Hope you weren't too excited about that Elder Scrolls MMO

[BloatedGuppy]

2 million preorders, 5 months after release 500.000 active players. 14 months after release, it goes F2P. Calling it now.

If they have any sense it'll be FTP from the beginning, or at least "FTP" in the same way GW2 is, with the box price and no sub fee. The market is going to get increasingly hostile to sub based games as more high quality FTP titles start fighting them for players.

Most of these WoW clones seemed to be on par with WoW in terms of fluidity, but then again I only played WoW for something like 150 hours in total... So maybe my experience isnt as valid. Or maybe its valid because of that. Whatever.

I wish. This is probably WoW's #1 edge to be honest. Fluid, precise, crisp movement and zero input lag. Even the very polished GW2 has some floaty/spammy looking animations, although it's better than most. WAR was particularly bad in this respect, and TOR got savaged by its playerbase for what little input lag it had (and it wasn't even particularly bad compared to some).

Benefits of running on an aging engine with textures from 1996 I suppose.

 

[Fijiman]

At first I was intrigued because I was curious about the idea of making a First-person, real-time combat game into an MMO.

Now though? Interest level: 0.

this pretty much sums up my reaction when I first heard about it. I was intrigued up until I saw that it was only for PC.(not that I didn't see that coming. still sucks though) However, after reading that article my only thought on it is what the hell are they thinking? Or are they even thinking at all?

 

[Neonit]

ahhh, good. i was worried that it would cost me time. Dont get me wrong, if this mmo happens i'll probably check it out, just not on release.

 

[RJ 17]

A multiplayer Elder Scrolls game is like communism: yeah, on paper and in theory it sounds wonderful but in practice it is utter shit.

That's how I've felt since Oblivion: "Wow, this game would be awesome with some multiplayer! But dear god I hope they never make it..." There's just wwwwaaaaaaayyyyy too many things they'd have to change/take out of the standard format (fast travel, resting/waiting, etc) in order to make it an MMO. Sooooo yeah, if you expected this game to be anything other than another "We're trying to be like WoW, but..." game then the joke's on you.

I was pretty sure it'd end up being little more than Arthas goes to Tamriel...guess my suspicions were correct.

 

[Preacher zer0]

So basically it's a WoW clone with a TES texture pack? ...pfft.

I can probably already find an mmo that has a mod for that somewhere. >.>

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Scans with Screenshots & shit available here: http://imgur.com/a/fO9Ty#0

I can't say those graphics look very inspiring, artistically. They don't seem very "Elder Scrollsy" to me. They look painfully generic.

 

[natster43]

I never really cared because I am not a fan of he series. Reall I just want another Fallout game, hopefully one that is made by black isles but uses their engine like New Vegas.

 

[Black Arrow Officer]

Scans with Screenshots & shit available here: http://imgur.com/a/fO9Ty#0

Oh no... this looks exactly like World of Warcraft. Everything down to the generic enemies is CTRL+C/CTRL+V'd.

 

[WoW Killer]

TOR got savaged by its playerbase for what little input lag it had (and it wasn't even particularly bad compared to some).

It was sort of a feature in TOR rather than a performance issue. I remember the devs talking about it as a design intent in an interview. In WoW you push a button and damage appears, but that means all the animations are very similar in their length and timing. A Heroic Strike looks like every other attack only bigger numbers appear. In TOR you could see your character taking bigger longer swings depending on the ability used, so that the attacks didn't always connect at the same time. This didn't really turn out to be an improvement though. It looked nicer, but the players ultimately prefered the more responsive feel of WoW. There were also issues with dodge and parry animations causing abilities to lag. It was ambitious but flawed.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Mmmmh, graphics style looks quite nice. Not as cartoony as I expected.

Maybe there is hope....

I'd almost have preferred it if they had been. Stylized graphics can have some personality. These seem almost aggressively bland. Very reminiscent of Everquest 2, actually. Plastic. Lifeless. Devoid of any creative spark.

It was sort of a feature in TOR rather than a performance issue. I remember the devs talking about it as a design intent in an interview. In WoW you push a button and damage appears, but that means all the animations are very similar in their length and timing. A Heroic Strike looks like every other attack only bigger numbers appear. In TOR you could see your character taking bigger longer swings depending on the ability used, so that the attacks didn't always connect at the same time. This didn't really turn out to be an improvement though. It looked nicer, but the players ultimately prefered the more responsive feel of WoW. There were also issues with dodge and parry animations causing abilities to lag. It was ambitious but flawed.

Yeah, improper animation/result synching was indeed the culprit, I guess "input lag" is the wrong way to describe it, but that's the feeling you're left with, that the game isn't responding crisply to your commands. WAR had the same issue, on a much grander scale.

TOR's bizarre system crippling issues in the first months of release didn't help either. I don't know if it was RAM or processor that was to blame, but it absolutely bent my girlfriend's PC over before I upgraded it.

 

[Eri]

In reference to the point about there being level limits on certain areas of the game...

Isn't this a necessity of MMOs? The game can't scale to one individual, as it does in Skyrim.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

Well, duh!

 

[Fappy]

This just ruined my morning. Thanks a lot.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Isn't every MMO an "another MMO".

Don't care for the silly genre anyways.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Zero interest in the MMO. Played both WOW and GW and was bored to death within a week. Also prefer single player rpg so the Elder Scrolls MMO will fail. What a waste of money and talent.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Question: did you like Morrowinds world? I did, and these look like they are in that style.

I'm happy they are going with the original style of TES games, as opposed to another WoW clone in all regards. It could give the game some sense of personality at least.

I liked Morrowind's WORLD BUILDING, in the same way I liked Oblivion's world building, without always necessarily liking the art direction. Ironically, I did enjoy Skyrim's. Everyone else was pissing on it for being too grey and brown, but I thought it was an accurate representation of an alpine region.

And I don't even think those are particularly reminiscent of Morrowind. Morrowind felt more organic. Although to be fair, I'm basing this off a tiny handful of screens.