http://bethblog.com/index.php/category/zenimax-online/

http://www.zenimaxonline.com/faq.html

Who knows where the game will be? They are working on something though.

Maybe someone already pointed this out but game informer's website list Skyrim as a single player game...http://www.gameinformer.com/games/the_elder_scrolls_v_skyrim/b/xbox360/default.aspx

Could mean nothing but thought it was worth noting.

I would not mind pvp in the arena 1v1 and group fights but idk i want them to focus their efforts on the story etc

I hope it's fallout and not TES because I think that the fallout universe would work better as multi-player.

For me, and probably most of the people here, Elder Scrolls has always been about creating a Role Playing game with an entertaining and immersive single player experience in which the story revolves around a single hero saving an empire from destruction. I think an optional "Arena Online" game may be appropriate, but a free roaming slaughter fest just doesn't sound like an Elder Scrolls game at all. I have no idea how, but a free roam or co-player game would have to be done right.

Now, for an MMO; When playing online games, I feel as if the story kind of falls through the cracks and it's hard to appreciate the artistry when it's all about getting to that level and beating other players. Maybe if it were more like Myst URU Live where it's completely story/exploration driven. For an Elder Scrolls Online there would have to be some focus on combat and leveling up but that should only be part of the ride. It would have to be about the progression of a group of people through a dynamic story line.

I would not want multi-player added to the game. Co-op or net-multiplayer both require that all of the action in the game be small enough or organized in such a way that the status of everything can be blasted across a network in real-time, and that everything remain in-sync. While it works Great for some games, it also forces the game developer to build the engine a different way with more limitations on how far they can go. With no need to account for every last change across a network, Bethesda is only limited by how much they can squeeze out of the processors and memory. In my view this results in a better single player experience, than when the game is limited by network throughput. The coding time required to make it work is not trivial - and I would rather have more in-game features IMHO.

A multi-player TES game would be great for many, but I still prefer the awesome single-player experience we have been getting thus far from Bethesda. Don't change a thing!

Miax

I always wanted to do little "guild" quests with other people, playing among a small party in your own savegame would be cool.


Perhaps there can be an option to join a game of friends with up to four people. There can be a party-leader who keeps the savegame on his computer or console, and when anybody wants to play, they need to be the party-leader or get the party leader to fire up the server. The party leader can host the server and quicksave, and overall he manages the game. in game the party leader is the only one who can open dialogue with npcs, and during dialogue all other players in the party will freeze and look towards the npc who is talking. Elder Scrolls is a fairly intimate game, and as such it doesn't make sense to have public coop games. they should all be private.

As for MP, it'd be cool to have arena skirmishes, or castle-invasions. Neither of those would be too hard to manage, aside from the required netcode and server browser.. You could import a character from singleplayer, and based on how skilled one team is, they could stack the teams to balance the game. So on one team you could have two to three high level players, and the other team could be filled with a bunch of low level peons who make up for their skills in their numbers. I suppose you could always just create a character for mutiplayer, but I think importing characters would make for very entertaining gameplay. I'd love to zerg rush a bunch of high-level demi-gods with my army of peon newbies. or likewise you could have a "balanced" game, where high level characters would make natural team-leaders for the low level people; would make for some incredible teamwork. Though, spells and weapons would probably need to be regulated for the game to be fair. Magic characters could be given spells that suit their skill and level, same deal applies for warriors..

Match-making could keep the correct number of high level and low level characters together.

A small versus mode in the arena where you could fight other players (Lan only probably, online maybe) would be a neat feature. It would let us settle all of our "my character is better than yours" issues and create some pretty good action. It would also make it a lot easier to implement as opposed to multiple people using the entire game world and creating time disparities from sleeping/fast traveling.

Its coop, not an MMO, obviously players would stick together, sleep and travel at the same time.

Really, the idea of four player coop would be pretty modest and quite easy to execute, you dont need to have everybody running around the world doing a bunch of different [censored], the idea is that you play as a party and accomplish the same objectives. I mean, the first elder scrolls games were probably attempting to recreate the D&D experience in an electronic form, and that was a party-play game. The idea of coop in general is a singleplayer style experience that you can enjoy with your friends in unison, cooperation is fun. The principle behind four player coop would be easy to execute in a technical sense as well as long as the games are private, and there's a game-master/party-leader who can create and load savegames.

I would like a simple coop, with friends without background or purpose besides running behind the one other guy and slaying all his foes. as you will release a construction kit :hubbahubba: , synchronizing alle needed ressources alone would surely be a pain in the a**... but a few lan-controlled buddies would be awesome! :thumbsup:

I have an idea for an arena type thing.
Maybe have a few arenas (standard arena, woodland area).
Have one team start on one side, and another team start on the other.
Then either have a standard deathmatch, or maybe have objectives (capture the flag).

Class System

Before the game (or possible during), have a menu where you choose what your class is.
You have 6 classes, three main (more powerful but specialized) and three that are hybrids (slightly weaker but more versatile).

Warrior (Combat)
Heavy Armor
2H weapon OR 1H weapon and Shield

Mage (Magick)
Light Armor
A few Destruction and Restoration spells
Dagger

Archer (Stealth)
Light Armor
Bow and Arrows
Dagger

Assassin (Stealth/Combat)
Light Armor
1H weapon and Shield (Not as strong as Warrior)
Bow and Arrows (they do less damage than Archers)

Battlemage (Combat/Magick)
Medium/Heavy Armor
Mostly Destruction Spells
1H short weapon (short blade, club, etc.) and Shield

Stealth-mage (Stealth/Magick) I can't think of a better name...
Light Armor
Alteration Spells (Chameleon, Invisibility, maybe even disguise)
Dagger and Shield

I know, the classes aren't the best, but they were just off the top of my head, just use those as a starting point.
Your Multiplayer character will be totally separate from your Single player Character.
As you rank up in a Multiplayer class, you unlock better armor and weapons (starting from leather, iron, and novice spells and working your way up) for that class (maybe even for the class that's connected to it).
Going to your inventory will be disabled (or in real time, so the game isn't constantly paused), so all multi-weapon people (Assassins, Mages) will have weapons and spells hotkeyed automatically, but you can change it whenever you want outside or inside of the game.
Maybe even have a "restore health" potion.

I hope they never add multiplayer or co-op to the TES series unless it is a seperate game. Please don't waste development time and game space with this.......instead add more single player content.

My Opinion. I think they should make it where there is no Lan multiplayer or anything like that. I would like to see Online Co-op though. At most 2-4 people (I think 2 would be easiest for Bethesda to make and best idea). It should work where they can visit one or anothers world and can work on quests together and everything but, They should be able to travel apart from each other to different parts of Skyrim and stuff. The owner of the world should also, have control over what the other player can do so this way they can't mess up their world like:
1.) Civilian Murder: Owner Only or All
2.) Quest Taking: Owner Only/Owner Approval or All
3.) Quest Disaperance(Like when it disappears after you finsih it): Owner Only or All
4.) Buying Items from Stores: Owner Only or All
5.) Trading: On or Off
etc.

If they can do things like this it would be great to have Online Co-Op. If not, well TES is meant to be Single Player anyway and I personaly think it should still be.

Ya idk playing TES always seemed to be a little lonely, while I think all effort should be put into single player at this point I'd like to see a PvP DLC later on.

I think that if they did do a multilayer arena/battle game type this is how they should do it with a few modifications,

1) Classes are customizable but non combat type skills would be removed, mercantile has no place in the arena.
2) By winning battles you get money for your separate online character, the money is used to level up your skills from trainers in a market type of area between games and buy better equipment, potions, spells, repairs etc. from vendors.
3) Like it says in number 2 you dont level up your skills but purchase them instead. However you would rank up the more you play, the better you are the faster you rank or something like that. certain equipment could only be bought once you have the proper rank, ranks could also be extended to Combat, Magic, and Stealth so you couldn't end up with one maxed out character.
4) something should be implmented so that super high ranked characters arent matched against each low leveled people, even if the guy in full daedric at rank 50 svcks hes gonna beat some dude in rusty iron at level 1 even if the level 1 is amazing.

Optional multiplayer would be acceptable but I do not think the game needs anything like that. Not every game needs to have multiplayer.

Hell, I could very well imagine a sort of coop, two players on one console/ computers, each minding their own business or working together...this would definitely screw up the mission though unless you could have some sort of an optional bot mate in single player, or w/e. Would be fun, could probably be implemented well enough to not distract from the core game, but I say, forget it unless they really want to make something like that.
Which I bet they don't, so just finish the game for us, enough MP games on the market to play
Btw, I agree with the above poster.
Developers have a bad habit of making MP for every damn game they release these days, just so they could slap the Playstation Network, GFWL, w/e stickers on the boxes.
This worked out great with Uncharted for example, lot of people didn't like the idea of mp in that game, but it worked out great and I still play it, but slapping mp on games like Assassin's creed is excessive in my opinion, no need for that. All I'm saying is that it's an unnecessary feature for well known single player titles.

I would love the ability to adventure around with a friend or two in the Skyrim world. My views were already pretty much summed up by Octhilias. I don't really have a good grasp on how much effort it would take to incorporate co-op functionality into the game, so my opinion is sort of weighted on that: the more it takes away from the rest of the game, the less it's worth it, but that's obvious. I don't really think excluding a desired feature from a game simply because it would take time/resources is a valid reason, but obviously not every customer wants it. I also like toast.

Classes - Reduces the Players control over his character in Multiplayer

Balance - the players Character is no longer what is was in the SP game, and TES is ALWAYS about You being able to make what you want of your character.

Arena matches - The point? you go in swing swing, dead or not dead then what? wash rinse repeat?

Co-op - this is Purely social don't even try to give any othe reason for it, and save for some amazing awesome battle of epic proportions, the Additional player is no more then a side kick, and there isnt much else to that then an additional sword/helper, thats it.

Mods- potentially crippling to the availibility of such, compatability issues, limitations etc etc.

Exploits land inevitable anonymous idiots, enough said

Yes I am a down player of the Multiplayer aspect because as said, Their are -plenty- of other games that handle multiplayer and co-op -exceptionally- well, Skyrim isn't Fable 3/2 in the sense that there are other things to do besides whack hapless monsters, in essense the desire for multiplayer is entirely selfish as to want the fill that desire to play along side a friend, only one aspect is gained from that,a friend. adds nothing else to the game. aye I am completely away of what I just said regarding selfishness and friends.

Thats my Two cents really.

I have recently tried the coop multiplayer of 2 Worlds 2 and I must saythat altough it can be really heavily improved the idea of making a sort of mini campaign with your friends is nice and doesnt disrupts the single player experience , altough there are some things I woul dchange ....

I do not dislike the idea of a multiplayer coop game for the Skyrim but I do not like the idea of a Total massive multiplayer game for it ...

Here is how the multiplayer should be eventually handled for me :


1 Map of the multiplayer area should be free roaming for all ...

2 each player can enter with their save very single player character look and appearence , but what's gained in mp stays in mp .

3 player interaction shoul dwork sort of like in red dead redemption , making bands or cooperate to solve some multiplayer tasks

4 some player vs player could be interesting too ...

5 eventually some cooperation world in wich each player can decide to partecipate in a common campaign experience where all is revamped to face more than a single player , so allow the players to play together and update the quest only when they are all online ...

Please no multiplayer/co-op. Takes far to much time and emphasis off the single player, 'real' portion of the game for a side on gimmick. Thank you.

No multiplayer please.

:bowdown: :goodjob: :mohawk: Wish Granted, Skyrim is SINGLE PLAYER :celebration: :celebrate: :foodndrink: :icecream:

Cooperative game for 2-5 players will be nice. 4 example Borderlands has good coop system 4 example. :woot:
But if you will do coop there must be protection from cheating(in Borderlands some cheated characters crushed savegames of others that ended by not be able to do some quest/get other script to begin working :down: ) or option of allowing cheats (something like sv_cheats )

One thing I always missed was to share also the look and customization with friends online , like show how my character looks to my friends and viceversa look how they customized theirs , so a coop adventure or some kind of interaction woudl also be cool ...