http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/arc...lls-online.aspx

Yay...Molag Bal, Prince of sexual molestation and rape is the main baddie. Discuss your thoughts on this online mmo of our beloved Elder Scrolls series.

Much as I'd love to play Luper Alkad, the time-travelling smug honoured user Redguard, I doubt I will really. Hardware requirements are simply getting too high for me, even with mmos who tend to aim low to maximize their userbase.

Also, one thing came to mind upon reading the plot. Oblivion: the Prequel.

I guess when you've seen one Daedra trying to make Tamriel his, you've seen them all. Hopefully they'll make this little crisis look like a tad more of a threat than the last one.

The other issues I can see are the game system. Tes has always controlled more like a first person shooter with inventory and big menuscreens than the point-and-click third-person combat of mmos like Lord of the Rings. Are they going with the traditional mmo system, or will they try to keep it closer to the single-player games?


Also, I'm totally going to laugh at all the rage going on in the pvp when people start screaming that Bosmer are useless, Argonian poison immunity is cheating and the Atronach Birthsign is broken.

I know a lot of people are upset about ES: MMO, but I'm fine with it. As long as the main games stay single-player, I'm fine with it. I don't know if I'll get this game in the long run, though. Might be kinda fun IF I could game with some of you folks who've been been chatting these last few years. Then again, maybe it would suck! Maybe our styles would clash or something.

I dunno.

I wonder if we can join Molag Bal!

Oh, don't forget that the PVP will be unbalanced. The PVP is always unbalanced.

I'd be fairly interested in this; I'm not one for MMOs, but a TES one would be fun and a Chorrol Forums guild would be nice. That said, Bethesda will really need to try something new if they want a chance of not just losing all of their business to World of Warcraft as so many new MMOs end up doing, though perhaps keeping their playing style in the current manner could be the trick; all the other ones are hotkey-based nightmares with godawful user interfaces designed for people with five eyes and an extra few fingers, and the simplicity and fluidity of gameplay of the TES games (Morrowind's occasionally intangible foes aside) are one of my favourite things about the series, so keeping gameplay largely unchanged could work in their favour just to add some variety to the market.

I have no time now to do everything I want...

AAAARGH!!!...

Bet there's no KOTN then either... ...

...

May buy the mag though...

I may give this a shot depending on what the gameplay is like. I haven't been a big fan of the mmo's I have tried.

I wonder if the mods over at the official forums are still being ordered to close every topic about ES multiplayer?

There’s a whole new section over there! Hopefully folks are flocking to it even now, leaving room for pleasant discussion in their wake.

I can’t imagine committing to being online at a specific time even once, much less enough times to develop some sort of team, or whatever. Hopefully anything interesting from the new game will pop up in the lore forum.

I had not thought of that. Maybe now it will be possible to have a discussion in the Skyrim forums?

That would be nice. I haven't been on the official forums for a few weeks now.

The Skyrim forums have cooled off a bit, I've noticed. The "unpleasant" threads are usually obvious. They're easy to avoid. But the Sky threads themselves still move too fast for my liking.

I go post there occasionally, just because Chorrol's boards are too slow sometimes (note all my floods of posts here! Sorry, y'all). There's always guaranteed discussion there. But you have to be in the mind-set that today's discussion probably will be off the front page by tomorrow!

I always go to the Bethesda forums. I think I have a master's degree or something. But the people here on Chorrol are more friendly. I got so many warnings on that site.../sigh.

I used to post in the Oblivion forums, but now that I'm playing Skyrim I don't really have anything to add to any of those conversions. Skyrim forums aren't really much fun.

Really? That sucks!

I meant 'had" many warnings. Though Rohugh and the mods removed them after six months or so. My warning is 25% now. It was 70%. Though I don't troll around much, sometimes the people there can be very annoying and sometimes they report the smallest things.

Dude!! Vampires suck!!...*Runs around with t-shirt neck over top of head*...I'm the Great Cornholio and I need TP for my bunghole!!...

Sorry...Trying to get myself warned... ...

Aaamywho...

How much do these online games cost per month?...'Cause if it costs, I can't justify it...As cool as it may be...I'm just not going to be on it enough to warrant the money...

A lot of them are going to a 'free to play' model. That said, I don't know that BethSoft is going to do.

Isn't the "free to play" model based on "but you won't survive without buying...."?

Maybe. I played League of Legends for a while and didn't spend any money on it. You unlock stuff by either saving points you earn by playing, or by spending some money. For me it was more fun to earn by points. I can't say TES MMO is going to be like that though.

Knights of the Nine are dumb! Yeah! I said it!

Haha....I don't mind. I always find ways to make the other person tick and get them banned. Yes, I am a horrible person.

And we have no info on the price yet. But it's for sure going to be pay to play.

Hmm, so I ran into this forum where some guy listed stuff he presumably got from a magazine. (can't get to the magazine and I refuse to pay for a digital subscription just to check one article. Sorry fellas, but I'm stingier than old Ebenezer Scrooge)

So long story short, I'm really getting doubts about it. I'll list a few thingies that stood out.

There are three player factions:
--Ebonheart Pact: The Nords, Dunmer, and Argonians
--Aldmeri Dominion: Altmer, Bosmer, and Khajit
--Daggerfall Covenant: Bretons, Redguard, and Orcs

Apart from the fact that I like to choose my own side instead of being railroaded into it through the colour of my brow, seriously? The Racist Xenophobic bastards, the slaves that hate their guts and the big guys they've been warring with again and again to the point its become the cornerstone of their mythology form a pact?



-Features most of Tamriel including Skyrim, Morrowind, Summerset Isle, and Elseweyr.
-The game world is very large relative to Skyrim

Hmm, I suppose this could work if you stick with borders or channel everything off into its own little zone that can only be acessed through fast travel. Kinda more like Daggerfall and Arena instead of Morrowind-Oblivion-Skyrim. But still, it sounds like even more hilarious geographical compression awaits than before.


-Fast travel exists in the game in the form of wayshrines, which are also your ressurection point, and you can teleport from one wayshrine to any other wayshrine you have already visited

Well, unlimited fast travel would probably be considered cheating and teleporting is easier to code, but I kinda liked Lotro's horserides across the country myself. Besides, think of how cool location-appropriate fast travel would be. Silt striders! Horses! Bigass elephants or whatever they use in Skyrim! Big worm digestive tracts! (Don't worry, I've heard they're really slow on the digesting part.)


-The imperials are an enemy to all three factions, lead by the noble Tharn family and the King of Worms, Mannimarco, and are hatching a plot to take over all of Tamriel
-But BEHOLD, Mannicmarco is scheming with Daedric prince Molag Bal to take over the world behind the Tharn's back

Wait, what? Really? Tharn had an ancestor who was also scheming world domination, along with a Daedric Prince for help? Incidentally, this reminds me of what I was doing with Corrupted Heart (Note to self: Got to get back and finish that one). Except I used ole Jagar instead of Nameless grandpa.


-Also, our soul has already been stolen by Molag Bal, which is the reason you can come back from death over and over again, and the starting plot is that you're fighting Molag Bal to get your soul back from him

I see no downsides to this. Why should I hate Molag for giving me immortality? I mean, unless there are consequences, but only serious ones would count. I never understood why the Highlander got all emo over it. Apart from the contractual obligation to cut off heads, that is.


-Third person perspective
-The game uses a hotbar to activate skills like other traditional MMOs

Standard mmo I guess.

-Radiant AI will not be present

Translation: Expect Morrowind level AI. Not that I ever really noticed anything special about the Oblivion AI. More random wanderings and conversations, but that's about it.

-There will be no player housing

But where am I supposed to dump my priceless artefacts and mementos all over the floor now? An mmo-ish bank just doesn't have that feel to it.

-The most accomplished PvP player on your faction becomes emperor whenever you take over the capital

This sounds horrible to me. Please keep Emperor Legolas!!!LeetSayihnFusdroharDoomslayer57 out of the lore.


-There is also balanced PvP for people who prefer eSports

esports? Never heard that word before. Guess mmos are now a sport.

-A fighter can also spin in the firestorm a mage puts down, which sends out fireballs

Quick! The fighter's guild is hiring ballet-dancers! Ok, so special co-op skills between different classes. That doesn't sound bad honestly.

-You can't combo with the abilities of enemy players though, so if an enemy faction player drops an oil slick, you can't set it on fire

Lame, ah well. If it was possible, people would complain over friendly fire I'm sure.

-The Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood will be presented, but in what form isn't detailed as their content is hard to recreate in an MMO setting

Hard? Redoable fetchquests and kill x quests. It's possible for everything else, so why not thieves and murderers? Don't tell me you expect everyone to be a morally upstanding citizen. Mmos are all about the killing and looting, who cares if its for good or evil?

-You destroy dark anchors to gain reputation with the Fighter's Guild. They are large hooks that fall from the sky pseudorandomly and have Daedric guardians next to them.

If Mcbadgere's Mrziileft could fly, I could totally see random anchors dropping from the sky in his story. Sounds like a rather strange focus for the fighter's guild though. Why not kill random boars and bandits like in all the other tes games?


And yeah, that's the end of the list.

^Some of that sounds horrible, some of it might be fun. I dunno. Is TES online being done by the same team of devs that make the regular single-player games? Does anybody know?

It's not being done by Bethesda Studios (the developers for the single player game) but by Zenimax Online.

Oh good. It would bother me if the single-player team was devoting less time to us because they have to split their time with the MMO game.

Video interview with the creative director.

They'd better pay me for that!... ...

Sounds a bit...Um...Dull...Personally...

And more than a little...Controlled...Not so much the free roaming, do what you wanna do thing that Star Wars Galaxies always sounded like...Which - actually - is what I would assume you'd get from an Oblivion/Skyrim game (haven't played the others...Can't comment on them )...

Well gone off it now...

Makes sense for Molag Bal having the power to bring the player back to life. He did it in Oblivion, and did it to that old man in Skyrim. Everything else sucks. We can't join Molag Bal? Bummer. No playable vamps or wolfies? Double meh. I'll pass on this one. Back to the Old Republic for me.

Wow Bethsoft's devs are extremely hypocritical. Think back to all that crap about making single player games to focus on the story and really draw in the player. They've stated numerous times that they had no interest in making a multiplayer game for this exact reason.

Sorry I'm just tired of Bethsoft and frankly I don't have the same love for their games that I used to. Their games are so generic and shallow now that I might as well just play any LOTR game. Each game has continued on the same path which is to say, becoming more and more shallow, which is the same path that destroyed the Fable franchise even though it was never incredibly deep anyways.

They copped out just like they did when they produced the husk of an ES game that is Skyrim. All this makes me think back to the fact that there will never be games like Morrowind again. RPG games that actually made you build your skills to reach the artifacts and most powerful items. Instead we just get our hand held and led through the game with set leveling that makes sure that the game never gets too intense for us.

After all who wants a game where you actually have to raise your character's skills anyways? Who wants to look for artifacts? Who wants to hunt down a full suit of daedric armor when you can just create it yourself?

Kiln: Bethsoft didn't actually make the game, some other company did. Zenimax Online, I think. If it was actually Beth that made it, I would be more in agreement with you because this would mean the TES devs would now be taking time away from single-player updates and DLC.

I saw this and thought of you...

Much Elder Scrolls Online...

Still not sure...Looks pretty though...

I've never been into MMOs. Besides, I'm fixing to start college and don't have the time on my hands for this kind of game. Hope it goes well, all the same.

Well, I'm suspended a fourth time for ten days from the official forums.

I guess I better hang around here. So, I might end up getting ES online with this new good info coming out.

Some news:

http://www.mpogd.com/news/?ID=11149

Wow. that sucks, what happened? I was suspended for 3 days once from them.

Wow, you're late, haha. I'm actually banned now. But that's fine. I am Darkness Eternal! My talents are vast!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqRfyfaY-Tg

New gameplay at 3:50

The PC and NPC's look great! We can actually play a lute? Yes!

OMG that looks BEAUTIFUL! Dammit!! They’re dragging me in with their pretty world, and then there will be OTHER PLAYERS!

Yeah, that’s still a deal-breaker. And when the guy said “grab agro,” I threw up a little.

Thanks for posting this, DE. It looks amazing!

Maybe we need to find a community of like-minded Elder Scrolls loving people with whom to join so as to enchance our multiplayer experience....

But where could we find such a community? Hmmmm...

My only problem is that with this faction lock, we can't create our characters and play together. a Khajiit will never get to fight with a Nord, a Dunmer, a Breton ... ect. That is the biggest disappointment.

Well drat. This is actually starting to look sort of interesting. But I still don't feel the factionalizing and player emperors. (Especially since the pr-dudes give this spiel on how it totally fits the lore. I smell one massive dragon break retcon. Or multiples.)


I did get a laugh out of the combat system though. The narrator talked about dodge buttons and how similar it is to Skyrim, but the folks on screen basically stood still as they cycled through their basic attacks.


Well, here's to hoping it will be a good game. Cause good games are always a good thing, even if they're in a genre or setting I don't care about.

That's what sucks. Kayla couldn't fight alongside Aravi

If you made her an Altmer she could. The factions are Altmer & Bosmer & Khajiit vs. Orsimer & Breton & Redguard vs. Nord & Dunmer & Argonian.

Oh and anyone with an Imperial character is SOL.

I really must not have read that, lol

That faction lock thing is just stupid

My main characters are all Imperials . . .

I hate the faction lock too. Well. I like the dialogue options. I heard our characters are voiced, too.

Bosmer vs. Breton vs. Nord. D'oh! Time for a new character or I will have my own war on my hands.

Really? What is bethesda doing?! What sorcery is this

You mean besides HERRGGGH! NYERK! GRRUUUUUUUERRRRGH!? XD

I'm guessing you never played the Old Republic? You're character is voiced. Just like Mass Effect.



Yes. Besides those! Haha. Actual voices! Then again, I have to double-check. The NPC's however, will be fully voiced.

Edit: more new gameplay from PAX. We can actually cook and chop up food!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwintRax6ok