Elder Scrolls Online announced

Game Informers next cover is the elder scrolls online, being devolped by Developed by the team at Zenimax Online Studios, , set a millennium before the events of Skyrim as the daedric prince Molag Bal tries to pull all of Tamriel into his demonic realm.

"It will be extremely rewarding finally to unveil what we have been developing the last several years," said game director and MMO veteran Matt Firor, whose previous work includes Mythic's well-received Dark Age of Camelot. "The entire team is committed to creating the best MMO ever made – and one that is worthy of The Elder Scrolls franchise."

there is going to be a trailer tomorrow and full detail in the magazine on questing, leveling and where this game takes place. AN elder scolls mmo is an intresting game to make in this day when most MMO 's that are not wow go free to play in the first 6 months of release. I enjoy the univres of the elder scrolls and more of that over time is potentially interesting. I just hopes it is better then that the piece of crap two worlds was about an online elder scrolls experience. i wanted something like this around the time oblivion came out.

Im really curious to hear about class custimization and if we will be allowed to make custom classes like in other ES games. Also i guess this is the next best thing Bethesda could do since a fallout MMO still seems unlikely.

Edit: coming out in fall of 2013 on PC and MAC, so this has been in development for some time

I like those games to be a solitary experience.

Good news. I've been waiting for this for a while.

@cyraxible said:

I like those games to be a solitary experience.

@cyraxible said:

I like those games to be a solitary experience.

me as well. But moreover I like it to be an experience with a game world that has thematic consistency and characters believable to that world. That allows the role playing part of a role playing game to happen. An MMO is something different, the immersion is destroyed before it can start because everyone is artificially powerful compared to the game world. 10k dragonborne running around makes your interactions with npc characters seem a little bit fake.

That's a lot of knees.

My favorite developers used to be Bioware, Bethesda and Blizzard...

Yay Blizzard.

Of all the games that don't need online features...

Hmm I really hope I don't see one of my favorite game universes subjected to the MMO treatment. Large, empty spaces that take forever to cross until you reach some arbitrary level for a mount, boring clicky combat without visceral feel, that weird MMO delay on every action that keeps fucking with my immersion, and of course identical dull fetch quests.

If they somehow manage to avoid the paths tread by literally every other MMO than it would have potential. Until then this sounds like some bad news. At least it's set 1000 years before Skyrim so they don't fuck with the great setup for Skyrim's sequel.

Fucking awful news. :(

LF2M Oblivion gate n7

From what i heard the old republic made soloing a lot more fun than previous mmo's, im willing to give them a chance on how this turns out.

I can't wait to see 50 maces of molag bal running around.

Fargoth is psyched!

Interesting. I wonder if this will be just another generic MMO though. It could be good or just another cynical wow clone.

I'm not completely against this, if it keeps the same degree of exploration and features similar gameplay to the main games, it could be fun. I don't want to see it turned into a cartoony looking, third person WoW clone, with hot key based combat.

It needs to have the unique Elder Scrolls-y feel, not just be a generic MMO.

I would vastly prefer two to four player co-op in a skyrim style game to another fantasy mmo. Still mildly interested in how this turns out.

@VisariLoyalist said:

@cyraxible said:

I like those games to be a solitary experience.

me as well. But moreover I like it to be an experience with a game world that has thematic consistency and characters believable to that world. That allows the role playing part of a role playing game to happen. An MMO is something different, the immersion is destroyed before it can start because everyone is artificially powerful compared to the game world. 10k dragonborne running around makes your interactions with npc characters seem a little bit fake.

don't play this one then

A fantasy MMO? What a novel idea.

Seems the game is quite far gone if it's out next year. PC and Mac only? How does that make you console-only owners feel?

If they just made ES an online game, then great. If they made an online ES game, then crap (for me).

Guys pay attention. The entire team is committed to creating the best MMO ever made. Not just some of the team; the entire team! How can you not want that??

This is kind of cool news. I'll just never play it, because I'm not a fan of MMO's. Itd negatively affect my life because I'm a weak person

Hmm, I don't think this is going to be a game for me, but I hope it turns out well. I know this would make a bunch of my friends happy.

Though I am interested to find out what changes they're going to make to the existing ES formula to turn it into an MMO. I wonder if it will be more like traditional ES games, or more like traditional MMOs?

@sagebirt said:

Seems the game is quite far gone if it's out next year. PC and Mac only? How does that make you console-only owners feel?

I don't think console owners want or expect an MMO experience

@Metal_Mills said:

Fucking awful news. :(

I... kinda agree. As much as I love TES, it was always because it felt lived in and me being the hero. Now everyone's has a stupid ass name tag (xxblademaster71) on top of their heads and everyone's "the hero". I'd still want to discover the world though.

If it's a separate project from the real next Elder Scrolls game, I'm fine with it because I'll just skip it, but I hope it doesn't interfere with development on the next traditional Elder Scrolls game. I don't think I could stand to see another of my all-time favorite gaming franchises slip away from me.

I'm not sure their timing could be any worse though. Given the technology trends in MMO, they are going to action-reaction combat systems where Bethesda has never gotten combat working that well in their action games. Given the state of the market, although Elder Scrolls does have brand recognition, another sword and sorcery fantasy MMO is probably not going to work well in a market full of sword and sorcery fantasy MMOs.

Instead I would rather see "Elder Scrolls Online" be more a free formed "sandbox" than a "theme park". Basically, I would rather see this be more like Minecraft than World of Warcraft. They should setup a huge and rich environment for people to run around in and do what they want which was always the strength in their games instead of trying to enhance their quest designs which was often a problem for Bethesda in their stand alone games let alone making them MMO compatible.

If they just made ES an online game, then great. If they made an online ES game, then crap (for me).

gross. im so sick of mmos.

just make fallout 4 and get it the fuck over with.

Oh cool, a teaser tomorow.

@AndrewB: seems it is a separate team from the regular ES team. imagine they are working on fallout 4 and new skyrim stuff

@EXTomar: the article made it sound like you will be traversing several continents in the game. Also 3 factions to choose from

i want to see how this turns out. But what I would want is a multiplayer component where a few friends can run around Tamriel together fucking shit up.

I probably won't be playing it, but I'm curious to see how this turns out.

@WinterSnowblind said:

I'm not completely against this, if it keeps the same degree of exploration and features similar gameplay to the main games, it could be fun. I don't want to see it turned into a cartoony looking, third person WoW clone, with hot key based combat.

It needs to have the unique Elder Scrolls-y feel, not just be a generic MMO.

Yep. One of the problems with MMO's is that they target the lowest of the low hardware using a cartoony asthetic to get around it. Always playing it safe by just copy-pasting WOW and sticking a well known brand on it. I really hate people who play on shitty laptops then whine like a bitch that they cant play games or lack the fortitude to get a proper manly computer.

@VisariLoyalist said:

@sagebirt said:

Seems the game is quite far gone if it's out next year. PC and Mac only? How does that make you console-only owners feel?

I don't think console owners want or expect an MMO experience

If you've played Amalur, you know just how tedious the experience of an mmo being turned into a console game can feel. Then again, maybe that's just mmos in general.

The problem with MMO's is that they lack context. Grind grind grind without giving a shit what you are doing. Thats why I enjoyed Guild Wars rather than WOW. It had a story with a start, middle and ending. A shit story granted but it told it. It wasn't until the Lich King WOW had any real sense of purpose.

As long as they stay away from shitty 'MMO quests' and shitty endgame grinding, and generally everything that's shitty about MMOs then I'm all for this. I want an Elder Scrolls MMO, not an MMO that reminds me of Elder Scrolls.

I didn't ask for this.

Just what the world need another MMO

@SlightConfuse said:

@AndrewB: seems it is a separate team from the regular ES team. imagine they are working on fallout 4 and new skyrim stuff

@EXTomar: the article made it sound like you will be traversing several continents in the game. Also 3 factions to choose from

Its not the size of the world but what they stick into it. I have a sinking feeling that the game works better if they avoid adding quests and factions instead of increasing them.

I'll play it if I can get a silt strider mount.

At least they're not calling it The Elder Scrolls VI.

Jokes aside I'm actually kind of excited about this. This will be the first time we see most of the provinces of Tamriel outside of Arena. I am concerned about how the game will look though. How are they going to keep things consistent over such a large territory? If it looks as good as Guild Wars 2 or Tera things will be fine The first screenshot is to be unveiled tomorrow so we'll see.

I don't see why this is a bad thing for some people is not like they're gonna stop making Elder Scrolls games , don't like MMOs? don't play ESO you stil have Skyrim

This will follow the trend of everyone hyping the hell out of it, and than when it releases everyone hates on it for not being the exact replica of their dreams, and then everyone will buy it.

So, meh.

@AngelN7 said:

I don't see why this is a bad thing for some people is not like they're gonna stop making Elder Scrolls games , don't like MMOs? don't play ESO you stil have Skyrim

MMOs are inherently more expensive to produce and maintain. Screwing up something as big as an MMO puts Bethesda into a situation like they failed to produce multiple single player ES games.

I'll definitely try this.

@sagebirt said:

Seems the game is quite far gone if it's out next year. PC and Mac only? How does that make you console-only owners feel?

Well it is an MMO, so probably doesn't make them feel much of anything. Everyone here is so jaded against the idea anyway that it doesn't matter.

@EXTomar said:

@AngelN7 said:

I don't see why this is a bad thing for some people is not like they're gonna stop making Elder Scrolls games , don't like MMOs? don't play ESO you stil have Skyrim

MMOs are inherently more expensive to produce and maintain. Screwing up something as big as an MMO puts Bethesda into a situation like they failed to produce multiple single player ES games.

Bethesda is fine. This is their parent company Zenimax Media. They've also been working on an MMO since 2005-2006. The studio creating this game have nothing at all to do with Bethesda Game Studios, the creators of Elder Scrolls and Fallout 3.

@cyraxible said:

I like those games to be a solitary experience.