I'm not happy with WoW, and I've been wanting to explore the E.S. world with my wife for a couple years now. They might profit off of my needs.
I suspect this game is going to crash and burn and we'll end up with a non-MMO multiplayer ES6 that requires an always-on connection around 2020.
Two points of preference from me: 1) I would much rather tool about in the bizarre and stunning wilds of Morrowind than the drabness of Skyrim. (Or if we're to be really ambitious, Valenwood.) 2) I would much rather have normal co-op multiplayer in the the above than MMO in any TES. Being able to just join up with a couple friends and play Morrowind MP has been a dream since it came out.
Morrowind... ugh... I just remember endless running, resting, running, resting, running, oh my god a scrib, finally some combat, oh it died in one hit, time for more running, resting, running running running. I'd much rather play Daggerfall, grainy sprites and samey environment and all.
After Warcraft III, Warcraft fans wanted another RTS. What they got was the most successful MMO of all time. For all we know, an ES MMO might be similarly successful. It's unlikely, but there's no reason to dismiss it out of hand.
I'm not sure if it's a Hero Engine thing, but one of the disappointing things to me with TOR is how much the worlds are divided into paths that intersect only in certain places regardless of how wide open they might seem like they should be. Corellia and Nar Shadaa are the most blatant examples of this, where they take cities and gerrymander them into twisting snakes that make no sense whatsoever. I always assumed that had to do with how they handled loading the zones. Hopefully this isn't a thing with ESO, because having a truly wide open world is a hallmark of the series.
Another thing about the hero engine with SWTOR: they bought an alpha version, which gave them a lot of shit and it showed in the end product. ESO has been in development since 2007. It's possible they're working with the exact same alpha version.
I think the compartmentalized zone thing is also a Bioware philosophy. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, even going back to KOTOR; each zone is more or less an elaborate corridor. In some ways I'm surprised it's as open as it is. Tatooine and Hoth at least are totally wide open. My hope is that they feature more worlds like this. Dantooine, for example, could follow this approach. ESO without open world exploration is an automatic fail. I'll probably check it out, as I tend to give every mmo a shot at some point, but I'm honestly not that interested in the mythology of the world. I don't think a translation into a more traditional mmo model would do it for me. Especially since one of the hallmarks of the game system is the lack of a class system and the ability to level every skill at will. I fear balance issues will doom any effort to go outside the class system, much like it did SWG back in the day.
Wait. How can you not like its mythology, yet want an open world to explore? Without mythology, there wouldn't be anything worth exploring!
I've always viewed the Elder Scrolls games from a "present day" perspective. All the world design and backstory is great. It helps flesh out the world, but I can't say I feel passionate about it or could I tell you much about the political landscape of the world. I don't even care about the main story in any of them. In fact, the only one I ever finished the main story in was Skyrim. I'm more content to run around the richly detailed world, interact with the npcs, and pursue whatever goal strikes my fancy. I like the fact that the game world changes due to my actions. That's not something that can be duplicated in an mmo, unless it's walled off in instances like LOTRO or SWTOR, and that's not really the same thing. That's more about advancing the plot than changing the game world.
It's a lot like how I enjoy exploring old churches and cathedrals as historic monuments despite not giving a flip about the actual intended purpose of the structures. There's some crazy awesome shit out there that I can appreciate regardless of the "why".
But without the mythology existing in the first place, those churches and cathedrals would have never been built. On some level, you have to like mythology, because it provided architecture for you to look at.
My point was more about the mythology, or perhaps better the IP, to draw me to the game. I could not tell you the first thing about what was going on with the Rift story. I liked the world design well enough, but the draw of that game was the game mechanics. Contrast that with LOTRO which was leaned heavily on the mythology both for the world design as well as the various quest storylines. Abstracted from those things the game mechanics were fairly vanilla. When I look at the Elder scrolls games, what draws me to them is the depth of the world, the ability to explore, but mostly that I can build any character I want using the skill system. I can kill anyone in the world, and they stay dead. The game world is what I make it. Absent those things, what is the difference between ESO and another generic fantasy mmo? I feel the essence of what makes the games appealing to me will be lost in a conversion to a shared persistant world, but I guess I'll have to wait and see.
You have to like the fact that the mythology exists, but you don't have to actually like the mythology.
I don't even think this is true. You can dislike everything about the how and why something was done and still appreciate the final product by taking it on its own merits. I'm not particularly enthused with how veal is produced, but I cannot deny that it's damn tasty. I don't like the bloodshed and death of the native peoples that were part of the founding of our nation nor do I like that in the world we live in that very well may have necessary, but I mostly like the country as it stands now.
First Elder Scrolls Online review I've seen. Now I actually want it, because it sounds like Skyrim with your buddies, which is basically BEST GAME EVAR OMGOMGOMG territory. (I put 90+ hours into Skyrim and if I didn't have as much of a life I'd still be in there.) And it doesn't look too shitty to me. mpogd.com (whoever they are) either has a shit site or got seriously crowdbombed, or both, so these may or may not load for you (same for the review itself).
"...it doesn't look too shitty to me." –RepoMan, BF Sounds like they've got something to put on the box!
All they had to do was mimic mount & blade in a sandbox MMO with a coat of elder scrolls paint, and I think most elder scrolls fans would've been happy. Instead, I have to wonder why anyone at zenimax is even there.
Fuck MMOs. I don't want to connect to Bethesda's servers. I just want this type of great RPG gameplay from Skyrim to be allowed to run a persistent world server that anyone you allow could go on and progress their character and the world's storyline and whatnot, and fight cooperatively. Small-group multiplayer RPG, I want it already god dammit.
I'm dismayed, again, by how static the characters are. I'm tired of being a guy sitting there swiping at a monster. Can we please get some action into MMOs?
My dream MMO would have combat not designed by Bethesda, because, honestly, who really expects them to redefine combat systems of any sort? Their games have always had lots of combat, but they've never been about the combat. Combat in their games has always felt more like a means to an end, rather than the draw.
So... they're expecting a subscription on this or what? Combat looks like shit to me from that introduction video. World looks generic, and it seems like pretty much everything is something we've seen before between ES 3, 4, and 5. The thing that got me was the very beginning where the design was stated to be trying to make a game for both the ES crowd and the MMO crowd simultaneously. Not really sure how that works, because aside from both being RPGs of sorts they're pretty much the anti-thesis of one another.
In Skyrim, the churches and cathedrals existed to house the loot dropping creatures. I didn't care about the mythology at all (SPOILER: you are the centre of everything and the world turns around you) finding it to be yet another generic fantasy world. Except for Blackreach. That bit actually surprised me.
I think this is going to be a game that will have decent initial sales figures - probably around a million copies - enough that fanboys will declare it a victory but not enough in terms of real-world money to cover the cost of the development and marketing a modern MMO. The subs will tank faster than even SWTOR because the ES players won't find it compelling and the MMO players will move on to something else after the novelty wears off (or go back to WoW). I only see this as being profitable if they've been able to develop it on a shoestring budget in the ~$60M-$70M range. But that's less of a budget than even Skyrim itself had, and you'd need an MMO to have more content than any single-player game.
I don't like the way the races are split in 3 different groups. It would have been much nicer if you could simply make your character and then join a faction instead, like the way you chose one of the great houses in Morrowind or a side in the civil war in Skyrim. I'm not too much of a lore-buff, but the races seem a bit thrown together on a whim as well. Dark Elves and Nords don't get along historically as far as I know, and High Elves look down on anyone not elven. Meh, I'll probably check it out once it goes F2P anyway, but I can't say I'm very excited for this one!
The race split thing is my biggest problem with the setup, yes. I tend to like tab target MMO combat better than Elder Scrolls click and swing, so that part doesn't really concern me (though it should concern them if they want the same core fan base.)
Of all the combat systems to choose to replace the ball sucking MMO model, you choose the most ball sucking of the RPG models.
Okay, I know you're all super hyped about this game, so you better act fast and sign up for the beta! Or not.
