Kotaku:
The issue of Game Informer packed with info on the newly-announced Elder Scrolls MMO is already in some people's hands and, well, if you were hoping for a game that was basically Skyrim only with real people, you're in for one hell of a disappointment.

From everything contained in the article, it sounds like "Elder Scrolls Online" is basically "Just Another MMO".

Things start going wrong on the very first page of the story, as ZeniMax Online's Paul Sage says "it needs to be comfortable for people who are coming from a typical massively multiplayer game that has the same control mechanisms, but it also has to appeal to Skyrim players".

A page later? You're playing the game in third-person, and its combat centres around hotbars activating skills. Your attacks have cooldowns. In clear terms, that means no real-time combat. It is literally explained as using "World of Warcraft mechanics".

You can't do something or go some places in the game unless you're appropriately levelled up, just like a regular MMO. ZeniMax is "keeping large areas inaccessible to save them for use as expansion content". Only "some fraction" of the caves and other landmarks in the game are waiting completely unmarked and unexplored. You can't own a house because it's "too hard to implement in an MMO". NPC characters don't run on the same schedules they do in the main games.

Oh dear.

http://kotaku.com/5907598/first-elder-scrolls-online--details-make-it-sound-like-just-another-fantasy-mmo

I wasn't all that excited because my faith in new MMOs is quite weak, and this, this right here is why. Don't expect much and you can't get too disappointed.

At first I was intrigued because I was curious about the idea of making a First-person, real-time combat game into an MMO.

Now though? Interest level: 0.

I was never excited about it to begin with and had no intention of buying it. This is mostly why. MMOs suck, they all suck, and always will suck. The main mechanic of an MMO is sucking. This is just from my perspective from what I look for from a game, obviously and not everyone will agree but I've played enough MMOs to know that they ALWAYS suck, no matter what claims they make to the contrary.

Like I said to a friend of mine about 5 times yesterday untill he finally shut the fuck up:

It's going to copy WoW and fail. Because WoW is the best it gets with this mechanics and has already a TON of content in its favor.

Just for the records: I love TES games.

GiantRaven:
At first I was intrigued because I was curious about the idea of making a First-person, real-time combat game into an MMO.

Have you heard of Darkfall? Because they tried it there. Suffice to say that I'd rather forget about that game.

Still, I'd much rather see another attempt at it than copying WoW. For the record, I love WoW and I played it for a long time and look back at it fondly. But I don't want to play it again. Such a shame that they won't try something new with TES.

I was intrigued at first, my interest level just went to zero however.

I meant the world and the lore have the basis of making a great mmo, but if the gameplay isn't there, I don't think the audience will be either.

I stopped being excited when I read the words MMO. What's the deal with developers? Not everything needs to be on-line and/or multiplayer.

A TES MMO that at least tried to deliver some of the sandbox feel of the main games could have been something new and different and not been in direct competition with WoW, but this sounds like they're working from the same "How to be WoW" handbook that Bioware used for SWTOR.

Except worse, because the fantasy MMO market is beyond saturated. If I want to run around with a sword and spells I've got Tera, Aion, Warhammer, Rift, Dark Age of Camelot, Lord of the Rings Online, Guild Wars 2 (soon) and of course World of Warcraft. And that's just ones I can think of off the top of my head.

But they have a really popular IP! Among gamers! Among single player gamers...

Guess I need to revert back to my original analysis - this is going to SWTOR all over again, only worse. Say what you like about Bioware (god knows I do) but at least they tried to cater to their core fanbase.

TheKasp:
Because WoW is the best it gets with this mechanics

Haha, no. TOR is probably better to be perfectly honest. The thing is 5 million people who spent anywhere between 1000 and 5000 hours playing WoW wont switch to another MMO until they shut the servers down. And thats why this TES MMO will fail. They have no potential playerbase. TES players? None of the positive things found in TES games will be found in this MMO. People who play these kind of MMOs are already invested in TOR or WoW.

2 million preorders, 5 months after release 500.000 active players. 14 months after release, it goes F2P. Calling it now.

Disappointed? No, it simply confirmed all my suspicions. Nothing about TES combat translates into online play. A WoW-esque hotkey system set in TES universe was all it was ever going to be. What were you expecting? Real time combat? In an MMO?

Guessing we'll see set classes and talent trees replacing the skill system too.

I'm not jumping on anything until I see some video's and get more information about it.

I'll make up my own mind then.

SmashLovesTitanQuest:
snip

Well, the thing is... How much can you actually fuck up this system? WoW has the advantage of having already over half a decade of patching an perfecting (And fucking it up with every expansion).

It has to be responsive, the animations should be good timed with the action and it has to seem fluid (all things I could not stand in TOR from what I've seen). To be honest, after 6 years of playing WoW I have problems in touching any MMO with this mechanics because they have to hold up with WoW and in my book it is hard. Very, very hard. It's just so good in creating the illusion that you deliver the same physical performance as the korean SC2 master player.

2 mill preororders? Hmm. After the broad audience Skyrim reached it seems to be a reasonable number. 14 months after release seems a little too quick. I'd rather say 18.

But overall: Yeah, I agree with you.

TheKasp:

SmashLovesTitanQuest:
snip

Well, the thing is... How much can you actually fuck up this system? WoW has the advantage of having already over half a decade of patching an perfecting (And fucking it up with every expansion).

It has to be responsive, the animations should be good timed with the action and it has to seem fluid (all things I could not stand in TOR from what I've seen). To be honest, after 6 years of playing WoW I have problems in touching any MMO with this mechanics because they have to hold up with WoW and in my book it is hard. Very, very hard. It's just so good in creating the illusion that you deliver the same physical performance as the korean SC2 master player.

2 mill preororders? Hmm. After the broad audience Skyrim reached it seems to be a reasonable number. 14 months after release seems a little too quick. I'd rather say 18.

But overall: Yeah, I agree with you.

I dunno man, are you sure the mechanics in MMOs are really that clunky, or are you just used to playing WoW?

Most of these WoW clones seemed to be on par with WoW in terms of fluidity, but then again I only played WoW for something like 150 hours in total... So maybe my experience isnt as valid. Or maybe its valid because of that. Whatever.

Elder Scrolls has always been about ultimately becoming a god that walks like a man. An MMO wouldn't be able to incorporate that to begin with. Still, the idea of a real-time first-person MMO was pleasing.

Color me uninterested.

It's not too late now, Bethesda. You can still cancel the game!

SmashLovesTitanQuest:
2 million preorders, 5 months after release 500.000 active players. 14 months after release, it goes F2P. Calling it now.

If they have any sense it'll be FTP from the beginning, or at least "FTP" in the same way GW2 is, with the box price and no sub fee. The market is going to get increasingly hostile to sub based games as more high quality FTP titles start fighting them for players.

SmashLovesTitanQuest:
Most of these WoW clones seemed to be on par with WoW in terms of fluidity, but then again I only played WoW for something like 150 hours in total... So maybe my experience isnt as valid. Or maybe its valid because of that. Whatever.

I wish. This is probably WoW's #1 edge to be honest. Fluid, precise, crisp movement and zero input lag. Even the very polished GW2 has some floaty/spammy looking animations, although it's better than most. WAR was particularly bad in this respect, and TOR got savaged by its playerbase for what little input lag it had (and it wasn't even particularly bad compared to some).

Benefits of running on an aging engine with textures from 1996 I suppose.

GiantRaven:
At first I was intrigued because I was curious about the idea of making a First-person, real-time combat game into an MMO.

Now though? Interest level: 0.

this pretty much sums up my reaction when I first heard about it. I was intrigued up until I saw that it was only for PC.(not that I didn't see that coming. still sucks though) However, after reading that article my only thought on it is what the hell are they thinking? Or are they even thinking at all?

ahhh, good. i was worried that it would cost me time. Dont get me wrong, if this mmo happens i'll probably check it out, just not on release.

Scans with Screenshots & shit available here: http://imgur.com/a/fO9Ty#0

A multiplayer Elder Scrolls game is like communism: yeah, on paper and in theory it sounds wonderful but in practice it is utter shit.

That's how I've felt since Oblivion: "Wow, this game would be awesome with some multiplayer! But dear god I hope they never make it..." There's just wwwwaaaaaaayyyyy too many things they'd have to change/take out of the standard format (fast travel, resting/waiting, etc) in order to make it an MMO. Sooooo yeah, if you expected this game to be anything other than another "We're trying to be like WoW, but..." game then the joke's on you.

I was pretty sure it'd end up being little more than Arthas goes to Tamriel...guess my suspicions were correct. :P

So basically it's a WoW clone with a TES texture pack? ...pfft.

I can probably already find an mmo that has a mod for that somewhere. >.>

Dexter111:
Scans with Screenshots & shit available here: http://imgur.com/a/fO9Ty#0

I can't say those graphics look very inspiring, artistically. They don't seem very "Elder Scrollsy" to me. They look painfully generic.

Dexter111:
Scans with Screenshots & shit available here: http://imgur.com/a/fO9Ty#0

Mmmmh, graphics style looks quite nice. Not as cartoony as I expected.

Maybe there is hope....

I never really cared because I am not a fan of he series. Reall I just want another Fallout game, hopefully one that is made by black isles but uses their engine like New Vegas.

BloatedGuppy:
TOR got savaged by its playerbase for what little input lag it had (and it wasn't even particularly bad compared to some).

It was sort of a feature in TOR rather than a performance issue. I remember the devs talking about it as a design intent in an interview. In WoW you push a button and damage appears, but that means all the animations are very similar in their length and timing. A Heroic Strike looks like every other attack only bigger numbers appear. In TOR you could see your character taking bigger longer swings depending on the ability used, so that the attacks didn't always connect at the same time. This didn't really turn out to be an improvement though. It looked nicer, but the players ultimately prefered the more responsive feel of WoW. There were also issues with dodge and parry animations causing abilities to lag. It was ambitious but flawed.

SmashLovesTitanQuest:
Mmmmh, graphics style looks quite nice. Not as cartoony as I expected.

Maybe there is hope....

I'd almost have preferred it if they had been. Stylized graphics can have some personality. These seem almost aggressively bland. Very reminiscent of Everquest 2, actually. Plastic. Lifeless. Devoid of any creative spark.

WoW Killer:
It was sort of a feature in TOR rather than a performance issue. I remember the devs talking about it as a design intent in an interview. In WoW you push a button and damage appears, but that means all the animations are very similar in their length and timing. A Heroic Strike looks like every other attack only bigger numbers appear. In TOR you could see your character taking bigger longer swings depending on the ability used, so that the attacks didn't always connect at the same time. This didn't really turn out to be an improvement though. It looked nicer, but the players ultimately prefered the more responsive feel of WoW. There were also issues with dodge and parry animations causing abilities to lag. It was ambitious but flawed.

Yeah, improper animation/result synching was indeed the culprit, I guess "input lag" is the wrong way to describe it, but that's the feeling you're left with, that the game isn't responding crisply to your commands. WAR had the same issue, on a much grander scale.

TOR's bizarre system crippling issues in the first months of release didn't help either. I don't know if it was RAM or processor that was to blame, but it absolutely bent my girlfriend's PC over before I upgraded it.