[Ashley Hill]

Against:
1. Monthly subscription fee. Paying 60 or so dollars for a game that I can play forever is fine. Having to pay a fee once a month so I can continue to play the game is not.
2. I don't like to play MMO's anyway, as I'd rather not get addicted.
3. The entire population would consist of Battlemages, warriors, assassins, thieves and knights. Forget immersion.
4. http://elderscrolls.filefront.com/potd/75782x#1134024
5. The normal ES storyline and lore would be different in an MMO, mostly sacrificed in favour of a game focussed on team raids, loot and combat.
6. The quests would have no significance, because they'd just get reset for someone else to play.
7. What Rhayader said. It's better being a singleplayer game.

1) there are games without a monthly subscription fee (Guild wars, notably). Most games also give discounted rates to early adopters, and allow for a "lifetime" membership, which is something like 100$ to play the game for ever for 'free'. otherwise point is on.
2) MMOs aren't for everyone, but if you've never tried one its worth giving it a go. Most games have some sort of free trial without even having to buy the game.
3) Games typically have a pretty good class balance, which means that there is bound to be some Acrobats and Bards in there too (if they add all TES classes, which they should in an EQ like specialization system).
4) That picture was obviously not made by someone who has not played an MMO other than Run Escape. even the newbs in WoW's starter area don't talk like that. NO community is that bad. There is the occasional bad spelling and clueless newbie, but its no worse than anything you see in this very forum. Additionally, whole channels can be blocked, so you don't have to read conversation you don't want to. members can also be silenced individually. It may be funny to joke about how bad MMO communities are, but its a blatant false stereotype and offensive to the thousands of smart, mature people who choose to game online.
5) The storyline could still focus on the individual player. in fact, the accomplishments of the individual could be more dramatic, since he would be competing with thousands of other players, not level scaled NPCs. Besides, current TES quests focus on "loot and combat" as much as any MMO's.
6) Quests already have no significance, since they reset when you play a new character or when anybody else plays the game. Since you don't actually see other people doing "your" quest, this point is moot. As i've said before, the real-time nature of the MMO allows for quests with consequences that actually matter in the game world. quests could easily be randomly generated like in Daggerfall, allowing for endless (if somewhat dull) repeatability of minor quests. Major quests could progress the storyline of the world if completed (eg. if X people on the server find Person Y, Fang Lair becomes an explorable location).

Actually, I think it would cease to be TES entirely and simply be a game set in the same universe.

Arena. Battlespire. Redguard. Shadowkey. Dawnstar. Oblivion Mobile.

[Kevin S]

Battlespire. Redguard. Shadowkey. Dawnstar. Oblivion Mobile.

None of those were the flagship Elder Scrolls though. The core games have been Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion this far, I-IV. By creating an MMO and investing so much money and resources into it, you don't go and make it some on-the-side deal. It's likely to be what World of Warcraft was to Warcraft III...the end of the numbered series.

My prediction is, and what I believe everyone involved with Zenimax is thinking, is that this MMO will be the de-facto TESV. The sad thing is that, basing it on WoW, they believe it will be such a massive hit that it will attract millions of subscribers and persist for 10 years without the need for another standalone game ever again. And that's where they fall prey to greed and dollar signs in their eyes. No recent MMO has ever made a dent in the Fantasy RPG genre which WoW holds so strongly. It's useless to compete with it, and it's just pathetic to emulate it.

This is what every MMO these days does too. They see the success of WoW, and then try to copy it. It's just like how other news stations in America began to emulate Fox News because of the huge ratings it got...and the end result is that everyone suffers.

[e.Double]

bethesda makes Elder Scrolls. Zenimax Online makes the MMO. they are not mutually exclusive, there will be no series ending.

my point with listing all those games is that they were Elder Scrolls game without the "Elder Scrolls feel." Some were even developed by companies outside bethesda. People are acting like this is the first great travesty of the series, but when you look at it, only 3 games have really had similar gameplay (and even then they differed greately in details).

[brenden casey]

bethesda makes Elder Scrolls. Zenimax Online makes the MMO. they are not mutually exclusive, there will be no series ending.

Yeah, if ZOS is making an Elder Scrolls MMO (which has been a common speculation since ZOS was formed) it's certainly possible that Bethesda is assisting with the developement. However Bethesda remains Bethesda and ZOS remains ZOS, so even if many of the Bethesda developers are helping it doesn't mean the team is being wholly absorbed by an MMO developer.

my point with listing all those games is that they were Elder Scrolls game without the "Elder Scrolls feel." Some were even developed by companies outside bethesda. People are acting like this is the first great travesty of the series, but when you look at it, only 3 games have really had similar gameplay (and even then they differed greately in details).

While the TES Travels games were developed outside of Bethesda it was done by one of Bethesda's sister-companies, Vir2L. In fact Bethesda's relationship with ZOS is probably fairly similar, although ZOS has its offices about an hour or so away while I believe Vir2L is in the same building.

[Farrah Barry]

While the TES Travels games were developed outside of Bethesda it was done by one of Bethesda's sister-companies, Vir2L. In fact Bethesda's relationship with ZOS is probably fairly similar, although ZOS has its offices about an hour or so away while I believe Vir2L is in the same building.

Thats what i meant, an ES MMO has plenty of precedent. Like the travels series it is being developed by a sister company, and like the travels series it is a change in gameplay from the 3 core games of the series (i don't count arena because its really just another RPG). In other words, this MMO thing is not some huge sell-out, life altering thing.

I certainly hope that bethesda is assisting with lore and similar development, but I highly doubt that it will interfere with any development of a single player game.

[Kill Bill]

This may already have been quoted, but it is worth repeating. Here is a http://bethblog.com/index.php/2009/08/17/clarifying-about-next-elder-scrolls-game-mmo-etc/ from Pete Hines - seems to be somewhat qualified to talk about what Zenimax and BEthesda Softworks might or might not be working on. That was posted in August.

Worth noting, from the article

To be clear, Todd and his team do not make MMOs, for any franchise, at all. We have another division ? ZeniMax Online Studios ? which is lead by Matt Firor, and they are working on an MMO. They have not said anything about what game they are making. When ZeniMax Online is ready to show what they are up to, we'll let everyone know. Until then we aren't going to provide hints or speculate on what they're doing either.

[Matthew Barrows]

It would really svck. A TES game without mods? Ok sure, i could play such a game, if i got payed to play it.

Bethesda's games are great because the attention to detail, especially compared to (imo) companies like Bioware who makes really soulless games. MMO's always lacks this too, i mean you can't even drop things to the ground (because it could lag the game/servers or be misused in a number of ways). I really hope its not true.

[WYatt REed]

Hi everyone,

Ive been reading an infinite amount of news about a upcoming TES MMO or MMORPG. I havent figured yet. Dont worry im not going to ask for any details. In case of a MMORPG I am warning Bethesda, im sure they know what im about to say but I just got to be supportive on this matter.

The point is this, Bethesda must realize that Blizzard (world of warcraft) is just a trend of the last decade and may be even as glorious for a few more years. Because one day, world of warcraft will leave the throne. And Im not aiming on the expansion but they will leave the throne on the mmorp market. That might be not in the near future. But they will definetely release graphic packages, im sure they already got a updated world of warcraft (or second game to re-rule the market once something overtakes their place) I mean, its not like blizzard have been extremely active on the world of warcarft side on programming.

Even then, this is not my first point. I actualy doubt that bethesda will beat the current world of warcaft versions at all. Wether they have a brand new edition of the game behind a vault or not it will eventually not really matter. You just cant beat blizzard, I think we can be very honest to say that im true. Look at all the other MMORPG's failures.

First off, id like to say that I really hate wow. In fact I hate mmorpgs in general. I just cleared my mind to view this from the most general perspective possible. Else I would probably cheer out this TES MMO(rpg) by blindness and love for the franchise. But then again, I never really liked MMORPG's. Only MMORPG i played was runescape for about a year when I were 12years old or so with the worst computer possible.

Why can you not beat blizzard?

The answer is in fact, extremely simple.

ANSWER:WOW svckS.

And, im not joking. Because wow svcks, it is just 1 of many reasons the game is this succesfull.
Because wow svcks in graphics (the gameplay aswell, but that might be questioned upon)
every pentium 4 computer can run it. With a quite cleaned up computer and good maintainance, you might even get playable graphics on a pentium 3. Im sure there are alot of second and a few thirld world countries that take benefit of this low cost advantage. While all other MMORPGS (overrated example:DRAGON AGE) are recommended to play with core 2 duos and such.
And most of the other MMO's also ate more cpu and ram in contradiction to wow.

So we now know why you cant beat blizzard on the budget matter.
But they still ask ?11 a month at a minimum. So what is so cheap about it?
Answer:nothing.
It is just that all the other wanabee MMO's werent any cheaper, and some that were didnt match up to the needs cause still, some MMO's were still worse then wow imo.

The second reason why you can't beat blizzard is because of the word "TREND"

Blizzard is a trend, they have been around for so long and so succesfull, they got the biggest community there is. And this network is really really vast, cause most are able to run it, and most people can therefore easily pay ?11 per month. Because the community is so vast, it's unlikely that everyone of them resides to another MMO, like one of TES. You would need to aproach another group of gamers to start playing MMO. Most wow players are addictive. Which doesnt really mean they have no life. BUt they continueslly play over a couple of years wether its only 1 hour a day or more. For some people it took years to develop a high lvled wealthy character. Its again, unlikely they will start playing a game. And those that will realize the community within the highly graphicall developed TES game is to be minor. They will eventually stop playing aswell. MMORPG is in my opinion not a game, most people that keep playing dont care about any other games. There are even people that play it who dont even really like games in general. Its just the trend that keeps everyone playing it. If you want to create yourself a throne on the game market you will have to develop something else entirely. Maybe a whole new type of game. It sure has to be multiplayer.

I think this is also the reason why many companys havent tried to replicate a game like wow. Lots of those people did realize the job was impossible. There are people like me that really hate the game. But you got to be damn smart to create something not as perfect like other games (personall opinion)
that still takes over most part of the gaming community. Its a perfect game of abolition on freedom. Its not a perfect game at all when you study it realistically. Or simply, he who doesnt like it in the first place will not even be amazed for a second when he/she sees the game for the first time. But when you got social problems (which is mostly the cause) you'll try something to fill in your time. And there is when the force of abolition on freedom takes control of you. When you play MMOs the first time you dont actualy like them at first (this is when I tried runescape) And there werent any much better mmo games in my childhood. This is how I experienced it, but when you start playing, and playing and playing. You get svcked into the world of all these posibilities and digital freedom.

That is how wow keeps their community. And the above 2 indentations tell you exactly why wow players wont easily re-side to another MMO. A year ago I did a study on IT. There were 2 close friends that played lots of games. And one of them also played wow alot. In another class there were 20-25 people that played world of warcraft. A while later a stormflood of MMOs were introduced on the market. Some companys tried which I never heard of anyway. I never heard mentioning anyone anouncing one of these games at all when i was at school.

A few weeks ago I asked the same dude if he tried dragon age (I didnt) and he said he did and it svcked worse then vacuum in his opinion. He still plays wow from time to time. In the MMO market it just matters what games your used to. And most that try playing MMOs in the first place will be recommended to play wow (because its a trend) and "friends" might actualy never mention dragon age anyway.

I think I have proven my point. Its then again up to all of you to share your opinion on this matter.

LAST WARNING.

Whatever Bethesda is planning, I hope its not litteraly MMORPG, more like MMO with 20 people servers.
If it is a MMORPG, then it might be wise to quit working on the project if you have barely started it. But maybe the process of this game is already years in development, they do say such things on the internet. Im not sure if this is basic knowledge on this forum these days. Im not really active at the moment in the tes franchise.
If it is years in development then please take these warnings atleast a bit serious and try to change that what causes all the people to play wow.

If the director of TES (the boss of boss of boss whatever title he/she has) wants to rule blizzard on the budget side and get rich then re think again. And if you want to position yourself at the top of the gaming community you got to invent a multiplayer experience totally different and new from anything that is on the market today. World of warcarft was totally new and different.

So I hope some of the developers or people or whomever has any influence on the project absolutely warns the developers on this case. If this mmorpg talk is actualy true though. I might be completely wrong and have written for nothing.

greetz,

Arthur

[X(S.a.R.a.H)X]

-snip

Unfortunately, most of the words I wanted to use when responding to your post are auto-censored, so I'm just going to say this: WoW does not svck, do you really think that a crappy game could attract over 11 million active players?

but whatever, that's just your opinion. :shrug:

[Lucky Girl]

It would really svck. A TES game without mods? Ok sure, i could play such a game, if i got payed to play it.

Bethesda's games are great because the attention to detail, especially compared to (imo) companies like Bioware who makes really soulless games. MMO's always lacks this too, i mean you can't even drop things to the ground (because it could lag the game/servers or be misused in a number of ways). I really hope its not true.

...and since it is an MMO, you should get paid monthly. It is the mods for Oblivion that got me into PC gaming and now a few $1000 later I'm supposed go without. I don't do MMOs.


...thinks a minute.

HEY MODS!! How can I get in on the beta? It will be your [Zenimax's] one chance to convert me.

[Miranda Taylor]

well i think a TES mmo, is a bad idea, or well im against it...mostly cus i dont play mmo's. but i do think that it could be a good game. and if it had no monthly fee, i might actually play. man im so conflicted!

[Eric Hayes]

Arena. Battlespire. Redguard. Shadowkey. Dawnstar. Oblivion Mobile.

Like I said.....

I fail to see your point here.

Those games were shadows of a true TES game, mostly spinoffs. I played Battlespire, Redguard, and Arena through once... I never want to play them again. The others I have absolutely no interest in whatsoever.

[Elizabeth Lysons]

Unfortunately, most of the words I wanted to use when responding to your post are auto-censored, so I'm just going to say this: WoW does not svck, do you really think that a crappy game could attract over 11 million active players?

FIFA Street.

[Lisa]

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe I have just figured something out.

Notice who they're in court AGAINST? INTERPLAY. The same Interplay who are making a Fallout MMO. Who likely had to liscence the rights to said title from Bethesda/Zenimax.

In all likelyhood, Interplay feels that they liscenced exclusive rights, and are trying to snuff out the competition. Zenimax Online was also founded AFTER Bethesda's acquisition of the Fallout IP.

In my opinion, this is a Fallout MMO in the working, with conflicts between the two teams who are trying to make a Fallout MMO. Bethesda's legal team is in court because they're the ones with a well-paid legal team. Why have two seperate legal teams when you can have one that defends two sides?

[Victoria Vasileva]

Like I said.....

I fail to see your point here.

Those games were shadows of a true TES game, mostly spinoffs. I played Battlespire, Redguard, and Arena through once... I never want to play them again. The others I have absolutely no interest in whatsoever.

my point was not that they were great games (though they certainly weren't bad imo), it was that there had been plenty of TES games without the "TES feel." I see a lot of people acting like this MMO will be the end of TES, like Bethesda is selling out, etc. I was just trying to show that they aren't doing anything they haven't done already.

[Erika Ellsworth]

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe I have just figured something out.

Notice who they're in court AGAINST? INTERPLAY. The same Interplay who are making a Fallout MMO. Who likely had to liscence the rights to said title from Bethesda/Zenimax.

In all likelyhood, Interplay feels that they liscenced exclusive rights, and are trying to snuff out the competition. Zenimax Online was also founded AFTER Bethesda's acquisition of the Fallout IP.

In my opinion, this is a Fallout MMO in the working, with conflicts between the two teams who are trying to make a Fallout MMO. Bethesda's legal team is in court because they're the ones with a well-paid legal team. Why have two seperate legal teams when you can have one that defends two sides?

Bethesda only owns the right to a Fallout singleplayer game. Interplay never had to license anything from Bethesda, it was only the rights to the single player game that Bethesda bought.

[Soph]

Bethesda only owns the right to a Fallout singleplayer game. Interplay never had to license anything from Bethesda, it was only the rights to the single player game that Bethesda bought.

I was under the impression that Bethesda owned the rights to all Fallout-related properties, hence their ability to http://www.gamespot.com/news/6208041.html.

Why would anything related to an Elder Scrolls MMO come up in a Fallout related case?

[Céline Rémy]

my point was not that they were great games (though they certainly weren't bad imo), it was that there had been plenty of TES games without the "TES feel." I see a lot of people acting like this MMO will be the end of TES, like Bethesda is selling out, etc. I was just trying to show that they aren't doing anything they haven't done already.

None of those sold really well though. We don't for definite even know if TES V is being worked on, my only fear is that if a TES MMO became really popular (regardless of how good it was) they might decide to scrap the single player franchise as Blizzard has done.

[jason worrell]

Unfortunately, most of the words I wanted to use when responding to your post are auto-censored, so I'm just going to say this: WoW does not svck, do you really think that a crappy game could attract over 11 million active players?

but whatever, that's just your opinion. :shrug:

Other then the back story of the game there isn't anything else good about it, you are a hero but without a thing to do, you do quest just to level up, there is no completion of the story, people play it because of the socializing, but actuality they can use facebook or even go outside

[Kara Payne]

I was under the impression that Bethesda owned the rights to all Fallout-related properties, hence their ability to http://www.gamespot.com/news/6208041.html.

The very fact there was this agreement means Bethesda are not making a Fallout MMO.

[JLG]

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe I have just figured something out.

Notice who they're in court AGAINST? INTERPLAY. The same Interplay who are making a Fallout MMO. Who likely had to liscence the rights to said title from Bethesda/Zenimax.

In all likelyhood, Interplay feels that they liscenced exclusive rights, and are trying to snuff out the competition. Zenimax Online was also founded AFTER Bethesda's acquisition of the Fallout IP.

In my opinion, this is a Fallout MMO in the working, with conflicts between the two teams who are trying to make a Fallout MMO. Bethesda's legal team is in court because they're the ones with a well-paid legal team. Why have two seperate legal teams when you can have one that defends two sides?

Bethesda gave interplay, till august 2009 to collect a team and publisher, Bethesda never started making fallout MMO

[Sophie Payne]

I do want to state, that i would like a multiplayer version of tes. Not like world of warcraft with 100servers or such.

But a whole new tes game. Maybe you coud just call it TES. And if bethesda doesnt think this title is appropriate for what they got in mind, it still has to be part of the main lore and should be a very nice looking game. Which rules out rebuilding tamriel in a single game. Cause that is what sounds quite like a MMO.

It would be cool however to play with 20+ players in a single server. You could do quests together. Maybe it would even be cool to have some extra server settings, like more enemies or a higher difficulty lvl trough cranking up the difficulty level even more then the current maximum in oblivion. Also a similar thing like a arena (imperial city:arena) where you can fight each other in multiplayer. Maybe there are other creatonal sights to be implemented which benefits from multiplayer. Apart from that you should be able to stand anywhere with up to 20 people more or less.

Unfortunately, most of the words I wanted to use when responding to your post are auto-censored, so I'm just going to say this: WoW does not svck, do you really think that a crappy game could attract over 11 million active players?

but whatever, that's just your opinion

How unfortunate to hear this. Well my main goal was warning bethesda not to try replicating anything wow like since you cant beat blizzard.
Im didnt wrote 10000characters to tell everyone how much I hate wow. In fact I never like to flame upon subjects that I know other people get angry about. It was just the only way to prove my point.

It's sad that you take this so personally.

[Heather beauchamp]

Sorry I move this to the suggestion page.

[Charity Hughes]

Still, I don't think that ZO could possibly make an Elder Scrolls game without the words of SOME Elder Scrolls bigwigs getting involved. The fact that none have been involved lends me to believe that this is not an ES MMO.

Possibly I'm quite hopefully believing otherwise. The Elder Scrolls is my favorite game of all time. I despise MMOs for what they've done to the PC Gaming world- propagating a world where half-assed games can make billions compared to quality, single player games that only make millions. It makes too much financial sense, but I view it as selling your soul.

[k a t e]

Unfortunately, most of the words I wanted to use when responding to your post are auto-censored, so I'm just going to say this: WoW does not svck, do you really think that a crappy game could attract over 11 million active players?

Sure. Just look at the current MMO market leader at about 100M accounts (yep, that's nine times what WoW had before they http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2009/07/wow-subscriptions-down-to-5-million.html last year), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapleStory. Is it a good game? Nope, especially not for gamers - it's extremely simplified. But it's addictive, which is why so many people - most of them people who don't really play normal video games - are playing it.