ELDERSCROLLSUPDATE

ZeniMax Media Inc., is currently seeking out MMO development talent for its online game division, GamesIndustry.biz reports. Why is this significant? ZeniMax is the owner of Bethesda Softworks, and thus both Fallout and Elder Scrolls. A Fallout MMO is entirely possible, but the business side of producing this title is somewhat complex. Daedren over at r1ft Gaming dissected the issue as it stood in November:Bethesda Softworks owns the rights to the the Fallout IP, while Interplay retains rights to a Fallout MMO. However, those rights are forfeit provided Interplay is unable to raise $30 million and begin development of the Fallout MMO by April of 2009. (This is presumably Interplay’s “Project V13” which involves other original Fallout team members.)
Admittedly it’s possible we’re reading too much into this new round of MMO division hiring at ZeniMax Media as no announcements of either a Fallout or Elder Scrolls MMO have been made to date, but the timing of their MMO recruitment is enough to make us wonder what ZeniMax has in store for massively multiplayer online gaming.

OK, stop me if you’ve heard this one before. “The Elder Scrolls is awesome, but I wish it was an MMO.” Apparently some enterprising modders have similar designs, and if a full-blown massively multiplayer conversion seems unlikely, a small-scale online version of Skyrim looks very possible.

GameFront is reporting on a new mod for the PC version of the game (you did buy the PC version, didn’t you?) that takes the celebrated series into the online realm. According to the mod’s author, it will allow you to “play with your friends, chat with people worldwide, [and] trade with other players.” No word yet on lootstealing or ganking noobs.

FPSWin has some early video footage of the Skyrim Online experiment which we’ve embedded for you after the cut. It’s definitely not polished (the animations are poor and the player characters are glitchy), but there is a functioning chatbox. If nothing else, it’s a start, amirite?

 

We’ve yet to see even a hint of gameplay for the newly announced Elder Scrolls Online, but a good portion of the fan reaction to the news has been negative, according to a report at GamesIndustry.biz.

The site says that many of the comments on Bethesda’s blog were filled with despair at the prospect of an online title gobbling up development resources or otherwise impacting one of gaming’s most beloved single-player franchises. A Bethesda moderator even chimed in to calm down the angst-ridden faithful. “The teams working on these games are separate. Todd Howard’s team at BGS will keep doing the type of games they like making, and the ZeniMax Online team will focus on MMO games like this newly announced title,” the spokesman said.

ZeniMax is scheduled to release the game’s first trailer at some point this morning.

Okay guys listen, this bs of not being able to live up to TES quality expectations is ignornt. You cant have Skyrim level graphics and quality in a server with 1000s of people playing at once. No computer on earth could run it. it has to be scaled down to work. dont hate on a product that isnt even completed. its over a year from being ready just wait and play the beta.

 

The recently announced Elder Scrolls MMO has a lot to live up to. If the initial fan reaction is any indication, it’s not doing as well as you might expect in the court of public opinion. Creative director Paul Sage recently stepped in front of the camera to talk at length about the project, and some of what he has to say probably isn’t going to sit well with fans who are concerned that ZeniMax is making a generic themepark MMO out of the much-loved single-player sandbox series.

“We have to make our own game,” he tells Game Informer. “We want to make a good game first. Not a good MMO, not a good Elder Scrolls game, we want to make a good game first, a great experience for the player.”

 

Are you hoping that The Elder Scrolls Online will be part of the classic subscription model rather than go the free-to-play route? According to analyst Nicholas Lovell, founder of Gamesbrief, the odds are good that you’ll get your wish. Lovell notes that since the game began development in 2007, when subscription games were at their apex, Bethesda is likely to launch using the more familiar business model. Whether or not it will remain as a subscription game is another matter.

Of course, the price of play is far from the minds of most fans — the real question is what the game will look like when it’s actually playable. Director Matt Firor recently sat down to discuss the game’s earliest stages of development, the relationship between ZeniMax Online Studios and Bethesda, and working within the lore of the established IP. It’s an interesting look behind the scenes of development, and if you’re interested in the game, watching the video is certain to be six minutes well spent.

 

Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week’s writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you’re afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column.

Language is a pretty fascinating thing, and studying a second one is something I’ve long intended to do. Aside from entertaining thoughts of learning Korean to play ArcheAge, though (seriously, I looked into it), I haven’t gotten around to much beyond college-level Deutsch.

But as I watched last week’s interview with The Elder Scrolls Online creative director Paul Sage, I realized that I already have some pretty good second-language skills. I’m fluent in both English and MMO dev-speak, so as a public service, I’m going to translate some of what Sage said into the former.

First, the source text:

“We have to make our own game. We want to make a good game first. Not a good MMO, not a good Elder Scrolls game, we want to make a good game first, a great experience for the player.”

And now, the translation:

“We have to make our own game.”

We don’t really care what TES fans want.

“We want to make a good game first.”

We’ll be launching sans several essential MMORPG features.

“… not a good MMO…”

Recurring revenue is our raison d’etre, so we’d call this thing an MMO even if it were to be some sort of browser-based lobby shooter with four preset avatars. For future reference, would you guys buy a browser-based lobby shooter with four preset avatars if we called it Elder Scrolls?

“… not a good Elder Scrolls game…”

TESO will be Elder Scrolls in name only. See “we have to make our own game” above.

“… we want to make a good game first, a great experience for the player.”

We want to make a great experience for a certain type of player — namely, the type who doesn’t have time for an actual MMORPG (or an actual Elder Scrolls game) but does have disposable income. This player bought Skyrim, or at least watched a let’s play, but he likely doesn’t know much about Oblivion and has probably never even heard of Morrowind or Daggerfall. Arena? Oh yeah, I love Quake!

All kidding aside, it pains me to be pessimistic about The Elder Scrolls Online. Last week’s Game Informer reveal should have been another great day in the fantastic MMO-centric year that 2012 has been to this point.

I mean, yikes, Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, TERA… there are some gems here, and more forthcoming, all of which would’ve paled in comparison to a proper Elder Scrolls MMO.

I’m worried that it’s going to quite improper, though, both because of Sage’s deflection-laced dev-speak and because of the details that leaked out of the Game Informer article (details that aren’t really malleable, like hotbar combat and the same tired themepark mechanics). Come on, ZeniMax, really? Don’t give us kill 10 Redguards, dudes; there’s enough of that crap out there already (and it belongs in an Elder Scrolls game about as much as Justin Bieber belongs in the same room with Jeremy Soule).

Yeah, there’s the three-faction bit, which is making Dark Age of Camelot fans wet themselves for some reason that my PvP-apathetic mind will probably never understand. And there’s the fact that ZeniMax seems to be working with an open-world design mentality that eschews the heavy instancing popularized over the last few years.

And that’s pretty much the sum total of the positives.

Elder Scrolls combat? Gone. Elder Scrolls non-combat activities? Not looking good. Elder Scrolls gritty, grimy fantasy graphics? Eh, well… not unless the Game Informer pics are miles off target with respect to the final product.

The other thing worth noting is that this title has apparently been in the works since 2007. If that’s true, stop and think about how much has changed in this genre over the last five years. In 2007, making a big IP-powered AAA competitor to World of Warcraft probably seemed like the thing to do. The term “WoW clone” hadn’t yet become the cliche that it is today, and games like Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, and Vanguard were either very early in their launch phases or hadn’t launched at all.

In other words, 2007 was a great time to release yet another fantasy themepark. 2013? Not so much. Like BioWare, though, ZeniMax has a money-printing IP on its hands, one that basically guarantees that anything the company puts out there will ride its name recognition and brand loyalty to a certain number of sales.

If there’s one silver lining in TESO, it’s the involvement of Lee Hammock. Who’s Lee Hammock? He’s a designer known for being the primary creative force behind Fallen Earth. If you’ve never played it, here’s the skinny: The game is a curious and ultimately quite pleasant mash-up of open-world sandbox and quest-driven themepark elements.

There’s leveling, but there’s also plenty of skill-based advancement. There’s a ginormous instance-free world that invites you to dispense with the usual quest hub to quest hub grind unless you’re in the mood for it. There’s absurdly deep crafting that is both essential to getting the most out of the game and completely avoidable by players who’d rather be typical MMO serial killers.

If Hammock, or any of TESO’s other designers, can bring some of that sauce to the table and drown out the turgid themepark stew that Sage attempts to sugar-coat in that interview, ZeniMax might end up with a palatable dish on its hands. That’s my hope, at any rate.

This article will probably be denounced by some as piling on the “hate” bandwagon. The reality, though, is that I’m not so much pissed off about TESO’s presumed direction as I am disappointed with how predictable it is. Ultimately, the world of The Elder Scrolls is simply not conducive to 4,000 heroes per server, no matter how hard ZeniMax tries to convince us otherwise (to say nothing of the fact that none of those “heroes” will be doing anything heroic).

Three alliances control the political scene in The Elder Scrolls Online’s Tamriel, and Game Informer is taking a closer look at all of them, starting with the Daggerfall Covenant and the Aldmeri Dominion.

The Daggerfell Covenant is made up of the Orcs (also called Orsimer), Bretons, and Redguards — although the latter two are coming out of something of a love-hate relationship, with a history of as much internal conflict as external. Apparently time does heal all wounds, though, because the three races have worked out a democratic system of mutual love and respect. The Orcs and Bretons call the beautiful land of High Rock home, while the Redguard are based in Hammerfell.

The Aldmeri Dominion is a more hostile power composed of the Altmer, the Bosmer, and Khajiit and intent on total domination. Also known as Wood Elves, the Bosmer call Valenwood home (surprise: It’s a heavily wooded area) and enjoy tramping through forests, living in harmony with nature, and building cities in migratory trees. The Altmer, or High Elves, can be found in the little-known Summerset Isles. The Khajiit, who missed out on the alternative name lottery, live in Elsweyr, whose climate is ideal for the cultivation of Moon Sugar.

Got all that? Study up, there’ll be a test. Feel free to read the full profiles, and keep an eye out for Ebonheart Pact information on Friday.

 

Games in the Elder Scrolls series have always been about giving players the opportunity to become the game’s hero, and it looks like The Elder Scrolls Online will be no different. The title’s game director, Matt Firor, has announced that each character’s main storyline in the game will be “100% solo.”

Firor points back to the previous entries in the series, stating that “in The Elder Scrolls games, you’re always the hero… The last thing you want to do is have the final confrontation with Mehrunes Dagon as he’s stomping across the Imperial City, and you see like 15 guys behind you waiting to kill him.” While it’s a good point, we can’t help but wonder what kind of an impact this design will have on the social aspect of the MMO, but at this point all we can do is wait and see. Firor’s full interview over on Game Informer has plenty of extra information as well, so if you’re jonesing for more details, just head on over and check it out for yourself.

Sigh . Before development even starts you get the feeling it might be another company that just dont get mmos . To me its sounds like it could be a standard solo rpg with mmo gameplay added as an afterthought . Now theres nothing wrong in that if the game is buy to play but when you expect people to pay a monthly fee for something that feels like a solo game with rpg elements then thats when it falls flat on its face .

The flashlight of knowledge has already been directed at two of The Elder Scroll Online’s three main political factions, and now the third is getting a little time in the light. We’ve already told you about the Daggerfall Covenant and the Aldmeri Dominion, and today Game Informer is closing out ouroboros with the third faction, the Ebonheart Pact.

The alliance that makes up the Ebonheart Pact was first forged after an Akaviri invasion, when the Nords and Dunmer banded together and then cut the Argonians in on the friendliness in order to find safety in numbers. While the Aldmeri Dominion is bent on conquering and ruling, the Ebonheart Pact is really just an attempt to stay alive in a world of invasions and power struggles.

The Dunmer, also called Dark Elves, call the familiar lands of Morrowind home. Skyrim, which a few folks may have heard of thanks to a rather underground game that came out last year, is home to the militant and cold-resistant Nords. The reptilian Argonians, or Saxhleel as they like to call themselves, come from the Black Marsh, also known (by way of total coincidence, I’m sure) as Argonia. They share the area with the Hist, a race of sentient trees, and all matter of poisonous and malicious critters and plants.

If you need help keeping all the names straight (the Nords are also referred to as children of the sky, by the way, although apparently that’s an informal title), be sure to read the full profile.

 

The Elder Scrolls Online has certain player expectations going in, such as an expectation of the sort of quest structure you usually find in the series. More specifically, it’s the sort of structure in which you start off on some simple quest and wind up wandering off into some completely unrelated point of interest. A recent interview with creative director Paul Sage and lead content designer Rich Lambert reveals that the team is aiming for just that sort of model in the game.

As Lambert explains, the team wants to move away from the usual hub design in favor of several points of interest, each of which provides a little snippet of content and story. The points aren’t meant to be structured as an A-to-B affair; instead, you have several points of interest in a given region which build into a large overarching story. Take a look at the full interview for more information about how quests will work in the game and how players will be guided through objectives as they play.