I find a lot of people are overlooking the fact that an MMO by definition is just a video game that is played by a massive amount of people at the same time. There's no right or wrong way to go about making one. When you expect things from past MMOs to become standard in all future MMOs, and then complain if they're not present, not only are you setting yourself up for disappointment time and time again, you might actually be holding the MMO market back from evolving into something better. After all, the customer is the driving force behind gaming, especially in subscription based MMOs.

I feel like a lot of people care far too much if a game fails. Why do you care? Do you have stock in Zenimax? Is your life going to end if you spend months playing ESO and it goes free to play, or even worse, gets shut down? I doubt it. Why not just give it a chance, see what they're trying, if you find it fun, play it. If not, just move on.

My point is, in other parts of the video game industry, the biggest achievements have come from developers taking huge risks and trying new things. Sometimes developers even go against popular opinion, and end up making a game nobody would have expected to be good. This is a new industry, and the MMO part is even newer. If every MMO to come out is just a carbon copy of another successful MMO, the MMO market and inevitably the quality of MMOs will fall.

(Not sure why I wanted to post this rant, just getting sick of all the posts saying ESO will fail without copying another game.)

The game literally has not even come out yet. This forum is less than 1% of the people that will play the game. Most of the people here are whiners looking for a little recognition from other whiners.

Simple answer:

The Elderscrolls is an Legend by its self. an way huger them WoW or d&d free models.

Plus it is cheaper then paying hundreds of dollars just to be up to date at an free to play game

Much deeper then the most games. own decissions.. own consequences. Multiple universes which contain only fear and The Deadra.

Endless mod ability.

This game wont go free to play . the other Elderscrolls parts also dint went to be downloadable for free. /edit: ok part 1 is free.

Compare The Elderscrolls to might and magic and you are closer then d&d ever was. But it got its own books and storry. Like Might and Magic does.

I don't actually think that ESO will go free to play or fail. I was just using a common fear that people seem to have as an example of worrying too much about the wrong things. The only thing a player should be concerned about is if they find it fun to play the game. Let the suits at ZOS worry about the profits.

Well spoken and true. I am also finding another perspective that is surprising to me. This game incites the same feelings that original EQ, my first mmorpg did. A lot of it has to do with this being the first mmo since EQ to actually present a good and usable first person perspective, but not all. I find that I am experiencing that sense of wonder again at an immense new world to explore and live in. Not just a game to amuse myself with for a while, and considering that I have played just about every major mmo since those days, that is quite an accomplishment and a good indication to me that the designers vision for this game is one worth pursuing.

The funny thing to me is that half the complaints seem to be that TESO is just another MMO and it's not original or different and just a generic MMO re-packaged, whilst the other complaints seem to be that it's nothing like the other MMOs and should have everything that every other MMO has ever had introduced.

I agree with the OP. MMO isn't a genre in itself, it just means that lots of people can play together. That is the line the developers promised to take at the very start and I think they have lived up to that. TESO is it's own game. Some will love it which is great, some won't and that's fine too. I for one plan on playing it for a long time.

As a genre, which MMORPG is, certain things are expected. That doesn't mean every MMO has to follow some strict formula and include everything that is "expected". Some of the best MMORPG's I have played had out of the box, innovative and revolutionary game design that were pretty much unique to the game. But saying that, it doesn't mean that you can't use some of those great ideas also to make future games even better.

Personally I think any game can be made better if it uses some of the original Star Wars Galaxies game design concepts. The perfect game in the future is going to borrow all the best ideas and put them all together with a unique IP and revolutionary new systems in a sandbox with "themepark" story driven elements.

All things are based on personal preference and taste to some degree. Only people who have designed or played, anolysed and understand the greatest games know exactly what it is that made them great. Sadly many MMO's blindly follow a formula without knowing or understanding. ESO is the first breath of fresh air in the genre for a while, so I'm really hopeful for it to succeed and continue to improve into the future.

Yeah, that happens with a lot of new MMO's, and it makes no sense.

I think the thing is that many people played games like EQ, or WoW for years, and they want that for any game they play. If they aren't going to play it for years, they don't want to waste their time. This happens even with f2p games. Some people will go to forums to try and be convinced that the game will be around for years. Even though it is free to try for themselves they don't want to waste time trying it without some assurances that they will still be playing it years from now...as if anyone could determine that for them. Some people will have fun playing a game for 6 months, then something changes and they no longer want to play. They then complain that the last 6 months were a complete waste of time. I find the idea rather odd. They were having fun for 6 months. Isn't that why you play a game. I play games as long as they are fun. When they stop being fun, i move on.

Exactly. The same thing happens over at the DayZ forums. That game has permadeath where you drop all your gear at death, and so many people [censored] and complain about it being a waste of time that they survived for weeks only to be killed randomly. Or that they can't even enjoy the game because they die before they can completely gear up. Like playing the game is work, they just have to put in enough time to have a little fun. It's the same mindset as you describe, those people find more meaning in the level 50 character they have sitting on a server somewhere, than the 6 months of play time it took to get them there.

Nice rant

I agree completely and hope Zenimax sticks to their original vision of the game. I really like what they've done so far and hope they don't listen to too much player input. It kind of made a mess with the whole starter Island thing in my opinion and made more unnecessary work for the development team.

Wife and I have subscribed to it. We'll continue to do so for as long as we enjoy playing the game. When we no longer do, we'll drop our subscriptions.

We did the same for SWTOR, and from time to time we revisit as "preferred" (or whatever the term is) players.

This, right here. This is precisely how I feel. I started playing Everquest on the first day of release and played it through all of it's expansions. I was a late comer to WoW, but it never grabbed me like Everquest did. I remember the first time I saw the Dwarven city, the first time I ran from Qeynos (sony EQ backwards for those who didn't know) to Freeport naked. The game was full of magic and wonder. No MMO since has captured that for me. Until now.

ESO, just from the Beta, has managed to achieve two spectacular things. First, they've managed to let me feel that I'm in Tamriel. The game FEELS like an Elder Scrolls game. It doesn't feel like Skryim, but neither did Morrowind or Oblivion. It is it's own game, and it IS Elder Scrolls. Secondly, they have awoken my sense of wonder and excitement. It's the little things and the big things. The lighting through the trees, the combat system that you need to actually be alert in, the amazing musical score, the voice acting. Everything. Well done, Zenimax.