ZeniMax Online

[MARS]

I'm worried about this. Luckily Pete Hines said that nothing will be happening there for a long time but still. IMO an ES MMO would be just bad and wrong and it could be a threat for normal ES games. Just imagine the money ZeniMax would make of an MMO.

[Mucro]

If the development of this doesn't take over the main ES games, then I'm all for an ES MMO.
When I get a Gaming PC, I would get it.

[Veck]

Or maybe they're just trying to branch into new areas, so they don't get stuck making their two RPGs over and over. I can't see a Fallout MMO coming out of it due to Interplay trying to kick Bethesda out of the Fallout system right now (plus Interplay are making their own, most likely very crappy Fallout MMO) and I think everyone at Bethesda knows the drawbacks of making Elder Scrolls into an MMO, so I wouldn't worry.

[Fiar]

Or maybe they're just trying to branch into new areas, so they don't get stuck making their two RPGs over and over. I can't see a Fallout MMO coming out of it due to Interplay trying to kick Bethesda out of the Fallout system right now (plus Interplay are making their own, most likely very crappy Fallout MMO) and I think everyone at Bethesda knows the drawbacks of making Elder Scrolls into an MMO, so I wouldn't worry.

Sadly, this won't be the case. Warcraft was an RTS, so people would think that an MMORPG based off of that genre wouldn't work...12 million subscribers later, WoW is the largest pay-to-play MMO currently.

A Fallout or TES MMO could work, with the right minds. But many companies try to topple WoW, or at least live and give it competition, some work, most wither and die though. Lord knows how many Star Wars MMO's have arisen, and ones trying to base off of unique ideas. Some don't garner the attention they may deserve. Rift may actually be the hotkey successor to WoW, from what I've seen. I'm sure Bethesda knows how big of a gambit an MMO in general is.

But aside the point. Peter said himself, things won't happen, or be announced at the very least, for a long time. In the meantime, we will enjoy future games by Bethesda the way we all love them the most, Single-player RPG!

[Eltee]

Check out the UESP main page for some details, but it seems an Elder Scrolls MMO is in the works. Any thoughts, ideas or
"no elder scrollz mmo would be badzzzlol" s?

[azuarc]

This again?

All we know is that Zenimax has something in the works. Of course Elder Scrolls would make the most likely candidate, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be Fallout, or a completely new IP.

Still, it DOES mean they're working on an MMO...



edit: Actually, I was going to joke that I'd believe it when they registered the domain of elderscrollsonline.com, but it looks like they did that almost four years ago.

[Nevastar]

Imagine all the noobs that have never played an Elder Scrolls game playing an Elder Scrolls MMO as their first Elder Scrolls game...a.k.a. Hell.

But seriously, I think it's a lovely idea and all, but personally, I'd prefer it if they didn't make an Elder Scrolls MMO. I'm not sure why.

[Arch-Mage Matt]

MMO's are never good. They try to be... but they aren't.

[nyk45]

I wouldn't have a problem with it if the development were to be handled by Zenimax Online Studios and not Bethesda Softworks and if they didn't screw up the Lore completely.

I wouldn't play it because MMO's don't really appeal to me any more, but I guess other people could enjoy it. So as long as it doesn't ruin my fun...

[Vendetta]

God.... STOP BRINGING UP THIS TOPIC

Quote from my main comment in the skyrim multilayer thread

Imagine if mass effect, assassins creed, dead space, Dragon Age, and all other awesome RPGs where MMOs. Well, you want ES to be an mmo, how do you thing it will effect these?

Let me bring up a few things on why I think that making an ES mmo would be a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE idea

1) The community.
In every mmo i've been in, the majority of the community is just horrible. When certain people are around that large amount of people online for a long period of time, they tend to say things that they never would in real life, and pretend to be a person they are not. This is pretty much the majority of the internet community in general, I am guilty of this myself in a several occurrences, but that is beside the point at the moment. Creating an mmo brings this stress of dealing with people that you just plain dont like, and you must be with them at all times, and that doesn't mean one person, that includes all the trolls, spammers, bots, and -Insert word that will get censored and edited by a mod even though it was censored anyway- Oh, and roleplay is considered stupid to mmo communities, if you are a roleplayer, that prepare to be demoted by just about everyone.

2) Modding
Say buh-bye! To the modding community. Mods are illegal in all mmos. There are certain games that will allow them, but they cant go into any depth whatsoever. No new meshes, no map editing, no quest scripting. For obvious reasons.

3) Game in general
The main thing that drove me away from the two best MMORPG's in online history, was stress. This stress is caused by constant things you have to deal with and just annoying aspects in the game that you are forced to do. One is competivity. I know how great it feels, but it can come too far in some cases to the point where it is stressful, and gaming shouldnt be about stress, it needs to be a way to escape it. Also things like grinding.. you have to do it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. It is time consuming, and it is not worth the valuable minutes of your life. Games shouldn't be like this, I should be able to take some sort of enjoyment out of all this crap that I have to go through. Sense of accomplishment? no. It may help earn things and do things in the game, but I dont feel like im actually accomplishing anything. There is a difference between an enjoyable, stress-revealing game and a boring chore. Yeah, there is the goal to get the best armor and most money in the game, this is one of my other problems:

4) The focus
No one is there for storyline, are you kidding me? It is ALL about being the best, it is all about having the best skills, best armor, and most money. Well, when you are at the top, then what? You will most likely act like a jerk to people lower than you, and the people that actually take storyline into account, the people that took in what the creators of the mmo where originally trying to give the player the feel of. The creators of the game never wanted it to be all about skills, they wanted you to have this feel that keeps bringing you into the game and makes you want to play it.

5) Creators loosing their goal.
I'll use Blizzard as an example. Blizzard created the most amazing most famous MMORPG in the world. People that where new to the warcraft series could actually go straight to WoW and somewhat understand the storyline and understand what the creators wanted them to. Blizzard completely forgot about that feel, and it turned from the satisfaction of the user, to making money off the user. Don't believe me? Here is an example: The way the expansions are set out. You can not do ANYTHING untill you BUY world of warcraft ITSELF, all three expansions that come with it, and the extra $15 a month... Sure you can level, but once you hit the cap for your expansion, nothing, you cant do anything other than skill or make money. Expansions should be optional, or we should at least get some sort of experience from the game without them. Newcomers to WoW only go on to find out that they need BUY all this crap, and do all this work to get the experience, all to the purpose of what? #4 answers that. This has happened with the biggest names in MMO history, and still happens with smaller MMOs. It is this constant and predictable cycle on why I DO NOT want skyrim to be an mmo. Every aspect of an mmo connects to an annoying and stressful problem.

I ask you, should a video game relieve people, or should it be second life that gives you even more stress?


Well, I finally have that off my chest, you guys all know now why I hate mmos in detail

[Avron the S'wit]

Blackfire, try not to get too excited.

Otherwise, I do agree with the majority of you. I personally don't think an MMO would work with TES' universe, but there is always room where you can be surprised. I personally hope it doesn't happen; there's enough out there that I enjoy, and TES is all about the one-on-one experience. These tend to be just rumors though and they come up pretty often, so let's not get ahead of ourselves everyone.

[KalleFlaxx]

One of the major reasons I like TES so much is just that it's single player RPG's. I mean, they're not exactly common nowadays. Everyone's trying to be the next WoW.
But if they do it, I'll probably try it out, just because, well, it's another Elder Scrolls game. But I'm hoping they won't go all mainstream, and instead keep making single player (perhaps with some kind of multiplayer) games.

[nyk45]

What I think some of you are missing is that it would be done by someone else that not Bethesda. Bethesda would be free to make new Elder Scrolls single-player games.

[Eltee]

"no elder scrollz mmo would be badzzzlol"

I believe I got it right there, yup.

[Mindrifter]

This cannot happen. We must stop this from happening. I don't want the elder scrolls to turn into a monster!

[The Skyrim Blog]

This cannot happen. We must stop this from happening. I don't want the elder scrolls to turn into a monster!

^
This

Elder Scrolls is and always should be single player IMO

[NitrusReigns]

I agree that I don't think I'd like it, but I don't really care it it gets made. As long as Zenimax (or someone else) makes it leaving Bethesda free to work on the next real ES game in peace, I don't care what happens with a possible MMO. I agree with many of the other people here that I highly doubt I would even look at it, let alone play it, but as long as it doesn't affect Bethesda's work on the games I like, why should it matter to me if they make one? That's my view, anyway.

[azuarc]

You see, now from a historical perspective, we learn what caused the downfall of the Empire between TES4 and TES5. I can only imagine that a TES MMO would take place chronologically right after Oblivion.


As for Nightfire's points, I've also been involved in MMO's rather heavily over the last ten years. I'm not going to say he's wrong, but there are a few caveats I'd like to point out.
1) The community does suck in MMOs, yes. There are always immature little twats. However, some games are better than others. It entirely depends on how they structure the grouping of the players. Considering I would think they would have a typical model of a server hosting an entire Tamriel, I have a feeling NF is dead on here.
2) Modding is for enhancing the interface in an MMO, not for changing the actual gaming experience. The developers do that. You can say that it ruins the ability of people to mod the game, but two-thirds of players (platform-wise) already can't use mods and many PC players don't bother with them anyhow. It isn't as if a TES MMO precludes other TES games from being released after Skyrim.
3) Again, this depends on what they have you do. Some MMOs are less progression-oriented than Everquest and WoW are. I'm honestly not sure what a TES game that played like Everquest would even be like. Grinding up a skill would take forever. Character/class design would probably be vastly different. I have to imagine they would have to take it in a different direction than those games in order to be even modestly successful.
4) I would argue that most of the people that play Elder Scrolls games now don't care about the story very much. Definitely more than it would be in an MMO, but there are probably not that many people who roleplay or get extensively into the lore the way that you believe players do. It just so happens that players dedicated enough to such things are likely to find their way here, and players that aren't don't. I know that I certainly don't pay any mind to the emperor and his guards, and jump around like a buffoon raising my acrobatics skill while I wait for them. However, there *ARE* a ton of people who play WoW who do care about and are interested in the lore, despite appearances....they just don't always read the quest text, since it's typically superfluous.
5) Your point here is completely bogus. Completely. I don't know how it is with Cataclysm, but under the first two expansions you could play with just basic WoW...you would feel under-involved when you can't continue and everyone else leaves you behind, but isn't that to be expected? (Cataclysm might, necessarily, force you to purchase it since they revamped the original world.) The point of an expansion to an MMO is to add new content and new ways to progress in the game, so of course they're going to do things like raise the level cap and add new mechanics that the base game had. That's how an MMO works. It doesn't mean you have to buy the expansion. And as for making money off the users, the only thing I've seen from the game that feels like they're milking their customers are the micro-transactions they've added recently for purchasing special mounts and vanity pets...and I'll admit, some of the mounts and pets are rather goofy, but that actually IS a part of Azeroth's design.

You have to remember, there are games that operate on paradigms different from that of World of Warcraft, which was conceived in the image of Everquest. DDO, for example, has instanced quest areas where you can only bring your party, and the only place you see the entire community is in the main city. The quests are grouped by level and sold in packs, but the base part of the game is free. Between that and a lack of a real, true endgame, there are tons of players who are just repeatedly doing the low-end quests on different characters, and enjoying themselves in the content they do have. I do not think World of TES would end up anything like DDO itself; I'm just pointing out that it isn't an automatic to assume an MMO will look exactly like WoW just because WoW is successful.

[Vendetta]

Im pretty sure wow became successful because blizzard advertised the hell out of it.....

[azuarc]

I'm pretty sure wow became successful because it was made by blizzard, who had a reputation for great games, but that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand...

[Lindai]

I wouldn't play it,but if ES became an MMO,it would surely mop the floor with World of Warcraft and Runescape.

[Fiar]

MMO's are never good. They try to be... but they aren't.

Them be fighting words, MMO's CAN and HAVE BEEN pretty good. If you don't like MMO's and the idea, fine, but companies can make them fun if you give them a try. I personally love them and can find them engaging, great aspects to them, of course they have drawbacks, but all games do. I also acknowledge that some think of WoW and those totally addicted to it and that idea scares them and makes them think low of MMO's, along with the pay-to-play factor as well.

As for this, I don't see this happening quite yet if it is in the work, with Skyrim coming out I'm sure this is taking Priority One on their "To Do" list. If it truly does happen, then I wish Bethesda the best of luck, and hope they realize they'll need to tune back the engine a couple pegs, or else no one can play an MMO like that with decent framerates.

[Sonixboom]

Dear God in Heaven,

please stop the rumors of the ES MMO.

bethesda is not making an MMO and they have said so.

-Sonix

[videogmer314]

bethesda is not making an MMO and they have said so.

The issue is not whether Bethesda is or not, but whether ZeniMax is or isn't.

[nyk45]

Okay, this is totally my bad for not noticing, but there was already a recent topic for the very same subject. Merged both.