Elder Scrolls Online's Main Story Will Be a Solo Affair

[RaNDM G]

I think too many people are getting the wrong idea from the headline.

"The last thing you want to do is to have the final confrontation with Mehrunes Dagon as he's stomping across the Imperial City, and you see 15 guys behind you waiting to kill him because they're on the same quest." The TES Online designers were hoping to hit that feeling of "You're awesome, you're the hero" through technology, letting players confront the games' major villains in instanced areas by themselves (or, presumably, with friends).

So certain parts of the game will be single-player. What's the big deal? If anything, it streamlines the story and allows players quicker access to the main quests. Once that is over and done with, you can focus more on the endgame.

It's not like the story is mandatory anyway. The reason why Elder Scrolls is popular is because you can forsake the story-line and explore the world. There will be nothing stopping players from doing that.

 

[Terrik]

Why is there a need for the whole "You're awesome, you're the hero" all the time? Leave that to the single player games if you got to have it in.

Me, I'd be fine with just being another person living in Tamriel doing whatever to get by.

Forcing you to solo stuff in order to feel like a hero is just so pointless, especially in an MMO. I dont think to myself "Oh man I'm such a hero, and so special!" when I complete some quest in a game, because everyone else out there does the same quests as well so there is nothing special about it.

 

[Zydrate]

Actually, having an MMO that I can play "single player" while talking with real people and perhaps trading items with them along the way, sounds pretty good to me.

One of the reasons I'm not into MMO's is that you need to meet up with people at some point to make progress, and I hate to have any pressure or needing to call people up when playing my games. I just want to play when I feel like it.

Double edged sword. If a feature is introduced to help counter that, most people yell at it for a "dumbing down" of the system.

The Group Finder in WoW is nicely functional, though.

 

[luckshot]

didnt age of conan try to do the same thing with everyone being special hero #1? doesnt that idea kind of fall apart if you meet another chosen one?
whats the point of paying a monthly fee for a single player game?
whats the point of being online for a single player game?


i think they're to early in development to answer these questions, they should just get some work done and then do press for it, because right now it seems like they are scrambling for answers and have no clue what their game is about

 

[josemlopes]

They should have just made the next Elder Scrolls with co-op instead of this.

 

[Frostbite3789]

So, basically it's just an Elder Scrolls game that happens to need an internet connection?

M'k, glad we cleared that all up, but still, not very sure about this game.

With lower quality graphics and bland MMO combat! Hooray!

 

[centermassmatt]

News from bethesda:
"our game is terrible, we have no idea what we are doing, please buy it anyway"

The sooner we all ignore this and it dies, the sooner we can pretend it never happened, and go back to giving Bethesda money for good games

bethesda has nothing to do with this game apart from making games from the same IP.

Okay, fine. "news from consistently related Bethesda affiliate: our game is balls, and whoever made it, it's still bethesda money funding this shitpile"
better? It doesn't matter what codemonkey is tapping on the keyboard because the basic idea came from the money at Bethesda, and the basic idea was a shitty MMO.

Don't get bogged down in semantics

i will. because people who work at Bethesda are related to Zenimax online only in the fact that they are both owned by Zenimax. they are totally different teams, do totally different things and totally different ways of doing things. if you wanna insult people, insult the right people. the basic idea came from the people who have Bethesda on a leash, Zenimax. theyre the ones who make these money grubbing decisions. not bethesda softworks.

Zenimax= publisher and decision maker.
Bethesda= talent who does good stuff. also, bethesda has gone on record to say they wouldnt put multiplayer on elder scrolls because it goes against what theyre trying to do.
Zenimax Online= another studio on leash from zzenimax, who does their online products or sth similar to it.

Zenimax is not the publisher. Bethesda Softworks is. Bethesda Game Studios is the developer of TES. Zenimax Online Studios is the developer for ESO. Zenimax Media is the parent company for all involved. How's that for semantics?

Point is, ever since the announcement was met with such anger and frustration from the fanbase, Bethesda Game Studios have been trying to distance themselves so it doesn't affect their end of the series. However, both Pete Hines and Todd Howard run the publishing arm Bethesda Softworks so they both had a big hand in the creation of this game. Pete Hines even went as for to call ESO "my game" on twitter.

No matter how many ways you slice it, they are involved much deeper than they would like people to know. Also anyone who believes that ESO's failure (or highly unlikely success) won't affect the next single-player TES game know nothing about corporate structure and how shareholders view IPs.

 

[Sewa_Yunga]

didnt age of conan try to do the same thing with everyone being special hero #1? doesnt that idea kind of fall apart if you meet another chosen one?

Age of Conan was close to doing this really well on Tortage (tutorial island). You get a different storyline for each archetype (Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Priest) but all these storylines are entwined.

So when you rescue a damsel in distress as a soldier, you're told that she'll be treated by the priests.
Now when you play as a priest you learn that you need a special cure for that girl a soldier just rescued. Said cure is being procured by the evil sorceress' rebel apprentice while you have to protect the townsfolk from the evil overlords minions, who are sent out to teach the rebellion a lesson after one of his officers has been assassinated.

So the most of the tutorial feels like you're a hero of the rebellion, which is awesome.
But then you're told that you are the hero, the chosen one destined to kill the evil overlord and take his macguffin. Just like everyone else.

tl;dr:
You start out as a heroic member of the rebellion but become special hero #1 later on. Like everyone else does.

 

[luckshot]

didnt age of conan try to do the same thing with everyone being special hero #1? doesnt that idea kind of fall apart if you meet another chosen one?

Age of Conan was close to doing this really well on Tortage (tutorial island). You get a different storyline for each archetype (Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Priest) but all these storylines are entwined.

So when you rescue a damsel in distress as a soldier, you're told that she'll be treated by the priests.
Now when you play as a priest you learn that you need a special cure for that girl a soldier just rescued. Said cure is being procured by the evil sorceress' rebel apprentice while you have to protect the townsfolk from the evil overlords minions, who are sent out to teach the rebellion a lesson after one of his officers has been assassinated.

So the most of the tutorial feels like you're a hero of the rebellion, which is awesome.
But then you're told that you are the hero, the chosen one destined to kill the evil overlord and take his macguffin. Just like everyone else.

tl;dr:
You start out as a heroic member of the rebellion but become special hero #1 later on. Like everyone else does.

ahhh thanks for clearing that up, i never played it just watched yahtzee's review that mentioned it...probably shouldn't be using him as a source on this

but thinking on it, what you described (the good parts) could work and might even be interesting in a elderscrolls game...but it seems like a lot of risk for a long running game series that has been built entirely on single player

and i do like the idea of teaming up with others i come across to take a look into the haunted towers or whatever

 

[Dr Jones]

So, basically it's just an Elder Scrolls game that happens to need an internet connection?

M'k, glad we cleared that all up, but still, not very sure about this game.

But more boring, and with worse combat (somehow).

 

[maturin]

In Oblivion you very pointedly don't defeat Dagon, and in Morrowind you are never fighting the Tribunal. I thought these guys said they were fans. They need to let Pete Hines do their PR, because expectations drop every time they open up their mouths.

And if you're going to ruin ES with an MMO, I would prefer to at least have a decent MMO, which means teamwork and feeling like you're part of something bigger than yourself.

 

[w00tage]

>>
that feeling of "You're awesome, you're the hero"
<<

No wonder I don't like Skyrim. I don't have an entitlement complex. When I buy a game, I expect that the only way I'll win it is if I, the player, can become good enough to make my character BECOME awesome and the hero. Otherwise I feel like I'm just being handed an "I win" button when I buy the game. Sure there's work involved, but it's just pushing the buttons the developer put there for me, and where's the fun in that?

Wow. Epiphanical realization. Thank you for that Bethesda. Oh, and I'm sorry, but I can't buy your products anymore. Unlike your past work, they've devolved from actual games into mere packaged gratification, and that's just not worth money to me.

 

[The Great JT]

You know, there's a name for MMO that's single-player focused. It's called "contradictory."

 

[blackrave]

I'm scared
why does most developers thinks that online is next level of gaming?
No, just no

I don't care for online games much, but what I care is, that WHEN (not "if") this game fails this could endanger further TES games (and FO4)
It isn't too late to stop yet, please do so while you can.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

So, basically it's just an Elder Scrolls game that happens to need an internet connection?

M'k, glad we cleared that all up, but still, not very sure about this game.

But more boring, and with worse combat (somehow).

Which is why I'm not sure about it, I don't understand what they're trying to do, and I'm guessing the combat isn't going to be great since you can't do first person.

Very confused about this game.

 

[Dr Jones]

Which is why I'm not sure about it, I don't understand what they're trying to do, and I'm guessing the combat isn't going to be great since you can't do first person.

Very confused about this game.

The combat has been confirmed to be "Wow-like" (literally, they used that term in a Gameinformer article). Which means hotbars and such, pretty much taking the greatest thing about TES out of it.. The interactivity (though this is debatable, but I just don't feel like I'm in combat when pressing 1, 3, 2, 7).

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Which is why I'm not sure about it, I don't understand what they're trying to do, and I'm guessing the combat isn't going to be great since you can't do first person.

Very confused about this game.

The combat has been confirmed to be "Wow-like" (literally, they used that term in a Gameinformer article). Which means hotbars and such, pretty much taking the greatest thing about TES out of it.. The interactivity (though this is debatable, but I just don't feel like I'm in combat when pressing 1, 3, 2, 7).

That's....stupid.

First they said it's not gonna be like an MMO but they're doing MMO type things, GAH!

Then why call it an Elder Scrolls game at this point.

 

[Kyber]

thank god it isnt being made by the team that makes the SP TES games, so i dont have to give a shit about it.

 

[Dresos]

Maybe they'll come up with some interesting gimmick or something down the line but right now they're just taking a bunch of stuff from other MMO's, maybe they'll do singleplayer storytellin better than TOR, maybe they'll make the political/pvp endgame better than TERA, and maybe they'll... oh who am I kidding. This just sounds uterly bland and uninspired.

I don't think that the Elder Scrolls title will have much of an impact without the Beteshda logo beside it and that if they don't at least make their game unique in some way they won't even sell enough copies to make up for the production cost.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

J.T.F.C Bethesda, if you want to join the "Always online DRM" club, just come out and say it.