Bethesda Softworks - Elder Scrolls MMO Rumours

"Unnamed sources" abound in this newsbit, so we are firmly in rumour territory. That said, it doesn't take a genius to work out that Bethsoft's parent company is doing something with their online division and it makes sense to use one of their successful existing IPs…and since they've denied working on a Fallout MMO in court, that makes an Elder Scrolls MMO seem a good bet.
Anyway, Duck and Cover claims Bethsoft has applied to get some court statements redacted - here's the relevant bit:

The big trade secret?: Bethesda has "tens and tens of millions of dollars" and "close to a hundred people"working on a "secret" "World Of Warcraft" type MMO and they don't want their competitors knowing about it. They've been working on it pretty heavily since 2007 after assigning the team in late 2006. According to testimony given by Bethesda, the development timetable for an MMO is 4 years, so that would mean they would be releasing this game next year.

VG247 then goes on to say they are "reliably informed" it's an Elder Scrolls MMO and it missed the planned reveal last year. No surprises there, if true.
More information.

Okay, I've never played an MMO though I did play Minions of Mirth for about 4 months and it was MMOish. To me, a great idea to get the TES single-player gamers interested would be release TES V about 2-3 months before a TES MMO and have the ending of V tie in directly with the beginning of the MMO. That might be the only way to "sucker" me in to trying such a game. I'd much rather see TES V than any online game and waiting 4+ years between games gets really old.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
I'd much rather see TES V than any online game and waiting 4+ years between games gets really old.

Same here, except that I wouldn't want any tie-in if they do make a MMO TES.

Keep them completely seperate please.

Booo.

Stick to singleplayer, Bethesda.

It won't make any difference if they make an MMO since it is a different group doing it. What it means is that it might lessen the amount of people wanting TES V to be an MMO. It does get a bit annoying when people a always complaining about Oblivion not being multiplayer.

yay!
nothing better out there than playing with real humans.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Same here, except that I wouldn't want any tie-in if they do make a MMO TES. Keep them completely seperate please.

Same here…except that I wouldn't want another TES game. I cannot endure another four-plus years of insipid critics and gamers nattering on about how "grand" the latest mediocre title in that series is.
Actually, forget Bethesda Softworks entirely. If it's just going to be more Oblivion/Fallout 3 (come on, we can all admit they're the same game with a purely aesthetic setting swap) I'd sooner Zenimax invested their capital in whatever id Software is developing.
…bring on the Rage!

Maybe they'll follow the path Bioware took with KotOR,making it an MMO and trying to attract the fans of the series by saying that it will have story elements and stuff.

Originally Posted by themadhatter
Actually, forget Bethesda Softworks entirely. If it's just going to be more Oblivion/Fallout 3 (come on, we can all admit they're the same game with a purely aesthetic setting swap)

Bethesda has the ability to make great games, they've already proved that. Morrowind was fantastic, and I think Fallout 3 is pretty good as well. Hopefully they will learn from the mistakes they made with Oblivion, and make TES V a better game.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Bethesda has the ability to make great games, they've already proved that. Morrowind was fantastic, and I think Fallout 3 is pretty good as well. Hopefully they will learn from the mistakes they made with Oblivion, and make TES V a better game.

I agree that Morrowind was fantastic when I first played it, but I can't ever get back into it when I try to play it again. So I'm not sure if I though it was fantastic because it was the first TES game I played and it was a combination of game elements that were new to me that wowed me or that the game was really that good.

Originally Posted by Anderson
Booo.

Stick to singleplayer, Bethesda.

Yup. Its a shame that they had to do TES what Bioware is doing for Kotor, a perfectly fine singleplayer rpg series turned into boring MMORPG crap. Besides MMO arena is a lot tougher place to compete really. Many have tried and only few have succeeded. Then again I don't play mmos, so its their loss.

In fact I rarely play any multiplayer games these days. Occasional counterstrike or some other action game grabs my intrest sure, but I don't have energy or time those games require and I got dreadfully bored fighting agaist stupidity I want to relax in my free time not waste it in angry nerds. I got enough competative gaming during my quake years anyhow. Funny thing is that no matter the game, basic issues stay the same . I mean game is as fun as the people playing it.

I have noticed that multiplayer is most fun if you play it with people you know: friends or online buddies or something. It can sometimes happen with total strangers but nine times out of ten it becomes a frustraiting ordeal instead of the relexing quality moment you dreamt at work during your lunch break ;-)

Oblivion played like an MMO without any other people in the world anyway. I don't know what a hardcore RPG fan has to mourn over TES going MMO. The series was lost to us with Oblivion, making the sequel to Oblivon an MMO just means they'd have to include even more quests, and much, much better game systems. The character, loot, combat and level scaling systems in Oblivon were nowhere near MMO standard. I think that WoW has shown us that one of the keys to a suessful MMO is robust game systems.

I am actually looking forward to this. Mostly for the exploration thing. Hopefully the MMO would have all lands open like Daggerfall did. I really enjoyed tripping around the different countries.

I am not big on playing with others but I do enjoy tripping around and exploring virtual worlds and MMOS always have the biggest worlds.

Originally Posted by turian
yay!
nothing better out there than playing with real humans.

I'll have to disagree with you. A halfway decent AI beats playing against or with humans any day of the week. People are too annoying.

Now if you're playing with friends that is a whole different matter. There's nothing better than playing a game with a few close friends who you know won't whine like a little baby if you beat them. Blood Bowl is a great example of that. Some people whine like you just killed their cat if one of their players gets killed or they lose the game. I gave up playing online entirely when you couldn't trust anyone to actually finish the game when they were losing. There was a bug that people exploited to terminate the match so that they wouldn't get a loss on their record or so that one of their players wouldn't die.

That is just too frustating and ruined the online experience for me. I hear they fixed that bug, but still I'm hesitant to go back and play.

Originally Posted by turian
yay!
nothing better out there than playing with real humans.

eh, screw real humans. Playing with buddies can be fun, but it's hard to get everyone's schedules lined up, so I always end up playing with random strangers. That seems completely pointless to me. Especially with an RPG.

The big draw of an RPG is immersion in a world of imagination. That immersion completely goes out the window, when you have some kid yammering in your ear.

Keep your MMOs and your real humans. Give me an immersive singleplayer RPG any day.

Just want to point out the Team Corwin thread. We play DDO right now, but as we all know each other from here it's not like playing with total strangers. I'm planning on establishing an RPGWatch only guild on Khyber server as well, so some of you might consider that since it's a free MMO.

I don't want to play with other humans. Apart from how much they suck, I want to be the centre of my gaming. I want to be the hero (or the villain), I want to carefully choose the dialogue responses - not watch my mate over there do it. I'm sure there are advantages to many players but the story-based elements can never be as strong as single-player. BioWare can't do it with ToR - noone can. At the end of the day, we can't all make world-changing choices at the same time.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
At the end of the day, we can't all make world-changing choices at the same time.

Just picture a million 'Nerevarines' running around the countryside.

I hate playing with humans too .

Beth should stick with Singleplayer . TES games (well the last 2 of them) were big commercial success as SP only .

Aren't Bioware and Bethesda getting into the MMO-business a bit too late? The ship has sailed, no? From a money-making standpoint that is. Correct me if I'm wrong but monthly subscriptions seem to on the way out, so making craploads of money on MMO's isn't as easy anymore I would guess.