I want to get away from the extreme bashing and extreme praising of the Elder Scroll Online game for a bit and actually focus on the whole genre of MMORPG in general. I been thinking a lot lately on this topic and actually wanted your guys opinions on this. Do you think that, ultimately, it may be a bad ideal to even bring big licenses to the MMO genre?

I asked this question based on what I have seen in the industry over the years so far. When you really look at games like Star Wars: The Old Republic, Star Trek, Age of Conan, DC Universe Online, Lord of the Ring Online, etc...all of these games have failed to capture and sustain a decent enough size fanbase that would be willing to pay to play their game monthly. Now of course it could be argued that you could say that about any generic MMO that fails as well, that's true, but the difference with those generic MMOs and these games is the fact that these licensed games are widely well-known and they tend to draw an extremely large crowd at first to see what the game will be about compared to an unknown MMO. If a generic MMO fails, no one really cares, but when a big licensed game fails, everyone takes notice. When a collection of big licensed MMOs start to fall, people are not just taken noticed of the games anymore, they're now looking at MMOs in general and wondering if this is a genre worth pursuing.

I hate to say this because I am a big advocate of people being creative and thinking outside the box, but I'm starting to think that some licensed games would be better off not going into the MMO realm because the expectation of the game is highly unrealistic. Take for instance, Star Wars: The old Republic. The game had wonderful voice acting and the storyline was quite stellar starting out. So much was put on the emphasis of these two things, that they fail to focus on some other important aspect of MMO (such as having a game market or very limited endgame in the beginning). Now voice acting and storyline would be a perfect thing to focus on in a single player game, but when SWTOR attempted to do that for an MMO it just did not turn out so well. People actually complained about the amount of talking for the game, and though this was just one of many issues the game had, it was one issue that show the difference of mentality that people familiar with the Old Republic brand and MMOs in general had. Old Republic fans was disappointed that the game did not make their characters feel important in the scheme of things and complained about too many other characters doing the exact same things they were doing. MMO fans would counter "But this is an MMO!" On the other hand, MMO gamers would complain about how there is too much dialogue with the game and how they wish they could just skip pass all of that and get to the actual grinding and power-level, Old Republic fans would argue "But this is what the Old Republic games does." You have two side bashing the other side for something that they wanted and was missing in their games and ultimately both side find themselves not liking the game enough to continue subbing. Now what ends up happening is the part I really want to hit at and goes with the general theme I'm trying to lay out. MMO gamers will go to the next big game and try it out whereas TOR fans will more than likely no longer give MMOs a chance because of how watered down they felt SWTOR was and how this genre degraded the once stellar series.

My fear and concern for this genre is that with all of these big failing licensed games that it will eventually start to carry a stigma with it that MMOs are a inferior version of so-called "true games," kinda like how people are seeing mobile games. SWTOR was not looked at as a successful MMO, it is looked at as a watered down version of The Old Republic PC games. Already people are saying the same thing about Elders Scroll based off the way it looks and play. The game is pretty, but nowhere near as gorgeous as the single player game. The gameplay offers a lot to do but nowhere near as much as if this was a single player games. MMO gamers will argue "Well duh, this is an MMO," but by saying that its almost making declaration that yeah MMO are not meant to be as good as single player games, and I think that's kind of the wrong way to go with this genre, it does not deserve that.

Anyways, just wanted to get everyone else view on this, thanks.

You need to ask the question of what MMO's offer that isn't being offered in other genres. Which, at least to me, is a large every expanding world (through added content) with the ability to socialize (for better or worse) with a world of other players.

To me, the fact that they are getting stale is a good sign. That means companies will start to deliver more to rekindle interest, or devote their time into other pursuits. Perhaps in the future there will be a larger focus on those single-player game elements.

A big part of why MMO's fail or even succeed and then fail is mainly due to passing interest. A big recognized title of course will bring in a lot more fans than an unknown title. However a number of those fans will only be interested in the title and not the game so much and so after there interest has been sated they will move on to play or watch something else. A big part of the gaming community is the fact that we always want new things. And its very hard to get us to only play one or two titles when there are so many game companies and they all are always trying to come out with a game to grab your attention. Now games are very limited even in todays world with all the advances in AI, graphics, processing speed, etc. the engines are still very limited in scope of oh say the real world. This is what people are always saying that gameplay doesn't equal lore, because gameplay is only a representation of the game world the creators envisioned, as we advance our technology we will move pass games being a representation to them becoming a reflection. I will say that I believe that MMO's and other multiplayer games will be a big part of the future, single player games like Skyrim and Fallout will become harder to find and rarer as less and less companies make them or make less of them and focus on multiplayer games and entertainment.

It's not the IP, but the game that really matters. It matters not what world or universe or era it is set in. It matters not whether it is MMO, CooP, or SP. It matters not First Person or Third Person. It matters not even what Genre it is in.

The game is the only thing that matters. Whether it is a good story, good writing, good gameplay, does not even matter, although those elements really need to be right for a chance of success. If they build a good game, people will play.

Using an existing IP just gives a spring board or a head start into gaining initial acceptance.

I don't think it's the MMOs--rather, it's the players. Our expectations are unrealistic, thus we leave, which prevents new people from having anyone to play with, and then they're disappointed too. A gamer doesn't think in terms of the technical capabilities of the producers of the game, only of what they want in their game--which means they'll inevitably be disappointed, especially by MMOs because all people want something different.