Elder Scrolls Online

From what I've seen, The Elder Scrolls tend to be rather lore-heavy but story-light.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

Yet to some degree the two are inseparable. The games' stories are part of the lore.

Somehow you know that the time is right.

I agree that a game's story makes a part of its lore. I wouldn't quite say the opposite is true, however. As I said, even though I find the games tend to be rather heavy on lore, I find them to be rather light on story. The games just generally don't have much of a focus on it.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

I'm mostly disappointed by the news of this game, but the pvp sounds like it could be a lot of fun if the factions were balanced...and I really don't see that happening. According to the poll at http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/17937/rumor-the-elder-scrolls-online-details-leaked, it's 61% Ebonheart, 14% Aldmeri Dominion, and 25% Daggerfall Covenant, so it looks like it'll be Ilum all over again.

edited 4th May '12 12:10:44 PM by Spacegrass

I've only played Skyrim (and I'm not inclined to try out Oblivion), but in my experience, TES is very much all lore, little story.

Likes many underrated webcomics

Elder Scrolls lore was never good with the exception of Morrowind. I don't see how the hell this'll be any different and I doubt lore and exploration is reason enough to buy a generic copycat MMO. I severely doubt this come even close to making up the 300 million dollars spent on it. But hey, if it kills Zenimax maybe Bethesda won't make Fallout 4 and then I'll be ecstatic.

EIGHT GLORIOUS SIDES

Do we actually know how high the budget is for this? I thought that SWTOR's cost was an anomaly among MMOs.

It's fully voiced just like SWTOR, so that's why it's 300 million bucks. I have no idea why they did this, TES has never been known for good voice acting.

EIGHT GLORIOUS SIDES

Because, of course, the millions of people who *like* Elder Scrolls and Fallout should be denied future games to fit your own spiteful wishes.

Home of CBR Rumbles-in-Exile: rumbles.fr.yuku.com

I asked if there was a source for the budget being $300 million, not what the budget was being spent on.

I'm assuming that there was supposed to be an extra "" there, since I never said anything about wanting the game to fail and ZeniMax to die.

edited 4th May '12 2:25:33 PM by lrrose

Safe bet.

Likes many underrated webcomics

I don't agree. The story being strong makes the game focus on it...the action becomes much more narrative-driven. Extensive lore enriches the setting of the game, providing nice context for the action. TES games usually have very crappy storytelling (some of the stories themselves are good -like Morrowind's- but even then they are not well executed) and excellent lore / world-building (aside from minor things such as Cyrodiil becoming Generic Fantasy Land). This makes sense because the soul of the TES series has always been freedom, exploration and making your own story in the given setting, they are a special kind of RPG (incidentally, the new MMO cannot follow this tradition).

An excellent story with excellent storytelling diminishes the freedom.

edited 4th May '12 2:55:36 PM by Anfauglith

Instead, I have learned a horrible truth of existence...some stories have no meaning.

I actually sort of agree with you for once Anfa. I don't necessarily believe that strong storytelling automatically = less player freedom, but I do agree that TES' greatest strength is the player freedom combined with the lore-rich world.

IMO, Skyrim's greatest strength was its atmosphere. It made the player feel as though they were in a unique setting (unlike Oblivion) without beating the player over the head with how different things are from normal fantasy settings (unlike Morrowind). The plot was very simple, but it worked because Skyrim felt real. It's kind of hard to describe.

Wow. I never thought this would happen, ever.

If you wanna PM me, send it to my mrsunshinesprinkles account; this one is blorked.

I have to say, this is pretty much a no-sell for me and my friends. So far I haven't even read one thing about this game that makes me want to buy it.

In terms of development costs, the game's been worked on for about five years, so I can't imagine it to be cheap.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/elder-scrolls-mmorpg-confirmed-6235388

Zenimax got 300 million bucks worth of investments to use as funding for future projects. This MMORPG will probably be eating up the maturity of that funding, but I'm sorry for making a mistake there. And lighten up, metaphysician, I know I'm a cranky old whiner with no influence on anything and all.

EIGHT GLORIOUS SIDES

@Irrose: I dunno, Skyrim felt standard enough for me...

Likes many underrated webcomics

Hm.

A franchise getting an MMO that didn't need one, 300 million dollar budget, Hero Engine (which is pretty mediocre)

Where have I heard this before...?

Normally the idea of a TES game online would have my hyped, but it sounds like they're making it another generic MMO that rips off ideas from Guild Wars 2 and will probably have the same old boring gameplay of MM Os.

Umm... They are "ripping off" ideas from Dark Age of Camelot, not GW 2.

Always looking for a good MMORPG with a great community...

Getting back to the game, looks like Daggerfall Covenant for me since I've always been a Breton.

Jonah Falcon

@Meophist:

I don't consider WOW-style combat systems to be "real time" since they're based on a refreshing timer that restricts fine control of the character. They're not truly turn-based, either — a sort of quibbling, half-arsed combination of the two that lacks the twitch skill and intensity of real time combat while avoiding the strategy of true turn-based systems.

Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — Watch

I consider it real-time as it's really isn't turn-based. A more pseudo-turn based system would be the ATB system from Final Fantasy, I think. Either way, movement is still done in real-time and such, even if everything else is on timers.

I personally am not a big fan of the system. I don't really find it too much fun. Unfortunately, it seems nearly all MMO games use it.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

It's very definitely turn-based, except that turns can be taken simultaneously in some instances, depending on how combat was established. Each standard attack is based on a refreshing timer, which is pretty much a turn-based system with a time limit on how long you're allowed to spend thinking of your next move. These systems also lack the collision detection and mobility that make real-time systems what they are — one could not, for instance, destroy the timer restrictions in World Of Warcraft and have a servicable real-time combat system because the code is dedicated to crunching the combat numbers as though they were taking place in regular sequence.

If MMO combat systems did have the collision and mobility properties of real-time combat systems, then they would be chugging along at slow speeds as the servers get overloaded with information. Essentially, this refreshing system allows them to compress the data into more managable chunks while creating the illusion of real-time. But they're not real-time because they impose abstract timing restrictions that don't allow players to manipulate combat in, well, real time.

After all, the "time" in "real time" refers not only to time itself but the capacity to manipulate time with distance, speed and collision properties. If there is no way for the player to manipulate time — for instance, dodging to increase the time it takes for an attack to connect, perhaps beyond its "time limit" (that being when the animation ends and the attack is rendered null) is an example of manipulating time for combat purposes. Consciously blocking, dodging and intercepting attacks are all ways of actively manipulating the time property of a combat, which only works if a player has the mechanical capacity within the game to have fine influence over such factors.

What we get in standard MMOs is an illusion of real-time combat because there's no clear division between "domestic" gameplay and "combat" gameplay like one might get in JRPGs.

Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — Watch

It is kinda funny how obviously they combine the elements from pretty much every previously successful (or "successful") MMORPG. Basic Template? - World Of Warcraft. Plus strong focus on story and narrative + voice acting - SW:TOR. Plus public quests, public dungeons and "dark anchors" (aka rifts) - Rift/WAR Online. Finesse, ultimate attacks, Realm Pv P, 3 factions - WAR Online / Dao C, etc...

It could be actually pretty awesome game if they manage to execute all those ideas well (which is unlikely) but after SW:TOR I am completely burned out to further play any MMORPG, so... pass.

edited 5th May '12 7:42:53 AM by Drakovicz

Has a compulsive editing and re-editing disorder.