[Elder Scrolls] Newest Info.

Game Informer magazine came out with a lot of basic information about the upcoming Elder Scrolls MMO (I found an easy to read list over at http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=472749), and after looking over some of the details, there were a few that stood out to me.

The game is fully voice acted


After playing SWTOR and experiencing how questing can be with full voice acting, this excites me.  I really am having a harder and harder time with the "wall o' text" quests in WoW, Rift, TERA, etc.


Visually it looks like other Hero Engine MMOs like SWTOR
The general art style is kind of like RIFT or Everquest 2


These two statements bothered me just a bit; not because of the statements they were making but the fact that this game could so easily be compared to other MMO's already on the market.  This may not be a good thing when the current state of many MMO players is in essence "give me something new!"

You can't be a werewolf or vampire

Well, there goes all the fun I had of living in caves during the day then sneaking into towns and drinking the blood of some unsuspecting, sleeping villager . . . boo!

There most likely won't be dragons


This almost seems like a step backward.  Skyrim had dragons, and they were pretty awesome.  I can remember in Morrowind and Oblivion folks crying out for dragons.  Skyrim gave them to us; now they are taking them back?

Sneaking will be in the game, but how it is implemented is undecided


This could be really good or really bad depending on how it is implemented.  If it is implemented like it is in some of the stealth games out there - Hitman, Thief, etc. - then it could be really good.  If, instead, they implement it like they have stealth for rogues in WoW, it will be pretty much useless except for a couple attacks that gain more power.  I would love to see a fully implemented stealth system with light and shadow being a factor.  I would even love to see alternate ways of doing quests based on stealth instead of fighting, but I really doubt they will put that much into this aspect of the game.

There will be no player housing


Why not??  Seriously, why not?  I really think Bethesda will be giving up on a virtual gold mine by not implementing some type of player housing.  Since Oblivion, this has been one of the big pulls in the Elder Scroll series.  If you've read http://craftygod.blogspot.com/2012/02/player-housing.html then you know how I feel about player housing.  My views have not changed . . . I WANT PLAYER HOUSING!!

"It needs to be comfortable for people who are coming in from a typical massively multiplayer game that has the same control mechanisms, but it also has to appeal to Skyrim players."


Refer back to my second point above.  It seems from some of these comments that the core of the ES-MMO is going to be much like the core of a lot of other MMO's, nothing revolutionary.  I'm not sure how well this will fly in the current market; back in 2007 when the project was started, it would have been a good way to go about it, but not now.


-There are three player factions:
--Ebonheart Pact: The Nords, Dunmer, and Argoninans
--Aldmeri Dominion: Altmer, Bosmer, and Khajit
--Daggerfall Covenant: Bretons, Redguard, and Orcs


I've thought quite a bit about how MMO's have this tendency to split players into factions based on race.  I don't really understand it.  This is certainly not how the "real" world works.  In fact, I think it would be very hard to find any one complete race where all its members would fall into a single "faction" of any sort.  Why don't MMO developers simply allow players to begin the game without a faction and then to join a faction as they progress?  Why do I have to play an Altmer, Bosmer, or Khajit to be in the Aldmeri Dominion?  Why can't my Redguard decide to be a mercenary who is working for the Aldmeri Dominion because they simply pay better than any other faction?  This I think would be a great way to handle factions.

you don't necessarily pick up a quest to do the following, but if you kill all the necromancers in an undead barrow, a shade you free at the end will reward you.
-However, to help you find these events, various NPCs you talk to will tell you where they are happening and put a marker pointing them on your map, which is obviously totally different than receiving a quest.


I really hope the last statement here was sarcasm; I can't really tell with the short blurb that was included, but this sounds almost exactly like a quest; tell me about what needs doing and point to it on my map.  Now, the fact that I can simply stumble upon these "events" (I guess that's what we can call them since they are certainly NOT quests) is a bit different than what I've seen, so that may be a new wrinkle to this game.


The game uses MMORPG genre standards such as classes, experience points, and other traditional MMORPG progression mechanics, but they try to present it "around the core fantasy presented by traditional Elder Scrolls games" such as traveling around and righting wrongs or seeking riches


Righting wrongs and seeking riches!  Finally, an MMO that lets me do that . . . oh, wait.  Isn't this the goal of, like, all of them?  So, in other words, this statement could read: "The game does everything else the other MMORPG games do in pretty much the same way, but we do it differently by giving you the same goals as the other MMORPG games."

There was a lot more to the list, and you are welcome to read it all for yourself, but a lot of it was about PvP which simply doesn't interest me much at all; however, I understand that it is supposed to resemble PvP in DAoC.  From everything I've read (I've never played that one), this is a good thing.  So, if PvP is your game, then you will probably find something to like about the ES-MMO.

As for me, I'm a bit less excited now.  I have really enjoyed the Elder Scrolls games in the past, and I'm sure I'll give this one a go when it finally releases, but overall, it is really not sounding like much of an Elder Scrolls game at all.  In fact, it is sounding much more like another, dare I say it, WoW-clone.

Elder Scrolls . . . MMO?

So, it seems the big news for many fans of RPG video games is the official announcement of an Elder Scrolls MMO.  So far the reactions I've read have been mixed between those who love the universe and MMO's and want to see the two joined together and those who love Elder Scrolls but think any game in MMO form ruins it.  I am firmly in the first camp.  I have played through large sections of three of the Elder Scrolls games:

My first experience with the Elder Scrolls universe, and I absolutely loved it!  Sure, there were too many cliff racers and the graphics were a bit blocky (though awesome for when it was released), but I absolutely loved the open world and all of the options.

After playing many hours in Morrowind, I bought Oblivion immediately when it hit the shelves, and I enjoyed it as well.  Now, player housing had been added and the graphics were much better, but the story and gameplay were just not quite as intriguing as Morrowind.  Still it was a great game, and I really enjoyed it (I mean, I could become a vampire!  How could I not enjoy it?)

And of course, the latest installment, Skyrim.  Again, I purchased this one as soon as I was able . . . in this case a pre-release purchase through Steam, and as soon as I could I started playing.  Skyrim really brought together the good from each of the titles that came before it, and I thought (and continue to think) that it was a great game.

Now, I find out that Bethesda is not only thinking of releasing an Elder Scrolls MMO, but that it is already in the works . . . I love it!

I've read some complaints about how there is no way that an MMO can capture the same remarkable single-person experience that has been the hallmark of the Elder Scrolls series; however, I remember thinking the same thing before World of Warcraft first came out.  After having played all of the Warcraft games before it, I couldn't imagine an MMO that would work in that universe, but work it has.  So, I will definitely hold judgement this time on what is possible until I've read more about this project.

But, for now . . . Status: Hopefully Optimistic

Player Housing

I want player housing! I want it in SW:ToR, and horror of horrors, I want it in WoW. I know that many consider this no more than "waste of time fluff," but honestly, why else do I play games except to waste time. I want to be able to create my own domain and set it up the way I want. I want to have to collect items for my home from drops, or I want to be able to craft those items through a laborious yet rewarding crafting system . . . or both. I want to be able to place stuff in my home where I want it and make the place uniquely mine. I want housing!

I have always wondered why this isn't a priority for WoW and now also for SW:ToR, but I guess when you have over a million players (many more in WoW's case) without it, do you really need to fix what doesn't seem to be broken? But, I love housing.

I've played a few games with player housing, and every time, I find myself spending a lot of my in-game time on decorating and redecorating my home, not to mention the time I spend acquiring the items I use in this decoration. One game I've played with pretty decent player housing is Wizard101. This is very much a "kid-centered" game. At best, I can say that the combat is "cute;" the characters are "fun," and even the housing is not the end-all of how housing should be. However, even here, I have spent hours setting up my house to my liking.

Of course I had to choose the "Death" house as the perfect abode for my Necromancer, and I have worked hard to acquire all the requisite skulls, tombstones, and skeletons to make it appropriately "death-y." It is amazing how often I have repeated content, something that I'm not usually very keen on, simply to get a purely cosmetic drop for my home. Having a house motivated me to play this game long beyond the point when I would have quit otherwise. Even now, when I no longer have an active account and have no desire to reopen one, I still pop in occasionally to check out my house and bask in my decorating abilities.

Of course, anyone who has played Skyrim has had some experience with player housing as well. Yes, I'm aware that one can't really place items as he would want within the house since leaving and returning or logging out and back into the game must produce a high level seismic activity with the fault-line directly under my home, thus depositing all of my well-placed items into a heap of so much rubbish in the middle of the floor; however, I still enjoy having a place to call my own.

In fact, I've gone so far as to buy a couple different homes in Skyrim, and I use them both. I spend so much time moving things around, storing them in containers within my home, and organizing to my heart's content. I'm not even very picky about how player housing is implemented . . . as long as I can have a place to call my own and I can decorate it as I would like, then . . . then, I'll be happy!