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[Solifuge]

If they open up the whole world like they haven't done since Arena, I might dig it. I don't expect original MMO mechanics and gameplay from the project, but I'll reserve judgement until it starts to take shape.

Tomorrow (as of this post) This Page will be showing a trailer for the game. Apparently they've been working on this since midway through Skyrim. We shall see.

[fqllve]

Eh, I'll probably give it a shot, especially if they keep the regular TES mechanics for the game. Hell, I played SWTOR (for all of three hours) and this probably appeals to me more. Plus it'll finally give us a chance to go to Elsweyr and Black Marsh.

Arena doesn't count because Argonians were just humans with scaly skin then.

[Microcline]

I don't know how anyone thought this would be a good idea.  Bethesda has never produced a TES game that isn't incredibly buggy and imbalanced, two things which are a death sentence in the MMO environment.  They've had trouble producing one province worth of content and quests over a five-year development period.  How do they expect to flesh out all of Tamriel, let alone compete with what WoW has to offer?  When I first saw this, I thought it must be a late April Fools joke, or a fanboy posting a "what-if" article.  There's no way any developer would try this as anything other than a bare-faced cash grab.

They're also throwing away the crutch of modding, which their current library would be almost unplayable without.

[PTTG??]

I imagine this meeting must have happened:

"So guys, what's the best part of the last three TES games?"
"Mods?"
"Yeah! And what's the one thing we haven't done at all in any of our games and have specifically designed against?"
"Well, we haven't done any multiplayer..."
"EXACTLY. So it only makes sense for the next elder scrolls game to be... AN MMO!!!"
"This is an excellent idea that cannot go wrong in any way."

[fqllve]

There's no way any developer would try this as anything other than a bare-faced cash grab.

Oh come on. People have been clamoring for multiplayer in TES and a TES MMO for years now. It doesn't make it a good idea but is it really impossible they said "Hey, our fans really want this, maybe we should give them what they want?"

[The Darkling Wolf]

No, Bethesda are Satan. Their next project is to revive Walt Disney and give him an army.

[Solifuge]

There's no way any developer would try this as anything other than a bare-faced cash grab.

Oh come on. People have been clamoring for multiplayer in TES and a TES MMO for years now. It doesn't make it a good idea but is it really impossible they said "Hey, our fans really want this, maybe we should give them what they want?"

fqllve, I have to agree. Bethesda are just providing the one thing fans have been trying and failing to do with available mods; make a multiplayer Elder Scrolls RPG. Still, at this point, I like Elder Scrolls for their world far more than their gameplay... and they've been getting farther and farther from that as well.

For the purposes of this, I'll look at the MMO from a distance, and see how derivative from Oblivion/Skyrim it is, or if it instead stays true enough to its own roots. To be honest, the shift from a unique setting to "generic fantasy" has me pretty jaded at this point; the patchwork planet of Nirn, with the landmasses and dominant races of many ruined planets cobbled together into a new world, has systematically been reduced to Fantasy Rome, which I'm still disappointed by.

[catoblepas]

There's no way any developer would try this as anything other than a bare-faced cash grab.

Oh come on. People have been clamoring for multiplayer in TES and a TES MMO for years now. It doesn't make it a good idea but is it really impossible they said "Hey, our fans really want this, maybe we should give them what they want?"

'People' also dislike it when a favored series gets the MMO treatment for a number of other reasons. It's obvious which group Zenimax is favoring here, and which is getting the shaft. Elder Scrolls has always been rpgs and never been multiplayer, so there is a convincing argument that they are turning against their roots to pursue a (more lucrative) target audience, at the expense of the single-player rpg enthusiasts the series has traditionally been aimed at for five games running now. I think people who are disgusted with this move have every call to voice their opinion on this matter. If they are betraying what has been the genre of the series for so long now, we have to ask ourselves why, and historically speaking, there has been a recent trend with successful games switching genres to become MMOs or shooters because they are more profitable. Therefore it is not unreasonable to think that this is a cash grab, or that it will put the series into stasis, or that it will destroy a gameplay style we have all come to love.

[fqllve]

Elder Scrolls has always been rpgs and never been multiplayer, so there is a convincing argument that they are turning against their roots to pursue a (more lucrative) target audience, at the expense of the single-player rpg enthusiasts the series has traditionally been aimed at for five games running now.

There's no evidence that this is going to be TES VI. If it turns out it is, count me as highly disappointed, but there is literally no evidence for that yet.

I think people who are disgusted with this move have every call to voice their opinion on this matter. If they are betraying what has been the genre of the series for so long now, we have to ask ourselves why, and historically speaking, there has been a recent trend with successful games switching genres to become MMOs or shooters because they are more profitable.

Betrayal is a very loaded term here. Is it so wrong to want to try new things? Personally I prefer that a company experiment and blend genres rather than put out the same old game over and over. To me, putting out a game that's been proven to sell well is more profit-oriented than taking a big risk in a genre you don't know if you're capable of handling. This isn't guaranteed to make them a lot of money, I'm actually more concerned about it losing so much money that TES VI is hurt.

Therefore it is not unreasonable to think that this is a cash grab, or that it will put the series into stasis, or that it will destroy a gameplay style we have all come to love.

It is totally unreasonable considering we have heard barely anything on the subject. Any conclusions we come to are wild speculation but I really think you are overreacting with words like betray and destroy. Furthermore, I doubt it will put the series into stasis since they have been working on it since partway through Skyrim. It's obvious they have separate teams working on this and the mains series.

[Microcline]

There's no way any developer would try this as anything other than a bare-faced cash grab.

Oh come on. People have been clamoring for multiplayer in TES and a TES MMO for years now. It doesn't make it a good idea but is it really impossible they said "Hey, our fans really want this, maybe we should give them what they want?"

I've seen far more threads on their forums asking for spears, crossbows, and levitation.  Those are all things that can be implemented without throwing out the current system and are capable of appealing to the audience (how many games these days let you fly?).  When Bethesda is allowed to shrug off criticism for not listening to good advice by trivializing their install base, then they forfeit the ability to blame their mistakes on "we were just listening to the fanbase".  Every game has someone on the forums asking for it to be an MMO or an FPS.  That doesn't make it a good idea.

I think people who are disgusted with this move have every call to voice their opinion on this matter. If they are betraying what has been the genre of the series for so long now, we have to ask ourselves why, and historically speaking, there has been a recent trend with successful games switching genres to become MMOs or shooters because they are more profitable.

Betrayal is a very loaded term here. Is it so wrong to want to try new things? Personally I prefer that a company experiment and blend genres rather than put out the same old game over and over. To me, putting out a game that's been proven to sell well is more profit-oriented than taking a big risk in a genre you don't know if you're capable of handling. This isn't guaranteed to make them a lot of money, I'm actually more concerned about it losing so much money that TES VI is hurt.

There's no real way for TES to be transformed into an MMO without stripping out and replacing the gameplay features.  If changing genres forces the developer to strip a game down such that only the IP remains, why not create a new IP instead?  Things like FPSXCOM are only going to piss off the established base and the XCOM IP isn't going to bring in the FPS crowd.

Therefore it is not unreasonable to think that this is a cash grab, or that it will put the series into stasis, or that it will destroy a gameplay style we have all come to love.

It is totally unreasonable considering we have heard barely anything on the subject. Any conclusions we come to are wild speculation but I really think you are overreacting with words like betray and destroy. Furthermore, I doubt it will put the series into stasis since they have been working on it since partway through Skyrim. It's obvious they have separate teams working on this and the mains series.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Some people can put two and two together.  They also understand that there's no harm in waiting a week or two after release to buy a game (in fact, it likely benefits the overall status of video games as a medium).  Until a publisher demonstrates the quality of their product, the consumer has every reason to be wary.

Looks like this is another HeroEngine game.  It's kind of funny that an engine appropriate for low budged Korean MMOs and indie games (that has only recently been officially released and is still not feature complete) is constantly being used to make multi-hundred-million dollar AAA WoW derivatives.  This one's already got the moniker "TESuvius".

[catoblepas]

There's no evidence that this is going to be TES VI. If it turns out it is, count me as highly disappointed, but there is literally no evidence for that yet.

It is going to be the next Elder Scrolls, out within a year, supposedly. Arguing over if it is going to have 'VI' in its name is just semantics, as regardless, it is going to be the next Elder Scrolls game, and will therefore impact any further titles in the series (If any).

Betrayal is a very loaded term here. Is it so wrong to want to try new things? Personally I prefer that a company experiment and blend genres rather than put out the same old game over and over. To me, putting out a game that's been proven to sell well is more profit-oriented than taking a big risk in a genre you don't know if you're capable of handling. This isn't guaranteed to make them a lot of money, I'm actually more concerned about it losing so much money that TES VI is hurt.

There have been five singleplayer, open world games created by Bethesda so far. Therefore it stands to reason that their target audience since 1994 (barring redguard) has been fans of singleplayer, open world rpgs. The new game is an MMO, a genre that has very little to do with any of that-it is aimed at peopel who are fans of the Elder Scrolls AND like MMOs over singleplayer rpgs, they have narrowed the target audience significantly, turning away from what has been their historical audience. I don't think it is too far a stretch to call it a 'betrayal' of the previous audience. we aren't talking about something like adding shouts or horseback riding, we are talking abotu switching over to another genre and target audience, this is not a 'blending' of genres, this is like making the next mario game into a shooter. MMOs can make a lot of money due to monthly subscriptions, so I wouldn't define this as being so much of a 'big risk' in terms of adding new things/changing gameplay as it is an attempt to make more money out of the franchise.

It is totally unreasonable considering we have heard barely anything on the subject. Any conclusions we come to are wild speculation but I really think you are overreacting with words like betray and destroy. Furthermore, I doubt it will put the series into stasis since they have been working on it since partway through Skyrim. It's obvious they have separate teams working on this and the mains series.

We know that it will be an MMO, and it will cover Tamriel, that alone tells us plenty about what we can expect from content, continuity, story progression, etc. Many of these things that we can expect run counter to what we have come to expect from the series. Yes, I know that there were seperate teams, but that doesn't change that this is supposed to be an Elder Scrolls game, and thus intended to fit within the universe. Bioware is a developer that has many different teams (and some other developers renamed 'Bioware' by EA) working on several different games simultaneously. The folks who made KOTOR were not the same folks who made TOR, yet it most certainly is going to effect the future of the series (or lack therof). Quite frankly, the fact that the same team that made Skyrim is not the same one that is making the MMO should be cause for concern if anything, as they are more likely to have a different idea of what the Elder Scrolls should be, and that idea could very well effect the way that the future of the Elder Scrolls series looks like, in much the same way TOR has.

[Furtuka]

Hey guys guess what I...

Oh the rage already started. I suppose I should have expected it considering how jaded some people around here are.

BTW Dawnguard DLC Expansion


...yay crossbows maybe?

[Cecilff2]

Hey people.

Zenimax Online is a game dev studio.

Bethesda Game Studios is a game dev studio.

These are not interchangeable.

Bethesda Game Studios develops games like Skyrim, and Fallout 3.

Zenimax Online is developing TES: Online.

They have seperate development teams and always have.

[Furtuka]

*nods in agreement while trying to not get noticed by the more angry folks*

[catoblepas]

Bethesda is a subsidiary of Zenimax. Zenimax jumps, Bethesda says 'How high?'