E3 Preview: The Elder Scrolls Online

[Sight Unseen]

I'd say I'm still cautiously pessimistic about this. Still have zero idea of whether or not I'm going to buy it.

...class based...

Aaaaaaaaaaand interest dies. Seriously, if even an Elder Scrolls MMO can't be arsed to employ a skill-based system, I weep for the final and unequivocal death of sandbox MMOs.

I don't really know... anything about MMOs, so what's the difference between a class-based system and the one that was in, say, Morrowind?

Class based means that at the start of the game you pick a class and you're locked to certain skill sets and or strategies right from the start. In Morrowind even though you pick a class, all it did was determine which skills you needed to level to get a level up. You could still do everything and get every spell.

In a class based MMO, typically each class has a specific set of skills and often one or a couple main purposes that they are to achieve, and they dont have access to the skills of other classes.

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

fuck this game. I cannot stress that enough.
Instances only reinforce the pointlessness of the player actions.
the gameplay is still wrong
I want this to go away even more than the fallout MMO.
Actually no, I also want the fallout MMO to die out of spite, because I met a man who has a personal stake in it, who i want to die penniless in the street

still, fuck this game.

 

[Clearing the Eye]

When he opened with "I've always felt that the Elder Scrolls games are sort of like single player MMOs."
I stopped caring about his opinion.

Well that's just rude and not the least constructive. You could at least have given reasons for your opinion.

 

[hughpower]

Race determines faction...they'll finally have to balance the redguard and breton racials with the garbage everyone else gets.

Or everyone will just play redguard or breton, whatever works.

It won't be an issue, this is basically them using the property as a giant piece of toilet paper.

Lore wise, the Orcs are a "monster race" not really viewed as a people until much later and shouldn't be playable just as they weren't for the beginnings of the series. Indeed "your" actions in making contact with and peace with the Orcs is one of the things that comes up in an earlier Elder Scrolls game.

The Redguard in their current form, black, carribean themed sailors and master warriors, do not exist at this time period. The Redguard are the Dwarves pure and simple. Arena and Daggerfall make this 100% clear, including the lore books and such about them. Being dwarves is also why the province/country they are from is called "Hammerfell" which sounds dwarven for a reason.

The situation with the dwarves disappearing was covered in Morrowwind which is what changed the races, but long time series fans have long mused that by definition reality must have been altered, creating this new race at the time of their disapperance.

If this is before even Tiber Septim, this means that Hammerfell should be a thriving dwarven nation, with the Dweamor being called "Redguards". If the race we think of as Redguards in the later games exists, it would be a fringe prescence and not anywhere near as prosperous or powerful until the reality alteration happens... probably not playable, and limited to sword fodder enemy tribals or whatever (similar to The Forsaken).

So, pretty much this whole thing is a joke. To be honest they shouldn't be messing around with prequels unless they want to stay loyal to their own property. The first thing that anyone developing this should do is go back and read EVERY book in the game, including those in Arena and Daggerfall... or especially those because they are closer to the time period they are dealing with.

Simply dumping Elder Scrolls-seeming trappings onto an MMO and stamping the name on it is unlikely to garner much interest from me. If the selling point is to play in that world (which I have gamed in for a loooong time) I want to actually play in that world, not something someone farted out to maximize sales. If they want to use all of the current trappings that most people are familiar with, then they should be making the same a sequel
of sorts NOT a prequel.

Having experienced both "Battlespire" and "Redguard", I can sort of say that when Bethesda decides to develop seperate products, expecting them to sell because they drop some of the terms and slap "Elder Scrolls" on the front, it rarely works out.

You're wrong about Orcs being a "monster race" at this point. This games takes places around 800 years before Daggerfall. Around the time this game takes place, Orcs were respected by the local Bretons and Redguards as champions of Trinimac, knight of the Altmer time-dragon god Auri-el but, over time, the local Bretons forgot this and came to see the Orcs as a monster race. It was the Nords who hated the Orcs because they also hated Auri-El and all other representations of the Time-dragon because their representation, Aludin,is evil. Bretons accepted Auri-El though because of their Elven blood and close association with the good time dragon of the Imperial patheon, Akatosh. See: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_True_Nature_of_Orcs for how Orcs were seen before by the Bretons they were seen before.
Anti Orc propaganda such as this;
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Pig_Children
was not popular until many years after the MMO takes place.

You're also utterly confused about Redguards/Dwemer/Raga Da. The Redguards, known at the time as Raga Da or Yokudans, sailed from their destroyed homeland continent of Yokuda in 1E801, while the Dwemer vanished around 1E700, about 100 years earlier. (source:http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Holidays_of_the_Iliac_Bay
source: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lorewemer_Inquiries_Vol_I)

Hammerfell is called Hammerfell, not because it was largely occupied by Dwemer (which is true), but because it was named after the civil war which occurred on Yokuda, the "Hammer and Anvil" (source: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Redguards,_Their_History_and_Their_Heroes)

There's no reason that Redguards would have been any different when this MMO takes place, because the Pocket Guide to the Empire, published around 80 years after this MMO is to take place, describes them very similarly to how they are shown in Skyrim and Morrowind. Why would they change in 80 years? Also, i'm sures there are books from before the MMO is set mentioning Redguards as they are shown in the MMO.

Also, I take issue with your disregard for Battlespire and Redguard. They were both very good games in their own right, but were also the foundation for most of the more interesting lore of Morrowind and Skyrim. Without them, the Elder Scrolls would have continued on as boring Tolkien clones ala Daggerfall's first act, Oblivion and Arena. Just because they're different from the stock series doesn't mean they should be disregarded. Infact, innovation within any series, not just the medium, should be encouraged.

 

[immortalfrieza]

I wish they would stop saying it looks like an Elder Scrolls game. It doesn't. Orcs, Humans, various shades of elves,cat and lizard people (while all part of the Elder Scrolls series) don't make an elder scrolls game. The graphical style they chose is nothing more then the generic fantasy settings seen in countless other fantasy games.From what they've shone there's nothing special that signals Elder Scrolls other then the names of the races and the names of the cities.

Exactly. Elder Scrolls is known for its immersive and open worlds. Yes some complain about the depth, buts its not about the depth. Its about immersing yourself in the world and lore, and you can do anything and go anywhere anytime you want. Making a linear rpg with invincible npcs (no pickpocketing, stealth, sneak attacks, stealing, etc) and probably no speech traits considering the nature of mmos, is the exact opposite of what the series is known for. You can't take away the strengths that the series has and expect the IP to make up for it alone.

Also the graphical style is just wrong. Its too shiny and stylized for Elder Scrolls.

Exactly right, both of you. There doesn't seem to be anything actually Elder Scrolls in this so called Elder Scrolls MMO. A true Elder Scrolls MMO's combat, interface, and so on should just be Skyrim's system with the addition of hundreds of players running around, maybe attacking each other or helping each other occasionally. It should NOT just be WoW with the Elder Scrolls name slapped on it. Newsflash developers, you are NEVER going to make an WoW killer by COPYING WoW, you need to make a unique MMO with it's only original combat mechanics and PVP if you ever want to have a real chance of beating or even just competing with it.

 

[CountChopula]

It's bare minimum of an MMO.
Nothing at all innovative.
No player housing.
Everything instanced.
Totallys solo-able (because that certainly has helped things along)
Class system.
I can go on.

Bare minimum of an mmorpg, nothing at all to see here folks.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

It still seems like a remarkably bad idea to me. But well see.

 

[Li Mu]

Newsflash developers, you are NEVER going to make an WoW killer by COPYING WoW, you need to make a unique MMO with it's only original combat mechanics and PVP if you ever want to have a real chance of beating or even just competing with it.

You speak the truth and obviously have sense. That is why we must kill you and remove your heretical ideas from public viewing. Repeat after me; MUST COPY WORLD OF WARCRAFT. MUST COPY WORLD OF WARCRAFT. COPYING WORLD OF WARCRAFT EQUATES TO SUCCESS.

I hope this doesn't turn into a button mashing game like WoW, please keep the same combat mechanics. That is what separates Elder Scrolls from all other games...

They're not keeping the combat mechanics. Apparently it's too difficult, plus they have stated that they don't want to "Alienate" normal MMO fans. The set up sounds very much like what WoW does right now.


And Steve, when are you going to get around to sorting out your errors? It's ZENIMAX ONLINE making this game, not Bethesda. That's like saying Bethesda made New Vegas and not Obsidian.

 

[Fisher321]

They're not keeping the combat mechanics. Apparently it's too difficult, plus they have stated that they don't want to "Alienate" normal MMO fans. The set up sounds very much like what WoW does right now.

Well, so much for me buying that game...

 

[Sight Unseen]

Newsflash developers, you are NEVER going to make an WoW killer by COPYING WoW, you need to make a unique MMO with it's only original combat mechanics and PVP if you ever want to have a real chance of beating or even just competing with it.

You speak the truth and obviously have sense. That is why we must kill you and remove your heretical ideas from public viewing. Repeat after me; MUST COPY WORLD OF WARCRAFT. MUST COPY WORLD OF WARCRAFT. COPYING WORLD OF WARCRAFT EQUATES TO SUCCESS.

I hope this doesn't turn into a button mashing game like WoW, please keep the same combat mechanics. That is what separates Elder Scrolls from all other games...

They're not keeping the combat mechanics. Apparently it's too difficult, plus they have stated that they don't want to "Alienate" normal MMO fans. The set up sounds very much like what WoW does right now.


And Steve, when are you going to get around to sorting out your errors? It's ZENIMAX ONLINE making this game, not Bethesda. That's like saying Bethesda made New Vegas and not Obsidian.

They said that they're trying to raise the MMO bar for combat though by having it be semi real-time and semi round based. Like, for instance, you can block, dodge, and evade attacks in real time, and stun other players and stuff because of the stamina bar, which is something I've never seen in any MMO I've played.

Still, I'm skeptical until I see some actual gameplay. Until then, I'm cautiously optimistic and interested.