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Why Elder Scrolls Online won't work
chryses
Member UncommonPosts: 1,453
I have always been an Elder Scrolls fan dating back to Daggerfall. Having hammered Skyrim all week, I can't see how the essential ingredients that make the series work, can be transferred into an online format.
1. Elder Scrolls is about exploring vast open landscapes that allows a player to get lost and find hidden dungeons, temples and interesting characters.
Online - I don't believe they can create a massive world with little or no instances. Exploration doesn't feel right when 25 other players are stomping all over the same temple.
2. Its realistic in the sense that you come across a lone NPC and you stalk them not knowing if they are friend/foe and assisting or just killing them if you wan't.
Online - it will just be another spawn fest with multiple instances as everyone will be lining up to kill the same beast.
3. Its about complex combat, actual targeting and tactics. e.g. mid combat, swapping skills and spells whilst in pause mode.
Online - Fallen Earth is the closest I have seen to using this in an online format. Its clunky at best. Due to the bandwidth and mass appeal they need to generate, its going to end up auto targeting or a very rudimentary combat system.
I am not trying to flame on this game, but as a massive fan of the series, I can't see how an online version can capture the essence of the single player game. Just making another 3 faction warfare cookie cutter in the ES world stinks of a quick money grab from box sales. I know its synical but after SWtOR and a few other releases, its hard not to feel this way for this game IMO, shouldn't be turned into an MMO for so many reasons.
Some games are just not made for the MMO genre and I really feel this is one of them.
Comments
I disagree with you almost whole-heartedly.
The game can take all it's past/present conventions and make them work - they just won't because the suits at Zenimax attribute static MMO gameplay as to what MAKES an MMO an MMO... and they would rather attract players from the current stagnating market, ironically, by making it just like everything else that players are getting tired of - rather than indoctrinating their existing fanbase. A stupid move overall.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
he has very valid points.
His first statement indicates that there is a difference in finding that one dungeon/temple/lost civilization/base, etc by one's self and discovering it with hordes of people all over the place, already there. And he'd be correct.
You actually don't address his last sentence (edit: in that paragraph) so I would be interested to hear your take on that. It's one of the things that I've pondered. The only thing I ever came up with was an instanced world like the original guild wars but I'm not sure that's what elder scrolls players are looking for.
However, maybe that would be your solution; the use of instances? Whether it's the world or dungeons?
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
His last sentence was that "some games are just not meant to be an MMO", and I'm inclined to agree.
Though, they are still making one, and everything about it offends me. There is very little TES convention whatsoever, and the whole thing reeks of a DAoC dev getting his chance at a reboot of his tired ideas.
~As for having tons of people about and "ruining" the experience - not really - because I would USE it. I would make the game overly instanced simply for the sake of being able to stick to convention. There would be a camp outside every dungeon that allows players to mingle and then group together to tackle what awaits inside, in a very DDO-like manner, but just not in a claustrophobic overworld. I would USE the crowded overworld to push more player-to-player interactions, like trade or flagged open world PvP (or FFA and a serious reputations system in place) and whatnot. Less monsters, more hunting for plants and fox-skins. Divide the game between the social overworld and the PvE interiors.
Well, that's what *I* would do in order to preserve the taste of TES while *working* correctly as an MMO.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
I don't know why people are so naturally negative these days, however I can't agree with anything you said op. I really see no actual basis behind anything you are saying. We don't and won't know for some time the formula they will use to transfer this world into an mmo, but something tells me if they weren't supremely confident in it they wouldn't take the risk with the franchise.
Games have changed quite a bit and mmos aren't keeping people's attention as they used to. Depending on if you believe this is because a truly great mmo has not come out, or that people just don't stay interested in games for long these days, the definition of success with mmos has changed.
I do not believe we will see another wow, like everyone is looking for unless we see something truly innovative and yet familiar at the same time, which is hard to achieve. I believe this game will be good, but I also believe people will move on to the next fotm.
The only problem I see it having is the all too familiar sword and shield element. This however I am hoping and thinking the freedom the game provides will offset.
It won't be immersive as the single player game which also includes you will not get that awesome SKyrim music while playing.
Grim Dawn, the next great action rpg!
http://www.grimdawn.com/
I think if I was to make the game I would go one step further and just do the guild wars solution. I would make all the cities massive and allow the players to come and go from them to the city's surroundings. But then I would have them move into an instance of the world. To me the Elder Scrolls series was always about discovery. About "what's that over there".
And even though oblvion and skyrim do their best to help players discover things, there is still a bit of discovery.
That might not be what elderscrolls fans want but I've never been able to reconcile what I thought mmos' were going to be (which was a mix of morrowind and neverwinter nights) and what they actually were which was just one big mess of people each stepping on top of each other.
So maybe the Elder Scrolls would be a better instnaced game than a full fledged open world mmo.
Discovering that temple only to see a horde of players outside seems very un-eldersrolls.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I didn't even consider that, and I actually think it's a great idea. Especially as how the peer-to-peer nature outside of the hub would allow for combat mechanics that are expected from a post-Skyrim market.
~and perhaps the bandwidth-saving nature of it all could prevent forest fires... I mean a sub.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
The mmo will be Elder Scrolls in name only. We have been told this all ready.
Its not Skyrim Multi-player. Its an mmo with Elder Scroll place/faction/etc names
/facepalm
Try
Thinking
Outside
The
Box
!
Just because an MMO version of an IP doesn't have a feature that it could/would/should have based on the singleplayer games, that doesn't mean it's going to fail.
I always love it when ppl complain about the lack of space combat in SWTOR... yet at the same time, when you look at all the computer (not console!) games made with the SW IP how many feature space dogfights strongly?
And yet, people like these non-spacefight games...
Right, on your points (though this is completely pointless as you'll just dig in that it won't work yadda yadda yadda):
1. What you want is a place to yourself you can explore.
Fair enough... pick a low pop server! Make sure that it is an RPG server!
Problem solved.
2. Don't present character information! It is notghing complicated, it's just like not showing the character's name and can obviously easily included in the design.
That way you can stalk your NPC for weeks not kknowing that he is a lvl2 NPC... or maybe a lvl20 monster in disguise? Or another player who is actually mirrorstalking you?
3. Right, pause mode... you will have to say godbye to that because that would mean that the whole game universe would be paused for that time. Which actually always made me wonder how bullet time should work in Matrix Online...
So, now that you are done crying about your beloved pause mode, straighten up, straighten up down there too, and get ready to face... the life of battle instinct!
See, when I started MMORPGs and I came across the progressive weapon skills all I could get out was a *gulp*
You start of with one attack, if successful that may allow you within a certain timeframe to execute another stronger followup attack, and if that one where to connect then there would be another stronger attack you could use, etc.
In the same line: after a successful parade you'd be able to use a special skill with the next attack on the enemy if you are then standing to the right of the attacker, so it all came down to perfect timing where having pre-punch your buttons usually didn't do you much good: the attack that could have been the followup combo, bang!, you had already pressed your base attack as you weren't sure that the effect would be there and you didn't want to waste an attack...
Guess why I stayed away from those classes ;-)
(T)ESO could very well have a similar system where combinations play a much bigger role then just simple button1 - button1 - button1 - button3 - punching.
The game is not skyrim or any of the single player games ported into a MMO, its entirely new game. The only thing in common with the Elder scrolls single player games is the world its based in.
It puts you into a story of 1000 years before the first elder scrolls game in the middle of a world war where you choose a faction and fight for your faction to dominate Cyridil and crown a king also building up your character to become a hero along the way. There is a character story also that you can follow, dungeons to run instanced and public, 3 faction pvp, instanced BG pvp, exploration and other stuff. Its not a series game, its a new game based on the world of Elder scrolls.
They are still making the single players games at bethesda when they are not making all the other games they also have out.
Uh huh.
Why don't they just make a Gears of War MMO that introduces a 3rd faction for the sake of a having a 3rd one on top of CoGs and Locusts... then they can strip the FPS nature of it away and make it rely on hotbar-based combat ala World of Warcraft.
How do you think the reception will be over that?
Get real man, expectations are in place because the series existed as a GAME first. People have brought up "ooo Star Wars, would you gripe if Star Wars did it a certain way?". NO, because Star Wars is a movie franchise, they can do what they damned well please - TES is a GAME franchise, people have expectations for it if portrayed in the same goddamned medium goddamnit.
This is not as simple as moving Final Fantasy over into Final Fantasy: Tactics.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
I have also read this and being cynical again, it just smells a bit funny.
They know the impact announcing an MMO with Elder Scrolls attached to the title will have and the knock on effect of box sales.
Yet they tell us, 'don't expect Skyrim online', but hey we are using the places, factions etc.
Are they so special/important that its worth making a game based on this? I just find it all a bit misleading.
On another note regarding the open world comment about Guild Wars2. I have played in 2 Beta weekends and I will be playing when its released. However, comparing GW2 open world with Elder Scrolls is a little bizzare.
Man... okay, seriously?
"Are they so special/important that its worth making a game based on this? I just find it all a bit misleading."
If a game were placed in Scotland, would you expect it to have the usual Scottish places/cities? Or would you expect the game designer to say "oh my God, there was that Braveheart movie and now there is that Brave movie, no, we need to come up with a completely different Scotland! Let's give everyone a rasta and let them say 'mon' at the end of each sentence... or should we actually never set it in Scotland?"
Okay, simple question: if any TES game were not set in the TES universe, would you still play it as a TES game?
Probably not... despite the game mechanics feeling like a TES game it's just not the TES universe.
Does that answer your question?
"They know the impact announcing an MMO with Elder Scrolls attached to the title will have and the knock on effect of box sales. "
Actually, the only effect I have seen here is a bunch of "TES must never change!" cry babies whining around and calling the game doomed and bad...
And this is why some gamers really need to grow up!
No Virginia, you are now 45 years old, you finally need to understand that Santa is not real, it's an old man with a fake white beard and a red costume who is hired each Xmas to play Santa!
At some point in time you need to understand that other venues may be explored for a - drumroll - game franchise.
Whether this turns out to be a success is a different story... but just crying and trowing a temper tantrum like a 3 year old toddler because somebody actually does it, this only shows how immature you are.
Grow up!
I've played the series since Daggerfall and seen it change, in it's own way, in every incarnation since then.
They stick true to conventions; the things the series is known for, the things the series is *about*.
The MMO version is as much a cop-out as the Elder Scrolls: Travels games for the Nokia Ngage. Trying to attach the franchise to a hypemongering product, and instead of the failure that the Ngage was, it's the MMO market - which is failing for it's own unique reasons atm.
I can cry all I want about it, it's a travesty... and calling me out as a toddler just makes you a *dick*.
You're obviously another DAoC vet I could argue all day with about the validity of this move by Zenimax.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Play Darkfall. You'll see what a small indie team with 0 experience and very little money can acheive thats 'impossible' in Zenimax's eyes.
By no stretch of the imagination is Darkfall perfect, but imagine if someone gave them the mega millions budget that TES:O has.
It is not a sign of immaturity to desire to see a favorite franchise remain "pure". It's the essense of being a devoted fan.
Besides... you are commenting on GTwander's opinion of a game... you are just as much of a kid as all the rest of us if you are here long enough to do that.
GTWander sums up how I feel pretty much. I wish people would stop going on the offensive and stop calling people Elder Scroll cry babies etc.
I am coming at this from a black and white business perspective. I am stating that IMO after looking at Elder Scrolls in its current form and wondering how it would transfer to an MMO. I personally don't think it can be done right. Even if they state its not Skyrim online, there is still a expectation that there will be many aligned features.
Success for an MMO is not about the game, its about income. Therefore I don't think it will suceed.
Its not unique like TSW and with Guild Wars 2 launched and BTP, what will ESO do besides annoy ES fans and have familiar names and places for people who may or may not care?
Will I buy a game because it uses the same map/locations as a single player game I love? Hardly....
I don't understand what your talking about, I can just see your raging out for some reason again. I just described what the game is going to be no need to throw a tantrum again. I don't care about the reception of over the top fans thinking that the game will or should be another series in the Elder Scrolls games, because its not. Its a new game, plain and simple.
It's a new game that is butchering lore simply to fit in 3-faction PvP.
A DAoC dev comes in, sees the world map, and arbitrarily pounds out 3 factions geographically, using races that historically didn't get along enough to have this ever happen. It might be "just a new game", but when a 6th sequel to the single-player ones come out and eludes to the going's on in *this* bullshit era that was thrown together on the fly - then it affects the series as a whole.
I would rather pretend it never happened, but if there is so much as an in-game book or bit of NPC dialog that treats it as canon, you will see me throw an even bigger tantrum... and God forbid this MMO has mechanical or logistic stipulations that rollover into future TES games because of some *perceived* backing from it's community. If you won't have TES players throw salt in your koolaid, then you had better not throw it in ours.
Can you see why I am RAGING now?!
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
To the OP, from everything I've read it seems like its going to be a pretty solid mmo. I actually wasn't interested in it until I started reading hate thread after hate thread and I wanted to know why. They're really utilizing some features that kids are going ga ga over in gw2, and they're doing it with the trinity which I actually prefer. Its an mmo, it isn't world of skyrim, they've never said that's what they're trying to do. This game seems like it may have a little success, which will make the apoplectic fit that some of the haters are going to have some of the best reading I've ever had on this forum, can't wait.
If the game will be that instanced I feel that they as well could have made a CORPG instead like Guildwars.
I hope they will make it more open.
As for turning all the mechanics from the singleplayer game into a multiplayer, I think most is possible in some changed way at least so there I agree with you. It is sad that Zenimax don´t dare to try new things with the game. An online polished up version of Daggerfall actually sounds better than ESO so far.
Hopefully will the game still be pretty fun but I am not impressed with what I seen so far.
No, not really. Looks like you just like to rage out. This game is set 1000 years before the first elder scrolls game. You do realise that this is a fantasy game right? Fantasy is made up.
~and yet the events never existed until they started making this thing.
How can you say it's ok to reverse engineer a major part of the world's history like that? You make George Lucas' constant meddling look tame ffs.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture