Terrible news :-(

I hope they change their mind after SWTOR... The first MMO I ever felt like I actually "beat".

I mean honestly once they zoom in on your character and play the closing music, you feel like you have completed the game, and the end game content is simply lack luster at best....

If they want an online game people will play for a month to beat the story then never play again, then they seem to be on the right path.

Doesn't have to be a bad thing if the personal story is 100% solo (or do they mean soloable?). It all depends on how much other content there will be.

I'm more concerned whether the game is only Elder Scrolls because of the lore and that the gameplay will be another run of the mill MMO.

100% solo is always a very bad idea, if its done all the way from level 1 to max, thats not the purpose of playing a mmo.

I prefer the class quest like wow, where you have it here and there, and even requires a group to help you with it.

But done solo 100%, very bad in my pov...

Let me guess...

9 races, 3 per faction.  Each race has a starting area.  Personal storyline merges with the others in the faction after the starting area.  Solo quest to level cap, then PVP or run raid dungeons.

I don't know that any of this guess is valid, but it sure sounds familiar.

Originally posted by someforumguy

Doesn't have to be a bad thing if the personal story is 100% solo (or do they mean soloable?). It all depends on how much other content there will be.

I'm more concerned whether the game is only Elder Scrolls because of the lore and that the gameplay will be another run of the mill MMO.

There's already been more than enough info released, from Gameinformer and elsewhere, to answer that question. Yes, it will be another run of the mill circa 2004 mmo. And it won't even be the "real" TES lore, as they're making their own shit up as they go along to support their class/faction system.

Firor is out of touch, maybe not with the "typical" mmo game, but most certainly with ES fans.

The point of the ES games IS NOT that you're the hero, as he seems to think, but that you CAN CHOOSE not to be the hero.  If you just want to be a trader, youc an be a trader, if you want to be an alchemist you can just to that, if you only want to explore dungeons you can, if you want to hunt for ancient artifacts you can.  The entire premise of the ES games is the freedom to NOT BE the hero, to chose you're own path, not just in which order you'll visit quets hubs, but the role you take in the world as a whole.

He's completely missing this very important aspect of what makes the ES games great.  People do not play games for years on end because the main story line is great and they want to play it over and over.  It's because the game allows them the freedom to just keep on playing and experiencing the world from new vantage points, or to simply do whatever it is that they want to do whenever they want to do it, without the confines of HAVING to do something specific.

Something people maybe didn't pick up on, or maybe you guys didn't watch the actual video that the massively article got their information from.

There are quest hubs.  Just like in your standard, run of the mill MMO.  Only instead of the hubs being located in towns, they're located in other places.  Instead of going to the town near the "interesting tower off to your left", you will instead go to the tower and get quests, "it may even be a long quest chain".  After you do the quests a the tower "you would go to the bandit camp you saw nearby and do another series of quests", or you could go to the bandit camp and then go to the tower.  This may be reminiscent of the ES games, but it's still the same old moving from one quest hub to the next grinding quests.  How many times do I have to read an MMO review were the review says, "well it's still the same old, same old, typical quest grinding.", and this guy has the nerve to say that he knows what MMO players want?

That's funny, Bioware seems to think they new what MMO players wanted as well, and all I ever see is that the personal story was ok, but it made the game feel like a single player RPG with multiplayer thrown in. 

Oh, btw, he did indeed say, literally, that the person story is 100% SOLO!.  Not soloable, solo.  You do the personal story ALONE.  The personal story is the YOU in the world as the hero.  WTF is wrong with these developers that can't seem to grasp the single most important aspect of the genre of game they are making?  IT'S AN EFFING MMO.  Massively multiplayer!  Why do they think that single player stories is what a game designed to bring thousands of people together is what it needs.  It's entirely counter to the basic principle of what the game is supposed to be.

How the hell do you go from saying that you want people to play together, and that you want to make it cool, and then go on to say that what MMO's need are single player storylines that you do alone.  WTF!  Seriously?

And ladies and gentlemen, this is a guy that thinks that the critism that the game is receiving is good.  He beleives that we care about the game so much that we'll be the ones that play it. 

People, if this game releases the way they're saying it's going to, there will never be a proper ES mmo made.   This game will destroy any chance ES fans ever get of playing a Morrowind style MMO.  Do not settle for this hatchet job.  Make sure you voice your dislike of what they're doing to this game.

For the love of god, if you're an ES fan, do not buy it! 

And DAoC fans, you do not need this MMO if you're looking for 3 faction pvp ala DAoC.  Developers have heard you, they're making them, do not buy into this game just because they're doing 3 faction pvp. 

/endrant

i wish these jacka$$'s would stop telling us what we want.

single player story line? I dont like the idea and not just because of ESO but for all MMOs, its a silly concept.

Originally posted by Uhwop

Firor is out of touch, maybe not with the "typical" mmo game, but most certainly with ES fans.

The point of the ES games IS NOT that you're the hero, as he seems to think, but that you CAN CHOOSE not to be the hero.  If you just want to be a trader, youc an be a trader, if you want to be an alchemist you can just to that, if you only want to explore dungeons you can, if you want to hunt for ancient artifacts you can.  The entire premise of the ES games is the freedom to NOT BE the hero, to chose you're own path, not just in which order you'll visit quets hubs, but the role you take in the world as a whole.

He's completely missing this very important aspect of what makes the ES games great.  People do not play games for years on end because the main story line is great and they want to play it over and over.  It's because the game allows them the freedom to just keep on playing and experiencing the world from new vantage points, or to simply do whatever it is that they want to do whenever they want to do it, without the confines of HAVING to do something specific....

I would take it a steop further. In ES games you dont 'choose' your path you create your path. Maybe I want to try and surive the game without ever steping into a city, maybe I want to change my mind on that later on etc.

Here's a thought. What if most of the people playing TES games are playing it like they are describing the MMO? Single player, follow the story line to the end, then they move on to something else. Yes, there are a lot of people experimenting with playing an unarmed monk who can summon skeletons, thousands even, but the bulk of the population* is playing either a warrior type character, a rogue type character or a wizard character and following the story line to the end of the game.

Then it would lead the people developing the game to think that it's a perfectly acceptable way to write a massive scaled version of the game. I don't know if this is right, but it's at least one way that they could come to that conclusion.


* Millions, even.

Originally posted by lizardbones

Here's a thought. What if most of the people playing TES games are playing it like they are describing the MMO? Single player, follow the story line to the end, then they move on to something else. Yes, there are a lot of people experimenting with playing an unarmed monk who can summon skeletons, thousands even, but the bulk of the population* is playing either a warrior type character, a rogue type character or a wizard character and following the story line to the end of the game.

Then it would lead the people developing the game to think that it's a perfectly acceptable way to write a massive scaled version of the game. I don't know if this is right, but it's at least one way that they could come to that conclusion.


* Millions, even.

I say make it all simple and just make it like an improved version of Darkfall.

Maybe that is the whole problem, maybe for some legal patent reason they cant. So instead they have come up with this contorted POS.

Originally posted by Uhwop

Firor is out of touch, maybe not with the "typical" mmo game, but most certainly with ES fans.

The point of the ES games IS NOT that you're the hero, as he seems to think, but that you CAN CHOOSE not to be the hero.  If you just want to be a trader, youc an be a trader, if you want to be an alchemist you can just to that, if you only want to explore dungeons you can, if you want to hunt for ancient artifacts you can.  The entire premise of the ES games is the freedom to NOT BE the hero, to chose you're own path, not just in which order you'll visit quets hubs, but the role you take in the world as a whole.

He's completely missing this very important aspect of what makes the ES games great.  People do not play games for years on end because the main story line is great and they want to play it over and over.  It's because the game allows them the freedom to just keep on playing and experiencing the world from new vantage points, or to simply do whatever it is that they want to do whenever they want to do it, without the confines of HAVING to do something specific.

Something people maybe didn't pick up on, or maybe you guys didn't watch the actual video that the massively article got their information from.

There are quest hubs.  Just like in your standard, run of the mill MMO.  Only instead of the hubs being located in towns, they're located in other places.  Instead of going to the town near the "interesting tower off to your left", you will instead go to the tower and get quests, "it may even be a long quest chain".  After you do the quests a the tower "you would go to the bandit camp you saw nearby and do another series of quests", or you could go to the bandit camp and then go to the tower.  This may be reminiscent of the ES games, but it's still the same old moving from one quest hub to the next grinding quests.  How many times do I have to read an MMO review were the review says, "well it's still the same old, same old, typical quest grinding.", and this guy has the nerve to say that he knows what MMO players want?

That's funny, Bioware seems to think they new what MMO players wanted as well, and all I ever see is that the personal story was ok, but it made the game feel like a single player RPG with multiplayer thrown in. 

Oh, btw, he did indeed say, literally, that the person story is 100% SOLO!.  Not soloable, solo.  You do the personal story ALONE.  The personal story is the YOU in the world as the hero.  WTF is wrong with these developers that can't seem to grasp the single most important aspect of the genre of game they are making?  IT'S AN EFFING MMO.  Massively multiplayer!  Why do they think that single player stories is what a game designed to bring thousands of people together is what it needs.  It's entirely counter to the basic principle of what the game is supposed to be.

How the hell do you go from saying that you want people to play together, and that you want to make it cool, and then go on to say that what MMO's need are single player storylines that you do alone.  WTF!  Seriously?

 

And ladies and gentlemen, this is a guy that thinks that the critism that the game is receiving is good.  He beleives that we care about the game so much that we'll be the ones that play it. 

People, if this game releases the way they're saying it's going to, there will never be a proper ES mmo made.   This game will destroy any chance ES fans ever get of playing a Morrowind style MMO.  Do not settle for this hatchet job.  Make sure you voice your dislike of what they're doing to this game.

For the love of god, if you're an ES fan, do not buy it! 

And DAoC fans, you do not need this MMO if you're looking for 3 faction pvp ala DAoC.  Developers have heard you, they're making them, do not buy into this game just because they're doing 3 faction pvp. 

 

/endrant

That's not a rant, an excellent post is what it is.

Despite playing Oblivion like a million times with different mods (vanilla was just pure shit), I don't think I ever actually finished the main story line...

Originally posted by TROLL_HARD

The first SWTOR clone?

 

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/05/18/the-elder-scrolls-onlines-matt-firor-talks-100-solo-personal/

 

 

Actually the way the describe the no questing hub, limited skill bar,  and now solo story as well, sounds like the first GW2 clone.

Why would you turn the series into an MMO, which we already know is going to limit and remove gameplay mechanics from the single player series, and then make most of the game soloable?

Every new bit of information released on this game just makes me sicker and sicker..

Originally posted by PyrateLV

100% Soloable Personal Storyline = Instanced game from 1-max level

 

LAME!

 

And BTW. Its NOT a "Personal Story" unless mine is unique from every one elses.

But it wont be. It will be a Class, Race or Faction Storyline.

So everyone of the same class, race or faction will experience the same story.

 

NOT PERSONAL

 

I want to be in an MMO where I make MY own story. Not some pre-made POS story some Dev thinks is cool

So true! No one knows how each person wants to play their character. It is like trying to tell a PnP gamer how their character is going to react to each situation, this takes away from being personal.

Originally posted by Elikal

Guys, sorry, but I once thought like you, story was great and wonderful. Now... I kinda changed my mind, after experiencing SWTOR. You see, I love story as many here. But truth be told, story, if too much of it, always isolates people. Story makes players have a more dense comfort zone. If we are used to be hero in our story, we tend to be more averse to grouping with some strangers and risk diminish our heroic solo feeling. It puts people into the mindframe of a single player game. I have seen it in SWTOR. People swap to single player mode, and group less and less. I can see the same danger with the story-rich TSW happening.

So, no. Sorry. A bit story yes. But not "personal". LOTRO had story, but here you had zones for your group. You were a group of heroes, not a sole, lonesome hero. That is what we need, not this island isolation where in the end nobody feels connected to others anymore. If I want that, I have that 100 times better in single player games, where I am really the only hero. If I play a MMO, I want group experienced, a community. What good does it make when I defeat Mehrunes Dagon, when I am all alone? That's just boring and entirely defeats the feeling of a MMO. Was it not much greater when we defeat some powerful foe, and then have our friends to speak about the epic battle for a long time to come? To share these memories?

And what about people who don't WANT to be a hero? Who prefer to be Uncle Owen... err well some Khajit dude or whatever? Why does every dev assume now all MMO players WANT to be heroes? Lame!

 

Sorry, but I am profoundly burned of this entire "solo story" idea.

Or that "hero" means clearing out some leet dungeons.  I didn't mind being the economic hero, who made the RvR effort work due to my smart efficient supply lines.

I want a world with a story, a story for me to dive into and experience in the world.  I don't need an individual story.  My exploits can fill a book if I've played an MMO for over a year.  Tamriel would seem ideal for that.  it doesn't have to be strictly "sandbox" (though the more the better pl0x) but give me a living breathing world.

In Skyrim I can go exploring and get stopped by bandits who killed an Imperial, and are posing as him, trying to shake you down.  I can come across the woods of a father and daughter fighting over going to a wedding.  Or I can come across redguards trying to force a woman to return to Hammerfell to face judgement from one of the many rival houses.  I can intervene in these small ways, and that's enough to feel "heroic."  heroic doesn't need to mean I solo'ed a daedric prince.  (something which seems absurdly dumb to begin with.)