Would you feel comfortable with complete strangers messing with your universe? A MMO will portray all the provinces as those strangers see fit (and as the low hardware denominator dictates) and then you, Todd Howard, will have to somehow walk in their footsteps and be careful not to break their lore contribution. It was much easier when there was just one series made by one studio. I hoped they would never make a TES MMO, but now that it became reality I wish it was Todd and BGS who made it.

Todd is a businessman. He's a game designer, sure, but he's an executive. Ultimately I wouldn't be suprised if his personal feelings on this were pretty neutral. Michael Kirkbride, on the other hand, would be furious.

If I was Todd Howard I would have known of this project since the very beginning. As I am the brains behind modern TES, the office boss would have asked for my advice before making this move. Since it seems I approved, I would have worked alongside the newcomers on all the intel they need: lore, races, provinces, mechanics. I would have done it pro bono because I care about my TES and I want a good synergy between single player and mmo TES.

Oh sure you wish they never made it. Then you buy it "Its probably crap but i should at least check it out". Then you wake up in the computer chair in 2 years.

If I was Todd Howard, a lot of things would have turned out differently, going back pretty far.

That is a point we agree on.

If I were Todd Howard, I would accidentally nick myself while shaving. This would result in a glorious revelation. I would then proceed to model all TES games after Daggerfall and refrain from being a sell-out.

Lolwut? This is NOT Todd's Universe. He was like the inheritor of the keys to the gates that lead to the universe.

WOW, you realy mean daggerfallftw.

I would focus on single player and don't give a damn about mmo. The MMO will follow the pattern of all wow-wannabies-that-are-not-wow: a few months of milking, then decline, expansion, decline, free to play, death. TES single player is immortal!

The makers of TESO are stressing that they strictly want to keep to the lore, they dont want to contradict and break it, you never know Bethesda might help them with adding new books in a patch, giving new lore =P

Who was todds predececor? The dude who made Arena? i would like to read about it.

Honestly, I'd prefer it if they declared it uncanonical. The lore is going to be a trainwreck and there's no way it'll be as good as if Bethesda themselves did it.

If the game bombs the parent company could assign BGS to release an enhanced edition

I would be rich

Simply having gameplay, interfacing, and an art style standard to the MMO genre (and that seems to be the direction this is headed) might as well constitute a violation of the lore.

We don't really know what sort of relationship exists between Todd and the guys at Zenimax Online Studios, or between BGS and ZOS. In theory, they could have hung out together for years already, brainstorming, consulting, discussing. BGS isn't creating this game, but nothing says they are completely out of the picture.

If i were Todd Howard, i would browse thru this forum, gather the fan feedback on this announcement and submit it to my boss.

I will tell my bosses not to go down the slippery path that almost caused the Elder Scrolls series demise when they released
"Redguard, Battlespire," which were obviously used to milk the franchise after Daggerfall.

I will tell them to bid their time and NOT to release any Elder Scrolls MMO until at least after the current mmo king Blizzard released info on the Titan Project.
So that way, we will know what we are up against with.

I will sit down and have a long discussion with Matt Firor on this matter.

I will then reply on the forum and pacify the masses right now that all is well.



IF I were Todd Howard.....

if i was Todd, i would have announced Dawnguard while riding Ohdaviing, dual-wielding crossbows (even if the are 2h, irl you could hold one in each hand. though reloading would be a pain) and then yell it into the sky, causing the Drasgonborn's eyes to glow as he learned this new shout: DAWN GU ARD!
ok, kidding about the DAWN GU ARD shout part, but i'd ride the dragon with a crossbow in each hand.

I would fire the guys who wrote the dialogue in Skyrim, then I would hire the guys who write for Obsidian.

Completely agree, on the lore front.

obsidian? the game makers?

Well look at Oblivion. Todd completely disregarded previous lore about Cyrodiil and made it GenericFantasyLand. He probably won't mind some people messing with the image of other areas, because he could either completely disregard it, or follow along, he probably wouldn't care.

Considering it's a prequel of sorts, taking place a 1000 years before the events of Skyrim (which is long before even the events of Arena I think) there isn't much they can screw up that would interfere with 'current day' lore. Future single player TES games shouldn't be constricted by lore or land design of provinces in the MMO.

Forget about Howard. Todd Howard is a business man. People like Carofano and Rolston used to be the real masterminds. Now Rolston is too old and he's out, while Carofano just does what TH tells him to.