Elder Scrolls Online

[Marou]

Big article here: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featur...ls-online.aspx

Juicy bits:
Long rumored and much anticipated, The Elder Scrolls Online is finally being unveiled in the June issue of Game Informer. In this month's cover story we journey across the entire land of Tamriel, from Elsweyr to Skyrim and everywhere in between.

"It will be extremely rewarding finally to unveil what we have been developing the last several years," said game director and MMO veteran Matt Firor, whose previous work includes Mythic's well-received Dark Age of Camelot. "The entire team is committed to creating the best MMO ever made – and one that is worthy of The Elder Scrolls franchise."

An in-depth look at everything from solo questing to public dungeons awaits in our enormous June cover story – as well as a peek at the player-driven PvP conflict that pits the three player factions against each other in open-world warfare over the province of Cyrodiil and the Emperor's throne itself.

The Elder Scrolls Online is scheduled to come out in 2013 for both PC and Macintosh.

Announcement Teaser:



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So, as much as I'd love this to be good, I don't think it will be. I bet it will be Warhammer WoW'der Scrolls Online. Not because anything gives that impression, but because that's the way shit goes. I'm just thrilled they did it with another shell company instead of ruining Bethesda Game Studios. Really for an ES online to work it would need to have a short curve to cap and be sandbox instead of theme-park progression based. We'll see when more info is revealed I suppose, although the trailer already sets the stage as massive disappointment compared to say, Skyrim's teaser.

/update: First screenshot looks like amateur hour cartoony stuff. Doesn't bode well.

[Norska]

Sounds promising, I'm not too concerned about hte screenshot. I like the landscape, it reminds me of oblvion, the monsters as well. The player characters do look a bit cartoony though.

But, you know my stand on mmos. It's shit until proven otherwise via long term player testing In this case, they've been incredibly tight lipped about everything (afaik, I haven't gone looking for information, but I've never seen any videos of actual in game footage posted anywhere) so who knows, maybe it'll be a surprise hit. But with all the praise I'm hearing for GW2, it might be arriving to the next gen rvr pvp world a bit late, and that means it would have to do better than GW2 to compete.

[Stalis]

I hope this doesn't mean that bethesda studios is going to stop making elder scrolls games. If so, I guess the fallout franchise will be my new favorite....

I expect absolute garbage. None of the writers or world designers or artists from the single player games is going to be working on it, at least I hope they aren't being pulled from bethesda studios..., so as far as I'm concerned its likely to just be another generic mmo with elder scrolls stamped on it.

[Marou]

Well, Zenimax has always been much more benevolent than most publishers, they are showing they are fucking retarded. Lets think about it a minute and put an I for included or an N for not included next to core TES features.

N First Person Perspective
N Real Time Combat
N Classless character progression
N Player housing
N Epic Score
N Great varieties of non-combat activities
N Realistic Art Style
I TES Lore
I Elder Scrolls Name

It's like Matt Firor walked in there and said, "I wanna make DAoC 2." and they said, "No, you're making TES online", and he says, "Ok, I'll make DAoC 2 anyways and stick the TES name on it." If they announced this as DAoC 2 I'd be cautiously optimistic. However, trying to sell it as TES Online is just fucking wrong, it has nothing in common with those games. TES Online if it retained the CORE DESIGN of the series would be a non-busted AAA version of Darkfall.

http://imgur.com/a/fO9Ty#18

[Norska]

Lawl darkfall, watching that game crash and burn was sad and entertaining. Thank god I didn't preorder. And I was srsly thinking about it.

I guess the reason I'm not too concerned about TESO is because I'm not expecting it to be a single player elderscrolls game. I'm expecting it to be an MMO. With all the flaws inherent to the MMO industry.

[Draconian]

I played DFO for a few months. It had amazing potential but development just completely ceased for the most part after release, and what projects they did work on for DFO, they changed it every 6 months to the point where it just never happened.


Mortal Online was released around the same time, and at the time I didn't try it since I was on DFO. I just started this week and... while not perfect by any means, it is a vast improvement on DFO in my opinion. If MO had the budget of AAA, it would be truly incredible I think. They have a lot of great ideas and it's the first MMO I've ever played where I've been happy about the versatility and complexity of the skill tree.

Plus, it actually has a player theft system, you can steal from player inventories and lockpicking is coming very soon which hopefully will allow interaction with player towns and houses for theft. It's certainly a genre of MMO for patient players who don't mind crafting a character through challenge - I just wish this type of game would get the budget and staff it deserves at some company someday.

The game reminds me a lot of Morrowind, it has that kind of feel and tone to it a bit, IMO. I also highly doubt that TESO will become what it should be or could be.

[Marou]

I played DFO for a few months. It had amazing potential but development just completely ceased for the most part after release, and what projects they did work on for DFO, they changed it every 6 months to the point where it just never happened.


Mortal Online was released around the same time, and at the time I didn't try it since I was on DFO. I just started this week and... while not perfect by any means, it is a vast improvement on DFO in my opinion. If MO had the budget of AAA, it would be truly incredible I think. They have a lot of great ideas and it's the first MMO I've ever played where I've been happy about the versatility and complexity of the skill tree.

Plus, it actually has a player theft system, you can steal from player inventories and lockpicking is coming very soon which hopefully will allow interaction with player towns and houses for theft. It's certainly a genre of MMO for patient players who don't mind crafting a character through challenge - I just wish this type of game would get the budget and staff it deserves at some company someday.

The game reminds me a lot of Morrowind, it has that kind of feel and tone to it a bit, IMO. I also highly doubt that TESO will become what it should be or could be.

That's why I'm aggravated instead of mildly interested like I'd be if it WAS DAoC 2. It's a squandered opportunity of massive proportions. They had a bazillion dollars and access to one of the best franchises in PC gaming. So, they make something that looks like a mish-mash of GW2 and WoW. Fuck that. There is always World of Darkness and Pathfinder, but they won't have the budget this sucker did. Pisses me off.

/edit: Also, this comment makes me wish I'd pimp slapped Matt Firor at one of those DAoC gatherings all those years ago. "It needs to be comfortable for people who are coming in from a typical massively multiplayer game that has the same control mechanics, but it also has to appeal to Skyrim players.""

[Graveworm]

God damn you guys are jaded.

[Marou]

Everyone is jaded. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...jOx0MJQ#t=545s
Gamespy: http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/elder-scrol...1224380p1.html

[Valec]

Plus, it actually has a player theft system, you can steal from player inventories and lockpicking is coming very soon which hopefully will allow interaction with player towns and houses for theft. It's certainly a genre of MMO for patient players who don't mind crafting a character through challenge - I just wish this type of game would get the budget and staff it deserves at some company someday.

Sounds awesome. I love the idea of a game where I can log out after some sort of accomplishment and log back in broke.

Where do I sign up?

[Draconian]

There are banks and storage vaults in game that can't be accessed except by you. But you can be pickpocketed at the vault if you're not observant enough.

Not to mention, if you are wealthy that means you're in a guild and you live in a walled town or keep, or one of the major cities that you guys took over (cause you can do that, btw) - so as soon as the thief fails to pick your front door the first time and someone was around, he's flagged and open game. You, or anyone else can call the guards on him which is essentially game over for him. He would have to do this unspotted by everyone in a town/city, unless you have a solo house in the middle of nowhere - which is obviously risky to do in general. But, the entire game population hates thieves very very openly and strongly. Thieves in this game aren't kelptomaniacs, they're calculated and careful individuals who don't ever want to be outed as a thief, because word spreads quickly and you become a favorite target when noticed. Hardly a career to be willy nilly clearing out people's houses nightly in towns across the country side.

If you have status as a player and accumulated wealth, there are ways to keep it flatly out of reach and ways to keep it reasonably out of reach... as reasonably out of reach as your laptop you tucked under the seat and locked in your alarmed car on a lighted street. Sure, it's possible someone could pass by and break into your car and find a laptop... but you've taken measures so you're 99% sure everything's gonna be alright. You can do the same thing in this MMO with whatever you decide to keep in your house - just live in your guild town which has guards and has players around pretty regularly. It would now require a group of conspirators to come get your shit and have a reasonable chance. But the important part is, is that there is now incentive for groups of conspirators to plan such raids. Any of this making any sense?

But yes, I know, in-depth player interaction and high risk/reward isn't palatable to most people for whatever reason. Even the watered down modern versions of "world PvP" servers on most big name MMOs are somewhat unpopular compared to vanilla. I'm just happy that there is indeed a section of the market that doesn't mind a bit more chess and a little less checkers in their MMOs, so I'll play with them.

[Andile™]

New event: another mmo on the horizon!
*roll dice*
Failed to excite.

[Ziel]

I lost interest in this when I found out it was made with SWTOR's engine and had hotkey combat. It's like a child begged for icecream and received a cut-out picture of one...It's what they asked for, but completely not what they meant. People really wanted a TES MMO and they really, really didn't want this (same problem as both the Warhammer MMOs).

I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a slew of these. MMOs that started development in 07-09 when WoW was in it's prime, that'll be announced to a bitter reception now that no one wants WoW clones anymore.

[NAH Grahm Cracker]

People really wanted a TES MMO and they really, really didn't want this (same problem as both the Warhammer MMOs).

Funny, because every time I've read an online discussion about a TES MMO, everyone seems to mention it would be a terrible idea because they knew that it would be a wow clone.
What people wanted was a multiplayer TES game, which does lead back to your analogy of ice cream which is spot on.

I think a multiplayer TES game could be fun, but it would mostly be novelty. The item system in TES games isn't really amazing, and that's almost the whole reason Diablo games were fun.



I think MMO gamers have a ridiculous view about what is possible.
Doing an open world real time combat first person MMO with physics is not feasible with anything short of a super ridiculous of budget and time spent in development (and no one has this budget and time).
It's possible to do an 'action' MMO, but it would be a far cry from Skyrim or Oblivion.
I haven't been excited by any MMO after the letdown of Warhammer, and this isn't an exception.

The only hope for this is that the PvP is fun, but I doubt it will be.
You have to go back to the basics to make PvP fun.
1.) Rely on your players to make it fun, this means making a big PvP area and telling people that's where to go to kill each other.
2.) Drop the 'mini game' PvP style of arenas and battlegrounds, it's not interesting and just leads to grinding.
3.) Make the PvP compelling - add real objectives that people can take pride in capturing.
4.) Make the combat interesting and strategical instead of just a damage race.

[Ziel]

Doing an open world real time combat first person MMO with physics

Woah, for a second there I thought we'd started talking about Planetside 2.

A TES MMO wouldn't even need to be as complex as that is, so I don't see why it wouldn't be feasible. This has been in development since 2007 and I'd imagine Bethesda has more money to play with than most.

That said, I don't think people are necessarily unhappy that it isn't exactly like the single-player TES games, but that this is seemingly generic MMO #108483 with the TES IP slapped on top.

[Marou]

Funny, because every time I've read an online discussion about a TES MMO, everyone seems to mention it would be a terrible idea because they knew that it would be a wow clone.
What people wanted was a multiplayer TES game, which does lead back to your analogy of ice cream which is spot on.

I think a multiplayer TES game could be fun, but it would mostly be novelty. The item system in TES games isn't really amazing, and that's almost the whole reason Diablo games were fun.



I think MMO gamers have a ridiculous view about what is possible.
Doing an open world real time combat first person MMO with physics is not feasible with anything short of a super ridiculous of budget and time spent in development (and no one has this budget and time).
It's possible to do an 'action' MMO, but it would be a far cry from Skyrim or Oblivion.
I haven't been excited by any MMO after the letdown of Warhammer, and this isn't an exception.

The only hope for this is that the PvP is fun, but I doubt it will be.
You have to go back to the basics to make PvP fun.
1.) Rely on your players to make it fun, this means making a big PvP area and telling people that's where to go to kill each other.
2.) Drop the 'mini game' PvP style of arenas and battlegrounds, it's not interesting and just leads to grinding.
3.) Make the PvP compelling - add real objectives that people can take pride in capturing.
4.) Make the combat interesting and strategical instead of just a damage race.

It always makes me cringe when people seem to forget that there are like, dozens of real time first person MMO's. Way back when there was WW2 Online, Neocron, and Planetside, there are a fuckton more now. Everything from the underwhelming (due to to content) Tera which is very action/slasher type play, to the straight up full aiming FPS in Firefall, which looks like it'll also disapoint on the content. There have also been a crapload of other *LOW BUDGET* takes in between, like Risk Your Life, etc.

The reason these games fail to deliver on content is because they don't have 300M dollars. EVERYONE who does, makes a fucking WoW clone that's going to flop. It makes no goddamn sense. Something like Mortal Online or Darkfall would be fucking amazing with AAA polish and a 300M dollar budget. The reason they aren't hugely successful isn't because of WHAT they are, it's because in most cases they were made by 5-10 guys on a budget of ramen noodles while they were working full time jobs somewhere else.

[NAH Grahm Cracker]

Woah, for a second there I thought we'd started talking about Planetside 2.

I don't know anything about Planetside 2 but Wikipedia said it's in alpha, so we'll see how that goes when it comes out.
As far as I can tell the original Planetside looked more similar to a bunch of battlefield servers linked together, which is a far cry from an open world MMO.
Feel free to correct me, I couldn't find very many good Planetside videos.

A TES MMO wouldn't even need to be as complex as that is, so I don't see why it wouldn't be feasible. This has been in development since 2007 and I'd imagine Bethesda has more money to play with than most.

That said, I don't think people are necessarily unhappy that it isn't exactly like the single-player TES games, but that this is seemingly generic MMO #108483 with the TES IP slapped on top.

A generic MMO with 3 faction PvP. Every MMO is the same thing - either they do something new and it turns out to be less than entertaining or they do a generic MMO and it sells like hotcakes (or at least the game makes a profit).
People are going to whine because it isn't Skyrim as an MMO, they don't know what actually want.

[Esfires]

I don't know anything about Planetside 2 but Wikipedia said it's in alpha, so we'll see how that goes when it comes out.
As far as I can tell the original Planetside looked more similar to a bunch of battlefield servers linked together, which is a far cry from an open world MMO.

Did you honestly never know what Planetside was?

Holy shit you missed out.

[NAH Grahm Cracker]

Did you honestly never know what Planetside was?

Holy shit you missed out.

I never played but I've heard.

[Valec]

did you honestly never know what planetside was?

Holy shit you missed out.

qfmft.

[Norska]

I blame all the people who bought SWTOR for perpetuating the cycle.

Shame on yoiu.

[Zoobi]

I blame all the people who bought SWTOR for perpetuating the cycle.

Shame on yoiu.

The shame weighs down my shoulders like nothing I've ever felt before.

[Ziel]

I never played but I've heard.

Oh wow.

http://wiki.planetsidesyndicate.com/...ntinentMap.jpg

You see the island at the top-left? I'd say that's about the size of a battlefield map in scale, possibly slightly smaller. That picture is just one continent of ten, not even accounting for santuaries and caves.

PS1 wasn't quite "open world" in the sense you're talking about, but considering the size of the maps, it should be more than doable nearly a decade later.

2:22 for PS2 infantry gameplay.

A generic MMO with 3 faction PvP. Every MMO is the same thing - either they do something new and it turns out to be less than entertaining or they do a generic MMO and it sells like hotcakes (or at least the game makes a profit).
People are going to whine because it isn't Skyrim as an MMO, they don't know what actually want.

I'm not sure what you'd clarify as "new", but there's plenty of non-generic MMOs that were successful, whether they were slightly off-track like CoH or completely in their own realms like EVE or Planetside.

Doubtlessly there will be some who aren't happy with anything less than Skyrim online, but there'll also be plenty who would be and simply know what they don't want.

[NAH Grahm Cracker]

Oh wow.

http://wiki.planetsidesyndicate.com/...ntinentMap.jpg

You see the island at the top-left? I'd say that's about the size of a battlefield map in scale, possibly slightly smaller. That picture is just one continent of ten, not even accounting for santuaries and caves.

PS1 wasn't quite "open world" in the sense you're talking about, but considering the size of the maps, it should be more than doable nearly a decade later.

I saw a map like that earlier, is the whole map one single open (no zone loading, etc) area, and they can have 1000s of players on that continent?

2:22 for PS2 infantry gameplay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIE42ZfdKbI

The video looked like a battlefield match with shiny bits cause it's the future. Is there something specific I should be taking notice of?

I'm not sure what you'd clarify as "new", but there's plenty of non-generic MMOs that were successful, whether they were slightly off-track like CoH or completely in their own realms like EVE or Planetside.

There are some examples that don't follow the traditional path, seeing as your major 3 examples are non-fantasy based, I am beginning to think maybe it's a handicap that the fantasy sub-genre of MMOs is saddled with.
Personally, I don't like the idea of a first person fantasy MMO, which is the biggest thing Planetside does.
EVE is another thing entirely, I suppose there could be an fantasy RTS MMO, which sounds enticing.

Doubtlessly there will be some who aren't happy with anything less than Skyrim online, but there will also be plenty who would be and simply know what they don't want.

I can understand people are not at all interested in a fantasy MMO with traditional (EQ/WoW) gameplay, but I don't understand what people think they do want besides Skyrim online.

I guess Marou must have made the best point earlier, people want to see features more reminiscent of a TES game?
- First Person Perspective - I think this would translate poorly in a fantasy MMO, it would be more suited to simply a 'multiplayer Skyrim' game. Your opinions may vary
- Real Time Combat - Real time combat without FPS isn't quite as enthralling to me - I think it would be sort of clumsy in 3rd person? I think one of the biggest things holding this back is latency - traditional MMOs are going at 200+ ms ping times? which could make a lot of awkward animations.
- Classless character progression - I wouldn't mind seeing a real MMO with this feature, Runescape has it basically. I could see a lot of balance issues.
- Player housing - This really is disappointing for a TES MMO, but perhaps it's something that they intend to add later? I can see where it would be a huge project and they don't want to delay release to get this done.
- Epic Score - I don't know exactly what Marou was getting at, does he mean the story? The major issue with that is that not everyone can be 'the savior' of the world in an MMO. They will have major quests and big baddies to take down.
- Great varieties of non-combat activities - I'm not sure what Marou was getting at, I'm sure TESO will have crafting and quests.
- Realistic Art Style - if they dumb it down to WoW levels I will be severely disappointed, but it's left to be seen where the art style is going, I've only seen like 4 screenshots and they aren't too bad. Art is expensive and cartoons are less expensive.

By the way, keep in mind that while I'm defending TESO, I'm not on a bandwagon for the game.
I don't play MMOs anymore because they don't offer anything compelling, and I expect that TESO will offer the same lack of compelling features.
My only interest in TESO is to see how they do the 3 faction PvP and PvP combat/mechanics.

[Sillywilly]

The primary thing I liked about Oblivion and Skyriim is the realistic graphics, the kind of dark/gothic feel of the games and the way the world feels immersive and alive. I like the deep and extensive character customization but I thought it did leave something to be desired in the end. Making changes to your characters looks was gaudy and wasn't very user friendly to me.

I am with Norska or Zoobi or whoever it is on one point, I'm not so sure the internet and technology has progressed to the point that an aim or miss MMO is possible yet. I would absolutely cream my pants for one but having a DAoC style 55 vs 60 vs 48 class near a major keep, I dunno man. I can't see the servers and peoples internet connections holding up.

Another problem with the MMO market, and it's been way too long since I used aspergers on the boards so I'm going to throw it out here, is the people that play them. There's too many broke ass pizza delivering 35 year old virgins with aspergers living at home with mom that play MMOs. As a result MMO developers are still making games that can be run on single 2.7 ghz processor with 2 gb of ram machines that have a 32 pixel pipelines video card. Half of these new MMOs I've played can be played on my old desktops (not my newer custom rig) with no problem. In fact I've dual boxed or had the wife play with me on my old machine in LotRO, Warhammer, AoC, etc. My old machine was a Compaq factory unit for under 1000 bucks that I moved over all the components to a new cheap motherboard from newegg and a 20 dollar custom case. So all these tards in the forums whining about performance, exactly WTF are they trying to run these games on?

For some reason console gamers are the only gamers that can get it through their heads as a collective that your gaming hardware needs to be updated, oooh I dunno, maybe once every 10 years at least?

I think the primary reason we're seeing a trend in the MMO genre towards "stylized" graphics is all the cheap fucks that play MMOs. I submit a large portion of WoWs success as potential support for my theory. The first MMO released that will run on a Tandy 1000 sells 15 million copies. Hmmm......