discussion civil here, guys.

90% of those quotes are just jumping to quick assumptions. They use the word "looks" a lot because all they have done is seen. The art style isn't my favorite but that isn't alone going to stop it from potentially being a great game. I have read into details on how the game will actually play it sounds interesting. People have to understand that fantasy MMORPGs have been around for a long time now and there isn't much left to do differently. Its all about gameplay now and polishing it if WoW didn't already do it.

See, this is where it just gets stupid. Everyone's allowed to be excited, to say the game has 'great potential' and 'sounds really interesting' - but the moment anyone sees it in action and says 'well actually, it looks a bit disappointing' they're being presumptuous and premature.

These journalists have seen it, and you haven't. Furthermore, it's the job of these people to attend demos and previews - they know what they're looking for. You think it could be a great game based off of very little; they think it might not be, based off of a fair bit more than you can claim. "90% are quick assumptions"? And you know this how, precisely - do you work for Zenimax, have you seen more demos of this game than the journalists, do you have exceptional credentials for judging these things? No, the truth is it's you who are making unfounded assumptions about a matter on which you know a lot less than the people you dismiss. You talk about polishing it and doing things that WoW hasn't done - well that includes a lot of potential things, and most journalists explicitly pointed out that TESO seems to do almost none of them.

That Rock,Paper,Shotgun interview was a lot bolder than most interviews.
It was a smart move by the website too, I bet the site earned the respect of a lot of gamers. Finally an interview that doesn't beat around the bush.