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

[sumanoskae]

Yeah, I figured. I guess the online component of MMO's is still such a massive undertaking that nobody wants to risk updating anything else. Guess it's a technical nightmare.

I'd rather they just release multiplayer DLC for Skyrim. Make it GTA IV style, just let me and some friends explore Skyrim together, I'd be down for that.

 

[The Lugz]

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.

actually, i wouldn't say that's exactly written in stone..

if you had a combat system a-la pokemon, or older rpg's where you entered a small circle call it 'combat bullet time' or similar where everything out of 20 yards got all blurry around you you could easily make a suitably scaled enemy encounter on a per player basis

so if i attacked a spider as a level 10 warrior with average items, it would be balanced to have similar health and armour to me

if i was grouped with someone it would have slightly more stats and a little more loot, but not so much that grouping was pointless / overpowered

in this example grouping would be accepting someone into your combat bubble
which to others could appear as a small magical circle on the ground

so, you physically claim an npc and a small amount of land for a fight

ill work on it and suggest it to someone someday.

 

[JackWestJr]

My resident Elder Scrolls fan friend knew it was gonna be a piece of tripe as soon as he heard it was announced. Then again, it hasn't come out yet, so we'll see.

 

[Reaper69lol]

Well... That sucks. What's the point of being a TES game if it plays nothing like a TES game? Why didn't they just make an expansion to Skyrim with co-op? That would have been better by the sounds of this imo.

The point is, they are trying to retain brand loyalty by including The Elder Scrolls in their tittle. Which coincidentally will be the only thing close to a TES game. A freaking tittle.

 

[AgedGrunt]

Disaster, and rather disappointing, but to a point that I'm glad it will fail miserably.

Toward the author: "tiresome and artificial"? Is that what MMOs are, Mr. Plunkett?

I'm pretty new to TES, but Skyrim didn't exactly win me over with its clumsy AI, painful carry capacity, NPCs with 500 gold, time-destroying item universe, tedious crafting, untimely (and downright silly) amount of dragon attacks (whose loot immediately overburdens, thank you for ruining 20 minutes of my playing trade caravan) and basically copying the same drab, buggy engine I met in Fallout 3. I found much of it "tiresome and artificial".

Note: Not defending traditional MMO design, but the stereotype is trite. I may not know older TES titles but Skyrim proved the series can be every bit as lazy as MMO design teams are (mechanically-speaking).

 

[Eri]

Elder Scrolls has always been about ultimately becoming a god that walks like a man. An MMO wouldn't be able to incorporate that to begin with.

This is my biggest problem with an Elder Scrolls MMO. Your character is always the game-changer. You're the prisoner who fights and becomes the saviour (Or scourge). It's your story. And MMO isn't your story, it's everyone's story. You aren't the saviour of the world, you're another guy in Tier 3 armor. For some MMOs, that's fine. For Elder Scrolls? That's wrong.

Yea, I feel like SWTOR was trying to bridge this gap with their dialogue stuff.

 

[Grape_Bullion]

I'm quite late to the party, I'm sure all of this has been said in one form or another.

The problems I see happening with an Elder Scrolls MMO are the same problems encountered by The Old Republic. It is, in my opinion, one of the hardest game genres to be successful in. Bethesda cannot approach this project with the mentality of "People like elder scrolls. People will therefor buy this game and play it for a long time.", nor can they copy paste what makes other MMOs successful. Bethesda better think long and hard about how they continue with this game. TES has a fairly large and loyal player base, it would be a shame to see them put out a game that doesn't build on the strengths of Bethesda, and goes for a route all ready well traveled. A route that has sent many MMOs to an early grave.

 

[Omnific One]

I was never excited about it to begin with and had no intention of buying it. This is mostly why. MMOs suck, they all suck, and always will suck. The main mechanic of an MMO is sucking. This is just from my perspective from what I look for from a game, obviously and not everyone will agree but I've played enough MMOs to know that they ALWAYS suck, no matter what claims they make to the contrary.

I think I love you. In a non-homosexual way, of course.

 

[tzimize]

The issue of Game Informer packed with info on the newly-announced Elder Scrolls MMO is already in some people's hands and, well, if you were hoping for a game that was basically Skyrim only with real people, you're in for one hell of a disappointment.

From everything contained in the article, it sounds like "Elder Scrolls Online" is basically "Just Another MMO".

Things start going wrong on the very first page of the story, as ZeniMax Online's Paul Sage says "it needs to be comfortable for people who are coming from a typical massively multiplayer game that has the same control mechanisms, but it also has to appeal to Skyrim players".

A page later? You're playing the game in third-person, and its combat centres around hotbars activating skills. Your attacks have cooldowns. In clear terms, that means no real-time combat. It is literally explained as using "World of Warcraft mechanics".

You can't do something or go some places in the game unless you're appropriately levelled up, just like a regular MMO. ZeniMax is "keeping large areas inaccessible to save them for use as expansion content". Only "some fraction" of the caves and other landmarks in the game are waiting completely unmarked and unexplored. You can't own a house because it's "too hard to implement in an MMO". NPC characters don't run on the same schedules they do in the main games.

Oh dear.

http://kotaku.com/5907598/first-elder-scrolls-online--details-make-it-sound-like-just-another-fantasy-mmo

I wasn't all that excited because my faith in new MMOs is quite weak, and this, this right here is why. Don't expect much and you can't get too disappointed.

Hahahahahahahahaha! Ah...yeah this is no surprise. And its actually good news.

Now the game can flop/get canceled and I can go back to enjoying TES the way it was meant to be played (tm).

 

[A.A.K]

OH HO HO...I wasn't excited!
Mainly because I don't play MMO's...or any other game that forces me to interact with other human beings.
I also held little faith because a TES MMO is like communism. Great in theory, won't work though in practice.

 

[Eldrig]

Honestly, the first thing that popped into my mind when I heard about this MMO was:
"Oh god, all them bugs".
Because lets face it, the word "Bethesda" and the word "Bugs" usually go an awful lot hand in hand.

I honestly hope Bethesda decides that making a MMORPG is not the way to go, as I have a feeling they're much better at making Single Player games like the ones they made in the Elder Scrolls series, than making big MMOs.
Before I give too much praise to Bethesda, yes Skyrim was good, but god damn, it could have been done way better. That combat system T_T

Hang on The Escapist, I'm just gonna get my flame-coat, then you can go all out on me, as I just called Skyrim bad.

I can't seriously be the only one who's sick and tired of these MMOs every where. Please stop Game Developers, please stop :/

I know this isnt the first -or *dies a little inside* last- time that this must be explained, but it is NOT Bethesda making the Elder Scrolls Online. The only thing Bethesda has really done in connection to this project is the role of lore consultant. It's a new studio, Zenimax that is making this. Bethesda will still keep making single players, and TESO (the elder scrolls online) will use a different engine than ANY previous bethesda game, meaning the usual bethesda bugs are not likely to be present.

 

[Alexander Haslund]

this makes me a very sad panda

 

[LongMuckDong]

I'm not fussed really. Its not like the main mechanic from The Elder Scrolls games is the combat anyway.
Bethesda is a fantastic studio and even if their using mainly WOW style mechanics I have faith that they can break the Mold and create a unique game.

I like the Elder Scrolls lore/universe... a shit ton more than I like the WoW universe, or what I've seen of the GW2 universe too.

I love TOR due to it being Star Wars, lot's of fun and story driven.. if TESonline can do that too - deliver perhaps a similar story driven experience (which Skyrim et al aren't that good at as they are so open) then i'm 100% in.

Take my money 101.