I'm going to get very philosophical here, so stick with me.

After listening to ESO alliance episode 3, it was being discussed how many people think The Elder Scrolls: Online is going to "fail." What exactly does it mean for a game to "fail?"

Websters dictionary (yes, I went there) defines failure as:

A. Omission of occurrence or performance; specifically : a failing to perform a duty or expected action.

B. A state of inability to perform a normal function

C. A fracturing or giving way under stress

D. Lack of success

There are a number of games that have "failed" according to the definitions above. Recently, it has been announced four Sony Online Entertainment games are going to be shut down. Link is here: http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/01/24/soe-announces-closure-of-4-mmos-including-free-realms-vanguard-saga-of-heroes/

Now what I think people mean when they say The Elder Scrolls: Online is going to "fail," they mean it will not have as much success as World of Warcraft. If you think about it that way, EVERY MMO has failed. Is this term only exclusive to MMORPGs?

I have never heard anyone say that Battlefield failed because it didn't sell as well as Call of Duty, nor have I heard Dark Souls failed because it didn't do as well as Skyrim. Is the MMORPG player base just a bunch of bastards wanting and waiting for every single game to "fail" because it came after World of Warcraft?

LEAVE ME YOUR THOUGHTS!

P.S. Am I the only person who hates it when people refer try to The Elder Scrolls: Online as the "WoW killer?"

The only thing that's going to kill WoW is Blizzard.

Saying a game will fail if it isn't as successful as WoW would mean every other MMO is a fail, which is just ridiculous, they should never be aiming at being a WoW killer and I don't think it's feasible.

You'll find the MMO player base is overall alright, it is just the VOCAL MINORITY that gives it a bad name, as they are the sort who rush like hell to end game and then complain about it, the negativity those guys create spreads and creates a bad vibe for the game in general, even though those players have ignored the vast majority of a game's content.

What i think they need to do is already have right now, content ready to roll out in patches as additional content, so maybe 2-3 weeks after launch, once the fast hardcoe people have hit level cap, they then hit them with a content update, then do the same thing again a few weeks later and keep up with that for a good few months, luckily I seem to recall one of the Devs mentioning they are already working on additional content.

Well I already have suspicions about the success of this thread.

Oh wait -- on topic, right ... So far from what I've seen I'd say that the people who are most concerned about this issue are the lovers of the game and not the critics. It is easy for a non-invested person to dismiss and if the other persons likes what is dismissed then it is a source of conflict. I've butted heads with a few people on here and after understanding that they are simply defending their hobby I think we have an agreement of sorts.

I've heard failure defined several different ways. The working definition I have for failure and this game is that the developers don't meet their own goals. NOT that it will lose money or be something people hate.

That said I don't think they will meet their own goals ... which so far is a full game price + subscription + in-game store. They are going to ask for that in an MMO saturated market by offering what plays like many many other MMO games? Graphically it is pretty, but I think fans of the solo TES series play for and look for more than what is pretty. They want that game play, they want those mechanics, and they want that level of immersion. If that is a goal of the developers (and I think it is) then the game will likely be a failure. If the developers want people to feel like it plays like the solo games then that is failure. The price will fall and the structure is already in place for F2P.

More on topic - I really have no feeling about any of the poll choices. WoW killer means little to me other than a concept that people who play almost exclusively in the MMO field talk about. I try MMOs I've never stuck with one for the more than a month and that is as a casual player at best. Why kill WoW at all? Let it serve its purpose I say. Let it be the bastion of compromise and a more interactive facebook.

On that note ... perhaps something that has not occurred to me before. I think perhaps that players of single to multiplayer games just don't do as much social media as those that play MMOs (in general there is just more socializing with MMOs). Hence, they are more apt to think that what is said in social media about products matters. That forum pvssyr matters for instance. Perhaps single player gamers are more apt to think of a game as a product that must meet certain criteria and not as an ongoing relationship with corporate entities the game company of choice. Just a thought. But in this I see that MMO players are more apt to care about things like fail versus success for more reasons than a person who sees the game for what I think it primarily is: a distraction from real life/product for entertainment.

There are a lot of games out there that people are sure to say have failed, but I don't share that opinion, because most of the time they are referring to the games that are still up and running. Even if a game shuts down after about 5 years doesn't mean it failed. It means it ran well for a while and they decided to pull the plug. The only game I would ever say has failed would be Final Fantasy 14, but the developer knew it was a failure, so they yanked it offline and rebuilt the game after losing a large amount of invested money. Is it a failure anymore? Not really, as it's back up and running with lots of players.

If a developer ever came out and declared something about a game, like it would steal WoW's playerbase, then failed to do so, that would be a failure in a goal, not really a failed game.

I think there's a trend going round with a lot of MMO players who are mostly bored with the market, or completely loyal or addicted to one particular game, so they automatically shout at any new game coming out saying 'fail fail fail', look at the announcement of ESO, the announcement of Wildstar and EQ:Next as well, it's not just ESO people are shouting at.

Yes, ESO is not an wow killer, it don't even hunt for WOW players, main target is Skyrim players who would like an elder scroll MMO, secondary is MMO player who want something else than the click and tap targeting who is default in MMO.

Now for the haters who has played the closed beta it look like its two groups. The first has reasons: the controls are confusing/ bad, game does not feel so different from other modern MMO or look worse than Skyrim the classes look boring.

No it does not have to be good reasons, most people liked the new Tomb Raider, I dropped it then I found that combat with wolfs used quicktime.

The other group is people who do not want to start an new MMO, either they play one already or they think it take to much time, so they need reasons.
Last its cool to hate.

The term "WoW-Killer" is pretty much meaningless nowadays, since WoW is pretty much already dead. I was in a heavily populated server, in a guild with over 2,000 people. Took a 1-year break, came back, and the entire guild was gone. Gone. I was the only member. Everyone else was still there, but they had all been offline for 9 months. The server itself had tumbleweeds rolling through it.Don't let Blizzard fool you. They did some "server mergers" by linking servers together so everyone else didn't feel like they were playing a single-player game. WoW doesn't need another MMO to kill it, it's already gasping its last.We need to pick a new MMO to replace 'WoW' in the term "WoW-Killer". It no longer fits the role.

Yes, lots of MMO has been sold to investors as WOW killers, they have failed the promise. However many games has also never managed to get the investment back, they are running as they bring in more money than they cost to run. Feel that more of the modern ones tries to distance itself from WOW.

Most common reason to fail is lack of endgame, look like ESO is doing an decent work, both pvp, single player and dungeons, but we don't know how fun it is.

They have stated in the recent Q&A that they will in fact ship new content every 4-6 weeks.

And yes, I do hate it when someone refers to ESO (or any other game for that matter) as a (failed) WoW killer. That mentality is flawed by definition because it assumes that every single person who plays MMO's plays WoW. Um, no? No they don't? And if you want to make a successful MMO, you'll probably want to target that portion of players that don't? Which, you know, is kind of what ESO is all about? Less loot grind and more questing and exploring?

Yeh, I really hope they can stand by the content release schedule, I think they will because they've been working on it for a while now, and there's so much they can release.

The max number of people in one guild is 1000...

WoW was a great game they last 8 years but lost alot as panda hit the servers, right know WoW ist a testing ground for there next MMO.