[Felix Walde]

I still just think its a matter of them done and everything (basicly), they have a date set, and are just messing with us. They all have the day circled on their calenders (and near by) when they plan to release all teh chaos on the internet and gaming world

[JaNnatul Naimah]

I still just think its a matter of them done and everything (basicly), they have a date set, and are just messing with us. They all have the day circled on their calenders (and near by) when they plan to release all teh chaos on the internet and gaming world

No doubt they have a date set, but its probably not set in stone until they are confident they are ready and basically done with the game. In other words they might not even know themselves yet, only having a possible announce date lined up.

[IsAiah AkA figgy]

I still just think its a matter of them done and everything (basicly), they have a date set, and are just messing with us. They all have the day circled on their calenders (and near by) when they plan to release all teh chaos on the internet and gaming world

Right, because them toying with us is on their to do list, right in front of them making as much money as possible.

[Clea Jamerson]

i heard tes:v is going to be set in bowerstone

jus jokes

but all this hype is getting me so hyped, i hope they place it somewhere exotic, skyrim doesnt seem exotic enough for me, but i would still play and enjoy it. cant wait for the vga's, hopefully we get sumthin juicy there

[TASTY TRACY]

I agree, if they did this to hype everybody up and set people on the right course it's worked, coupled with the it's going to be announced soon comment makes me think that they will announce it soon, as in this year. Though Todd probably means soon in the archaic form which is before the usual time.

[Adrian Powers]

I've been going over the leaked info in my head (my job is pretty mindless), and I came up with three possible scenarios and their immediate consequences.

Scenario One: The Eurogamer Editor-In-Chief made an innocent yet serious mistake. I don't believe this is true. If the information is wrong, then it was accidental since journalistic reliability would keep them from outright lying or else nobody will read them again. Unlikely, but even if it were true there are no consequences until the official announcement, when they suffer minor embarrassment as a publication and the editor suffers a severe blow to credibility, but we're good here.

Scenario Two: It was actually leaked by someone ahead of schedule, a Bethesda employee who had a bit too much to drink or was offered a bribe. Possible, but I don't know any Bethesda employees personally therefore I can't gauge probability. This may cause a need to accelerate marketing to cut off any misinformation or to provide only one view of the actual information. Again, can't determine probability. Too many variables.

Scenario Three: The information was deliberately given to a specific person to cause exactly the reaction elicited by the media and fanbase, and is in fact all part of the plan. Thrilling, enticing, good story, again unable to determine probability. Against type for former games marketing styles.

[Laura Samson]

I've been going over the leaked info in my head (my job is pretty mindless), and I came up with three possible scenarios and their immediate consequences.

Scenario One: The Eurogamer Editor-In-Chief made an innocent yet serious mistake. I don't believe this is true. If the information is wrong, then it was accidental since journalistic reliability would keep them from outright lying or else nobody will read them again. Unlikely, but even if it were true there are no consequences until the official announcement, when they suffer minor embarrassment as a publication and the editor suffers a severe blow to credibility, but we're good here.

Scenario Two: It was actually leaked by someone ahead of schedule, a Bethesda employee who had a bit too much to drink or was offered a bribe. Possible, but I don't know any Bethesda employees personally therefore I can't gauge probability. This may cause a need to accelerate marketing to cut off any misinformation or to provide only one view of the actual information. Again, can't determine probability. Too many variables.

Scenario Three: The information was deliberately given to a specific person to cause exactly the reaction elicited by the media and fanbase, and is in fact all part of the plan. Thrilling, enticing, good story, again unable to determine probability. Against type for former games marketing styles.

Let's also consider scenario 4 which is that the MMO leaks from the court transcripts were to garner up controversy and create conflicting claims among news sources to create hype as well for some form of an announcement.

[sarah taylor]

Let's also consider scenario 4 which is that the MMO leaks from the court transcripts were to garner up controversy and create conflicting claims among news sources to create hype as well for some form of an announcement.

Not sure on that one. Too complicated. Need to manipulate the court system as well as create multiple false leaks instead of one. Seems to be a bit too much for me.

Heh, watch that be the right one.

[Annick Charron]

For some reason, I think it will be released in 2012... bliviongate:

[Ells]

No doubt they have a date set, but its probably not set in stone until they are confident they are ready and basically done with the game. In other words they might not even know themselves yet, only having a possible announce date lined up.

wasnt really talking about a release date but for an anouncement. Even if its not done they could still have that figured out

[Laura Ellaby]

Scenario Three: The information was deliberately given to a specific person to cause exactly the reaction elicited by the media and fanbase, and is in fact all part of the plan. Thrilling, enticing, good story, again unable to determine probability. Against type for former games marketing styles.

I still think this whole idea of it being an intentional leak is madness and desperation, but you gotta think; If the information was leaked, why would it be riddled with such imprecise and confusing language? Nobody familiar with the franchise, much less an employee working on it, would say 'the sequel to Oblivion'. The original Danish article referred to a 'direct sequel' which the last few threads have shown to be a troubling choice of words. Vaguely referring to 'the blades' and a 'dragon lord' is pretty meaningless - its not going to excite interest in people who are not already fans of the franchise, if anything it would sound boringly generic.

The whole point of marketing is to present a carefully designed and manicured image of your product to a broad audience - but there is no real meat to the eurogamer story, the wording is clumsy and careless, no revelations of any value are in there - there is nothing to me about the story that suggests a manufactured fake-leak. If you wanted to make waves with a fake leak, you would do a few things differently - you'd upsell the game by talking about its breathtaking scope or production values, you'd tease that there is something coming that nobody expects, you would do something more than suggest the bare existence of the game.

If there is any truth to the story (and I don't grant the Eurogamer outfit much credit in general) I am much more inclined to believe that somebody from Bethesda, or somebody related like a freelancer or nosey UPS guy, was talking out of turn. Imagining that there is some kind of marketing conspiracy is just a flight of fancy.

Let's also consider scenario 4 which is that the MMO leaks from the court transcripts were to garner up controversy and create conflicting claims among news sources to create hype as well for some form of an announcement.

That wasn't a leak, that was legal disclosure as part of a trial. All this fake-leak thinking seems so far off base.

gamesas doesn't need to grovel around trying to manufacture hype for TESV. Its not some shoddy indie game from a company with no marketing budget. Look at how the announcements of Oblivion and Fallout 3 were handled, and how they were received by the enthusiast press.

[suzan]

gamesas doesn't need to grovel around trying to manufacture hype for TESV. Its not some shoddy indie game from a company with no marketing budget. Look at how the announcements of Oblivion and Fallout 3 were handled, and how they were received by the enthusiast press.

Exactly. Bethesda fans know that when it comes to what they're working on, they're near completely silent until they decide the time is right to speak up. They would have no reason to intentionally leak this. The announcement appears to be coming soon, considering it's been around 3 months since Quakecon, so leaking information to generate hype when an actual announcement would generate 100x more hype doesn't seem logical to me.

That's not to say the Eurogamer leak isn't authentic (though personally I believe it less and less with each passing day), but I very much doubt the leak was done on purpose.

[Harry Hearing]

As for the GI cover, I don't know if anyone mentioned this, but in the tweet he said "begging for 4ever".

I think it's more likely that the cover will be Duke Nukem Forever. But if it is, everyone should email him and be like "WTF you knew you were getting people's hopes up for ESV".

[Richard]

Exactly. Bethesda fans know that when it comes to what they're working on, they're near completely silent until they decide the time is right to speak up. They would have no reason to intentionally leak this. The announcement appears to be coming soon, considering it's been around 3 months since Quakecon, so leaking information to generate hype when an actual announcement would generate 100x more hype doesn't seem logical to me.

That's not to say the Eurogamer leak isn't authentic (though personally I believe it less and less with each passing day), but I very much doubt the leak was done on purpose.

Of course, but this is the speculation thread...and no were am I claiming that any of this is truth...nor do I have the intention of doing so. I suspect will find out in the next 12 months about what bethesda is working on.

[Alexxxxxx]

Someone beat me to the Duke 4ever post. That would be my guess anyway. Did anyone else get excited when they saw Ign's cataclysm wall paper that looks like an Oblivion type theme?

[RUby DIaz]

Someone beat me to the Duke 4ever post. That would be my guess anyway. Did anyone else get excited when they saw Ign's cataclysm wall paper that looks like an Oblivion type theme?

If it was Duke Nukem why would he say 4ever. Is it the 4th Duke Nukem?

[Rachel Cafferty]

Well, the title of the game is Duke Nukem Forever, so...

Though I didn't consider the 4 being a hint that the mystery game is the fourth in a series. Fallout 4 perhaps? No, surely not.

[Claire Vaux]

Well, the title of the game is Duke Nukem Forever, so...

Though I didn't consider the 4 being a hint that the mystery game is the fourth in a series. Fallout 4 perhaps? No, surely not.

Halo 4 lol? maybe not since im not sure if there making anymore halos, who knows?

[butterfly]

Twitter allows 140 characters in a message. Putting his message into twitter, it shows me that he has 7 characters left. Perhaps the message was originally longer, and when he hit the limit, forever was one of the words he cut back on? I mean I really doubt the 4 is some kind of super cryptic secret message, people.

Of course, but this is the speculation thread...and no were am I claiming that any of this is truth...nor do I have the intention of doing so. I suspect will find out in the next 12 months about what bethesda is working on.

Dude, you need to stop responding to all of my posts with "But this is the speculation thread...", okay? Please? Because half the time the post you're replying to was me speculating too. Casting doubt on the rumor is speculation. This is like the third time you've done this and it's getting rather annoying. <_<

[kitten maciver]

If it was Duke Nukem why would he say 4ever. Is it the 4th Duke Nukem?

Because the title of the game is Duke Nukem Forever.

[Hayley Bristow]

Twitter allows 140 characters in a message. Putting his message into twitter, it shows me that he has 7 characters left. Perhaps the message was originally longer, and when he hit the limit, forever was one of the words he cut back on? I mean I really doubt the 4 is some kind of super cryptic secret message, people.



Dude, you need to stop responding to all of my posts with "But this is the speculation thread...", okay? Please? Because half the time the post you're replying to was me speculating too. Casting doubt on the rumor is speculation. This is like the third time you've done this and it's getting rather annoying. <_<

................if your going to say something like this at least have some respect and drop me a private message.
Obviously by the third time you should have taken the hint I was largely being sarcastic and poking fun.

[Alexander Horton]

................if your going to say something like this at least have some respect and drop me a private message.
Obviously by the third time you should have taken the hint I was largely being sarcastic and poking fun.

He shamed me too.

Now you know the feeling.

Don't mess with Antibody.

[Natalie Harvey]

He shamed me too.

Now you know the feeling.

Don't mess with Antibody.

check your in box, I'm not going to tie up these threads with off topic banter.

[Penny Wills]

................if your going to say something like this at least have some respect and drop me a private message.
Obviously by the third time you should have taken the hint I was largely being sarcastic and poking fun.

How on earth did you take offense to that? If you were being sarcastic, then tell me so. No need to get offended...

He shamed me too.

Now you know the feeling.

Don't mess with Antibody.

I shamed you? By sarcastically responding to your post I shamed you?

:blink:

I don't even know how to properly respond to that.

check your in box, I'm not going to tie up these threads with off topic banter.

Yes, PM me as well if you'd like to talk about this further.

In fact, because I seem to be inadvertently insulting people at the drop of a hat nowadays, if I somehow insult you, PM me. Though considering how easy people are to offend in this thread, I suspect my inbox will fill up rather quickly.

[rolanda h]

At the risk of this getting somewhat OT, some meta-comments on the speculation thread, and the sort of game we're playing, as I see it. What we're doing is putting forth various hypotheses about ESV, what BGS is working on, the credibility of various rumours, and so on, and then assessing their relative plausibility. So even though we're not really in the business of making claims whose truth can not be definitively verified, it's not the case that there are no rational constraints upon the speculation. As we've seen through the past 82 threads, there are various considerations which can be used to give greater confirmation to one hypothesis over another. But I also took this to be largely common ground amongst people participating in this thread. This is why defending an hypothesis with remarks like "but this is the speculation thread" is likely to be met with a somewhat impatient response - the criticism is not that the hypothesis is speculation (after, all of our hypotheses are speculation), but rather that the hypothesis is less plausible than others, in light of considerations X, Y, Z.

Hopefully this is of some more general interest to people who might be a little bemused by the rules of the game in this thread.