[Gofre]

I'm sure the dreams of a lot of gamers' dreams have been fulfilled by this announcement trailer!

I'll try and keep this thread updates with news/images as and when they surface. Details are still extremely thin on the ground at this point, but it's obviously very exciting news. Anybody else excited?

Current Information

Spoiler:

Show

Courtesy of Game Informer:
-The game is set in the Second Era, in the Interregnum.
-Cyrodiil is ravished by war, and the Imperials aren't doing so well.
-The Tharn family has made a pact with the King of Worms, who has agreed to supplement the Imperial's forces by resurrecting their soldiers. Secretly, Mannimarco is conspiring with Molag Bal, the Daedric Prince of Corruption and Slavery, to take over Mundus.
-Molag Bal is harvesting souls of mortals, and the player is an adventurer whose soul has been taken, allowing them to constantly return to life.
-He's also sent "Dark Anchors" into Tamriel, which drag Mundus into Coldharbour. The Fighters Guild have taken it upon themselves to remove them.
-Three major groups have formed:
*The Aldmeri Dominion, consisting of Altmer, Bosmer, and Khajiit, control Alinor, Elsweyr, and Valenwood.
*The Daggerfall Covenant, consisting of Orcs, Bretons, and Redguards, control High Rock and Hammerfell.
*The Ebonheart Pact, consisting of Dunmer, Argonians, and Nords, control Skyrim, Morrowind, and Black Marsh.
-Time-travel will be featured in the game. In one example, the player puts on some old armor and is put in the owner's role, participating in a battle of long ago.
-Undead werewolves will be featured in the game.
-A werewolf named Faolchu has amassed a werewolf army and has taken over Camlorn, High Rock.
-The Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Fighters and Mages Guilds are in the game.
-There will at some point be a battle for the Imperial City which is overrun by Daedra, deciding who will rule Tamriel.
-The landscape of Cyrodiil is similar to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, contradicting established lore somewhat.
(Scans)

Screenshots

Spoiler:

Show

Concept Art

Spoiler:

Show

[Mr.Zen]

OMFG this is amazing ! I remember when I was a nipper, I was put off Oblivion for a long time because there were no online features. I know this line has been banged out a lot, but dare I say it...this could legitly be the WoW killer we've all been waiting for. Awesome find bro

[Guru Jason]

In my opinion I think they should stick to what they know best. If they start focusing on MMOs then they won't bother putting in the effort for its RPG's.

[Gofre]

(Original post by Guru Jason)
In my opinion I think they should stick to what they know best. If they start focusing on MMOs then they won't bother putting in the effort for its RPG's.

It's being developed by a different studio, so theoretically it should detract on Bethesda's own projects too heavily.

[IlexAquifolium]

I must never sign up to this. It will doom my career.

[Guru Jason]

(Original post by Gofre)
It's being developed by a different studio, so theoretically it should detract on Bethesda's own projects too heavily.

If this is the case then it may be worth a look.

[Venomilys]

TES3 fan here.

This... will be interesting.

[Gofre]

We have our first screenshot, courtesy of GameInformer, showing a couple of players against a pair of storm Atronachs. All screenshots will be put in a spoiler in the OP [=

EDIT: Just stumbled on a bucketload of stuff from GI, it's all in the OP now.

[Gofre]

It's been a quit couple of weeks from what I can tell (feel free to post anything I've missed), but Gameinformer have posted an interview with a couple of the staff behind TESO today.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featur...ls-online.aspx

[Aphotic Cosmos]

This is my next MMO.

[Gofre]

(Original post by Aphotic Cosmos)
This is my next MMO.

If it turns out as great as I hope it will, it will be my first. Ironically I hope there's still a lot of development time left, will give me time to make enough money to build a desktop that can run it!

[Agenda Suicide]

Wow, now way is this happening.


No way, no way. Do we have a release date?

Oh god it's going to ruin my life.

[Aphotic Cosmos]

(Original post by Agenda Suicide)
Wow, now way is this happening.


No way, no way. Do we have a release date?

Oh god it's going to ruin my life.

Soon™

My bet is middle of next year.

[JordanS94]

(Original post by Aphotic Cosmos)
Soon™

My bet is middle of next year.

I've read quite a few times it is early 2013

[Carecup]

Based on the information so far its looking like a WoW clone, so don't get your hopes up too much.

[Gofre]

(Original post by Carecup)
Based on the information so far its looking like a WoW clone, so don't get your hopes up too much.

I hope they make an effort to differentiate it, however I'm sure the lore alone will be enough to sway a lot of people though.

[Carecup]

(Original post by Gofre)
I hope they make an effort to differentiate it, however I'm sure the lore alone will be enough to sway a lot of people though.

As far as I'm concerned the lore of the Elder Scrolls is probably one of its weakest parts. None of the main quests since Morrowind have been very good.

They've confirmed that its a 3rd person hotkey based MMO and judging by the couple of leaked screenshots its also traded in its gritty art style for a much more generic MMO look.



I really have no expectations for this game, with the likes of GW2 on the horizon.

[thetobbit]

Why would they do this?

The whole attraction of TES was that it was a rich single player experience, a welcome break from the grinding of MMOs like world of warcraft.

In making this they are selling out on their principles to cash in the MMO craze

[ALazyThracian]

Following the massive success of Skyrim, the fifth installment of the Elder Scrolls franchise, Bethesda and Zenimax Online Studios recently announced the launch of a new contender in the MMORPG arena: The Elder Scrolls Online. But with a well established competition and a plethora of fresh-faced game developers leaving university or online programs producing free-to-play games, the move has been met with suspicion.

With early details of the game indicating it to be far different in gameplay from any previous Elder Scrolls title, critics are beginning to think the worst.

The game itself is based thousands of years before the events of previous entries in the series, allowing players to enter the world of Tamriel as a member of one of three factions. While previous titles emphasized a sandbox style of gameplay in which a player’s individual actions greatly influence all other aspects of gameplay. This aspect is what has made the Elder Scrolls a success, and is clearly not one that can be easily implemented in an MMORPG.

Additionally, the MMORPG genre is not an easy market to break into. With a reliance on continued gameplay and subscription fees, numerous titles have come to dominate the genre, such as Blizzard’s ubiquitous World of Warcraft or CCP’s Eve: Online, while other big-budget titles have floundered in a field notorious for fickle consumers. Titles like Richard Garriot’s Tabula Rasa or LucasArts’ Star Wars: Galaxies flopped due to an inability to gain enough members while failing to quickly resolve gameplay issues.

Complicating the problem, single-player games have not taken a page from MMOs by making online multiplayer gaming a necessary aspect of almost any title. As these games often come without a subscription cost, gamers have come to expect that a subscription fee comes only with an altogether perfect and complete online experience. Anything else simply won’t succeed as players will otherwise refuse to commit the time and money.

As such, numerous, smaller game studios populated with the ever-increasing number of recently-graduated developers have begun to upset the market further. Independent studios have seen success in offering their games free of charge. These free-to-play games, like Star Trek Online, have greatly altered the dynamic of the market, being financed instead with ads or micro-transactions, in which players pay for either an ad-free experience, specialty in-game items, or gameplay bonuses.

So with the field becoming increasingly crowded, how can Bethesda and Zenimax Online Studios possibly hope to garner an audience with the Elder Scrolls Online? Numerous analysts think not, believing that the fantasy audience is already well cornered for MMOs with WoW and Everquest, and believe that attempts to make the Elder Scrolls multiplayer will only water down the aspects that fans of the game love.

We have to look at comparable examples to understand this concern. Bioware’s highly ambitious MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic, was released late in 2011, and while deemed so far successful, BioWare’s subscription rates have been below their expectations. The game, a sequel to the single-player 2003 game, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, prides itself on a story-driven format similar to that of Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls series. While many fans have viewed the genre cross as a success, others have felt that much of what made the original game great was lost in making it an MMO, and would have been completely happy with a direct sequel.

Can Bethesda successfully turn such a monumental, genre-crossing game into something more than just profits, or has the company made a large strategic management misstep? Is this the case of a business that is failing to be well-managed and in need of a couple more employees with an MBA, or is the company going to burn out no matter who they hire? The details are limited at this point, but Bethesda has stated their commitment to making a great game, even if it may not be the Elder Scrolls you’re familiar with.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregvoak...e-competition/


Views?

[Auesis]

Oh gods, no. I loved the idea to begin with, but the more I hear about it, the more I shrink in despair as it's WoW-carbon-copy demeanour develops.

The current online mod for Skyrim looked far better. It's in VERY early development, but that's all I really wanted. A co-op TES experience in a game akin to what Skyrim was. None of this business that Zenimax is throwing in.

I'll stick to single-player TES and Guild Wars 2.