Originally posted by Zylaxx

 

1. Aion(1 votes [2.04%] - View)

2. Percentage of vote: 2.04%

3. Asheron's Call (Darktide)(6 votes [12.24%] - View)

   Percentage of vote: 12.24%

4. Dark Age of Camelot(6 votes [12.24%] - View)

   Percentage of vote: 12.24%

5. Darkfall(3 votes [6.12%] - View)

   Percentage of vote: 6.12%

6. EVE Online(4 votes [8.16%] - View)

   Percentage of vote: 8.16%

7. Everquest 1 (Zek) (0 votes [0.00%])

   Percentage of vote: 0.00%

8. Everquest 2(1 votes [2.04%] - View)

   Percentage of vote: 2.04%

9. Guild Wars(1 votes [2.04%] - View)

   Percentage of vote: 2.04%

10. Lineage II (0 votes [0.00%])

    Percentage of vote: 0.00%

11. Rift(2 votes [4.08%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 4.08%

12. Runes of Magic(2 votes [4.08%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 4.08%

13. Shadowbane(5 votes [10.20%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 10.20%

14. Star Wars Galaxies(1 votes [2.04%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 2.04%

15. TERA Online(3 votes [6.12%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 6.12%

16. Ultima Online(8 votes [16.33%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 16.33%

17. Vanguard(2 votes [4.08%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 4.08%

18. Warhammer Online (0 votes [0.00%])

    Percentage of vote: 0.00%

19. World of Tanks(2 votes [4.08%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 4.08%

20. World of Warcraft(2 votes [4.08%] - View)

There's one.  A sampling of all 49 people, hardly a worthy sample. 

However, let's imagine the same ratio would exist at 20 million people.

Even in that case, the majority go for Ultima Online, an FFA PvP game.

2nd is tied between Asheron's Call Darktide yet another FFA PvP ruleset and DAOC, our beloved RvR.

The only other RvR game in there is Warhammer Online, zero votes, but there are two other FFA games on there, Darkfall and Shadowbane with three votes and five votes, respectively. 

Therefore, according to the poll you linked, that's 6 votes for RvR, 22 votes for FFA.  FFA wins by almost 4 times the number.

I appreciate the honesty, but this hardly supports your theory as it makes RvR the smallest minority of the preferred PvP type.

Where is this from, and when?  Please link the source, and link the exact question that was asked of this poll.

Also, the tentonhammer link I will dismiss, considering that it is one person's opinion, not a poll or sampling of any kind.  That person will probably be very excited for TESO just as you are.

Originally posted by Zylaxx

 

You honestly believe Zenimax is developing a game with a top end population of 250k players?

 

Delusional much?  It doesnt take a rocket scientist to use stats of potential players to reason they think alot of players will want to play.  From the TES single player gamers, to the MMO vets.

I don't see any polls you promised, just empty conjecture.

What I "believe" is that they began development in 2007, when the MMOG horizon was a gold rush of WoW-clones.  Now, after five years of development in one direction, that direction is now turning on them, and they will either adapt or die.

As their potetnial audience, we have only to wait and watch, and in the mean time to discuss to our heart's content.  Personally, I love train-wrecks, the slower, the better.

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Originally posted by Entinerint

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Originally posted by Entinerint

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Originally posted by jiveturkey12

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Originally posted by jiveturkey12

Elder Scrolls Online's core player base has been crippled from day one of the games annoucement. Here are my reasonings,

1. Hero Engine Debacle

When the game was first announced, one of the key features toted was the use of the same engine as Star Wars: The Old Republic, the very controversial "Hero Engine". As soon as the Game-Informer Article hit the internet forum posts blasting the use of the engine shot up right here on MMORPG.com; along with articles confirming this fan outry on Massivly and other major MMO publications. 

Here is where I give the ESO Devs some credit, as they quickly dispelled the previously announced feature as nothing more than a simple "Whiteboard" which they used to make the "Real Engine". But suspicions had already begun in the community since the original announcement, even diehard Elder Scrolls fans reamined wary, with features like "Voice-Overs" and All-Age Appropriate Graphics still confirmed, things started to seem too similar to other projects from the Hero Engine.

2. Game-Informer speaks Candidly about lack of Core Elder Scrolls Series Features

Along with the Game-Informer article also came a further hit to not only Hardcore Elder Scrolls fans, but also to the general fans of megahit "Skyrim"; the ES series most accesible link to the gaming community. Features like Player-Housing, Were-wolves, First-Person combat, wernt making the transition to the Elder Scrolls MMO "Because of the constraints inherent to an online game" according to the games developers, but Zenimax Online assued the fans they would be "including everything that makes sense."

3. Three-Factions, Race-Locked, No Imperials

So it wasnt long after Zenimax Promised to "Include Everything that makes sense", that they gave us information on the games core mechanics, which included Three Factions at war against each other. DAOC fans quickly flocked to the games forums and other sites giving the game its most solid boost of concurrent fans since the previous announcments. 

But even with the small impact the DAOC community gave to ESO, it was completely overshadowed by the complete abandonment of many Core Elder Scrolls fans, who saw the three race locked factions as a complete deviation from the games well standing lore, as well as a limit on player interaction between all races which had never been seen in a full fledged ES game before. 

The lack of a core ES Race (Imperials) from the mix, placing them instead as a more antagonistic NPC roll, also came across as a strange decision as they had always been a default choice for many first time players of the game not familiar with the ES lore. (This is because of the overtly "European-American" look Imperials have)

In Conclusion - A Mature Audience detracted by an Adolescent game

So now what we are left with is a completely divided community, ESO's target audience has been consistently shown to be All-Age Appropriate, even though the core features of the Elder Scrolls Franchise have always been more adult-themed/ oriented. The advent of DAOC fans to the game is a fair audience but incomparable numbers wise to the outflux of core Elder Scrolls fans, and Adult Gamers who made up the games Core Audience.

Does anyone feel that ESO can recover from such poor early development/PR choices?

Considering hte core Audience for TES games are console gamers and not MMO players is this such a bad thing?  The vast majority of TES games sales is, and always will be from consoles and the modding community.  TESO attempts to give MMO gamers a game remeniscent of older style MMO's within a framework of lore and game design elements of TES.  Along the way there will alot of players from both the console and the MMO.  I can definitly state that if TESO was a port of Skyrim into a MMO, aint no way in hell would I play it.  Mainly because I hate the combat in TES but primarily a true port to MMO would HAVE to include open conflict, FFA style ganking style PvP.  Aint no way will I ever play any style of non consentual PvP.

First off, your completely mislead with this statement. There is no modding community on the xbox, the only modding community for TES has always been on the PC ONLY. Therfore you just stated that the vast majority of game sales are from consoles but also PC sales. I believe that means there is a contradiction in your own statements. 

And I think its a little obvious that PC sales of Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowing were all very high. Are you counting Steam sales of Elder Scrolls games as well? Yes they were not the numbers of the console but thats simply because of accesibility, not because of the type of gamer. So im sorry my friend but you are wrong on all counts here. 

Are you telling me that you believe Console gamers would be more interested in a Thrid-person Themepark MMO rather than a Mature First Person MMO?? 

Reading comprehension much?  I said the 2 biggest sources of TES community is Consoles and Modders.  Note the inclusion of the word "And", which is typical used in the english language to convey: (used to connect grammatically coordinate words, phrases, or clauses) along or together with; as well as; in addition to; besides; also; moreover:"

 

In other words it means to differentiate the 2 groups anot to imply them being the same group: If I had said The Modding Console community then you would be correct but since I split the 2 groups with the word "and" it is implcitly meant to distinguish 2 groups of gamers.

 

No my post was to show that the vast majority of TES fans belong to 2 distiinct groups, and (theres that word again which means I am about to seperate 2 different things so follow along here) to show that in order to make a successful MMO then you MUST appeal to the MMO crowd.  Zenimax is hoping to get enough of those 2 crowds (well mainly the console crowd) to hopefully come over to the PC market while attempting to appeal to the MMO vets.  They could of done this a different way, but then again market analysis shows that WoW clones dont do well and the director is a former Mythic employee (of DAoC fame) it stands to reason the decision from the start of development was to capture some of the magic of RvR DAoC crowd.  Common sense dictates the reasoning behind this concept and as much as you may not like it or dont agree with it, it is a valid and totally legitimate endeavor.  Primarily due to already knowing that the MMO version will not appeal to the console gamer and it isnt feasible to make a WoW clone so what else is left.

The numbers deceive you.

2.5 million Skyrim sales on PC to date.

250,000 DOAC players at its peak.

Even if every single last one of them (including myself) return, that is 10% of the potential userbase if they'd catered to the TES PC users.

Not all 2.5 million of those Skyrim users are modders, sorry to burst your bubble.

7.1 million for consoles and 1.7 million for PC, so again why wouldnt they create the MMO version for the PC crowd (i.e. MMO)

 

DAoC also came out during the pre-WoW era and 250k at that time was #1 or #2 for subscribers.  Any future statistics must include a Largely and exponentialy greater playerbase of the MMO market.

No, 2.45 million (to be exact), not 1.7. 

Oh ok, we'll just throw the numbers out the window and make baseless assumptions based merely on prejudice since the numbers suddenly aren't working in your favor. 

You must realize that, the only people hungering for DAOC's RVR to return, the userbase you are counting on to save your precious TESO, are those who played DAOC and enjoyed it.  If 250,000 is your sample base, then you must account for those who didn't enjoy it enough to be waiting for another game to utilize the RvR system for the next 10 years.

At best, most generous estimate, I give you 10%, 25,000 people.

Let's say they charge 60$ at retail and 15$/mo to those 25,000 people.

In order to break even on their 300 million dollar budget, they will need appoximately 900 months to do so.  That's 75 years.

Good luck with that.

Again you are dismissing the fact that the MMO market is hundreds, if not thousands of times greater then it was in 2002.  I can also scientifically prove using statistics that is 250k players (out of the 1million of that time) liked and consider DAoC to be one of the best MMO's on the market in 2002, it isnt out of the realm of impossiblity to extrapolate that number into todays market share.  Say 20 million MMO players today (and thats being very conservative) out of that, 25% will play TESO.  Those are astronomically high numbe rs of potential players.  Now I am not saying TESO will have a playerbase of 5 million but it sure as hell will have alot more then 250K just by using common sense and reasoning quatifiable by statistics.

Let me spell this out for you very specifically, because you do not understand how this works:

THE. ONLY. PEOPLE. WHO. CAN. LONG. FOR. DAOC'S. RVR. ARE. PEOPLE. WHO. PLAYED. DAOC.

THAT. IS. 250,000. PEOPLE.

Those people do not "inflate" in some way, no extrapolation possible.  No one who hasn't played DAOC longs for DAOC's RvR.  There is no expansion of their people.

Again, link the polls, link that so-called proof.  If you can show me 20 million votes, or 250,000, or even 25,000, I'll even accept 2,500 voting for RvR in a poll that includes RvR, FFA, and Instanced PvP then I will concede.

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Originally posted by Entinerint

Originally posted by ShakyMo
1 its using a heavily modified version of the skyrim engine.

Tes core audience is CONSOLE GAMERS

LOL no it is not using a heavily modified version of the Skyrim engine, NOWHERE does it say that.  They built their own engine from scratch after the Hero engine was used as a prototyping system.

Of the 11 million Skyrim sales to date, approximately 2.5 million of those were on the PC.  That's more users than any MMO has ever launched with.  SWTOR came close at 2.1 million.

Also, the move to add Mac support will allow many console gamers, who might have a Mac instead of a PC, to connect as well.

There is no solid dividing line between PC and console gamers, I have a PC, a 360 and a PS3.  My girlfriend has a Wii so that completes the console trifecta in our household.  PC is my main gaming platform, but I have the other consoles for exclusives I might want to try.  There is a lot of cross-pollination and many people who bought Skyrim on the 360 or PS3 might have had a computer that could run it, but didn't bother because they prefer the controller, the couch and/or the big-screen tv.

Originally posted by Zylaxx
I could care less what TES fans think or believe.  As a fan of RvR content, and open world PvE freedom of exploration style content I coudlnt be happier.  IMO they have the best of both worlds in TES and DAoC while culling the stuff that sucked.  Like DAoC's grind centric camp spawning PvE and TES FPS combat and boring and archaic combat.

As I said before, this is not a core userbase, this is roughly 500 people who will come to this game just for the RvR.  How many people still play DAOC?  If it was that amazing, trumping all other issues, it would have kept that audience, but it's not, it's actually rather boring after about a month, becuase there's nothing dynamic, it is the same boring game of tug-of-war over and over.

The OP's assessment is fair, their core userbase is/was TES fans and they utterly squandered it.  What do they have left: 250,000 or so MMO nomads who will go back to WoW once they've reached max level and 500-1000 hardcore RvR nutjobs who hang out in Cyrodiil the whole time.

Hope and wishful thinking doesnt mean nothing whne talking of statistics.  Any and every poll about DAoC has always claimed it to be one of the greatest MMO's in the history of the genre and any poll taken today will show alot of old school vets want a rebirth of DAoC.  What better way then with a reconizable IP.  Where did you come up with this scientific number of 500 [eople anyway?  You do realize that MMORPG.com is not the only MMO forum right?  There are potentially millions of gamers that want something like this.  I also pulled that number out of my ass but unlike you, I have history, an d countless forums posts to back it up.

Please, I emplore you, show me one of these "polls."

Also, I gave you a much more generous sampling above, enjoy, ;)

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Originally posted by Entinerint

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Originally posted by jiveturkey12

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Originally posted by jiveturkey12

Elder Scrolls Online's core player base has been crippled from day one of the games annoucement. Here are my reasonings,

1. Hero Engine Debacle

When the game was first announced, one of the key features toted was the use of the same engine as Star Wars: The Old Republic, the very controversial "Hero Engine". As soon as the Game-Informer Article hit the internet forum posts blasting the use of the engine shot up right here on MMORPG.com; along with articles confirming this fan outry on Massivly and other major MMO publications. 

Here is where I give the ESO Devs some credit, as they quickly dispelled the previously announced feature as nothing more than a simple "Whiteboard" which they used to make the "Real Engine". But suspicions had already begun in the community since the original announcement, even diehard Elder Scrolls fans reamined wary, with features like "Voice-Overs" and All-Age Appropriate Graphics still confirmed, things started to seem too similar to other projects from the Hero Engine.

2. Game-Informer speaks Candidly about lack of Core Elder Scrolls Series Features

Along with the Game-Informer article also came a further hit to not only Hardcore Elder Scrolls fans, but also to the general fans of megahit "Skyrim"; the ES series most accesible link to the gaming community. Features like Player-Housing, Were-wolves, First-Person combat, wernt making the transition to the Elder Scrolls MMO "Because of the constraints inherent to an online game" according to the games developers, but Zenimax Online assued the fans they would be "including everything that makes sense."

3. Three-Factions, Race-Locked, No Imperials

So it wasnt long after Zenimax Promised to "Include Everything that makes sense", that they gave us information on the games core mechanics, which included Three Factions at war against each other. DAOC fans quickly flocked to the games forums and other sites giving the game its most solid boost of concurrent fans since the previous announcments. 

But even with the small impact the DAOC community gave to ESO, it was completely overshadowed by the complete abandonment of many Core Elder Scrolls fans, who saw the three race locked factions as a complete deviation from the games well standing lore, as well as a limit on player interaction between all races which had never been seen in a full fledged ES game before. 

The lack of a core ES Race (Imperials) from the mix, placing them instead as a more antagonistic NPC roll, also came across as a strange decision as they had always been a default choice for many first time players of the game not familiar with the ES lore. (This is because of the overtly "European-American" look Imperials have)

In Conclusion - A Mature Audience detracted by an Adolescent game

So now what we are left with is a completely divided community, ESO's target audience has been consistently shown to be All-Age Appropriate, even though the core features of the Elder Scrolls Franchise have always been more adult-themed/ oriented. The advent of DAOC fans to the game is a fair audience but incomparable numbers wise to the outflux of core Elder Scrolls fans, and Adult Gamers who made up the games Core Audience.

Does anyone feel that ESO can recover from such poor early development/PR choices?

Considering hte core Audience for TES games are console gamers and not MMO players is this such a bad thing?  The vast majority of TES games sales is, and always will be from consoles and the modding community.  TESO attempts to give MMO gamers a game remeniscent of older style MMO's within a framework of lore and game design elements of TES.  Along the way there will alot of players from both the console and the MMO.  I can definitly state that if TESO was a port of Skyrim into a MMO, aint no way in hell would I play it.  Mainly because I hate the combat in TES but primarily a true port to MMO would HAVE to include open conflict, FFA style ganking style PvP.  Aint no way will I ever play any style of non consentual PvP.

First off, your completely mislead with this statement. There is no modding community on the xbox, the only modding community for TES has always been on the PC ONLY. Therfore you just stated that the vast majority of game sales are from consoles but also PC sales. I believe that means there is a contradiction in your own statements. 

And I think its a little obvious that PC sales of Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowing were all very high. Are you counting Steam sales of Elder Scrolls games as well? Yes they were not the numbers of the console but thats simply because of accesibility, not because of the type of gamer. So im sorry my friend but you are wrong on all counts here. 

Are you telling me that you believe Console gamers would be more interested in a Thrid-person Themepark MMO rather than a Mature First Person MMO?? 

Reading comprehension much?  I said the 2 biggest sources of TES community is Consoles and Modders.  Note the inclusion of the word "And", which is typical used in the english language to convey: (used to connect grammatically coordinate words, phrases, or clauses) along or together with; as well as; in addition to; besides; also; moreover:"

 

In other words it means to differentiate the 2 groups anot to imply them being the same group: If I had said The Modding Console community then you would be correct but since I split the 2 groups with the word "and" it is implcitly meant to distinguish 2 groups of gamers.

 

No my post was to show that the vast majority of TES fans belong to 2 distiinct groups, and (theres that word again which means I am about to seperate 2 different things so follow along here) to show that in order to make a successful MMO then you MUST appeal to the MMO crowd.  Zenimax is hoping to get enough of those 2 crowds (well mainly the console crowd) to hopefully come over to the PC market while attempting to appeal to the MMO vets.  They could of done this a different way, but then again market analysis shows that WoW clones dont do well and the director is a former Mythic employee (of DAoC fame) it stands to reason the decision from the start of development was to capture some of the magic of RvR DAoC crowd.  Common sense dictates the reasoning behind this concept and as much as you may not like it or dont agree with it, it is a valid and totally legitimate endeavor.  Primarily due to already knowing that the MMO version will not appeal to the console gamer and it isnt feasible to make a WoW clone so what else is left.

The numbers deceive you.

2.5 million Skyrim sales on PC to date.

250,000 DOAC players at its peak.

Even if every single last one of them (including myself) return, that is 10% of the potential userbase if they'd catered to the TES PC users.

Not all 2.5 million of those Skyrim users are modders, sorry to burst your bubble.

7.1 million for consoles and 1.7 million for PC, so again why wouldnt they create the MMO version for the PC crowd (i.e. MMO)

 

DAoC also came out during the pre-WoW era and 250k at that time was #1 or #2 for subscribers.  Any future statistics must include a Largely and exponentialy greater playerbase of the MMO market.

No, 2.45 million (to be exact), not 1.7. 

Oh ok, we'll just throw the numbers out the window and make baseless assumptions based merely on prejudice since the numbers suddenly aren't working in your favor. 

You must realize that, the only people hungering for DAOC's RVR to return, the userbase you are counting on to save your precious TESO, are those who played DAOC and enjoyed it.  If 250,000 is your sample base, then you must account for those who didn't enjoy it enough to be waiting for another game to utilize the RvR system for the next 10 years.

At best, most generous estimate, I give you 10%, 25,000 people.

Let's say they charge 60$ at retail and 15$/mo to those 25,000 people.

In order to break even on their 300 million dollar budget, they will need appoximately 900 months to do so.  That's 75 years.

Good luck with that.

PS: even with all 250,000, 7.5 years to break even.  Not a good timeframe.

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Originally posted by jiveturkey12

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Originally posted by jiveturkey12

Elder Scrolls Online's core player base has been crippled from day one of the games annoucement. Here are my reasonings,

1. Hero Engine Debacle

When the game was first announced, one of the key features toted was the use of the same engine as Star Wars: The Old Republic, the very controversial "Hero Engine". As soon as the Game-Informer Article hit the internet forum posts blasting the use of the engine shot up right here on MMORPG.com; along with articles confirming this fan outry on Massivly and other major MMO publications. 

Here is where I give the ESO Devs some credit, as they quickly dispelled the previously announced feature as nothing more than a simple "Whiteboard" which they used to make the "Real Engine". But suspicions had already begun in the community since the original announcement, even diehard Elder Scrolls fans reamined wary, with features like "Voice-Overs" and All-Age Appropriate Graphics still confirmed, things started to seem too similar to other projects from the Hero Engine.

2. Game-Informer speaks Candidly about lack of Core Elder Scrolls Series Features

Along with the Game-Informer article also came a further hit to not only Hardcore Elder Scrolls fans, but also to the general fans of megahit "Skyrim"; the ES series most accesible link to the gaming community. Features like Player-Housing, Were-wolves, First-Person combat, wernt making the transition to the Elder Scrolls MMO "Because of the constraints inherent to an online game" according to the games developers, but Zenimax Online assued the fans they would be "including everything that makes sense."

3. Three-Factions, Race-Locked, No Imperials

So it wasnt long after Zenimax Promised to "Include Everything that makes sense", that they gave us information on the games core mechanics, which included Three Factions at war against each other. DAOC fans quickly flocked to the games forums and other sites giving the game its most solid boost of concurrent fans since the previous announcments. 

But even with the small impact the DAOC community gave to ESO, it was completely overshadowed by the complete abandonment of many Core Elder Scrolls fans, who saw the three race locked factions as a complete deviation from the games well standing lore, as well as a limit on player interaction between all races which had never been seen in a full fledged ES game before. 

The lack of a core ES Race (Imperials) from the mix, placing them instead as a more antagonistic NPC roll, also came across as a strange decision as they had always been a default choice for many first time players of the game not familiar with the ES lore. (This is because of the overtly "European-American" look Imperials have)

In Conclusion - A Mature Audience detracted by an Adolescent game

So now what we are left with is a completely divided community, ESO's target audience has been consistently shown to be All-Age Appropriate, even though the core features of the Elder Scrolls Franchise have always been more adult-themed/ oriented. The advent of DAOC fans to the game is a fair audience but incomparable numbers wise to the outflux of core Elder Scrolls fans, and Adult Gamers who made up the games Core Audience.

Does anyone feel that ESO can recover from such poor early development/PR choices?

Considering hte core Audience for TES games are console gamers and not MMO players is this such a bad thing?  The vast majority of TES games sales is, and always will be from consoles and the modding community.  TESO attempts to give MMO gamers a game remeniscent of older style MMO's within a framework of lore and game design elements of TES.  Along the way there will alot of players from both the console and the MMO.  I can definitly state that if TESO was a port of Skyrim into a MMO, aint no way in hell would I play it.  Mainly because I hate the combat in TES but primarily a true port to MMO would HAVE to include open conflict, FFA style ganking style PvP.  Aint no way will I ever play any style of non consentual PvP.

First off, your completely mislead with this statement. There is no modding community on the xbox, the only modding community for TES has always been on the PC ONLY. Therfore you just stated that the vast majority of game sales are from consoles but also PC sales. I believe that means there is a contradiction in your own statements. 

And I think its a little obvious that PC sales of Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowing were all very high. Are you counting Steam sales of Elder Scrolls games as well? Yes they were not the numbers of the console but thats simply because of accesibility, not because of the type of gamer. So im sorry my friend but you are wrong on all counts here. 

Are you telling me that you believe Console gamers would be more interested in a Thrid-person Themepark MMO rather than a Mature First Person MMO?? 

Reading comprehension much?  I said the 2 biggest sources of TES community is Consoles and Modders.  Note the inclusion of the word "And", which is typical used in the english language to convey: (used to connect grammatically coordinate words, phrases, or clauses) along or together with; as well as; in addition to; besides; also; moreover:"

 

In other words it means to differentiate the 2 groups anot to imply them being the same group: If I had said The Modding Console community then you would be correct but since I split the 2 groups with the word "and" it is implcitly meant to distinguish 2 groups of gamers.

 

No my post was to show that the vast majority of TES fans belong to 2 distiinct groups, and (theres that word again which means I am about to seperate 2 different things so follow along here) to show that in order to make a successful MMO then you MUST appeal to the MMO crowd.  Zenimax is hoping to get enough of those 2 crowds (well mainly the console crowd) to hopefully come over to the PC market while attempting to appeal to the MMO vets.  They could of done this a different way, but then again market analysis shows that WoW clones dont do well and the director is a former Mythic employee (of DAoC fame) it stands to reason the decision from the start of development was to capture some of the magic of RvR DAoC crowd.  Common sense dictates the reasoning behind this concept and as much as you may not like it or dont agree with it, it is a valid and totally legitimate endeavor.  Primarily due to already knowing that the MMO version will not appeal to the console gamer and it isnt feasible to make a WoW clone so what else is left.

The numbers deceive you.

2.5 million Skyrim sales on PC to date.

250,000 DOAC players at its peak.

Even if every single last one of them (including myself) return, that is 10% of the potential userbase if they'd catered to the TES PC users.

Not all 2.5 million of those Skyrim users are modders, sorry to burst your bubble.

Even at the time of ESO's inception, Oblivion outsold DAOC's peak numbers on PC by over double.

Originally posted by OG_Zorvan

Originally posted by Entinerint

Originally posted by OG_Zorvan

Originally posted by PyrateLV

The one thing that keeps nagging at me about TESO, other than the fact that its nothing more than DAoC2 + Standard Themepark stuff in an Elder Scrolls skin, is the whole "Hero Engine..oh wait...Not Hero Engine" issue.

 

When Zenimax first announced the game, they made a point of mentioning the Hero Engine. Then, only after they got lambasted by the community about it, did they retract/ammend that statement to say that they were ONLY using the HE as a "Whiteboard" and they were creating their own "In-House" engine for the actual game.

Ok...so why even mention the HE in the first place? Why not just state from the beginning that are you creating your own engine for the game?

Something about that still just doesnt sit right

It really is a shame EAware tarnished the HeroEngine brand so badly. Especially since SWToR's version of HEroEngine is mostly cobbled together scraps of code and only HeroEngine in name.

HeroEngine itself is a damn fine game engine.

In fact, if Zenimax had instead thrown EAware under the bus and pointed out for those who still don't know that the HeroEngine SWToR uses wasn't even a finished alpha when they licensed it ( and the HeroEngine creator even warned them the engine was nowhere ready but EAware said "It's okay, we'll fix it our way anyway." ), it would have looked a lot better for Zenimax than trying to dodge the HE issue.

Of course, that still wouldn't change the fact Zenimax is trying their hardest to make TES look like SWToR art-wise.

Except for the fact that ESO started development in 2007, so they would have also been using an early alpha of the engine.

Except the difference would be this: EAware shut out the Heroengine devs, the heroEngine devs had no input and designed no code or updates for EAware's version for years before release.

So, if Zenimax has been working in tandem with the HeroEngine devs the whole time ( like an intelligent company would ) then the TESO version of HeroEngine would be up-to-date with updates and fixes provided by the HeroEngine devs.

Big difference.

Good point, this is hopefully the case.

Regardless, an engine is only as good as the team developing for it.  A bad team can make Cryengine look like crap and a good team can make something amazing with Ogre.

With sentiments like "housing is too hard" and "real-time combat is impossible," I have little faith in the bloated, over-funded and visionless team.

Originally posted by znaiika

Originally posted by Entinerint

Originally posted by znaiika

Yes, you can explore the whole world of Tamriel without making extra toons.

Doesn't actually say that, and it was confirmed from their official twitter that you cannot go into other faction territory, just your own two or three provinces and cyrodiil (for PvP).  They were very clear.

You don't have to tell me that, I know very well, if you're pvp you can't go to enemy teritory without fear, someone will kill you, but you still can if no one see you or you just ask for permission to enter.

Wrong.  Everyone is PvP.  You aren't forced to PvP but if you enter Cyrodiil you are automatically PvP.  This isn't SWG, where you can unflag yourself, or choose not to join a faction. 

If you are in the Daggerfall Convenant (which you automatically are if you choose Breton, Orsimer or Redguard) you will only ever see the provinces oh High Rock, Hammerfell and Cyrodiil.  You can not cross into another faction's province.  It's that simple, and that stupid.

Originally posted by OG_Zorvan

Originally posted by PyrateLV

The one thing that keeps nagging at me about TESO, other than the fact that its nothing more than DAoC2 + Standard Themepark stuff in an Elder Scrolls skin, is the whole "Hero Engine..oh wait...Not Hero Engine" issue.

 

When Zenimax first announced the game, they made a point of mentioning the Hero Engine. Then, only after they got lambasted by the community about it, did they retract/ammend that statement to say that they were ONLY using the HE as a "Whiteboard" and they were creating their own "In-House" engine for the actual game.

Ok...so why even mention the HE in the first place? Why not just state from the beginning that are you creating your own engine for the game?

Something about that still just doesnt sit right

It really is a shame EAware tarnished the HeroEngine brand so badly. Especially since SWToR's version of HEroEngine is mostly cobbled together scraps of code and only HeroEngine in name.

HeroEngine itself is a damn fine game engine.

In fact, if Zenimax had instead thrown EAware under the bus and pointed out for those who still don't know that the HeroEngine SWToR uses wasn't even a finished alpha when they licensed it ( and the HeroEngine creator even warned them the engine was nowhere ready but EAware said "It's okay, we'll fix it our way anyway." ), it would have looked a lot better for Zenimax than trying to dodge the HE issue.

Of course, that still wouldn't change the fact Zenimax is trying their hardest to make TES look like SWToR art-wise.

Except for the fact that ESO started development in 2007, so they would have also been using an early alpha of the engine.

Originally posted by AdamTM

Originally posted by Entinerint

Originally posted by AdamTM

 

It would be more interesting if they pulled an XCOM and the game got delayed by 10 years to "fix" it.... and then fail anyways.

Hahaha, that would be pretty hilarious, except XCOM is doing exceedingly well for a turn-based strategy game.

I meant the betreyal XCOM

The FPS/TPS

 

Oh right, almost totally forgot about that one, I thought it was cancelled, much like I hope TESO ends up being (although with 300 mil in investment and 5 years of dev time, that is unlikely).

Originally posted by znaiika

Yes, you can explore the whole world of Tamriel without making extra toons.

Doesn't actually say that, and it was confirmed from their official twitter that you cannot go into other faction territory, just your own two or three provinces and cyrodiil (for PvP).  They were very clear.

Originally posted by MercArcher

 

Personal attacks are completely uncalled for. I've reported your post.

 

There haven't been many AAA mmos that have made their own engine, and Bethesda is known for making amazing engines so this is a huge positive.

 

If you think RvR is something other that what I described then you do not know what RvR is.

 

A for my 24 post count I don't normally post here and I'm regretting starting because the entire community seems to be full of trolls th just brand everything wow clones even when they are nothing like wow.

LMFAO accusing someone of trolling is not a personal attack.  Especially when you turn around and accurse the ENTIRE COMMUNITY of being FULL OF TROLLS. 

Maybe I should report your post.

Or perhaps you are right, you should leave, and find somehwere that logic and common sense do not invade.

In response to your content:

Amazing engines?  You mean they "made" Gamebryo? (they didn't) And that Gamebryo was "amazing?" (It isn't)  Aside from how buggy and unoptimized their licensed engines are, and often the games, as a result (keep in mind I am a huge fan of TES) Bethesda is not the developer of TESO, just the publisher.  Publishers do not make engines.  This is why people might think you're trolling.  The utter seemingly willful ignorance, paired with incredulous and utterly untrue assertions, makes it plausible that you might be trolling.

RVR is a very specific type of gameplay, unlike others I don't find it to be very vague and I think your assessment of it is about right, which is weird, becuase that's about the only thing you seem to understand.

Originally posted by AdamTM

 

It would be more interesting if they pulled an XCOM and the game got delayed by 10 years to "fix" it.... and then fail anyways.

Hahaha, that would be pretty hilarious, except XCOM is doing exceedingly well for a turn-based strategy game.

Originally posted by jiveturkey12

Originally posted by Zylaxx
I could care less what TES fans think or believe.  As a fan of RvR content, and open world PvE freedom of exploration style content I coudlnt be happier.  IMO they have the best of both worlds in TES and DAoC while culling the stuff that sucked.  Like DAoC's grind centric camp spawning PvE and TES FPS combat and boring and archaic combat.

You dont have to care what TES Fans think or believe, you dont even have to follow the core-gamer crowd who ususally plays mature games like Skyrim. 

If you honstly believe that ESO can support a stable player base on RvR fans, DAOC Fans, and Children ages 9-15, then yes by all means go ahead. No one is saying your not aloud to believe that, passionately or otherwise.

What I am explicitly stating is that Zenimax Online Crippled its own Core Player Base when they decided to alienate the Mature community that concurrently buys Elder Scrolls games along with alienating the "Skyrim-Only" crowd, or people who know Elder Scrolls simply from the "Skyrim" Brand. The game represents nothing appetizing for either of those two audiences which make up a massive amount of possible future sales for "Elder Scrolls" online.

Do you think that Zenimax Online is honestly doing their best job securing this games future development and release?

I believe your OP hit the nail on the head.

However I wonder what you would say to their incredible backtracking during E3 when the message of "MMO fans will feel at home" changed drastically to "TES fans will feel at home?" 

Then, after E3, they all but vanished into nothing.  Excuses were made, like Dishonored being Bethesda's focus marketing wise, and the incoming GW2 clouding the hype-space, but now that both of those excuses are moot, we still haven't heard anything aside from the odd twitter clue.

Developers might not often listen to their fanbases, but publishers certainly do, especially when the outcry is so vocal.  I can imagine that there was a shitstorm in Bethesda Softworks when the reaction came down the pipe, and that shitstorm landed heavily on ZOS' head.

There are several possibilites for this of course.

Perhaps they have heard the outcry, and have gone silent, hard at work to bring TES fans what they want, and what the IP deserves.

The only other option I can think of is that they've buried their heads in the sand completely until beta, and we won't hear anything else until they're ready to start showing their gameplay, hoping everyone's forgotten their first impression.

Originally posted by deamian
I don't need a savior for any of the 6+ mmo's I currently have installed and play, they all have good qualities and good variety, and none of them have "KILLED" one another.. *gasp*

It would be interesting to know which 6 they are, and if they have a subscription or are F2P.

My currently installed MMOs are:

Darkfall (even though it's going to be wiped soon, it's still tons of fun, sub-based)

Planetside 2 (Beta, f2p but I did drop 40$ on alpha squad because it is an incredibly fun game)

GW2 (B2P)

SWG (Emulated pre-NGE server, tons of fun, also has a wipe upcoming, totally free)

Fallen Earth (Freemium - I am not paying any money but it is fun to RP and explore in)

Originally posted by jiveturkey12

Originally posted by MercArcher
RvR is a persistent  PvP battle between multiple faction over open worl objectives such as forts, towers, ect. WoW has never had this. The closest they had to it was the vault control event that happened like ever 4 hours.

 

Really though? No one can tell this dude is trolling? If he didnt get you from the start with "Making their own engine", he has to have got you here. I swear people love taking the bait around here, really helps all the constructive posts out when they get flooded by obvious trolls like this guy with his massive 24 post count ooooo maaaan

Pretty sure he's not trolling, pretty sure he's employed by Zenimax Online Studios.

Originally posted by Fagmod

Originally posted by ShakyMo

why would WOW players vote RvR?

WOW doesnt have RVR

Then what would you call Horde vs Alliance? FFAPvP?

Well, on the PvP servers its almost FFA, without any full-loot systems.  It's actually the only real fun to be had in WoW, and they killed that with the flying mounts usable everywhere.

But it's also not RvR, it's more just instanced battlegrounds and arenas.  PvP in WoW, unless you're on a PvP server, is about as simple and tame as it gets.

Originally posted by AdamTM

Originally posted by ShakyMo
1 its using a heavily modified version of the skyrim engine.

Tes core audience is CONSOLE GAMERS

If its console gamers they better have controller support and a 360 version then.

We all know those dirty console peasants get confused with a mouse and keyboard, their feeble minds can't comprehend that many buttons.

It's scientifically proven.

I'm not a brony or anything, but holy shit your avatar made your comment so much more hilarious!

Originally posted by znaiika

Originally posted by ShakyMo
The game will probably have ffa servers too. I don't see why not, its heavily influenced by daoc and that as well as core servers also had a ffa pvp server called mordred and a coop pve server.

Two different servers, one for pvp and one coop pve?

Why not? that will bring more subs, more subs better maintaining as a whole.

I am not against of having two servers.

I am holding out hope this happens at the very least, but it is very doubtful, since this has been proven to fracture player-bases and that is very bad for an MMO community.  Now they just have to fix the combat and make it like TES.

Originally posted by ShakyMo
1 its using a heavily modified version of the skyrim engine.

Tes core audience is CONSOLE GAMERS

LOL no it is not using a heavily modified version of the Skyrim engine, NOWHERE does it say that.  They built their own engine from scratch after the Hero engine was used as a prototyping system.

Of the 11 million Skyrim sales to date, approximately 2.5 million of those were on the PC.  That's more users than any MMO has ever launched with.  SWTOR came close at 2.1 million.

Also, the move to add Mac support will allow many console gamers, who might have a Mac instead of a PC, to connect as well.

There is no solid dividing line between PC and console gamers, I have a PC, a 360 and a PS3.  My girlfriend has a Wii so that completes the console trifecta in our household.  PC is my main gaming platform, but I have the other consoles for exclusives I might want to try.  There is a lot of cross-pollination and many people who bought Skyrim on the 360 or PS3 might have had a computer that could run it, but didn't bother because they prefer the controller, the couch and/or the big-screen tv.

Originally posted by Zylaxx
I could care less what TES fans think or believe.  As a fan of RvR content, and open world PvE freedom of exploration style content I coudlnt be happier.  IMO they have the best of both worlds in TES and DAoC while culling the stuff that sucked.  Like DAoC's grind centric camp spawning PvE and TES FPS combat and boring and archaic combat.

As I said before, this is not a core userbase, this is roughly 500 people who will come to this game just for the RvR.  How many people still play DAOC?  If it was that amazing, trumping all other issues, it would have kept that audience, but it's not, it's actually rather boring after about a month, becuase there's nothing dynamic, it is the same boring game of tug-of-war over and over.

The OP's assessment is fair, their core userbase is/was TES fans and they utterly squandered it.  What do they have left: 250,000 or so MMO nomads who will go back to WoW once they've reached max level and 500-1000 hardcore RvR nutjobs who hang out in Cyrodiil the whole time.

Originally posted by MercArcher

 

The size of Tamriel is higly dependant on the game that you are playing.

Cyrodil is 16 mi^2 in oblivion, skyrim is the same.

However Tamriel is 62,394mi^2 in daggerfall making Cyrodil roughly 10,000 mi^2

They could make TESO 80 square miles or more and it would be perfectly reasonable.

How wrong can one person be on such a constant basis?

Tamriel is not 62k square miles in Daggerfall, the game region is, which includes most of High Rock and the north coast of Hammerfell.  I guess you never played Daggerfall either.  There's a lot of games you should play before pretending to be an afficianado about MMOs or RPGs. 

This makes Tamriel in Daggerfall much larger than 62k square miles, as is Cyrodiil.

Now this is all well and good until you remember that they have said that they are using the height-map and scale of Cyrodiil from Oblivion so that players of Oblivion recognize the area and can explore it properly.  They are making minor changes to the landscape, but if you played Oblivion you will know where most things are and how far away they are from each other.

So, your PvP world is 4x4 miles, 16 square miles.  That is not very big, considering the three factions fighting over it and the fourth NPC faction involved in the conflict.  As reference, each continent in Planetside 2 is roughly 22 square miles, and there are three of those.  They still manage to feel pretty small, and crossing them on foot does not take very long at all.

Originally posted by znaiika

 

The whole Tamriel is open for everyone to explore, but it's not forcing everyone to pvp, that is the only difference.

This game is desined for large population.

If you want open world FFA pvp joing UW.

You never answered my question, what about TES fans who want a TES-like MMORPG in the world of TES?  DF doesn't provide that, and neither does TESO.

Originally posted by Zylaxx

 Its old and a shadow of itself, some of us 3 faction RvR fans feel its our turn to have a AAA MMO to call our own.

.

 

When it means destroying the potential of an MMO based on one of the greatest fantasy IPs every created, fo such a niche mechanic as RvR?

Yeah, sounds great, please 500 people still hanging on to the RvR notion while pissing off and disappointing potential millions (Skyrim sold 2.5 million on PC, 11 million total)?

Sounds like a winner to me. /sarcasm

Originally posted by Zylaxx

 

When are you guys going to understand this isnt a TES game, it is a DAoC successor and nothing more.  Love it or leave it for what it is, not what it isnt.

Then why is it not called DAOC 2?  "TES"O sounds a lot more like "TES" to me than "DAOC 2"