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Bethesda Announces Elder Scrolls MMO
An anonymous reader writes "Today Bethesda announced that their popular Elder Scrolls series of video games will be getting its own MMORPG. It's planned for 2013, and will be available for PCs and Macs. 'Players will discover an entirely new chapter of Elder Scrolls history in this ambitious world, set a millennium before the events of Skyrim as the daedric prince Molag Bal tries to pull all of Tamriel into his demonic realm. "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."'
that an arrow to the knee doesn't kill this.
I always found it a shame that such a rich world as the elder scrolls has, was only single player. It seemed to be missing that true interaction at times, while it's still and incredible world. I would applaud this, but I think we all know this will be a paid monthly subscription and they will find a way for micro-transactions. Personally I feel that is a shame for such a rich world.
Last thing I want is an MMO in Tamriel.
First, the MMO market is totally saturated and this game just won't get the attention it deservers from fans and the media. As a result, it'll become yet another niche MMO for a few longtime diehard fans of TES.
No, it won't be the next WoW either. The saturation factor alone prevents ANY MMO from being the next WoW, no matter how uber awesome.
Secondly, all TES games are inherently FREAKING HUGE!!!! Huge world to explore, hugely deep lore, lots of side-quests. In theory, this would go hand-in-hand with an MMO concept, except for all the technical limitations imposed by current network technologies.
Case in point: SWTOR. I had EVERYTHING to be a hell of a great MMO, but due to technical limitations, it was watered down to a theme-park-ride MMO. A Star Wars game with on-rails space combat?? Only half-dozen playable races??Seriously??
DONOTWANT TES MMO, TYVM!!
Part of a DLC pack I'm sure.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
For me, the allure of Elder Scrolls has always been the single player experience and the immersion in a different world this provides. As someone who has played many MMOs, immersion has never really been a word I'd use to describe them. From all the immature annoying players, to the terrible meta game of griding levels and petty guild politics, playing MMOs has always been a chore for me (which is I guess why I don't play them much anymore). Elder Scrolls has always been a beautiful fantasy escape, and while I know there aren't any details released about the game at this point, I can't possibly see how they can replicate that experience in an MMO.
I mean, look at the play style that characterizes TES. Vast open environments where you can do practically anything. Now imagine this as an MMO. Imagine walking into town to find EVERYTHING had been stripped out of every building. Shopkeepers slaughtered in the streets, two or three bandits with their pack of mule characters, shipping everything off to a stash... no it wouldn't work. The only reason these sandbox games work is because you're the only one in the game causing this kind of mayhem. So I don't know what TES Online is going to look like, but I have a strong suspicion it will include almost none of the allure of a typical TES game, and will be severely crippled by its MMO status.
I love that Notch guy. Can't wait to play Minecraft online!
I agree. I would love to explore the land of Tamriel with my friends. I just don't want to do it with 10,000 other people to constantly annoy me.
One of the main strong points of the TES games is, in my opinion, that they allow for quite a lot of immersion. Well, about as much immersion as a fairly buggy PC game can give you. I cannot imagine that they will be able to carry that over into an MMO full of 13 year old kids called "FusDoRahPorn131888".
(+1, Disagree)
I want to strangle some of these bean counters.
We don't need another MMO to replicate Skyrim--We just need MULTIPLAYER.
(and by multiplayer, I mean IP to IP connections that don't rely on your fucking servers)
And after respawning you'll have to wade through the horde of "TheLustyArgonianMaid696969" knockoffs all dancing naked on the mailboxes in the starting city.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
Wow! I remember Dark Age of Camelot...good game for its time.
I thought I saw it coming... 'til I took an arrow in the knee.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Pfft, you're suck a slacker, I've been playing this MMO for only 30 years. Sure for the first 18 I noobed about a bit, but then I got into this hard-core 'work' that raids 5 days a week, officially, but ofc I grind on the weekends too.
I'm almost lvl 55 now. You should check out my epic mount.
I hope that new studio has better QA than the old one.
With a release date of 2013, the game will probably be playable in 2014 given their track record. Their games are beloved for an amazing scope, but they have a history of releasing games filled with game-breaking bugs that players tend to forgive for having attempted to achieve so much. Hey, you can always just enter cheats or download mods to fix the problems right?
This time it's an MMO, and when the game-breaking bug stops your main questline in it's tracks, or empties your inventory, or resets one or more of your stats to 0, etc. etc. etc. You can't hit the command line to fix it.
I'm excited about the game for sure, but I have absolutely no confidence in them to release a stable MMO. I'll wait a few months or a year after release and let other people deal with the bugs first.
The Warcraft brand was a lot more niche before WoW than TES is now. It's a lot more about the game than the existing fanbase. The vast majority of WoW players past and present never played another Warcraft game. If the game itself hits the right notes, the players will come.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.