By Jim Rossignol on March 16th, 2012 at 11:17 am.
Tom’s Guide are reporting that Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls MMO will be announced in May. Here’s the claim: “An industry source that wishes to remain anonymous revealed the name of the new MMO to us, and confirmed that the game would take place a full millennium before The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Using the Elder Scrolls Wiki timeline as a guide, Elder Scrolls Online will likely take place during the “Second Era,” or several hundred years before any of the other Elder Scrolls games. This information was corroborated by two additional sources before publication.” Elderscrollsonline.com has been registered by the company since 2007, and the rumours seem corroborated by ZeniMax and Bethesda hiring for MMO development positions over the last couple of years. It’s a big old maybe.
16/03/2012 at 11:20 Flukie says:
As long as its more like Guild Wars 2 than WoW then im all for it.
16/03/2012 at 13:38 Blackcompany says:
Agreed. Dynamic world, action-oriented combat, a big, sprawling world to explore….I could get behind that. So long as they don’t fall for the WoW formula of development, with gradually leveling “zones” and an endless, static quest treadmill, this could be good.
.
As long as they look at the current MMO formula like something to avoid or fix, instead of inspiration, this has a chance. Otherwise, not so much, in my opinion.
16/03/2012 at 14:27 Mad Hamish says:
Damn I hope it’s more like Mortal Online. A nice sandbox free for all. No softly softly carebear nonsense and boring abstract combat. Never played Guild Wars at all but I’ve seen a couple of TotalBiscuit’s videos on GW2 and it just looks like the same ability spam, cool downs, macro shit that most MMOs seem to be.
16/03/2012 at 18:12 lurkalisk says:
I’d really hate to see any uniquely-MMO standards implemented in such a game. There’s nothing I like about MMOs, save the broadest of strokes (like, there’s alot of people playing in the same world, etc..).
16/03/2012 at 22:23 Barnaby says:
Not only does this sound like a terrible idea, but this sounds like a completely terrible idea.
I can’t be convinced that anytime a decision is made to make an MMO, it isn’t based primarily on the company’s potential to make a shitload of cash. How many MMO’s have to faceplant before developers give up on this potential cash cow? It seems the real problem might be that as long as the game turns a decent profit in the long run, it was worth it for the developers.
Maybe if WoW2 comes out and it flops on it’s face, but until then I guess I just have to keep on facepalming.
16/03/2012 at 11:21 Fashigady says:
I’m calling it now. TESVI: Tamriel
16/03/2012 at 11:22 AbyssUK says:
So Skyrims Draugr are actually the reanimated corpses of the old MMO players… I like it…
16/03/2012 at 12:47 Zanchito says:
Hah, neat! They should take that idea.
16/03/2012 at 13:02 mondomau says:
That would be brilliant. Make fighting and looting them a bit more interesting too.
16/03/2012 at 11:24 alinos says:
Would make sense why they had an issue with scrolls
Since one would assume the MMO would just be called The Elder Scrolls. Since a subtitle wouldn’t really make sense
16/03/2012 at 13:09 Havok9120 says:
You’re ruining the narrative. They were just being greedy.
Depending on the name of the MMO, that would make at least some sense though.
16/03/2012 at 14:01 alinos says:
Why? If they were being greedy they would still be fighting with Mojang for some sweet sweet Moolah :D
But yeah calling the game Elder Scrolls: Tamriel as suggested by another wouldn’t really make sense for when you want to add a expansion at some later point. Making it Elder Scrolls Tamriel and this new continent we created for funzies
16/03/2012 at 18:15 lurkalisk says:
The “industry insider” (read: propensity for being wrong) holds that it would be titled “Elder Scrolls Online”.
16/03/2012 at 11:25 Ninja Foodstuff says:
Down with single player!
16/03/2012 at 12:59 Swanny says:
This made me laugh. I’d imagined a hipster drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon who had just finished a tirade about how great macs are saying this. “Skyrim, needs to be an mmo, i mean you interact with NPC’s, but you never really interact with NPC’s, you know?
16/03/2012 at 13:11 djbriandamage says:
Pshh, I was interacting with NPCs before they were interactive.
16/03/2012 at 13:24 digibo says:
But then you took an arrow to the knee?
I just couldn’t help it :]
16/03/2012 at 13:28 djbriandamage says:
We didn’t have knees back then – just a straight leg with no joint. Then I took an arrow to the leg which caused it to bend and then everyone copied me. Sigh.
16/03/2012 at 11:26 philbot says:
I just hope they don’t butcher the lore like warcraft. I love the elder scrolls series, I hope they dont ruin it.
16/03/2012 at 12:07 The Hammer says:
Hear, hear!
16/03/2012 at 11:27 Phantoon says:
I doubt it.
16/03/2012 at 14:42 ResonanceCascade says:
I also doubt it. This sounds like one of those rumors that just keeps reappearing because everyone thinks that the next logical step for any fantasy series is MMO. Thanks for that, Garriott.
16/03/2012 at 11:27 Etherealsteel says:
Yey!… now I can pay for an MMO filled with bugs and graphical problems.
16/03/2012 at 12:40 Jumwa says:
Already tons of those available.
16/03/2012 at 12:54 Swanny says:
But there’d be even more bugs than usual. It would be an unplayable mess at launch…oh, wait…
16/03/2012 at 14:30 Mad Hamish says:
Do you have some kind of malevolent master that forces you to buy games or something?
16/03/2012 at 11:27 Kaira- says:
Not sure if it will happen, I remember hearing rumours about this since the release of Oblivion.
Let’s consult Futurama about the likelyhood.
16/03/2012 at 13:16 Reefpirate says:
I think people have always speculated about MMOs with RPG IPs ever since WoW hit it big, which was around the time Oblivion came out. I’m not surprised by your ‘rumors’, but that also doesn’t mean they aren’t actually doing it now.
16/03/2012 at 14:29 westyfield says:
Every time I see that video, I look at the like/dislike bar and remember why I love people.
16/03/2012 at 11:28 tehsorrow says:
Dear god no.
16/03/2012 at 11:57 MichaelPalin says:
Seconded.
16/03/2012 at 12:00 frenz0rz says:
Thirded, assuming this has an impact on the development of singleplayer TES games.
16/03/2012 at 12:30 sneetch says:
Well, it didn’t stop Blizzard producing Warcraft IV did.. oh wait. :(
I want Warcraft IV.
16/03/2012 at 13:11 Havok9120 says:
You and every other fan of the world/gameplay.
Starcraft II told us what Blizz can do with classic RTS gameplay, and I’d love to see it in WC.
16/03/2012 at 13:21 frenz0rz says:
Its a shame that they’ve killed off every single notable character in the Warcraft universe.
16/03/2012 at 16:02 MonolithicTentacledAbomination says:
Is that a shame? I don’t think that’s a shame. It’ll force them to create new ones.
16/03/2012 at 23:38 Dances to Podcasts says:
WoW was just a setback.
17/03/2012 at 00:43 Werthead says:
Highly unlikely. If this game has been in development for some time – which is likely if it’s going to be announced soon-ish – that means it will have been undertaken simultaneously with SKYRIM by a different team.
I think the core Bethesda team’s masterplan is to alternate ELDER SCROLLS and FALLOUT titles for a few more iterations yet. If FALLOUT 4 isn’t their next project after the SKYRIM DLC and expansions, I’d be surprised.
16/03/2012 at 14:58 LintMan says:
If this is true, I doubt we’ll ever see another big SP fatasy RPG from Bethesda again.
16/03/2012 at 18:57 FataMorganaPseudonym says:
This. A million times, this.
16/03/2012 at 11:29 Kdansky says:
I wonder how bad the UI will be this time. Seven clicks to accept a quest? Imagine WoW’s equipment system with its 16 (?) slots, and Skyrim’s UI.
16/03/2012 at 11:36 AmateurScience says:
At least an MMO would be developed with PC as the lead platform…
16/03/2012 at 13:03 mondomau says:
Probably.
16/03/2012 at 13:51 djbriandamage says:
How much you wanna bet PC will be the lead platform of an Elder Scrolls MMO? I’ll bet you my Steam account that it will be console-centric.
16/03/2012 at 11:29 Gaytard Fondue says:
If I can belive what the president of ZeniMax Online told me then yes, there is a TES MMO.
16/03/2012 at 11:31 fiddlesticks says:
Now I can finally play the Elder Scrolls together with the people who make nude mods for the games.
Yay?
16/03/2012 at 11:32 Drake Sigar says:
I hope not. The Elder Scrolls is the ultimate single-player experience. For them to say ‘we want multiplayer too’ would be the death of AAA RPGs.
16/03/2012 at 11:37 AmateurScience says:
Better a separate MMO than integrated multiplayer in the ‘core’ games though yes?
16/03/2012 at 13:20 Reefpirate says:
It seems the whiners aren’t all that pleased with AAA RPGs anyways, so what’s the big deal? We’re getting sub-AAA RPGs out the woozah these days anyways: Wasteland 2, Dead State, Age of Decadence, Din’s Curse people’s space RPG, Baldur’s Gate HD, and probably a whole bunch more that I’m forgetting…
16/03/2012 at 13:54 djbriandamage says:
My very most favouritest thing to do in Elder Scrolls games is to run out into the forest or the fields or the mountains and just stand there, appreciating the quiet. I assure you the last thing I wish for this series is to bring urban sprawl and Chuck Norris to that quiet.
16/03/2012 at 14:59 Matt says:
I’ll roundhouse kick your forest and mountains into the next province
16/03/2012 at 11:35 Luciphear says:
God I hope not…
16/03/2012 at 11:38 Cerebulon says:
Words cannot describe how much I hope not.
The Elder Scrolls has always been about heroes ingrained in the Elder Scrolls themselves, who arrive with vast world changing events either to set them into motion or prevent them. Having millions of random people doing the exact same thing would utterly destroy that feeling of destiny.
Also the gameplay.
But mostly the lore.
16/03/2012 at 11:41 sneetch says:
/lfg Looking for three “the chosen ones” to help me and my guild of “the chosen ones” defeat the ultimate evil and save the world before the raids reset for the week.
16/03/2012 at 12:04 Apples says:
It also goes against all the nice incidental lore that explicitly acknowledges the game’s single-player, self-contained nature, like the Dragon Break, CHIM and “[cutting] sleep holes in the middle of a battle”.
16/03/2012 at 13:36 cibo says:
That may be true, but in the end, what the series is known for is how little most people follow the main plot, and instead go their own ways.
16/03/2012 at 15:32 Wizardry says:
Ultima Online happened. The Elder Scrolls Online will happen too one day. Get used to it.
17/03/2012 at 21:27 EOT says:
UO was a fucking great game.
16/03/2012 at 11:38 NathanH says:
I love that screenshot. Elder Scrolls games are totally stupid in so many ways, but every way is brilliant in its stupidity. That horse is a great example.
Also, I don’t care about MMOs, because I don’t like people.
16/03/2012 at 11:39 Katar says:
The crap I put up with to play an Elder Scrolls game (UI, bugs, game breaking glitches, game breaking bugs, etc…), I won’t tolerate in an MMO. Certainly not one I have to pay a monthly fee to play.
MMOs are generally extremely buggy, even when done by a semi-competent developer who actually uses QA. Bethesda making one is going to be a disaster.
16/03/2012 at 11:39 Askeladd says:
This would destroy the overall Elder Scrolls feeling I have… so NO.
Its fake.
16/03/2012 at 11:41 Apples says:
I wish single-player series would stay single-player. (Mass Effect, too). I don’t think Tamriel will be especially enhanced by a bunch of morons running about never reading any of the quest text, calling Dunmer Drow and badly roleplaying the Dark Brotherhood.
(Yes I’m a game snob, alright)
16/03/2012 at 11:41 Cytrom says:
Hopefully this wont hinder their ability to make content packed singleplayer games in the future. I dont like MMORPGs… at all. Turning KotOR (one of my favourite rpgs of all time) into an mmorpg was already a disgrace. Not to mention that before that, I was a big warcraft fan (many years ago).. until WoW corrupted the warcraft name for good.
The only online games I like, are shooters, where real skill matters not this grind-to-win trash where you have to waste millions of hours to achieve anything. MMOs just ruin lives.
16/03/2012 at 11:47 sephiroth says:
YAY TES with other people awesome
*at the same time*
BOOO MMOs SUCK DONKEY DICK
so er I dunno how I feel about this. I guess I will have to form an opinion based on what the games like. shock horror I might actually judge an mmo fairly for once (maybe)
any word on if its going to be a dino model AKA subscription or F2P of pay2win? I have never liked the thought of a game costing £100-200 a year which is option 1 and a minimum for option 3 but have my doubts about just many options 2 can actually exist at any one time.
16/03/2012 at 11:47 Xocrates says:
If nothing else, I’m curious to see what the end product would be like, even if I seriously doubt I would ever play it.
16/03/2012 at 11:48 Eukatheude says:
Well they already make single player MMOs, it would make sense.
I’m pretty sure it will be horribly unbalanced and buggy, so no thank you.
16/03/2012 at 11:53 Stevostin says:
Either they find a way for other player not to break immersion (no chat, no channel, no stupid /dance, the list goes on and on). Either this really is a dumb move (if true). Skyrim is all about how MMO do RPG wrong. Why make it an MMO ?
16/03/2012 at 11:54 thelongshot says:
The MMO is true, considering I have a friend who was hired to work on it a few months ago. I have no details beyond that.
16/03/2012 at 12:24 briktal says:
My cousin was hired by them too to work on the MMO (he was with CCP until the layoffs last year). He seemed excited but obviously couldn’t tell me anything.
16/03/2012 at 14:00 MarcusCardiff says:
You guys do know that nobody believes the “I know someone that….” rumours, right?
16/03/2012 at 14:24 Blackcompany says:
On the other hand, that person who used to work for CCP and now works for Bethesda probably has relatives somewhere, right?
.
just saying.
16/03/2012 at 14:46 thelongshot says:
Whether you choose to believe me or not, it doesn’t make it any less true. I was just contributing what I know. (Which isn’t much, I know.)
16/03/2012 at 17:02 Skabooga says:
The more you know.
………—……
….—-….–*
—…………..
16/03/2012 at 11:54 GallonOfAlan says:
That screenshot really is amusing.
16/03/2012 at 11:58 PearlChoco says:
Anonymous?
16/03/2012 at 12:02 Crius says:
Can i haz ur equip?
16/03/2012 at 12:02 Milky1985 says:
If this is so far ahead in development (to the point where it can be annouced) could this imply that development began BEFORE they had the licence from the interplay spat?
Or is my tin foil hat malfunctioning
16/03/2012 at 12:09 12kill4 says:
That was for the fallout MMO licence. Interplay have nothing at all to do with The Elder Scrolls series, nor have they ever.
16/03/2012 at 12:04 MichaelPalin says:
I wonder, what about a goddamed co-op multiplayer in an open world adventure game? You know, like D&D or Neverwinter Nights, but in First Person. I cannot be the only one that plays games like TES or Gothic and thinks for himself “this would be awesome with 3 or 4 other friends” or plays games like Baldur’s Gate or Fallout and thinks for himself “this would be awesome in first person and if the party members were my friends” or once in a while remembers playing System Shock 2 with friends and wonders why nobody does that anymore. And no, MMOs are not what I’m talking about. C’mon!, it’s as simple as putting multiplayer in a TES game, the clipping issues would be epic, but at least someone should try.
16/03/2012 at 13:47 Qazinsky says:
You’re not the only one wanting co op in these kind of games and prefering it over the MMO idea.
16/03/2012 at 15:34 Highstorm says:
Just what I was going to say. Why is multiplayer largely synonymous with MMO nowadays? I’ve wanted TES games to have multiplayer forever, but just self-hosted stuff like NWN where you can run a server or even just play with a couple friends. MMO is not the way to go here.
16/03/2012 at 12:04 puppybeard says:
Why so apprehensive? I doubt that Bethesda will do a Blizzard and go MMO-only on TES. We all saw how well they just did with Skyrim didn’t we? Unless I’m more clever than the whole company put together, this will be a fork rather than a change of direction, and TES6 will be another single-player release.
Skyrim is a much bigger deal commercially than Warcraft 3 ever was. They’ll be wanting to repeat that success with a similar title at some stage, rather than copying Blizzards approach verbatim.
While I would definitely have a go of such a game, here are some things which would need to be avoided:
1. Bun fights at forges
2. Bun fights at alchemy counters
3. Bun fights at enchanting tables, and all other such object interaction bun fights.
4. Getting stuck in crowded corridors
5. Corridors
16/03/2012 at 13:22 Havok9120 says:
The uncertainty about whether or not they go that route is why people are so apprehensive. Sure, it might make sense for them not to, but that really doesn’t mean much.
16/03/2012 at 13:53 Qazinsky says:
Seems a bit unfair to compare Skyrims success with Warcraft III, considering how much more people plays games nowadays compared to back then.
20/03/2012 at 11:14 puppybeard says:
My point is, Bethesda, if they went MMO-only, would be leaving a lot more behind than Blizzard did. Also, they’re a much more robust company now than Blizzard were at the time, and they’ve already done pretty well developing multiple titles.
16/03/2012 at 12:10 Etherealsteel says:
Something guarantee will be in this MMO if it happens
1)Terrible Menu system until a modder fixes it.
2) Lot’s of bugs, but Elder Scrolls community will try to fix it
3) Frame Rate drops, ditto
16/03/2012 at 12:12 Tunips says:
The Second era you say? If this means I can walk around Vvardenfell before the blight, when Vivec walked among men and mer debating, singing and slaying as the magic hermaphrodite, the martial axiom, the sex-death of language and unique in all the middle world, then I am all for it.
16/03/2012 at 12:13 BatmanBaggins says:
I enjoy TES, but I also don’t trust Bethesda to create a persistent, massively multiplayer world that is compelling and worth spending an extended amount of time in. Like, at all. I’m sure it would be pretty, though.
Never get tired of that pic, by the way.
16/03/2012 at 13:57 Qazinsky says:
Considering that they’ve hired alot of people to work at this in the background while the regular people have released their regular singeplayer games, it seems fair to say that we have no idea what the end result will be and if they are capable or not.
16/03/2012 at 12:15 Whitmore says:
I know it’s silly, but there is an irrational part of me that thinks this will cheapen the many intimate hours I had with Morrowind.
“LFG Red Mountain (Gear Score: Daedric+)” doesn’t sound very appealing to me.
16/03/2012 at 12:15 The Hammer says:
Hmmmm. This news story makes me hella conflicted.
I have my doubts, and I know the Elder Scrolls formula couldn’t entirely survive the transition to an MMO (one of its main but not sole strengths lies in each game being your own personal playground), but, to take a more positive view,, there have been frequent moments in Skyrim when I’ve felt like its ingredients would make for a great MMO: no strict classes, a graphically impressive world, lore that is easily understood yet full of measured depth, and a choice of races, all of whom would offer great RP if they went down the route of offering RP servers. And why wouldn’t they?
Mind you, one of the documents refers to a ‘World of Warcraft-style MMO’. I hope that is just a loose comparison, to help explain what an MMO is. Because I’d hate for it to be a carbon copy of WOW, especially since MMO development tends to be a long, drawn-out process. Every news story would be torturous, as we learned how people would be embarking on the same quests handed out by NPCs highlighted by exclamation marks, you’d have to join groups for every dungeon, professions were bound by recipes, cities were just hubs for vendors, end-game raiding was the core activity at the end…
That’s definitely what I don’t want. The Elder Scrolls would lose a lot, if that was the approach the designers took.
But yes, it’s got my interest – for now!
EDIT: Ah, I note that posters here are already discussing which locations it could be set in. I dearly, dearly hope that they don’t try to fit the whole world in there, or, if they do, they take their time and use the landmass found in Skyrim. I’d hate for each nation to feel tiny, like they do in WOW. The orcs, one of the most prosperous races on Azeroth, have like three civilian towns in their whole territory. Uuugh. The thought of that scale being used for the Elder Scrolls MMO makes me queasy.
Give us nations to get lost in, with tundras that take more than a few seconds to cross. If the wilderness is reduced to miniscule zones, then I think the game will lose a fatal amount of appeal in one fell swoop.
16/03/2012 at 12:21 Shoelip says:
And doubtless Cyrodiil is still hyper generic western Middle Earth Ripoff land despite the single tiny bit of fluff they used to justify that in Oblivion having to have happened either near the end of the of the second age or the beginning of the third. I mean, how much lore are they going to have to clumsily alter to make it appeal to their modern target demographic? I wonder how much more scaled down it’ll be…
Wait a second. I don’t like the Elder Scrolls series anymore so why am I even thinking about it? It’s just making me unhappy. Or look another article, thank goodness for ADD.
16/03/2012 at 12:22 Squishpoke says:
Bethesda has demonstrated that they are incapable of releasing a stable single-player game, and now they want to do networking? It will be nothing short of an unmitigated disaster.
Oh well, doesn’t matter. People will buy their games no matter what.
16/03/2012 at 12:29 DeathCarrot says:
I recall Todd Howard saying they wouldn’t do a TES MMO quite a few times in the past, including just before Skyrim’s release. I very much doubt this is going to be a Bethesda Game Studios project, rather a third party spinoff.
EDIT: The job opening in THG’s article is for ZeniMax Online Studios, so not BGS. Its budget is unlikely to be anywhere near the proper TES games’.
16/03/2012 at 12:37 voidburn says:
It’ll be a cold day in hell before Bethesda can pull something like an MMO off. It’s company suicide. That is, unless they’re hiring some major new talent in their tech department.
The Elder Scrolls: Bugfest
16/03/2012 at 12:44 Drinking with Skeletons says:
I don’t play MMOs; I just don’t like them. The only thing I find heartening here is that the MMO will take place before the events of any of the main games, which will hopefully prevent a WoW-like derailment of the franchise (that is, an inability to really do anything with the main series because the lore is tied to an on-going MMO).
16/03/2012 at 12:44 Blackcompany says:
Mixed feelings about this. Keep the action-oriented combat? Keep the detailed, realistic open world, with its emphasis on exploration? Keep the immersive wildlife and atmospheric dungeons?
.
Sure, I could get lost in that.
.
Make it a WoW clone with yellow exclamation points, hotkey, no-impact combat and an endless litany of fetch quests?
.
No thanks.
16/03/2012 at 12:46 neolith says:
Good god, no… a world full of people dragging their Lydias behind them – every doorway blocked and a constant murmur of distant I-am-sworn-to-carry-your-burdens…
edit: I’d much rather have proper coop.
16/03/2012 at 12:59 Miltrivd says:
I’m excited and not so much at the same time. The number of bugs on Bethesda releases are their trademark, and sure they are quirky and most of the time not game breaking, but I can’t have that low level of QA in an online game. I just can’t. You can’t forgive them for Single Player, but seriously, unless they change for the better and really do their job releasing something that’s not just good, but polished as well, they are gonna crash and burn with that project.
16/03/2012 at 13:08 JFS says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiDjq5XGsPs&feature=related
… and nothing else.
16/03/2012 at 13:48 MarcusCardiff says:
HAHAHA and NONONO
That’s all
16/03/2012 at 13:12 Runs With Foxes says:
The Elder Scrolls games are already MMOs-for-one, so this isn’t much of a leap. They’d need to radically change their design philosophy if they don’t want it to be a WoW-like dinosaur even before release, though.
16/03/2012 at 13:57 MarcusCardiff says:
MMO for one?
Only in that the Skyrim NPCs have as much intelligence and personality as your average MMO players.
16/03/2012 at 14:27 Blackcompany says:
Bethesda’s recent games – and especially Skyrim – are more MMO than single player. Hell, when I first encountered Radiant Story in the game, my very first thought was: “This is a prototype for an MMO.” I mean, Radiant Story is the ultimate MMO quest maker.
.
And that’s the problem. All it makes is soulless, generic, empty fetch quests. Most of which I have already lost interest in. If I want to explore lost ruins, I will go explore them. I don’t need some arbitrary reason, and in fact I prefer not to have one.
16/03/2012 at 15:39 gritz says:
Do you even know what MMO means?
16/03/2012 at 13:13 Stardog says:
It better have at least Skyrim graphics. I’m tired of these ugly MMO’s like the new Star Wars.
16/03/2012 at 13:20 Cryo says:
The most unnecessary thing in the history of unnecessarility.
16/03/2012 at 13:20 Casshern says:
Well, we all saw this coming I guess.
But since they can’t even deliver a finished SP-game I really doubt Beth can deliver a finished MMORPG.
And this time they can’t count on the community to fix the game for them so I’m just gonna predict a 2nd Tortanic.
Just steer clear, don’t get your expectations up, don’t get fooled by Beth’s lies and you’ll be good.
*chuckles* Bethesda in charge of making MMO
16/03/2012 at 13:25 deadly.by.design says:
Bethesda isn’t that far from me. This makes me want to take a drive and tell them what a bad idea it is. MMOs have done more to water down RPG game worlds than they have to enrich them.
On second thought, maybe it’s really about a Fallout MMO and we can all sleep soundly.
16/03/2012 at 13:31 InternetBatman says:
They’ll have a hard time competing with themselves. Their other offerings are pretty much single-player MMOs already. I don’t see a ton of players willing to convert for subscription fees or a f2p model.
16/03/2012 at 14:29 Blackcompany says:
This. Very good point. The sheer repeatable, never-ending nature of Skyrim makes their own game a direct competitor to their upcoming MMO.
.
let me see…Skyrim, with mods, on the one hand. Bought and paid for with no subscription. Generic, fantasy-trope MMO (and likely WoW clone) in Tamriel on the other…with possible subscription fee….
.
Yep. Not much of a contest there.
16/03/2012 at 13:33 Wetworks says:
It’s hard to picture the Elder Scrolls as an mmo, will it be focused on pve raiding or realm pvp? World of Warcraft still has the best raiding content for an mmo and between Guild Wars 2, Planetside 2, and Firefall the mmo f2p pvp scene seems crowded.
16/03/2012 at 13:42 Lemming says:
I’m actually not opposed to this, as the thing that lets the Elder Scrolls down is the robot-like NPCs. It might actually do it a favour if there are real people there instead.
That said, no one wants to see an Argonian saying ‘LOL!’ and jumping up and down in front of you for no reason.
16/03/2012 at 13:51 Vinraith says:
Your last sentence neatly encapsulates why even robotic NPC’s are superior to other human players. Other human players, by and large, are idiots.
16/03/2012 at 13:47 Furius says:
Knights of the Elder Scrolls
16/03/2012 at 13:50 Vinraith says:
I suppose this was inevitable, everyone seems to have to launch an MMO and have it implode in order to wipe the WoW dollar signs from their eyes. Hopefully they can finally get the bug out of their system and then get back to making the single player games I enjoy.
16/03/2012 at 14:12 Piip says:
I would think the low success rate of any new MMO since WoW, (and especially the ones copying WoW mechanics), would scare off anyone thinking about developing new MMOs. On the other hand, in other genres, you have success stories like Minecraft, which is really about the world, as in environment, and not its lore. For me the Elder Scrools is also about environment, exploration, freedom and crafting – I couldn’t care less for the trade-of-the-fantasy-mill-lore, no matter how “deep” it supposedly is. To me it serves to give the world character and a feel of being alive, but the confilcts themselves have only rarely touched me.
If Beteshda can come up with an MMO world that have more of the elements that make e.g. Eve, Minecraft and TF2 success stories then maybe it could work… Making an MMO is a herculean task, and it doesn’t get easier when you’re an already famous developer.
What I would do: Hunt down the best MMO people in the industry, hire them, get a good community running and treat them like adults from day one, meaning no marketing talk, only plain old good discussion and team effort problem solving. Empower players before they’re even players in other words, and then when the world launches: Let players control it more like they do in Eve or did in old SWG. Yeah, well.
16/03/2012 at 14:30 Blackcompany says:
This. 100 and 10 more percent of this.
16/03/2012 at 14:14 lokijki says:
This has most likely been mentioned to death already, but all of the exploits and bugs that Bethesda gets away with in single player games simply can’t exist in an MMO.
16/03/2012 at 14:27 JohnnyMaverik says:
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO :(
This is all.
16/03/2012 at 14:27 MikoSquiz says:
Aw. :(
16/03/2012 at 14:29 hjd_uk says:
That title picture makes me smile.
16/03/2012 at 14:31 jhng says:
Why does everything have to go MMO/multiplayer? It sometimes seems like almost every AAA project in this industry has to push more of us, more violently into the same online space. Even Mass Effect 3 apparently (I’ve only just started it) basically forces you into the multiplayer in order get the most out of the game.
I get that there is potential for vastly higher revenue because you reap the effects of network economics (hence Zynga, CoD, WoW etc etc) — and of course any business has to look to its bottom line. But for me personally I play games precisely in order not to be hanging out with the rest of world. I deal with colleagues, clients, family, kids etc all day and everyday — gaming is the snippet of time that I am alone.
It’s saddening to see the nature of the single-player experience constantly undermined and marginalised. Presumably, once we are all weaned onto Kindles etc, books will go the same way (imagine a feed within the book giving you all the crap that your mates think or thought when they read the same bit… hell on earth.)
16/03/2012 at 15:03 Tyraa Rane says:
My initial reaction was, “that could be kind of cool.” Second Era lore is interesting too, especially Second Era Morrowind–I’d jump at any MMO just for that, honestly. Although that’s provided they don’t take it out back and beat it with the retcon blandification stick again. (Thanks, Oblivion. Not.) Or shoot it all to hell in the name of continuing an MMO long past its sell by date, yes Blizzard I am talking about you thanks.
Second thought? No. Oh god, no. Not unless they ramp up their QA by about 700%. I always regard un-modded Bethesda games like one would a stick of unstable TNT. It could go up at any moment and blow my 100+ hour save to itty bitty pieces. Although Bethesda’s usually halfway decent about fixing up the major bugs, they still tend to leave a ton of little things and even a few major issues (see: the ABomb in Oblivion, everything fixed by the Morrowind Code Patch, etc. etc. etc.) to the modders.
Trouble is, MMO means no mods, meaning no modders to come along after them with a broom and sweep up the atrocious mess. So either Bethesda learns to code and QA properly, or expect any TES MMO to be a buggy pile that only Sheogorath could love.
(This is coming from someone who loves the TES games, btw. It’s just that I’ve been burned by game bugs far too many times, and you can pry my Unofficial Patches from my cold, debugged hands.)
16/03/2012 at 15:36 Brun says:
Don’t do this Bethesda. The Elder Scrolls is, and should remain, a single-player game. The last thing you need is another distraction from what makes TES games great.
16/03/2012 at 16:18 rustybroomhandle says:
Whaaat? No… go away.
16/03/2012 at 16:27 MonolithicTentacledAbomination says:
I can’t think of one single reason I would want to play this. I’m open to convincing, though, Bethesda. They’re your scores of millions of dollars. Be forewarned, though: I haven’t even begun Skyrim, and I kind of want to replay all of Morrowind after I finish Fallout 3 and New Vegas.
16/03/2012 at 16:47 Adekan says:
I literally cannot express how much I do not want this. I can’t think of a time whilst playing Oblivion or Skyrim that I’ve said to myself “Man, I really wish I had some 12 year old kid screaming profanities at me while I finish this immersive quest.”
On the other hand, I can think of multiple times where I’ve said “Man, I really wish I had one or two of my closest buddies here with me right now to experience this awesome vista with me.”
Limited multiplayer ala Diablo 2 and/or a co-op option would be ideal for the series. An MMO? No. Absolutely, positively No.
16/03/2012 at 17:50 Muzman says:
I scrolled quickly past this headline the first time and read it as “Elder Scrolls Online MMO To Be Announced. Why?”
Which seems to suit the subject.
16/03/2012 at 17:52 GDorn says:
I would like somebody to create a SMO: Small Multiplayer Online game. MMOs are static worlds in which players pop in, perform some quests that have no lasting consequences, and are essentially glorified tourists. In contrast, an SMO would consist of a separate instance of a world for you and your personally-invited friends. Actions you and your cohorts take can have a permanent effect on the world. Kill the boss monster? Now the boss monster is dead, for good. Kill the king and his generals? Maybe they lose the war and the entire kingdom falls.
This would feel, to me, more like a multiplayer version of an Elder Scrolls game.
16/03/2012 at 18:43 sinister agent says:
I guess someone at Bethesda figured out that they’d save time and money by just crowdsourcing the moronic AI.
16/03/2012 at 19:38 jrodman says:
I don’t believe Bethesda has what it takes to make an MMO work. An MMO simply must be more solid than any title they have ever shipped, even when fully patched.
16/03/2012 at 19:39 Brun says:
SWTOR would like a word with you about that.
16/03/2012 at 20:23 Vernalagnia says:
The thing that matters the most about this : Matt Firor of Dark Age of Camelot fame has been the president of Zenimax online since 2007. This game is rumored to have three factions. The next gen MMO with excellent realm vs realm PvP that we all deserve and love? I believe so.
16/03/2012 at 20:49 Halbarad says:
It wont be a TES game. The only way that’s happening is if Todd Howard gets booted from Bethesda. He’s said so numerous times.
I’m not gonna have a problem with a TES game if it’s made well. I just don’t think it will happen, at least for a very long time.
17/03/2012 at 02:37 Ateius says:
The biggest draw of the Elder Scrolls games – for me, at least – are the sprawling, immersive, atmospheric worlds, and the incredible sense of loneliness and isolation you feel when lost in a driving ashstorm or overlooking the magnificent vista above a twisting fjord. No other game series has offered this to me.
This is also the first thing that would be completely and utterly ruined by making it an MMO. Twenty immature chuckleheads bouncing about spamming the chat window with profanities is going to make that magnificent, starkly beautiful landscape a whole lot harder to drink in.
Not to mention such a project will suck up a huge amount of their resources, team and development time, delaying the release of another proper Elder Scrolls – both for the initial layout, and then afterwards as the team is constantly bombarded by the banshee shrieks of the hoi polloi demanding ever finer tweaks to “balance” the PvP that only a small but incredibly vocal minority actually play and care about.
I seriously hope this rumour is unfounded.
EDIT: Actually, come to think of it, most of my complaints re: atmosphere, isolation etc. would be solved by adopting GW1′s system: Towns are communal areas, everywhere else is an instance that only you and those you choose to group with get to access.
Still not exactly jumping for joy though.
17/03/2012 at 03:04 Danorz says:
basically this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EytotH8BENI
18/03/2012 at 11:29 Bassem says:
The reason I play The Elder Scrolls games is because of the gameplay. That is, realtime first-person combat, stealth and magic.
Yes, I love the lore, very much so. But I couldn’t play a standard MMORPG with their action bars and targeting systems and predetermined fights moves, even if it were to be based on TES lore.
Now if they make it a first-person MMO, sort of like a TES style Planetside or such… with realtime combat? Then it’ll have my attention.
Edit: Let me elaborate with an anecdote. My closest friend is a WoW fanatic, playing nothing else. Back when Skyrim was released, he was curious to see what was this game that I was so excited for. When I showed him, he admired the fact that my mage character could evade attacks and aim her own precisely, saying “in WoW you can’t dodge like that.”
That right there, is why I couldn’t play a TES MMORPG if it were made like WoW and such games. Same reason I couldn’t play SW:KOTOR back in the day, or DA:O.
19/03/2012 at 00:59 FRIENDLYUNIT says:
I think somebody just stole my sweetroll.