Zero Punctuation: The Elder Scrolls Online - We Can MMO Too

[grumpymooselion]

To think we could have had another single player Elder Scrolls game with the time, effort and money invested, rather than this nonsense MMO.

I never asked for an Elder Scrolls MMO, or multiplayer, and every time in the past I've seen it mentioned on Bethesda's forums I've begged, literally begged the Developers to completely ignore these obviously insane people asking for an Elder Scrolls MMO or multiplayer. If, if if if if if you had to have some sort of multiplayer component why not allow people to send off 'their characters' as 'pawns' Dragon's Dogma style, coming back with gifts and experience so you can bring your friend's character into the game? You already see TES modders do similar things by making their characters companions for anyone to download and play along with. Dark Souls too has a preferable approach to multiplayer "without multiplayer" components that encourages community interaction and stories.

MMO is the most blogging thing to go with in regard to TES, I could almost understand a very limited 'with friends' form of a co-op but I'd still be begging the developers not to do it.

 

[Eric Ekman]

I love Yahtzee reviews, but why does he bother with MMOs? He orders a 6 course meal, takes a bite of the mashed potatoes, then tells us the restaurant is awful.

Second, this game gets so much flack for not being Skyrim 2.

Gamers wonder why all games look the same then scream like howler monkeys when their favorite IPs try to do anything different. Success or failure, I'm happy to see something new. When cajoled into playing this game by my max level friends it took a little getting used to, but there is a very rich experience here and something a bit off the beaten path from other MMOs. If the best you have is "this isn't skyrim", you are a part of the problem. Now, if you want to start talking about legitimate gripes with the game, there are plenty BELIEVE ME. But we aren't taking the game on it's own merit, most of the criticism is "This isn't skyrim, I wanted skyrim" and that's unfair at best and a part of the very corruption that convinces studies to ooze the same 3 monotonous games in different packages at worst.

 

[Delmarvelous]

Not really into MMO's but I would be if they went for a sandbox-style, where you can co-op for story quests as you move through a single player mission, but not Borderlands style. Quests could actually be something that you'd want to do if you were banding up with a group of merry-men to progress along a larger story, Witcher-style.

You could even do a great Skyrim type questing system within a single player game with co-op missions that could be picked up from NPC's or signposts etc. This way a player could alternate between SP and MP when they want to and each MP experience could be unique to you and the other players on your playthrough of the full game. MP could add to that story, or have it's own arc within the same mythos.

 

[Catasros]

Kind of expected this from the moment I heard of Elder Scrolls Online...

Yeah.. There seems to be so little chance of non-WOW MMOs succeeding nowadays that it depresses me when a good developer feels the need to throw their hat into the ring.

I doubted ESO less because of WoW (because the only way to beat WoW at this point is if Blizzard either fucks up 10 expansions worth of content at once or if they willingly shut down the game) and more because of the nature that ESO was built on. That is, the ability to go anywhere in the game you want and do whatever you want in whatever order you want that the game has to offer. And it works in games like Skyrim, Fallout 3 and whatnot since it is a single player experience where the enemies are always at your level (more or less, I guess) but MMO's are Online-games, so it is impossible to make it work the same way as in other games. The second thing people seem to like with Bethesda Games are the bugs and glitches. Something that, once again, is incompatible with MMO's by their very nature.

So since the two big selling points of the Elder Scrolls games rendered useless the moment development began, ESO would have to do something really drastic to work for real. And if that happened, it would probably not feel like an ELder Scrolls game, would it?

... Gah, I got carried away...

 

[Thanatos2k]

I love Yahtzee reviews, but why does he bother with MMOs? He orders a 6 course meal, takes a bite of the mashed potatoes, then tells us the restaurant is awful.

Second, this game gets so much flack for not being Skyrim 2.

Gamers wonder why all games look the same then scream like howler monkeys when their favorite IPs try to do anything different. Success or failure, I'm happy to see something new. When cajoled into playing this game by my max level friends it took a little getting used to, but there is a very rich experience here and something a bit off the beaten path from other MMOs. If the best you have is "this isn't skyrim", you are a part of the problem. Now, if you want to start talking about legitimate gripes with the game, there are plenty BELIEVE ME. But we aren't taking the game on it's own merit, most of the criticism is "This isn't skyrim, I wanted skyrim" and that's unfair at best and a part of the very corruption that convinces studies to ooze the same 3 monotonous games in different packages at worst.

Um, they're not doing something different. They're literally doing the same thing so many others have done before - a generic WoW chasing MMO that'll be dead in a year.

That's why people didn't want this, and still don't want this.

 

[Hutzpah Chicken]

After starting Guild Wars there is no reason to play any other MMO, especially when I have an MMO to myself.

 

[logicsniper]

I can't be the only one out there who prefers single player to MMOs.

 

[maximara]

Ugh, I got bored of Kung Fu Panda jokes about Mists of Pandaria, oh wait I never found them funny. Granted if anybody has actually played the thing they'd realise that the Pandaren are much more than that and it has a rather grim tone, albeit poorly written.

I think people who hear this joke and immediately jump to the defense of "Pandaren were in WoW before Kung Fu Panda, so stop making this joke! ;_;" are missing the entire point of the joke in the first place.

Yes, Pandaren existed in the WoW universe before Kung Fu Panda. And the concepts of anime school girls with psychic powers, bear cavalry, and trained attack dolphins all existed before C&C Red Alert came along, but I don't recall anyone getting too terribly defense about how stupid all of those things are.

The Pandaren expansion exists as a means to capitalize on the rise of anthropomorphic animals in popular media, especially in the Chinese market where players eat that shit up. Their nature as masters of martial arts is probably coincidental, fair enough, but they wouldn't have been added to WoW at all if such creatures weren't becoming more and more popular. A lot more recent MMOs released tend to feature at least one furry character race to play as for pretty much the same reason.

This IMHO is nonsense. WoW had anthropomorphic animals as a playable race from the get go: the Tauren. Never mind you had the Worgan in Silverpine Forest back in Pre-cata when they were an NPC only race. And between them you had the Space Goat race in The Burning Crusade.

Also I am trying to figure out this "rise of anthropomorphic animals in popular media" you are talking about as I sure didn't see it around 2010 which is when Mists would have gone into planning. If anything that happened back in the 1980s and 1990s.

 

[carpathic]

*SNIP*

Also, I eagerly await the solitaire MMO. Seems to be where things are going.

This...an endlessly expanded game, where you don't have to do ANYTHING with ANYONE if you don't want to? I might sign up for this type of experience.

Course, I could just do mods.

Or game companies could go back to doing legit expansions rather than crappy 3 hour DLCs.

Seems unlikely that.

 

[maximara]

I know you probably won't be reading this Yahtzee, but Pandaren were in Warcraft 3 (especially Chen Stormstout the main pandaren hero) before Kung Fu Panda was even made so your joke about that part falls rather flat.

Of course there are few that actually know this, but hey..all in good fun right? Right.

Not really, because why did Blizzard introduce the Pandaren AFTER Kung Fu Panda's success? It's not really coincidental.

They didn't. The Pandaren first appeared in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne in 2003. And before them there was a martial artist who changed into a panda named Genma Saotome of Ranma 1/2 which came to the US in the 1990s.

 

[android927]

I'm usually not interested in MMOs unless they try to do something totally unique (such as Planetside). That said, I'm actually pretty excited about Firefly Online, although that may just be my inner Browncoat desperately crying out for more adventures in the 'verse.

 

[faefrost]

I know its a minor point, but just to set people strait on the Pandarian thing, so they don't make the same faulty argument in the future.

Having an Asian themed panda in Warcraft 3 in no way protects Bizzard from accusations of ripping off Kung Fu Panda. Warcraft 3 came before Kung Fu Panda, so it cant be cant be "inspired" by the movie but Mists of Pandaria came AFTER the movie and doesn't get to shield itself with some made-up gradfather clause.

This is like Warhammer making a WoW clone MMO, then claiming its not try to copy WoW in any way because a bunch of Warhammer books existed before WoW. If X2 comes after Y1, then X2 is capable of copying Y1. The fact that X1 came before Y1 is completely irrelevant.

Would it help your view on this to know that the Dranei were originally supposed to be a playable Pandaren race instead, during Burning Crusades development. Some Chinese Cultural Ministry veto'd the Panda's so they got shelved for a few years.

 

[Isra]

also the game plays nothing like world of warcraft

Maybe not, but it sure doesn't play like any of the other ES games. Combat in ESO is really boring and doesn't have that same awesome feel as the fighting mecanic in the other games in the series.

I love TES games but I've never thought of them as having cutting edge combat mechanics. Bethesda always lagged pretty far behind in that aspect and they're consistently bad at animating. I think you're wearing rose tinted glasses if you think any of the other TES games have awesome combat mechanics. Morrowind was a roll to hit one animation clickfest. Oblivion combat at least got rid of RNG, but the horrible animations and lack of any depth to the mechanics made it feel like an airy pillow fight. The moon physics didn't help matters any. Skyrim? A relatively big step forward, but compared to two other games which came out earlier in the same year - Dark Souls and Witcher 2 - it's hugely lacking in substance and strategy and is definitely not up to par with that generation.

Granted, ESO's combat is even lousier than usual, but combat isn't really one of the things I would personally weigh heavily in a TES game. I step into TES games under the assumption that the combat is going to suck - and that's fine, because the game will be great in other ways. That said, I found ESO to be really mediocre in almost every way. A bad game? I don't know... but I agree with you there, it's pretty damned boring.

 

[nyysjan]

2 things to preface my comment on this episode.

1. I pre ordered ESO, and the only reason i am not playing it now, is because servers are down for maintenance
2. I think the game is, for the most parts, awesome.

But getting past that, i found this episode funny, and in some ways to the point in its criticism.

It is, however, worth the price of admittance imo.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

I know you probably won't be reading this Yahtzee, but Pandaren were in Warcraft 3 (especially Chen Stormstout the main pandaren hero) before Kung Fu Panda was even made so your joke about that part falls rather flat.

Of course there are few that actually know this, but hey..all in good fun right? Right.

Not really, because why did Blizzard introduce the Pandaren AFTER Kung Fu Panda's success? It's not really coincidental.

They didn't. The Pandaren first appeared in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne in 2003. And before them there was a martial artist who changed into a panda named Genma Saotome of Ranma 1/2 which came to the US in the 1990s.

I'm perfectly aware of that. I'm saying why were the Pandaren introduced as a playable race in the wake of KFP's success?

 

[maximara]

This IMHO is nonsense. WoW had anthropomorphic animals as a playable race from the get go: the Tauren. Never mind you had the Worgan in Silverpine Forest back in Pre-cata when they were an NPC only race. And between them you had the Space Goat race in The Burning Crusade.

None of which are a direct appeal to the Chinese, which was part of the point that I made (the part you ignored). So, way to miss the point.

That is like saying the best way to apply to the US market is to have a bunch of anthropomorphic Eagles running around.

Also I am trying to figure out this "rise of anthropomorphic animals in popular media" you are talking about as I sure didn't see it around 2010 which is when Mists would have gone into planning. If anything that happened back in the 1980s and 1990s.

Do you really want me to dig up a list of every animal-related film featuring animals who are anthropomorphized in one manner or another (either with human speech or gestures/behaviors), not to mention TV shows and other form of media in the last 5 to 10 years? Or can we both agree that there's been a lot of them and save us both the time effectively wasted with me trying to "prove" the obvious?

Seriously, I don't know how you can even try to pretend this isn't a "thing". Happy Feet, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar, Rio, just to name a few of the countless flood of such films. It's not like there's any lack of examples I can offer. I think you'd find it far harder to prove that this isn't a trend in popular media, especially nowadays, than I would have proving that it is, since all I have to do is keep listing examples until you admit that you're wrong.

Please note that all those films are computer generated and so far those only those work with "people" if those people are really something else ie toys or video games or the movie is a comedy. When they are the main character or "serious" you get that uncanny valley effect seen in Polar Express and Spirits Within and even to some degree in Beowulf.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Oh well. Seems the naysayers were right all along.

I was open to the idea of an Elder Scrolls MMO, but this one it is not. ESO seems to fail in the two areas that it had to get right most of all: Provide the most beloved feature of Elder Scrolls, this sense of freedom, the feeling that you can do, that you can go wherever your heart pleases, and encourage and support playing together with others... since that is pretty much an Elder Scrolls MMO's raison d'être... to enable you to experience Tamriel with your friends. But instead we get an M M O with a story & quests that are even more single-player-like, linear, and restrictive than the actual Elder Scrolls single player games ever were.

So I'll add my voice to the choir of the many who expect it going down just like SWTOR. Actually, I even hope that happens, for I cannot wish a game to be successful with such a shameless business model. Full box price AND high monthly fees AND de-facto Day-1-DLC with integral game content (a whole race for God's sake) AND a cash shop already in place (with otherwise suspiciously expensive horse) AND forcing the players to subcscribe right away even though the first 30 days are actually free (a practice for which Zenimax has been admonished by German authorities? No. Just no.
It's almost as if someone doesn't trust his product being good enough for people actually wanting to buy it...

What a shameful display.