Actually I don't think they can be put to rest.
First of all the worries about the storyline.
It would be "added depth" if the story was made for the sake of it, to create awesome background to the game... and of course I think and I hope that to some extent the story will be developed to just be amazing. But we already have seen glimpse of the other side... Story created for the game mechanics to make sense.
Does it really matter? Whatever events or stories we participate in in TESO can easily be summed up in a book in a future TES core series game, where the event itself is the center of attention rather than the person or persons who were involved, aside from plot-characters.
Basically 3 alliances created for the sake of gameplay.. alliance that really have nothing to do with the Elder scrolls continuity. They are unheard of, unprecedented, and pretty much implausible if not plain impossible.
This is all going to pollute the Elder scrolls continuity.
It would only pollute TES continuity if there was something established already in terms of factional and social relations between races. But they are sticking this game at a point where the lore is essentially silent on those issues.
Of course nobody think that Zenimax Online studios has any power to Ruin The elder scrolls series.. Zenimax Media has...
But really .. aside from some books on the next elder scrolls game where you can hear about a era of stupid inconsistent alliances to conquer the empire I doubt TESO can do much to ruin the single player franchise.
I see it as a succession war. Many cultures have had them. But the lore has established that it is Tiber Septim who steps in and solidifies his regime through conquest. And though he may come from Skyrim, he will clearly not be a representative of the Ebonhart Pact. He would need to reign them in as well. With a new emperor on the throne, head of a dynasty that will last nearly a thousand years, there will be no need for a cussession war. The Ebonhart Pact, the Aldmeri Dominion and the Daggerfall Covenant will disband and go back to whatever petty squabbles they had before necesity required an alliance.
My true fear is another.
I fear this will be considered THE attempt to bring out the elder scrolls n a online format.
That this will be the only iteration of an online Elder scrolls if it is successful or that the notion of a elder scrolls online will be automatically shunned for the next 30 years if this goes as badly as I think it will.
It appeals to me, and I have been a fan of TES since Arena came out. But they are NOT touting TESO as an installment in the TES core series, any more than they tried to tout Battlespire or Redguard as such. We TES fans have accepted them, as part of the whole of TES lore, with events from them appearing on the timeline. But by design they stand apart from the main sequence of TES games. I see TESO as no different in that regard. It takes place in an era so far removed from the one we are used to that in the intervening period, with the revisionist history of the early Septim dynasty, and the flow of time, the deeds of many would be lost to history and forgotten... Until the discovery of pre-Septim second era records carefully preserved that one day the truth of history could be revealed to a new generation that is not afraid of what it could mean...
So basically The elder scrolls has only one shot to prove it can function online, and instead of a first person real time, non class based sandbox game they are taking their chances with a game that has nothing that appeals to their fanbase.
I should say that we only know about a few core game mechanics and elements. While the core game may not be sandboxy, nothing will stop them from building upon the core and even evolving it. It's easier to go from a class and level-based system to s skill-based sandbox system than it is to go the other way. You can take a rigid system, redesign it into a sandbox, and make it so after the change, the rigid elements are the starting point for forward-going character progression and adaptation.
As much as I like sandbox games, I don't want an MMO that is exclusively sandbox. I believe that structured themepark content is needed as well as freedom to play out characters as we wish.
I seriously doubt we will see any investment in that sense if this goes badly so basically from the day TESO has been announced the dream is Dead.
Now a lot of people counld come here and explain how a game like oblivion or skyrim can not be transposed online ignoring that there are games out there that does just that... only with fairily inexperienced developers and lack of funds that translates in terrible polish.. crappy servers that are more offline than online etc
They have yet to go into the social aspects of the game. They have yet to talk about crafting, and what role it will play in the war effort. What little we know is overshadowed by the massive amount we do not. This may not be the MMO some of us would like it to be. But then again, each TES sequel that has come out has been something that some of us have not wanted it to be. TES is the game that ZOS wants it to be just like each subsequent main sequence TES game has been the game that BGS has wanted it to be. It has not stopped each TES game from being a blockbuster success in terms of sales. There were people who hated Oblivion and bought Skyrim and hated it too, and they'll buy TES VI when it comes out too. And there are people who loved Oblivion who hated Skyrim, and people who Loved Skyrim but hated Oblivion...
Yet we remain TES fans. We're passionate about what we hope to see. But what we need to accept, whether we want to or not, is that Game Development is now a fully corporatized industry. It is no longer about the art of game development. It's about making sales and generating revenue. That is the long and short of it. Every decision a developer is going to make is going to have a business reason behind it. In truth, it has always been this way. It was all a lot simpler before the Internet let us get so plugged-in with each other and with development projects like this. Back then, a game released. Nothing was known about it until it came out. We bought it and either liked it or didn't. Now we have forums to go to and gripe about it and act like the developers need to satisfy US on an individual level. People like to say things like "What we want is," but what they are actually saying is "What I want is..." It's bad enough that developers have corporate suits breathing down their necks telling them what they have to develop and shooting down anything that might break some allmighy mold because it's not what the investors have put their money into.
That is the problem with corporate money... It is not the developers' to risk. Back when every developer was an independent developer (before corporations started snatching them up or they grew INTO corporations themselves), risk was the name of the game. They took chances. It was all or nothing for them. They do not have that choice anymore...
I see your concerns. I really do. I share them to a degree. But nothing we say is going to change a thing. A hundred of us may think something is crap. But thousands will convince themselves that it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. WoW has no appeal to me, yet MILLIONS still play it and have no plans to leave. I don't get it, but facts are facts. No MMO will please everyone. But the fundamental elements are always going to reflect what has generated the most success in the industry. And by virtue of statistics alone, themepark, level-based MMOs are the industry leaders. It matters not that there just haven't been any serious efforts to produce sandbox non-leveled MMOs since WoW began to dominate. All corporates care about is statistics and the bottom line.
We can rage against the machine all we want, but it's fully fueled and running full throttle and will continue to charge forward until it runs out of fuel or crashes. It certainly will not stop for us. We can shout our displeasure all we want. We can even vote with out wallets all we want. The malcontents who would refuste to buy into or continue to pay into an MMO are in the minority compared to those who cannot wait to throw money at the next new shiny thing that hits the cash shop. If a game can generate more revenue inder a free to play model than it did when it was subscription-based, one must begin to ask, is it the developers' fault that the quality of their game is not what it could, or by all rights should be? Why deliver more when so many are satisfied with repeatedly paying for less?
That is the nature of what we as consumers face when we try to stand up against the industry. And the industry is the way it is because so many consumers enable it to be so...
I could go all day about this stuff. It's been churning the bile in my stomach for nearly seven years now. I feel the need to spew. I've got my own web site that I have not really done anything with. Perhaps I will put it to use.
Or maybe the better course of action is to accept the truth and just move on. And what is the truth? As a talented young lady who goes by the YouTube name ShaDoWCa7 has said in a couple of her video blogs, "It's all just pixels..."
Good day...
» Wed Aug 08, 2012 9:31 am 
