http://www.tomsguide.com/us/ZeniMax-Bethesda-Elder-Scrolls-Online-MMO,news-14481.html


The end times approach

i seem to remember rumors of elder scrolls MMO popping up when morrowind came out... then again after oblivion

keeping up with tradition

the only thing is this one seems more specific with the bits about the setting... 1000ish years before skyrim would fit the timeline near the Akaviri invasion of Morrowind

would be interesting to see the Akaviri as a playable race...

but i still would much prefer single player RPGs that cover events before Uriel Septim VII's reign

I don't think Gamebryo has an MMO button.

Considering Bethesda's track record with buggy games, I foresee a pretty bleak future for this mmo. They can get away with it in their single-player games, but the sort of issues their games (not only elder scrolls and fallout) usually have wont fly in an MMO setting.

Plus they've had to innovate the MMO genre big time not to lose the Elder Scrolls feel.

I came in to say pretty much what Jep was saying.
Bethesda is forgiven for a LOT of things. Glitches and bugs, exploits, ridiculous imabalances. All because despite all of their problems they still make a good single player experience.
An MMO version would be absolutely awful unless they changed their entire gameplan.

I seem to remember reading some things about Bethesda not wanting to do an MMO in the Elder Scrolls universe because they didn't want it to be a WoW ripoff. They didn't think they could make one that could hold it's own against WoW while still staying try to the gameplay of Elder Scrolls.

Not really sure if I'd want to play an Elder Scrolls MMO anyway. They are fun enough in single player, I don't really need a bunch of 13 year olds telling me that my mother is a whore the whole time I'm playing. :/

Pretty much this.

Long story short, MMORPGs are a terrible idea. They're expensive, high-risk projects with extremely high up-front development costs and high long-term, on-going development and support costs. They have inherently counter-intuitive and impossible-to-predict social consequences for almost any design decision and, historically, designers and teams without multiplayer experience fail to return a healthy number of subscribers regardless of how many domain experts they hire (and then ignore.)

MMORPGs might start out okay at launch, but they inevitably start to suck shortly after. This happens because the basic MMORPG gameplay causes the uncontrolled concentration of the absolute worst kinds of players at the highest levels. The designers are forced into an adversarial relationship with the players with the most free time power, radically skewing the content against the overwhelming majority of players in order to keep their most vocal customers satisfied. Furthermore, most of these people are utterly intolerable to play with and regularly drive other players away.

An ad-hoc analysis of MMORPG subscription trends do not rule out this claim. Trends show that a longer level treadmill is essential to the long-term health of a MMORPG, although it is not immediately clear whether it is because the treadmill gives players more to do (unlikely) or because the level treadmill is a bulwark between the general community and the toxic powergamers.

For example, WoW did not begin to lose subscribers until Cataclysm's quest and recruitment overhauls, allowing players to easily reach maximum level with only several days of effort.

Asheron's Call did not begin to lose subscribers until the major, tiered XP dungeons were added.

SW:TOR had players at the level cap before the official release. SW:TOR also has an extremely bad conversion rate. Bad enough that EA's investors are worried about it.

Eve Online's doing great though, with the character progression system that isn't based on free time, and an effectively unbounded progression cap which is tied to the in-game economy.

I've often wondered why more games don't use an Eve Online style of progression. While I don't think time alone is necessarily the best method of doing this, I do think having a much longer ladder to climb would be more effective. In short, keep leveling small, but make the level cap extraordinarily high. So high in fact, that it may not even be given a number to quantify it, instead simply boosting various stats or skills. That way players do not lose the feeling of making a difference on their own character, while also not feeling pushed to reach the "optimal" point, as in a maximum level.

Of course, I also feel that a general stats platform of progress, while fun in short bites (like a single player game), don't really fit anyway. What about a system where character progression didn't result in your character simply being more beefy, or faster, or more powerful? Turn it into a more skill-based system. The point of this is to create situations where the "novice mobs" at the beginning of the game are no less deadly than they were when a player first started. They could still kill you in x amount of hits. Instead, your characters newfound skills and perhaps equipment provide a much larger array of tools in order to handle the mobs, allowing them to be dispatched with less risk or time invested.

After all, I liken it to an average soldier. Most soldiers can be equal in strength, stamina and speed with just simple (read: not easy, just simple) training. Instead, it's the skill of individual soldiers that place them in more advanced categories. One might be suited to sniping, with impeccable accuracy, while another is excellent at stealth.

Need I point out around this time of year I never trust anything?

Eve online seems to be designed to encourage players to play as little as possible. Frankly it's genius. The best MMO player is one who pays and never plays.

Yay, tedium with 10000000 other people!