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Given the state of the current ESO beta, and the fact that there are only three weeks until relese of the full game, it is obvious that the ESO launch will be a fiasco far overshadowing both SimCity and Diablo III. What can Bethesda do to repair the damage this is bound to do on the Elder Scrolls brand? Will they even be able to?

I don't know what kind of damage ES:O is going to do, if any, but I think there's a fair chance most people will have forgotten about ES:O by the time TES 6 comes out. At least that's my prediction.

Would someone mind outlining what they believe the damage to be?

I haven't played ES:O yet and the feedback I've gotten off people who have played it - granted, like 3 people - seems largely positive.

Horrible bug-ridden mess that [&@%!] on much of the established lore, and three weeks before the projected and much-advertised release date it is no where near in any sort of condition to be released, it reminds more of a very early beta.

Lore-wise, I would say no. ESO is going to leave a few too many canonical contradictions for my liking.

I don't think ESO will have been forgotten about in 3 or 4 years, assuming Beth stick reasonably close to their 2 TES games a decade innings.

As to damage, the whole premise of setting ESO a thousand years back was that they could get away with the events being lost to the ravages of time. Unfortunately, they are making the wrong events get lost...

TES is ruined, forever. Up until this absolute mess of a game showed its ugly, corporate face, TES was a stellar sequence of bug-free, top notch releases. Morrowind set a new bar for all of the video-game industry with its innovative gameplay, ans things only got better with subsequent releases: the series never pandered to the trends of the time, always doing its own thing completely ignoring all outside influence. In the latest title the developers actively ignored the fans' pleas for stupid, lore-shattering inconsistencies that would only serve to devalue one of the game's greatest characteristics, and included dragon riding anyway. The presentation of the totally unique lore had always been perfect: planned out into the finest detail since 1995, free of all inconsistencies and retcons, it really worked to bring the world alive. Never once until my mother hit me on the head with a bottle did I realise I was playing a series of videogames. Tamriel in all its vivid beauty has been like a second home fot me; nay! A second life!

With ESO, this is all over. The evil CEOs yanked Bethesda's baby out of their hands, abused it, spat on it, literally [&@%!] it up, and they're trying to sell us the deformed cadavre at gunpoint. Excuse the hefty metaphor, but this is exactly how I feel about this and if you don't you're just as bad as the scum responsible for this abomination. The people making this "game" deserve the worst. TES is over for me. I'll buy and play this for 500 hours anyway of course, but don't even think I'll be having fun for a second.

This especially. ESO isn't being developed by Beth. At most it's just having the name whacked on for perceived credibility. ESO is definitely not going to stop or replace TES VI. Or Fallout 4 for that matter.

The Beta is probably an older version of the game that Zenimax is using to test the server load. I doubt that the launch will be as bad as Diablo 3 and the Sims 3 but i do expect the servers to crash a few times at launch. As for it being buggy, it's a beta, it's supposed to be buggy as it is meant for testing purposes. They have most likely patched most of the bugs in the final version and are fine tweaking everything as we speak. And it's TES, having bugs is a trademark of the franchise.

Zenimax themselves confirmed that the build in the beta was the latest one.

I agree that there will be damage from ESO but not due to bugs. I am more concerned with the alienated fanbase that doesn't want to play an MMO that doesn't feel like an Elder Scrolls game. To prevent any competition with ESO I don't see an TES VI game for a long time, if ever. The cash this MMO is going to bring in with its reoccurring monthly subscriptions will keep the executives interest on multi-player only. Not to mention the $$$ once this thing goes free-to-play with micro-transactions (and you can bet it will).

I don't mean to be so hateful; I love TES with all its rich lore and dynamic gameplay. I'm just bitter that we don't get another stand alone RPG in the TES line for a long time while the MMO cash-craze runs its course.

To the original post's point, I think the damage will be in TES fans who drop off while passing the MMO by.

I understand Why the companies decided to do this, it was the logical next step. I am sort of amused/confused by MARS' comments. Esp. I hate all of it, but...will buy and play 500 hours???
Seriously. Drinking the Kool-Aid, because I hate it??
I will be holding out hope that Bethesda give us another Skyrim-type Game. I will definately be going there.
Have fun.

Bethesda will continue doing the typical TES game. It's one of their biggest games and The Elder Scrolls helped them to turn into a major publisher/developer. Zenimax are handling the MMO whilst Bethesda are just providing lore advice, i think. Bethesda isn't really involved apart from the lore advice. If they did decide to scrap TES as a single player open world RPG, they would be cutting their own heads off. At the moment, Bethesda are busy with either Fallout 4, the preplanning of TES6, Wolfestein and i think that new horror game of theirs.

TES VI is coming. As is Fallout 4. (Or whatever they call it)


Arena to Daggerfall was several years, Daggerfall to Morrowind was several years, Morrowind to Oblivion was several years, Oblivion to Skyrim was several years, and assuming the same rates of progress, TES VI will be 2017/2018 at the earliest. (As Fallout 4 will come first)


ESO is not being made by Bethesda - at most you could say it checks over stuff that is going in. On the basis of what has slipped through already, even that is a bit of a stretch...

alienated fans have been lamenting about TES games since Morrowind was too difficult, Oblivion was too easy, Skyrim was too dumbed down etc etc

playing this game is optional, isn't it? If it's a flop then zen and beth will no doubt take note for future editions, as they have done in the past

While my two cents don't necessarily apply to the topic at hand, I would rather take the big picture optimistic approach. Firstly, assume the better of zen/beth. We have all wanted a multi-player ES game. An MMO is about the only way you can do this. To assume that it wouldn't suck was just dumb blindness on the part of the fans. Every MMO post-WoW has been bashed as a knock-off, etc (a few aside mind you). To therefore assume that TESO would be any different is, well, dumb blindness! The best we can hope for from this "fiasco" of an ES MMO is that zen/beth learn from their "mistakes", thereby armed with knowledge to create a better game in the future and/or continue to improve upon TESO. (Despite the previous comment, I neither assume nor judge TESo to suck, or any other synonymous meaning.)
Secondly, TESo has always been claimed to be a bridge for new comers to the series, as well as fans. Based on the output of members on this forum, I'd say TESO is more of a bridge for newcomers only. But why is that a bad thing?

In the end, I see The Elder Scrolls Online getting judged and condemned to death before its release. This seems very much unfair, and gives the dev team (in my eyes at least) little desire to created/maintain current games, or indeed make another one. True, we shouldn't settle, but come on! find some positive points people! As your mother always said, "If ya ain't gots nuthin' nice to say, don't bother openin' your food hole in the first place!" (Or rather, something to that effect.) Unfortunately I won't join y'all in playing TESO (I personally baulk at $15 a month), I am still nonetheless thrilled to know that ES fans the globe over can hang together in the same game at once rather than put two TVs and Xboxes in the same room at once, talking over our shoulders about the quest we're doing or the game in general. Then there is the soundtrack. Skyrim had an awesome musical score. Little though it is, TESo is only better.

I think this topic aught to instead be about the changes TESO is going to bring to the ES community/fan base, both in the positive and negative sense, and how it is different from past titles (obvious genres aside). To go in assuming it will ruin the series as a whole is nothing shy of unnecessary pessimism.

I've had a few problems with bugs and connectivity issues with ESO but I'm remaining positive and hoping they're working hard to somehow make it work, and keeping in mind that ESO essentially has very little to do with Bethesda. As long as Bethesda is smart enough not to follow any terrible trends that ESO may succumb to, then they shouldn't be any more damaged than any other game that has nothing to do with ESO.
That being said, restoring the lore of Elder Scrolls is a lost cause. A case of too many people working on too many different games with everyone having their own ideas about "what would be a cool." It seems to me that they set out each time to make a memorable immersive game, and made story and equipment references to their previous games more out of laziness rather than wanting to make some sort of 13-game saga.

I doubt Bethesda are going to follow ESO's lead. They may use the major parts of ESO as cannon and cherry pick certain things from the game if they like what they see as they did that with SKyrim and Oblivion's modding community. Bethesda are only involved in ESO in an advisory position.

Regarding ESO's bugs and shoddy connection, it is Zenimax's first time developing a game as i think they are mainly a publisher and either provide patches to smaller developers under their wing or it is just their first game. However, it is TES and it would seem odd not to have a game with bugs in. They are pretty much an element of the franchise.

ESO will leave scar tissue, but it's also establishing a lot of worthwhile stories which will enrich the game world and which Bethesda can build off of later. Let's not blow the mistakes out of proportion.

if they can satisfactorily explain why original Kirk klingons didnt have head ridges until the motion pictures, then we can survive the horrors of ESO

maybe we could also do them the courtesy of releasing the game before consigning them to the plane of oblivion reserved for betrayors of trust, poor lore research and shoddy technical support

TBF, there is a very reasonable explanation for that. (Ridges are expensive and time-consuming to apply) The in-universe explanation made for a good ST:ENT episode too.


Unlike the negative changes brought in by ESO.

I think this thread in general is jumping to a lot of conclusions, only a few of which are likely to come to fruition. Sure, die-hard lore enthusiasts (I am not one - I like the lore but I am not a purist and do not think the lore is some static, immoveable thing - Beth has purposefully designed for loopholes with the Dragon Breaks as far as I'm concerned, and I love that) will be whining about it for forever, but they whined about Skyrim too. Guess what? There will never be another Morrowind (thank Talos, that game was so frustrating), so quit asking for one and pitching a fit when you don't get the impossible.

That said, I'm not treating ESO like a main canon TES game. Because it's not. It's an MMO, and that's okay. I'm not a fan of MMOs in general but I will play ESO because I love the world of Tamriel and I feel that ESO is true to that setting. That's my opinion, if you don't agree you don't have to play. Just remember that Beth does not equal Zenimax. They are not the same thing, and while ESO may delay TES:VI, if ESO interest wanes and demand is high, Beth may just go ahead and listen to their fans. They are a company, out for profit. This can be a problem, and it can also be the consumer's greatest leverage.

There's nothing to fix or restore as far as I'm concerned. I've played the beta, and I've read all the new books at ESOhead and am in the process of helping transcribe them to TIL. I've enjoyed many of them immensely and feel like the overall setting and lore of ESO has expanded and enriched this universe even more than it already was. Is the lore contradictory and confusing? Absolutely, and that's why it fits. ES lore has ALWAYS been that way. I prefer it that way. It's one of the things that makes the world feel interesting/real. I've yet to read or see anything that I absolutely can't reconcile with my vision and understanding of Nirn. If anyone has a specific example I'd happily dismantle it for you. If you want me to, that is. I can do that, you know. I'm an infamous copout artist and contrarian.