What I get from reading other forums and this one is exactly the same TES fans who don't play MMO's supposedly half the potential customers won't be playing this, because they don't play MMO's.
When announced I had hopes it wouldn't be another MMO, as that is what Zenimax were saying. That hope was soon dispelled, it is just another MMO and guess what as a TES fan who doesn't and never will play MMO's I won't play this.
MMO players will make there own decisions, but these forums do not have much input from non MMO playing TES fans, because in the main they just stopped posting here, until now they are almost to a man absent. I'm sure some still exist but the general trend is to MMO players.
MMO player's don't ever seem to get this basic fact, it's not online gaming. it's MM
Typical MMO Aspects
PvP Areas and PvE areas, why? I should never be sure if my opponent is a player or NPC. The war is an artificial non TES construct to attract MMO players no other reason.
If I wanted to play at Mass PvP war I'd choose a War game. I want adventuring RPG type game that's why we play TES and not Medieval Warfare or whatever. Don't try to say Skyrim's Civil War was in any way comparable, that was more like a bar room brawl, not the main event.
Out of Game Guild Membership essential, why? I get wanting to play with friends, but apart from ensuring starting on same server (Whatever happened to one Mega Server anyway now as well as format servers, regional ones) even friends should have find each other in game, like all meet at the the Fighters Guild. In game communication should be the only way to talk and even if near enough to hear, you must speak the language to understand.
Endgame? Now this is just the opposite of what should happen the game should never end it's a world that should evolve if my character stops progressing then, that character should end, not the game, The world should continue and I start again, as the decsendant of first character or a new build, but never, ever should the world clock be reset for me to start again. Equally New players should Join a already existing world after Game Launch Day.
Everyone is the hero, again just no this is just typical lazy world creation of the worst sort and is a clear example of the stagnation and essential lack of progress the words MMO have become to mean. What does this actally signify? That the first MMo's were single player games with Multi-Player mechanics bolted on. What is acceptable in single player cannot believably work for a realistic online multi-player world. This is one of the worst aspects of MMO's and they all do it.
None of these ideas are new but as long as Publishers control Game Design they will always copy the past games as trying something new that might fail is too risky. So though I hoped for more it is no surprise less was what I got.
So when a non MMO player calls this a WoW Clone WoW could just as easily be any other MMO.
It is just another MMO and TES or not. That I'm a TES fan doesn't matter. Why?, as I keep saying it's being a MMO that is the problem and the must haves that the MMO genre requires.
So Zenimax, having chosen to be TES MMO better satify the MMO players because they are all it's got. Maybe Star Citizen will be different with no Publisher calling the shots, it will release when ready not on some fancy chosen date, that TES MMO will release on 14/4/14 ready or not, says it all.
Finally as to the modding question for all the you can't have modding with MMO's naysayers. Simply put, Nothing is Impossible:
EverQuest Next is an MMO and they have released their version of a Creation Kit or World Modding Tool before the game is even released, it is called Everquest Next Landmark. The same tool is being used by them to create Everquest Next. Landmark is more interesting to me than Everquest Next, which is just another MMO.