i am opposed to it. 

Convince a modder to do it. I would love to see if it would/could work.

I am opposed to it for the fact I want them spending 100% of their man power on making the best RPG I have ever played.

Forced multiplayer like an MMO? Fuck no.

Allowing co-op or even people to start in different locations from you and competing for loot and progression (like Stalker was supposed to have) in a regular entry in the series? Possibly.

@Matfei90:

Good sir, did you read the rest of the post? The game gets lonely but it does not stop being fun. The aforementioned co op mode would not diminish the game. No, if done correctly it would lengthen the game and if Bethesda's smart, they will make it in such a way that it will not disturb your single player experience. Call me crazy but I'm pretty sure the next Fallout is going to have some form of multiplayer. And depending on how people react to that then they'll apply it to the next Elder Scrolls.

I'm not opposed to it. Overall I just don't care about multiplayer stuff. I do care when good single player games could have been better if time was wasted duct taping a multiplayer mode to a game.

I still think it would be awesome. I think there should be quests that REQUIRE two players. That would be very interesting.

The entire game would have to be redesigned from the ground up.
 
So that's a no.

I have thought for a long time that if the game featured two-player co-op that made some sense within the confines of the story that was fully-featured and good it would probably be the way I would like to play the game most.

I am opened minded enough to see that a coop experience in elder scrolls would be awesome, so I would love that. It might not be the best RPG to have coop in, more squad based RPGs would mesh with coop way better (mass effect, dragon age).

RPGs need to have deep coop, it's 2011 yo.

@Matfei90:

Good sir, did you read the rest of the post? The game gets lonely but it does not stop being fun. The aforementioned co op mode would not diminish the game. No, if done correctly it would lengthen the game and if Bethesda's smart, they will make it in such a way that it will not disturb your single player experience. Call me crazy but I'm pretty sure the next Fallout is going to have some form of multiplayer. And depending on how people react to that then they'll apply it to the next Elder Scrolls.

You can whine about "loners"/non-extroverts having one single game that's not polluted with tea-bagging all you want, but ask yourself what you're really saying when you make the argument that "more people" like multi-player and therefore, this game and every other ought to be centered around socialisation. Because it reads a lot like "I'm so reliant on other people that I can't fathom such a thing as an activity that is performed by just myself. so; I'm going to go on a crusade to change every game into a multi-player game instead of just playing a game that's already multiplayer (such as EVERY other game besides TES/FO), because I think fewer people like single-player games and I have to have things MY way". 
 
Yeah. While we're at it, let's make all books multi-player. It's the next logical step after destroying TES. 
 
Oh, that's right, you can also be as in denial you want about the fact that an optional multiplayer mode would ruin the game for those wanting to play single-player, but it's true: 
 
The effect with a co-op mode is immediately noticeable. The game world and quests all have to accept the possible existence of two or more players. Everything changes. Right now it's a game where you pick flowers and read books. Can you see that in multiplayer?  
 
The effect with an "arena" mode of some sort is more subtle, but even more devastating. Now there would be tons of players all building the same exact limited set of character styles and playing the game with competition in mind, rather than questing, exploring and immersion. You can delude yourself in to saying "well, the solo player can still play in the way he sees fit" but you've just changed the entire fan-base. Therefore, the next installment in the series will make even more accommodations for the new, dull type of player that's been created by merely adding the option. It would be more of a game about maximising your character for competition, and the only thing that sounds worse than that is having my eyes burned out with a red-hot poker and then having ghost-pepper sauce poured in the sockets. No, wait, making TES about DPS is worse. 
 
Now, you can get around that to an extent by making the Arena mode not use the characters you've created for single-player mode -- either randomly generate characters in a level group or a list of presets like most shooter games. However, I don't think that many of the extroverted Fascists that are clamoring for Multiplayer would be satisfied with that, anyway.
 
It's been said before by many others, but some people haven't gotten it: You don't need to put multiplayer in Every. Single. Last. Game.  GO AWAY

An online Elder Scrolls is a First Person World of Warcraft, I do not want that!

Don't want it, don't need it. Wrong experience for what TES games deliver. I would love a fantasy borderlands, but that would be a seperate thing.

I am opposed to it for the fact I want them spending 100% of their man power on making the best RPG I have ever played.

I've never played a coop game that personally led to an immersive experience. As soon as you introduce another person into a world full of NPCs, that in Bethesda's usual case are not even convincing on their own, the glass shatters for me. Despite the Elder Scrolls' history of robot NPCs it's still a better experience to be surrounded by them than having another person sticking out like a sore thumb as the two of you walk around the world like you're visiting a wax museum.

Does only one person take the quest? Only one person becomes the head of the Mages Guild? Skyrim has 60000 lines of recorded dialogue, do they need to pick through them and record twice where the number of players being addressed is spoken? And Mods, another huge part of the game, are a headache to manage for one person, but two people with exactly modified games would be worse.

There was a coop mod for Morrowind, albeit a very primitive one, and the person I played with immediately started stealing every piece of clutter that wasn't nailed down to sell off. I would imagine an MMO being a world of barren houses with dead NPCs everywhere. As soon as you change those mechanics to fix it, which I think Bethesda would be capable of doing with a lot of time, it's not Elder Scrolls.

To everyone who says 'coop would be sweet' I'm not arguing against that, but you need to consider the logistics of it. If people keep clamoring for it as they've done in the past, and continue to do so as TES gets more popular, Todd Howard might change his mind on the matter and we'll have a gimped unimmerisve coop game in 15 years.

A multiplayer elder scrolls would be worse than communism.

I want the option to be there. The same world, only with a friend. The norm could still be to play singleplayer. I never say no to options.

Definitely not. Borderlands is not even similar to TES. 

@Storms: And I think Skyrim's NPCs will be an even bigger step that Fallout 3. The quality of the NPCs is really amazing for the volume, I just hope they steer away from methods like letting Radiant AI handle conversations between NPCs which breaks the illusion when they say disjointed things to each other. It probably won't be disappointing this time since they really touted the AI before Oblivion's release, but since they're being quiet about it this time, they must have spent the time to really flesh out the system and make it believable.

I want a game like something from the Elder Scrolls Series that is Open World, but playable with 3-5 friends. I would pay bank for a game like that where my friends and I could just wander around a game world even if we were doing different stuff. Why does every social game have to be so many people? 

I love the elder scrolls just as a single player game, and wouldn't be upset if they said it would never have multiplayer/co-op.  
That being said, I would still love a co-op world. No story, maybe certain single player side quests that are just combat brought in...but otherwise no. Just have the open world, cities, shops, etc. and let two or three people explore (Random bandits, looting caves and ruins would be all the fun I need) 
I completely understand people disagreeing with co-op with a story and/or quests, but personally I love just exploring the caves and dungeons, and won't touch quests for a long time. Really, I don't see anything that bad to stop co-op like that... 
 The stats and all that would still be there, but you'd start off with more points and could design a character already at mid levels...just because you don't have the quests to help levelling.  
It would leave room for some role playing, and on a massive scale could even be just pure role play, having people play the smith, innkeep etc. but that's a long shot. I play on a minecraft RP server and I always wonder about other games it could work with, sorry :P 
That aside, I still think just the world could work. 
EDIT: As Irvandus said, importing your character could work too, I guess.

I would love to see some separate raid dungeon style mode where you import your character but other than that meh I don't think it would work well any other way.

I'm still totally against it. TES is a highly personal and immersive experience, to have other join would take so much away from the game. Even if it was something like an arena it'd cheapen the experience for me. This is of course MY OPINION.

I would have loved some multiplayer in Fallout, so I don't see why it couldnt work.

Personally I'd be afraid my friends might decided to murder an entire town in my game while I was somewhere else in the world. If you could disable killing non-hostile NPCs then sure, or just if it was a fresh world or something. 
 
 Anyway, I'm not opposed to the idea of multiplayer but I don't feel like it's missing either

People who say they don't see what's wrong with MP on a series as heavily modded as TES are just trolling aifinkso.

Or let's stop taking games that did not start out as MP and forcing them to change into something they were not. I would have rather have had Warcraft 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 than WoW. But seeing as WoW has seen to killing off everything there's almost no going back. TES is not a MP and should never EVER become one.

I think it would break the game, it would be a hugely compromised experience than the single player version to the point that if they created something like this i am not sure you would recognize the end result.

@bioblood22:  It seems like you disagree just because it's a trend in the gaming industry nowadays...   

 It's not like everybody wants the single player experience in multiplayer, just the map/world and people to kill whilst you explore.  

  It wouldn't effect singe player at all.  

  If somebody said let's make it multiplayer only, I'd understand, but it's silly writing it off just like that. 

Some games need multiplayer, some don't. 
Although a small party (like you and one or two other people) co-op would be quite fun as long as Bethesda could make it work...

I'm not opposed to it but I just don't see how it can't use a pay to play or free to play format.  Multiplayer in the single player universe would take a lot of time and money and wouldn't really be worth the effort unless Bethesda could make some money on it beyond the original price of the game.  I personally wouldn't want to play an Elder Scrolls game like that because I don't come to those games for that experience.

FIRMLY OPPOSED. 

@FreakAche: I don't want multiplayer BUT I wouldn't mind having some sort of optional social hub/auction house kinda thing. I've always thought THAT could be cool.

@natetodamax: Exactly. Which is exactly why I facepalmed when I heard Bioware is putting some sort of coop in Mass Effect 3.

I would take:

- 1v1 arena duels

- Trading/auction house

- 2-4 player co-op

Anything else? No thanks.

people getting very uppity in the typical PC player manner. 
 
if they can do it well, i welcome it.

Definitely not opposed to this. I'm of the opinion that any game, no matter what it is, is always more fun when played with a friend. If they added drop in/drop out coop to this, it would be even more fantastic.

The only possible online i would care for elder scrolls is maybe online arena play. but even then the players would have to use preset, balanced classes / "loadouts" if you will. 
besides that no way. and i wouldnt want them to add the multiplayer aspect if it detracted from the singleplayer, which it most definitely would

The only possible online i would care for elder scrolls is maybe online arena play. but even then the players would have to use preset, balanced classes / "loadouts" if you will. 

Yes, I am opposed. You don't ruin good games by having terrible multiplayer. IE. Red Dead Redemption.

Oh God, i want to be a jerk so much right now...must...hold in...the asshole part of my personality...must....

I think if it was co-op, it would be pretty cool.

Seeing as how I played a big part in this franchise's and game's creation I think I have a right to... oh wait, nevermind. 
 
Funny how no one has any issues with modding the shit out of these games but the thought of the creators adding a feature like multiplayer is absolute blasphemy. Isn't it?