http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/07/17/the-soapbox-bioware-meet-zenimax-zenimax-this-is-bioware/

I recommed you read through this article. 

The author makes the point that the idea of a major SRPG IP from a major studio being transformed into a major MMORPG would have been met with almost unmixed approval by MMO fans.

However, the experience of SWTOR has led the news coming out of Zenimax to be treated with great suspicion and close scrutiny. At the moment, what many potential subscribers do not like what they see because there are just too many similarities to SWTOR.

- An attitude that the IP can create its own MMO dynamic that pays little attention to previously established MMO conventions

- Developers contemptuously dismissing legitimate queries and concerns by potential subscribers

- A marketing machine that may be veering out of control in its promises and hype

The article left me with a basic question:

WHY CAN'T GAME STUDIOS LEARN FROM THE MISTAKES OF OTHER GAMES AND OTHER STUDIOS?  LIKE SWTOR?

Loved it and agreed with everything. 

I'm sure a big "well shit" could be heard when they realized the genre is slowly moving away from 2007.

Originally posted by Alders

Loved it and agreed with everything. 

I'm sure a big "well shit" could be heard when they realized the genre is slowly moving away from 2007.

This feels true to me.  Like I see their big unveiling of TES:O and I'm thinking...this would have been exciting 5 years ago...but now you're kind of late to the party and bringing archaic and stale design mechanics with you.  Think about how much the industry has changed...2007 is the year Burning Crusade came out...and this game isn't even anywhere near to releasing and already it's like.../yawn. 

Oh I see what you did there with the fantasy... elves... and the holy trinity, and the gear grind, and the hotkey UI /passoutfromboredom

Originally posted by Korusus

Originally posted by Alders

Loved it and agreed with everything. 

I'm sure a big "well shit" could be heard when they realized the genre is slowly moving away from 2007.

This feels true to me.  Like I see their big unveiling of TES:O and I'm thinking...this would have been exciting 5 years ago...but now you're kind of late to the party and bringing archaic and stale design mechanics with you.  Think about how much the industry has changed...2007 is the year Burning Crusade came out...and this game isn't even anywhere near to releasing and already it's like.../yawn. 

Oh I see what you did there with the fantasy... elves... and the holy trinity, and the gear grind, and the hotkey UI /passoutfromboredom

Not all MMO players were raised on Caww of Doodie instant-gratification systems.

Some of us enjoy a longer, move involved playstyle with complex mechanics that the newer generations view as archaiac or too hard. Not every game needs to be super-casualized for CoD playing, FB lurking teenage mouthbreathers to themepark their way through.

For a gaming site that article is taboo is it not? Every now and then Massively goes against the grain and I love it. After TOR I wonder what's being said behind TESO closed doors. A lot of opps followed by cussing and newly installed Vaseline dispensers I suspect.

If TESO is following in TOR's footsteps then it's a flop before it launches. I really do hope TOR marks the last of the clones.

Two things are wrong with the OP. Namely, that the Hype is created by the developer. No, the Hype was started when fans crashed the site on many occasions as a result of announcing the game, beta, E3 stuff and news regarding the development cycle. The fans created the Hype. People who were calm and objective? They knew what they were getting and are satisfied with the product.

As for the Singleplayer IP. What was World of Warcraft?

Just to reiterate: the only poisoning of TESO is being done by the company making it.

When they have come out on multiple occasions in interviews and said (or meant) that:

1. The game is being made to play "like WoW".

2. Many of the elements people liked about the other ES games are not going to be in the MMO, some because they are "too hard" to implement, although several older MMOs have done so previously.

3. There will be very little gameplay like those ES games, and the world is "inspired by" the IP.

So as an ES  fan, I think  they have poisoned the waters pretty throughly and by their own press interviews.

As to parallels to TOR, the biggest one I can see is the attitude of the devs towards ES fans and the arrogance that they (the devs) know better than the people that buy and enjoy ES games, and that will be reflected in the MMO.

I am firmly convinced at this point that the Elder Scrolls name is being used solely to sell boxes and generate hype, and that the MMO will have next to nothing to do with the ES style gameplay or open world(s).

As such, I will not be buying.

Originally posted by oupslililolo

didnt know that 1mil active subs was a failure...

nice try op nice try...hate more plz it feeds me

How about the fact that many/most of the TOR top execs have been canned (or otherwise "moved on") along with 3/4 of the TOR workforce (after the company saying they wouldn't)?

That does not argue for success, by most measures....

Originally posted by Sindorin

Two things are wrong with the OP. Namely, that the Hype is created by the developer. No, the Hype was started when fans crashed the site on many occasions as a result of announcing the game, beta, E3 stuff and news regarding the development cycle. The fans created the Hype. People who were calm and objective? They knew what they were getting and are satisfied with the product.

 

As for the Singleplayer IP. What was World of Warcraft?

And number two.....?

Originally posted by oupslililolo

didnt know that 1mil active subs was a failure...

nice try op nice try...hate more plz it feeds me

SWTOR sold over 2 million copies, half of them had left by April(Yes the article is from early May, but the numbers are from April).

Check and mate.

Originally posted by noncley

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/07/17/the-soapbox-bioware-meet-zenimax-zenimax-this-is-bioware/

I recommed you read through this article. 

The author makes the point that the idea of a major SRPG IP from a major studio being transformed into a major MMORPG would have been met with almost unmixed approval by MMO fans.

However, the experience of SWTOR has led the news coming out of Zenimax to be treated with great suspicion and close scrutiny. At the moment, what many potential subscribers do not like what they see because there are just too many similarities to SWTOR.

- An attitude that the IP can create its own MMO dynamic that pays little attention to previously established MMO conventions

- Developers contemptuously dismissing legitimate queries and concerns by potential subscribers

- A marketing machine that may be veering out of control in its promises and hype

The article left me with a basic question:

WHY CAN'T GAME STUDIOS LEARN FROM THE MISTAKES OF OTHER GAMES AND OTHER STUDIOS?  LIKE SWTOR?

 

My question is why do fans and writers fail to learn from their mistakes.   This game hit the drawing board FIVE (or more) years ago.    Those mistakes were not known at the time the game was spec'd.  

And honestly, the mistakes of AoC, SWTOR, and Warhammer are the mistakes of poor development.   You can make a good 'themepark' MMO.   Just don't release a half-baked product.

But since the reviewers gave those half-baked MMOs passing grades...   They can't admit they were WRONG in their shallow reviews so they invent reasons why the games failed.   They failed because they sucked at being well-executed games.   Not because they used standard gaming conventions.

There's nothing wrong with a well-executed themepark.   But make it a shallow, gimmicky, bug-fest themepark...    Yeah, there's a problem.

Let's put it this way...   Two chefs have the same ingredients.   One is a master of his craft and make an incredible meal for which he can charge a pretty penny and maybe even becomes a celebrity chef.   The other thinks he's a great chef, because all his McDonald's-eating friends tell him he is, and make a hot mess and his restaurant goes out of business...

Originally posted by Cinatrot

Originally posted by Korusus

Originally posted by Alders

Loved it and agreed with everything. 

I'm sure a big "well shit" could be heard when they realized the genre is slowly moving away from 2007.

This feels true to me.  Like I see their big unveiling of TES:O and I'm thinking...this would have been exciting 5 years ago...but now you're kind of late to the party and bringing archaic and stale design mechanics with you.  Think about how much the industry has changed...2007 is the year Burning Crusade came out...and this game isn't even anywhere near to releasing and already it's like.../yawn. 

Oh I see what you did there with the fantasy... elves... and the holy trinity, and the gear grind, and the hotkey UI /passoutfromboredom

 

 

Not all MMO players were raised on Caww of Doodie instant-gratification systems.

 

Some of us enjoy a longer, move involved playstyle with complex mechanics that the newer generations view as archaiac or too hard. Not every game needs to be super-casualized for CoD playing, FB lurking teenage mouthbreathers to themepark their way through.

Okay, I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about.  The MMO industry has been super-casualized and simplified for over a decade, those mechanics ARE archaic by this point.  That is what TES:O is bringing to the table.  More of the same.  Unless you seem to be under some bizarre impression that TES:O will have a "more involved playstyle" or "complex mechanics".

Did you really read my post and think I thought TES:O would be too...challenging?  Really?  Do you honestly think Matt Firor is going to design anything other than a game that's "super-casualized for CoD playing, FB lurking teenage mouthbreathers to themepark their way through"?  You are in for a rude awakening if that's the case.

TES:O will be the most casual MMO released since SW:TOR, that's what makes it stale and uninteresting.

EDIT:  On reconsideration, I refuse to believe that anyone could ever think that TES:O would involve "complex mechanics that the newer generations view as archaic or too hard" because no one could possibly believe that.  I will assume you just misinterpreted my post.  A game with the challenge and depth of a classic pre-Trammel Ultima Online  would be doing something new in 2012, the exact opposite of archaic.

Originally posted by noncley

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/07/17/the-soapbox-bioware-meet-zenimax-zenimax-this-is-bioware/

I recommed you read through this article. 

The author makes the point that the idea of a major SRPG IP from a major studio being transformed into a major MMORPG would have been met with almost unmixed approval by MMO fans.

However, the experience of SWTOR has led the news coming out of Zenimax to be treated with great suspicion and close scrutiny. At the moment, what many potential subscribers do not like what they see because there are just too many similarities to SWTOR.

- An attitude that the IP can create its own MMO dynamic that pays little attention to previously established MMO conventions

- Developers contemptuously dismissing legitimate queries and concerns by potential subscribers

- A marketing machine that may be veering out of control in its promises and hype

The article left me with a basic question:

WHY CAN'T GAME STUDIOS LEARN FROM THE MISTAKES OF OTHER GAMES AND OTHER STUDIOS?  LIKE SWTOR?

 

Some would say and many obviously have, some succesfully that WOW has established conventions and for some of those devs it has worked.  One potential consumers is not anothers.

The second bullet point relates in ways to the first every idea will have many supporters and many detractors so we can only say what is a legitimate concern in hindsight.

Marketing being a problem is a truth to me because the truth is that every individual out there has been empowered in far greater leaps and bounds than marketing has.  The fact is and has been seen exhibited that those of us who are against a product have power that is moving towards rivaling these huge mmarketing campaign, people spend more than enough time tearing down what they don't like and by the time marketing enters the picture it's often to late to change manyof these things they have learned people are unwilling to accept.

It's going to be seriously difficult to find some system that hasn't existed in both a succesful game and also a failure so what is there to learn? All a dev can and often do is develop the best game they know how to and using the methodology that has worked for them to this point.

There are enough signs around for me to say, yes SWTOR fell short of both the developers and many of the people who bought it's expectations but I'm not sure that signifies a failure especially since at this point things are still being done to the game, when it reaches a WAR or Vangaurd level of emptiness and lack of development I can say that it is in fact a failure.

It's the same feeling I have about TESO I expect they are going to stick to what they know in developing this game and while it doesn't have the same hype for me as SWTOR did and still does I expect this game to translate much better to the mmo community than BW's style of game development.

I really don't know what gamers expect other than to see far less games being developed because I for one do not believe in tis day and age and at our technological standard that every single game can be EVE, or GW2.

The talk leads me to believe that gamers expect every single time they pick up a game it must not be familiar to them with all this talk of innovatio etc.. But agani what happens when GW2 has a smooth successful launch and it becomes the new standard and the new game to be "cloned" as so many like to put it?

trust me there will emerge another vocal element of players to continue to the cycle.  I say stop trying to treat mmorpg's like you play them forever, for all these people who talk like this you'd think that there is some magic game that they still play when often they have moved on from other favored mmorpgs and offline type of games.

We often seem to be smart enough to know if we aren't going to like a game long before it releases and then we also get to play many of these games before we purchase them as well if you don't like the game don't piss and moan over it find something you actually like and let the devs worry about the 75-100 million they blew on it's release if the fan base doesn't exist to support it.

Originally posted by MosesZD

My question is why do fans and writers fail to learn from their mistakes.   This game hit the drawing board FIVE (or more) years ago.    Those mistakes were not known at the time the game was spec'd.  

 

http://www.guildwars.com/events/tradeshows/gc2007/gcspeech.php   linked again yesterday ,nice to read from 2007

Originally posted by jagd1

Originally posted by MosesZD

My question is why do fans and writers fail to learn from their mistakes.   This game hit the drawing board FIVE (or more) years ago.    Those mistakes were not known at the time the game was spec'd.  

 

http://www.guildwars.com/events/tradeshows/gc2007/gcspeech.php   linked again yesterday ,nice to read from 2007

I think it's funny that the author of that article essentially says that TESO is targeted at RPG fans who do not play MMORPGs and do not play the Elder Scrolls games.

So...essentially no one :)?

Originally posted by ktanner3
I take it TESO will be the next forum that can look forward to many months of griping from the arm chair developers that work around here.

 "Arm chair" developers?  Hmm...that expression makes sense when applied to a profession that you really would not be sitting in an arm char to do.  Like...arm chair general, or arm chair quarterback...

But wouldn't a game developer basically be sitting at his desk in an arm chair to do his work?  Just saying :).

Doesn't the negativity generated from past failures drag down the entire industry, on an ongoing basis?

Oh, and you can quote me: "Dooom!"

I'm sure the makers of TESO feel like they're being unfairly picked on, but what's new?  Really?