I’d just like to take the time to thank the developers and PR team behind Elder Scrolls Online for letting me know ahead of time that it’ll be horrible, and that I don’t need to waste my time, nor get my hopes up.

It seems Zenimax is taking a page out of BioWare’s playbook, but didn’t realize BioWare’s lost the game. Fully voiced NPCs, solo story-line, typical MMO tab-targeting combat system, and a separate zone for PvP; can someone please alert Zenimax to tell them they’re making a horrible mistake? This design formula is the expected ruler (the measurement one, not the monarchist one) by the market for the industry. What makes the “next WoW’ is something that bends the ruler to make another, different formula.

What’s even worse is that game director Matt Firor just did an interview with Edge-Online talking about public dungeons as if they were some ancient game mechanic that hasn’t been seen in MMORPGs for years.  Non-instanced dungeons!? Geez, this sounds like the greatest MMORPG ever made (/sarcasm)! Is he serious? There are literally dozens of MMORPGs that released in the last few years without instanced dungeons.

From a team made-up of some ex Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot developers, I can’t believe how horrible ESO sounds so far. They don’t even have a hook yet. What separates ESO from the pack? Is their big selling point, “Hey, it’s an Elder Scroll MMO“? I haven’t heard one thing that’s unique yet; and in this market, the first impression is everything.

Having been an Elder Scrolls fan for over a decade – I only missed experiencing TES 2 - my excitement for this title shot-up through the roof, only to plunge down within minutes of reading the details; but at least they’re upfront about it. So again, thank you for letting me know that ESO will suck, Zenimax.

Yesterday, ZeniMax announced that the many rumors of an Elder Scrolls MMO were true, and officially announced The Elder Scrolls Online, only to be met with fan backlash. The main reason being, that fans believe that Bethesda will be less likely to release another single-player Elder Scroll game, since they do not want to compete with themselves.

While Bethesda is owned by ZeniMax, they are two separate development studios; with ZeniMax developing the Elder Scrolls MMO, and Bethesda doing what it normally does. As a MMORPG gamer first, and Elder Scroll fan second, I don’t see a conflict of interest.  A single-player RPG and a MMORPG are not in the same market. It’s like World of Warcraft and Warcraft 3, one’s a RTS game, and the other a MMORPG. Both can exist at the same time without affecting the other.

One comment on the Bethesda blog stated,

Please say this won’t indefinitely post-pone the release of the next real TES title, the way World of Warcraft has indefinitely put Warcraft 4 on hold.

This user is failing to see that  Warcraft 4 was not put on hold for WoW, but for Starcraft 2. Both are RTS games that do compete in the same market. A single-player RPG is no more of a threat to a MMORPG than any other single-player game.

The only issue I could see is that Bethesda wouldn’t want to saturate and cheapen the Elder Scrolls name by releasing too many games around the same time. However, considering that the Elder Scrolls RPGs normally have a 4-5 year development cycle, we won’t see Elder Scrolls VI for at least another 3-4 years anyway. Elder Scrolls Online has a release date of 2013, which provides a big enough buffer that it probably won’t have any affect on the next Elder Scrolls RPG release date anyway.

Regardless, I can’t wait to learn more about Elder Scrolls Online.

Game Informer recently announced that their June issue will feature The Elder Scrolls Online. The game will feature all of Tamriel, including Skyrim and Elsweyr. A trailer for the game will debut tomorrow morning on May 4th.

Set 1,000 years before Skyrim, players will join one of three factions and fight in an open world environment for the region of Cyrodiil “and the Emperor’s throne itself.” Touted by Game Director Matt Firor as “the best MMO ever made”, we expect excellent solo questing, dungeons, and open world exploration from you, Bethesda.

The game will launch for PC and Mac in 2013. Stay up to date here at Lore Hound.