ZeniMax - The Elder Scrolls Online Announced

The comments on Bethblog are kind of hilarious.
 
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Not sure how I feel about it. I dont care about the MMO and will not be playing it unless it includes single player version and I can play offline with as many mods as are required to make is playable. My concerns are more that this will negatively impact the future of the single player version regardless of how much they try to downplay that.
 
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My concerns are more that this will negatively impact the future of the single player version regardless of how much they try to downplay that.

I don't think putting it in a separate studio 60 miles away and releasing it somewhere between 4 and 7 years before TES VI could conceivably be planned for is an attempt to downplay your concerns.

One of these things would be a relatively middle-aged (by post-WoW standards for MMOs that aren't WoW) PC and Mac MMO that will be competing against Blizzard's next MMO property during that time. The other, besides having seperate development and all that, would be the the cross platform followup the Zenimax's best selling product ever and possibly on new consoles by then (so the lowest common denominator for cross platform hardware limitations might go up.)

None of this is downplaying the chance of it changing the overall business model enough that it has implications across all Zenimax subsidiaries. That's certainly possible. Those are just the reasons I'd argue it does not seem particularly likely. Besides fearing this possibility, what reasons are there to think that a decidedly negative impact is more plausible? Is it more probable that it will have a negative effect or that it will make them even less likely to consider adding multiplayer to FO 4 and TESV - which I would argue would be both good for focus ont he single player game and further reduce the likelyhood of such releases having more than marginal impact on subscriber numbers?
 
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i swore i just read something that it was only going to take place in cyrodill which means the scale is going to be way different than prior games if this is true. also if that's the case then you can bank on them having nearly a half a dozen expansion packs to release over the years.

i release they're seperate teams but i wonder if after the skyrim dlc if it will probably be 6 years until the next elder scrolls and probably by that time they will have explored everywhere in the MMO so that begs the question of what will happen then…


It's taking place in more than just cyrodiil

"The sheer size of the game world dwarfs the single province of Skyrim"

"The game world features most of the continent of Tamriel, from Skyrim to Morrowind in the north to the Altmer home on the Summerset Isle and the mysterious Khajiit ancestral homeland of Elsweyr"
 
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It's taking place in more than just cyrodiil

"The sheer size of the game world dwarfs the single province of Skyrim"

"The game world features most of the continent of Tamriel, from Skyrim to Morrowind in the north to the Altmer home on the Summerset Isle and the mysterious Khajiit ancestral homeland of Elsweyr"

So yeah, TES VI: Akavir
 
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TES Online will not impact on the single player series for one a single reason: consoles.

Skyrim just sold over 10 millions copies, with a shitload of them of consoles and TESO is annouced as PC/Mac exclusive.

You can bet anything that there's no way they're gonna forget about the strong following the series has on consoles, and that they're gonna begin development of TESVI as soon as Fallout 4 is out.

-Sergorn
 
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Well, certainly not unexpected. I was wondering for a while when they would reveal their project, seems it has been in development forever.
I am not an MMO player, but I'll keep a look at it. For the sheer size of the world I might consider taking a tour of it, if it is well built.
 
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The only thing that surprises me is I though it would of been a fallout MMO. After the interplay legal battle it looked like that was there goal.
 
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The only thing that surprises me is I though it would of been a fallout MMO after the interplay legal battle.

Who knows, maybe that's coming next.:devilish:

Seems like a good model - have one studio focusing on putting out a new Fallout or TES singleplayer game every few years with similar engines and a second one doing MMOs with an MMO engine.
 
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MMO might actually make these boring generic games fun... a good idea IMHO.
 
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MMO might actually make these boring generic games fun… a good idea IMHO.

Well it looks like it will be very differnt in style and gameplay for one - so if you've been bored by the Elder Scrolls series the MMO is going to look and feel like a completely different product. If you liked the Realm v Realm aspects of DAoC - which I've heard was actually somewhat non terrible, then you might find something enjoyable here.

But really if you don't like MMOs in general either, there's nothing in the Game Informer magazine story to suggest you'll like this anymore than something like Warhammer Age of Reckonign or Dark Age of Camelot.
 
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:S why call it the elder scrolls online if it isn't the elder scrolls online..... I was expecting something like skyrim except it has interesting people running around, and better graphics.....

I guess it might be another cheap attempt at selling an MMO because of a brand....
 
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None of this is downplaying the chance of it changing the overall business model enough that it has implications across all Zenimax subsidiaries. That's certainly possible.
That's the most likely reason it would be affected, I'd think. No new Ultima single-player games have started development since UO came out (U9 was already in development when UO came out and was a half-hearted effort at best, by the time it came out). No new Warcraft games have came out since WoW came out. I don't think anyone's expecting a new KoTOR game. There's plenty of precedent. In the eyes of a publisher, a cash-cow subscription MMO is the ultimate evolution of any particular franchise.
 
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Yes I don't understand why ppl keep mentioning new game of single player since somewhere was said that the series has to end as they are exhausted and need to move.

Also I wonder how this news will affect comunity of moders, since if the series are dead there will be no hopes for volunteers.
 
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That's the most likely reason it would be affected, I'd think. No new Ultima single-player games have started development since UO came out (U9 was already in development when UO came out and was a half-hearted effort at best, by the time it came out). No new Warcraft games have came out since WoW came out. I don't think anyone's expecting a new KoTOR game. There's plenty of precedent. In the eyes of a publisher, a cash-cow subscription MMO is the ultimate evolution of any particular franchise.

Differents studios, different times, different philosophies and so on…

The issue with Ultima is that EA thought it was a great idea to turn Origin into an online only game, and that turned out to be a terrible mistake. And since Origin closed though, there's been three attempts to make new single players Ultima games that I know of actually (Ultima Resurection on the PSP, Ultima Reborn on the NDS, and an AAA Ultima game with Obsidian) though the first two were cancelled during development and the later one died at the paper stage.

Warcraft : granted. But there's the issue that it's the same studio doing WoW that did the the Warcraft RTS games, and also the fact that by putting WoW chronogically after Warcraft 3 it kind put in wrench into furthering the story in a new RTS. Which is probably the reason Bethesda is putting TESO a thousand years before the Skyrim.

KOTOR : this is more a LucasArts issue really, and the fact they just don't seem to know what to do with their IP (they actually had a KOTOR3 in development internally after KOTOR2 and they cancelled it). There's actually no reason to think a new Star Wars RPG wouldn't be doable in spite of SWTOR realy - there are plenty of era in the SW chronology such a game could explore.

And as I said even putting the whole "A different studio is handling the MMO" (since I guess you make the argument that TES will stick to MMO and Bethesda Game Studios will just stick to making Fallout games), again: you're forgetting the importance of consoles gamers.

There are MILLIONS of consoles gamers who buy, play and enjoy Elder Scrolls games. There is no way in hell Zenimax and Bethesda will not want to bring more TES games for these gamers. And while you could argue they'd make a console of TESO... considering consoles MMOs tend to fail miserably, this seems unlikely.

And considering we're likely not seeing TES6 before 2016 or such, there's no risk of TESO and TES6 competing with each other and TESO could serve as a "fix" for fans while they wait for TES6.

So while there are precedant, I think the Bethesda situations is very different.

-Sergorn
 
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Not interested either.

I saw the ingame screenshots and I must say I got a very "Kingdoms of Amalur" vibe from them!

The ES art style seems to have taken radical departure of sorts.
 
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Not interested.
Yeah, I agree with you. Bethesda (or ZeniMax) is milking it's blockbuster series with such actions. A MMO TES isn't acceptable to me at all.
 
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That's the most likely reason it would be affected, I'd think. No new Ultima single-player games have started development since UO came out (U9 was already in development when UO came out and was a half-hearted effort at best, by the time it came out). No new Warcraft games have came out since WoW came out. I don't think anyone's expecting a new KoTOR game. There's plenty of precedent. In the eyes of a publisher, a cash-cow subscription MMO is the ultimate evolution of any particular franchise.

There were other reasons behind all of those series not continuing. With Ultima EA took over and ruined it and both Ultima 8 and 9 were crap and didn't do well which ended the Ultima series. With Blizzard they take forever to make a game anymore so maybe after they finish Starcraft 2 they could go back to Warcraft so there is still potential. When it comes to KoTOR I don't think Bioware wanted to do another game which is why they gave the second one off to Obsidian and made them rush it.
 
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