Er, it is announced here and the anouncement is signed by Bethesda.... who is making this game then???

Zenimax Online Studios, a sister-company to Bethesda, both owned by Zenimax Media but separately staffed and funded.

Whatever, the point is they are too big to care about what everyone on the internet has to say.... and as I mentioned already , different people want the opposite things.

There are a gazillion posts here and other forums from people , often very long posts, detailing what they want to see in these games. it is a waste of time, as we're looking at a mass media product and the product is designed according to what will make the most money, not what we, the players, actually want. After a while we will play it anyway, since the alternatives diminish, and we wil be brainwashed by the media hype that that's what we want anyway.

Case in point, touch screens, touch pads and motion controllers svck but they push them hard, because they are much cheaper to make than gamepads and other things with mechanical switches and buttons....

YEEEEEEEEES, AGREE,
an MMO does not have to play like world of warcraft
MMO does not stand for wow clone.

Hearing this leads me to speculate that Zenimax totally missed the point, the whole idea of what all the hype for an Elder Scrolls MMO was about. I've experienced many MMO's in my time. I've played Ultima, EQ, WoW, Darkfall, MO, Guild Wars, LOTRO, SWG... the problem that I see isn't creating an Elder Scrolls MMO. The problem I see is the perception of what an MMO is. World of Warcraft unfortunately, whether intended or unintended is to blame. Its monsterous success has made its style and mechanics more or less a foundation for the modern MMO. Most games that our coming out these days all have their basic foundation coming from similar features. As a result, we all have a skill bar, hotkey based timed combat, talents, specific classes, that all result from this WoW plague that has spread since the success of this game. Everyone wanted part of the pie and so they adopted these mechanics to different IPs. Its sad, and has probably been the largest cause of what I like to call the 'MMO' darkage, because a long extensive list of titles to follow after WoW are roughly the same mechanics. MMOs can't hardly be talked about without comparing them to WoW.

Whats worse, is I think gamesas totally missed the point of what people wanted out of an Elder Scrolls MMO.

We didn't want to play Elder Scrolls off of this new modernized MMO model. MMO means nothing more than Massively Multiplayer Online. What WE wanted, your fans... we wanted to play an already well developed game ONLINE. With other players, massive or few... we wanted to experience the Elder Scrolls games in a persistent world. Some how, MMO has been construed by corporate gamesas as WoW mechanics and they aren't the only ones! This has been a pattern now well since the launch of WoW because WoW is often emphasized as the King of all MMOs. You guys lost it totally... and you've closed the doors on what many saw as a great chance to help move on from this false perception of what MMO gaming is.

I've seen a few independent companies with little wallets try and do this on a limited budged. Darkfall and Mortal Online are proof that it can be done. If you gave them the funding, the experience, and resources that gamesas had, we'd have ourselves something fresh, and new, and unbroken and innovative.

I'll also mention that you're pretty quick to criticize someone who was defending the OP's (me) negative views towards this direction. I've done nothing but been polite in my views, and am only speaking as a concerned gamer who sees a lot of potential in what could be a great game. I am giving you a clarified answer on what we wanted. I've been called a troll, idiot, brat, etc etc. for expressing my opinions and finally someone comes along to point it out and back me up a little, and they get messaged by a moderator immediately after. Feels a little condescending and more than a little patronizing if you ask me.

In any case.... I hope I am completely suprised by TES:O. If I am, I may just loyally subscribe to this game... but from everything on the rumormill according to the leaks that are out there,.... if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck.... you get what I'm saying? I'm just expressing my disbelief that Zenimax really missed their cue.... Its hard to look at this as anything other than a royal mess up. Time will tell.

gamesas has nothing to do with this game. Bethesda Softworks is a publishing company, a sister company of Bethesda Game Studios and Zenimax online. Bethesda Softworks publishes Zenimax games. Bethesda Game studios makes the TES series and the Fallout series (FO:3 so far is the only one they have made) and Zenimax Online makes this MMO. Zenimax, like most large companies diversify their investments and thus the many companies under them. That would also include, for instance ID and Splash Damage. I sure don't know for sure but I am quite sure that like most investment companies Zenimax has paid for professional feasibility studies and knows how much of a risk they are taking. Regardless, it won't have any effect on the TES series that Bethesda Game Studios makes.

I don't believe I have criticized anyone for anything other than pointing out that on this forum referring to others on any side of any fence as idiots is against this forums rules. If you disagree with that direction which was in a different post than my personal post the thing to do is also in the rules. Send me or another moderator a pm to discuss it.

My job as a moderator is to point such things out but as a volunteer I may and do often join in discussions to express my own personal take on it and that is a separate post and has nothing to do with moderation. Feel free to discuss this with me via pm.

I don't think they are taking much risk at all, if anything this will only bring more people to the world of TES. TESO might flop but I don't think TES is ever going to flop. Best case scenario, TESO will be a success and bring more fans to the TES series, worst case scenario, TESO will be "one of those" mmos and die in a dark corner, but ultimately it will bring more people to the TES series. I don't care if TESO makes it or not, that is up to their developers. but it gives me some relief that BGS, the company I really care about, will ultimately benefit from this.

I'll let Zenimax be the heralds of their own destiny, it would be childish to impose my views on a team of people that have spent five years on this already and that I then expect changes.

I'm not sure of the risk. But I know there is money in MMOs if the interest is there and many folks enjoy them. I've never personally been one to play MMOs but have put my foot into a few. I imagine I will try to play this one. I'm rather intimidated by online gameplay and very distracted. But TES is my favorite universe (followed closely by Fallout) and I'm sure I'll give it my best effort. If it falls flat I shall patiently await the development of the next Fallout game and then the next TES game and leave the MMO experience behind.

As for expecting things to change, I do hope as they build and expand that they will do as well as Bethesda Game Studios does in listening to feedback. Over the years I've seen them take to heart things fans complained the loudest about and I hope this company does the same. Of course, I wouldn't expect them to back up on 5 years of hard work either. I'm very excited to see what they have to offer and cautiously optimistic.

I agree completely. If you played TES for the combat, I don't think there was much in it for you anyway. I'm happy they are moving back to RPG-like combat.

Right. Because the developers clearly would have never played any prior Elder Scrolls games.

I'm going to start assuming that any post that contains the words "WoW clone" in a serious context is automatically unfounded. You're making assumptions about the game based on the perspective. I mean, really.

P.S. If you think that first-person combat was what made the Elder Scrolls stand out, then I think you have to face the fact that you don't represent most of the fan base.

Well, my biggest gripe is the combat but my second biggest is definitely this. I've seen screenshots of the game where a female character is wearing some cartoony looking plate armour that has parts missing in order to expose her cleavage. Looking at that my first thought was "that's not Elder Scrolls". I can only assume the rest of the game is filled with ridiculous bikini armour for female characters and tier sets where the shoulders are twice the size as the characters head.

Thanks for that bit of info. Let me rephrase then:

To Who It May Concern Inc. (IE: All of the above...)


Your timing was impeccable. No, I do not have any problem with that direction.

I'm feeling pessimistic. The screenshot is third person, which doesn't prove anything; Skyrim's previews had third-person screenshots too. The development team is not Bethesda's, though, and third person seems to be the standard for MMOs, and that feeds my pessimism. The screenshot hints at conformity, not at inspired vision.

Did Zenimax first have a good, original idea for a massively-multiplayer RPG, and then choose to set it in the Elder Scrolls' universe? I am skeptical. I think Zenimax, inspired by ES fans' requests for multiplayer, first chose to capitalize on the Elder Scrolls' popularity. The motivation was in place to make a good RPG, but the idea of a good RPG was not. A person can want to write a great novel, but wanting doesn't produce a good novel. If a person has a great novel he wants to write, then he has something he can work with.

Will the ES: O preview include a mission statement describing what the game's designers firmly believe is purpose of a massively-multiplayer, role-playing game? Is their idea one of how to make a better MMO? Is that purpose going to the reason why we would wish to play this game? Rather than features designed around that purpose, all we may see is a list of features meant to appeal to someone's idea of what fans want in an Elder Scrolls MMO, features with no reason for being but to pander.

TES:O may do well. I hope it does, and I hope it is a game I want to play.

WTF are you talking about,you need to find an optician quickly.

[img]http://www.station.sony.com/images/Guidenews/GuideofMonth/2009/jan/eq_ekdamos.jpg[/img]

[img]http://buytheoldrepublicguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/BountyHunterPowertech.jpg[/img]

[img]http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/bethesda/elderscrolls/online/hub/screen610.jpg[/img]

Based on those comparisons he was pretty spot on to the SWTOR part.

MMO's are one of hte biggest developments of any game genre to make, it costs a LOT more then any other genre to make an mmo because not only do you have to fill it with a lot mor econtent then other genre's (even open world rpgs) but you also have a lot more technical thing sto do, servers, netcode, etc.

Another major thing when it comes to mmo's is that unlike other games, where you ship it and then you can move that main development team to something new (while leaving a few to do patches, etc) you can't with an mmo. You need to have an active technical team to keep the servers maintained/running, you need developers to work on new content in patches/expansions, you need CS to handle all the account/billing things.

It's a HUGE undertaking and that is why so many failed mmo's can take a studio under, or why m any o fthem have moved to a "free to play" model to try and attract as many people as they can after they haven't did so well on the subscription models.

It seems all of the examples of taking the "woW" style of mmo (which is really mostly an EQ style of gameplay,w ith it's theme park world, class focus, combat, etc) hardly ever works. Sure the first month or two after the game it does ok, because people are TIRED OF WoW, but once they realize it's "just more of the same old same old" they leave it, either to go back to WoW (why play a WoW copy when you can play WoW with your friends who are still there/more players?) or leave it to simply not play anything.

I grew tired of the same old mmo formula a long time ago, I've played mmo's since UO/EQ/Asherons call days. IT was a blast to play when you had UO doing it's thing, AC doing it's thing, then EQ doing it's thing, all of them were "Different" and offered choice and competition. Now virtually EVERY single AAA-publisher backed mmo is the same, there is no "Choice" because it's the SAME GAME , just wrapped in a different skin.

There are a LOT of people out there lookign for something new/different in the mmo market. IT looks like Gulid Wars 2 is still going to be just that even though TES:O was announced.

Zenimax could have did something special, they could have took what people LOVE about TES series, it's freedom, in terms of it's sandbox style open world, skill system, player choices, fps style combat, took it into a huge mmo world and allowed the SAME freedom (all of these can/have been done in various mmo's, Ultima Online for example had stealth and player looting in an mmo, and it was one of the first graphical mmo's). Instead of sticking to the TES style of game, they are making the SAME mistake everyone else does, taking a good IP and simply tossing the "most generic mmo formula" into it and slapping the TES skin over it, heck they aren't even doing that with their cartoony "WoW" style graphics (it uses the same engine as SW:TOR).

I'd really like to know how anyone could truly believe Zenimax would ever do this.

Because believe me, it simply isn't going to happen.

TES:O is on it's way. Play it or don't. Either way, it's coming.

if they start from scratch now chances are they still gonna get out more of their initial investment than if they release what they got now.

Nah, even if the game isn't a hit, it will make it's money back eventually. Even if they have to go F2P. An MMO truly has to be a collossal failure and have no monetary backing to shut it's doors before any return on invenstment. This game doesn't need to worry about that.

Um, if they start from scratch now they'd lose the bulk of their initial investment.

Well they aren't releasing what they have now, since it's not even in Alpha.

I'm still floored by the arrogance it takes to suggest that professional game developers don't know how to develop games.

Star Wars Battlefront 3 was almost done when it was scrapped. 3 years in the making. And that is NO small name brand game either.

Poor Battlefront

Well they don't if they are not pleasing the fans. It less about making the perfect exibit of a game and more about making something that is playable to fans of TES. I don't care if this game sells 20million copys, if it doesn't appeal to me then I won't buy it. It would be a shame to see people who wanted a different direction left in the dark for the reasons of profit.

I am so ******* off that LA had it cancelled. I will never forgive them for that.

Oh look another random person on the internet trying to lecture Zenimax Online...

Seriously, they might not take the direction you would prefer, but we haven't seen any of the actual gameplay yet, I say it is too soon to judge it.