Loss of Identity or WoW Effect?

Hengist

I'm curious about what has people most upset with the announcement of TES. After reading many of the threads, I more or less distilled many of the gripes down to "TES Online" loses what made it special as a single player RPG, and "It's a reskinned WoW."

I know there are differences, and personally I'm always happy to see a 3 faction PvP system, but I do have to agree that much of what made the single player RPG special has been taken away here. It would be like hearing that Bioware had taken over the rights and was going to start making a deeper story based Call of Duty.

Final thought really is that this game probably started development in 2008ish, when WoW was boasting 11.5 million subscribers which is why we are seeing a traditional themepark, at least based on what we know now. Considering the changes in the market and the length of development cycle for a AAA MMO, makes me start to believe it's too late for many late development MMO's, and it wont be until 2014 or 2015 until we really start to see titles that go in complete different directions, at least AAA titles.

My Thoughts on TES Online

Gishgeron

  To respond to the very end of your post:

  Stop dreaming.  There will never be a time that comes in which MMO's begin to change.  This is what they are now.  The genre has been established, and it anchored itself around the big hitters.  Much in the same way you won't see tons of changes to the FPS genre now, MMO's will be forever a rehash or reskin of what they are now.  What you want is a different genre of game entirely at this point.

Elikal

Originally posted by Gishgeron

  To respond to the very end of your post:

  Stop dreaming.  There will never be a time that comes in which MMO's begin to change.  This is what they are now.  The genre has been established, and it anchored itself around the big hitters.  Much in the same way you won't see tons of changes to the FPS genre now, MMO's will be forever a rehash or reskin of what they are now.  What you want is a different genre of game entirely at this point.

Wow, you really know how to make people sad.

Blackwater56

I prefer the term "Activision Envy"

Vhaln

It's really both, I think.  The whole reason the devs are tossing out the TES identity could very well be the WoW effect.  If it weren't for the pressure to make a WoW-like MMO, the devs might feel like they have the freedom to stay true to TES.

joocheese

Originally posted by Elikal

Originally posted by Gishgeron

  To respond to the very end of your post:

  Stop dreaming.  There will never be a time that comes in which MMO's begin to change.  This is what they are now.  The genre has been established, and it anchored itself around the big hitters.  Much in the same way you won't see tons of changes to the FPS genre now, MMO's will be forever a rehash or reskin of what they are now.  What you want is a different genre of game entirely at this point.

Wow, you really know how to make people sad.

yeah, talk about seeing the glass half empty.

I disagree. If anything, mmos are (and will) continue to change. To say that they will be forever a rehash or reskin of what they are now is ludricrous and absurd. Grant it, wow isn't helping, but wow's days are numbered. The multiple failures of the other wow-clones out there I believe are beginning to reinforce the idea to dev companies that in order to be successful the mmo paradigm has and will change.

Let us revisit this thread in 3-5 years and then we'll see who's right :-)