Elder Scrolls MMO in 2011 looking likely

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http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/62016

Elder Scrolls MMO Rumors Keep Swirling as Bethesda Seeks to Redact 'Secret Information'

by Chris Faylor Jan 20, 2010 12:30pm CST tags: MMO, Bethesda, ZeniMax, The Elder Scrolls Online, Rumor

As the Fallout MMO courtroom drama between Interplay and Bethesda continues to unfold, a recent filing has reignited the long-running rumors that Bethesda and parent company ZeniMax are readying an MMO based in The Elder Scrolls universe.

Specifically, Bethesda requests certain parts of its recent testimony be censored before the transcripts are made public, as "trade secret information" regarding "a particular game not at issue" would "destroy their value by placing them in the public domain and making them available to [Bethesda's] competitors."

Word of the filing emerged via Duck and Cover, which reports that the transcripts indicate ZeniMax Online's long-coming MMO is on a four-year development schedule and entered development in 2007, suggesting that it's due to launch sometime in 2011.

And while the identity of the MMO has yet to be officially confirmed, VG247 added fuel to the long-standing rumors, claiming it has been "very reliably informed" that it's an Elder Scrolls MMO and must be "very close to reveal by now."


and


http://www.gamespot.com/news/6246696.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;1

Bethesda's ongoing legal spat with Interplay yields info on multimillion-dollar "World of Warcraft"-style online game that purportedly should have been announced last year.

Source: Redacted court filings obtained by Fallout fansite Duck and Cover as well as industry hearsay from British gaming site VG247.

What we heard: In 2007, Bethesda Softworks parent company Zenimax Media formed Zenimax Online, a massively multiplayer online gaming arm headed by Mythic Entertainment cofounder Matt Frior. At the time, Zenimax was hush-hush on what the branch, which was given access to some $300 million in funding, was at work on. However, speculative eyes soon turned toward an MMORPG devoted to Bethesda's celebrated Elder Scrolls fantasy franchise, after Zenimax registered the URL elderscrollsonline.com.


Unfortunately, beyond that initial and altogether ambiguous sighting, no additional details about the game have surfaced. However, that changed this week, courtesy of court documents related to Bethesda's ongoing spat with Interplay over the Fallout license.

As reported by Duck and Cover, testimony from a preliminary injunction hearing held on December 29 between Bethesda and Fallout yielded information relating to Zenimax Online's project. Duck and Cover reports that the studio has "tens and tens of millions of dollars" as well as "close to a hundred people" wrapped up in crafting a "World of Warcraft"-style MMORPG. Bethesda reportedly has been trying to keep the project under wraps in an effort to stave off competition.

The testimony reportedly goes on to note that a team was assigned to the project in late 2006, with work entering full production since 2007. Duck and Cover's reading of the document had Bethesda's project on a four-year development cycle, indicating that the game could be released as soon as next year.

Unfortunately, Bethesda subsequently filed to have the pertinent information redacted from the court testimony, a motion that was approved this week. According to court documents, the revised document will be available once again to the public on March 29.

Still, the court transcript reportedly did not indicate the exact nature of Zenimax Online's project. However, it did reportedly note that the MMORPG in question is not related to Fallout, the rights for which Bethesda is currently disputing with Interplay.

However, British gaming news site VG247 claims to have been "very reliably informed" that the project is indeed an Elder Scrolls MMORPG. The site's source reportedly claimed that Bethesda had initially planned to announce the game in 2009 but that the reveal was canceled for an undisclosed reason.

The official story: Bethesda had not returned requests for comment as of press time.

Bogus or not bogus?: Looking not bogus.

It seems unlikely that Bethesda and Zenimax would invest so heavily into a new intellectual property for a risky online effort--especially considering Elder Scrolls' strong following and suitable fantasy aesthetic.


If this is where it's going instead of an outright ES5 then I guess that's it for me and this series.

If they can do both, which is a tall order obviously, then more power to them.
 
I'm with you. An MMO TESV would not be something I'd be interested in. I've given up on MMO's entirely, maybe 3 years ago I would have liked this news. I'm too much of a min/maxer to have the time for it anymore.

All they need to do for TESV would be to add co-op play with 2-4 players and it would sell like pancakes made of crack.
 
i always told my friends that if Oblivion had co-op, it would be the greatest RPG of all damn time

imagine doing the Dark Brotherhood quests together . . . . . .!!!!!!!

but the funny thing is

THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!!! :)

if you remember what happens at the end of the chain you'll understand what i mean with the Highlander reference
 
Yeah, after Oblivion I think I'm pretty much done with TES series. Morrowind was so great that Oblivion was a huge letdown.

Obviously not looking forward to this.
 
Making it better than TESIV would be a good start.

Well, yea. I understand the ire some people have for Oblivion, but I really enjoyed the game. Install a few of the top rated mods and the game changed quite a bit, too. Though, I did like Morrowind better, I was able to get into Oblivion really easily once I found a mod to tune the enemy scaling to be a little more challenging in some spots and make you feel like you were carpet bombing a school of polio kids when you fought enemies that were supposed to be weak.
 
All they need to do for TESV would be to add co-op play with 2-4 players and it would sell like pancakes made of crack.


They don't need to make it a MMO, just make it have Co-op and Online play with 2-4 players, and maybe throw in a lobby system and difficulty setting like Diablo 2. That would be great!.
 
if you put Morrowwind's storyline into Oblivion

you'd instantly have a Game of the Year

but of course the only thing i'd change of Morrowind's story would be the same scripted stuff everybody says

but the STORYLINE itself was god awesome
 
Oblivion was missing the one thing that could fill the void, other people. An Elder Scrolls MMO could be awesome.

Its a setting just asking for an MMO really. Lots and lots of land and backstory to fill a game.

Frior was one of the DAOC guys, so if hes heading the dev studio thats a good hint at being an MMO.
 
I despise WoW for being so goddamn successful. Far too many MMOs springing up all over the damn place.

Bethesda reportedly has been trying to keep the project under wraps in an effort to stave off competition.

:rolleyes:
 
Well, yea. I understand the ire some people have for Oblivion, but I really enjoyed the game.
Bethesda needs to go back to the series and beef up the RPG elements. Specifically, they need to cut out a good majority of the scaling. The scaling trickery makes the game approachable and easy to grasp, but it also has the rather nasty side effect of turning the game into a meaningless and overly-complex hack-and-slash.

Bethesda's still capable of producing good RPGs, but they need to pull Todd Howard. Let him produce the MMO that nobody'll care about and have someone a bit more competent in the producer's chair for TESV.
 
I despise WoW for being so goddamn successful. Far too many MMOs springing up all over the damn place.

Couldn't agree with you more.




Bethesda needs to go back to the series and beef up the RPG elements. Specifically, they need to cut out a good majority of the scaling. The scaling trickery makes the game approachable and easy to grasp, but it also has the rather nasty side effect of turning the game into a meaningless and overly-complex hack-and-slash.

Bethesda's still capable of producing good RPGs, but they need to pull Todd Howard. Let him produce the MMO that nobody'll care about and have someone a bit more competent in the producer's chair for TESV.

Agreed with this as well.
 
As much as I loath the MMO monthly payment concept, WoW might be a blessing in disguise. It's great success keeps other MMO's from being overly successful. A customer can go around and buy competing single player games: NWN2, Oblivion, Gothic 3, etc... but with MMO's there can be only one, since very few people on this earth would subscribe to two mmo at the same time for an extended period of time. Since Blizzard is sucking up all the juice from the MMO pie, game developers don't find MMO's quite as financially attractive as they would have without WoW existing.

I hope this project fails miserably and will discourage future game makers from lusting after the MMO pie. I hope TESV is a great success. Single Player and/or co-op is the best way to play an RPG.

phide, you make me laugh. Much agreed.
 
As much as I loath the MMO monthly payment concept, WoW might be a blessing in disguise. It's great success keeps other MMO's from being overly successful. A customer can go around and buy competing single player games: NWN2, Oblivion, Gothic 3, etc... but with MMO's there can be only one, since very few people on this earth would subscribe to two mmo at the same time for an extended period of time. Since Blizzard is sucking up all the juice from the MMO pie, game developers don't find MMO's quite as financially attractive as they would have without WoW existing.

^^ Very interesting different point of view. I hope you're right.

I hope this project fails miserably and will discourage future game makers from lusting after the MMO pie. I hope TESV is a great success. Single Player and/or co-op is the best way to play an RPG.

phide, you make me laugh. Much agreed.

Ditto.
 
If true, then this just sucks - the Elder Scrolls games have always been single player of course.

The single player role playing experience in an open world has been done to perfection by Bethesda, and I would argue that they're the only ones doing it. Leave the open world MMOs for other companies to do. This would be a great loss for gaming.

I can think of about a dozen reasons the game would suffer for being an MMO, but the obvious one is the graphics - the Elder Scrolls games have always been on the cutting edge of graphics technology. If you're going to do an MMO then obviously you can't push the envelope there, since you have to make your game accessible to the masses. No MMO I've ever seen has had graphics anywhere near as good looking as a cutting edge single player game.

And of course the design of the game would have to be altered as well - drastically.

Just sucks. Worst gaming news I've heard in months.
 
"All they need to do for TESV would be to add co-op play with 2-4 players and it would sell like pancakes made of crack."

That's what I love so much about Borderlands.
 
I am deeply skeptical that Bethesda can successfully run an MMO, because they would have to actually fix their shit instead of relying on the community to do it, and do it in a timely manner - something they have proven over and over again that they are not interested in doing. I predict a flameout worse than Hellgate London.
 
I am deeply skeptical that Bethesda can successfully run an MMO, because they would have to actually fix their shit instead of relying on the community to do it, and do it in a timely manner - something they have proven over and over again that they are not interested in doing. I predict a flameout worse than Hellgate London.

I'm trying to imagine if that MMO ships out even in the exact shape that Fallout 3 did when it first came out.

That will be some high comedy to watch from the sidelines albeit at the expense of many people's nerves, blood pressure, and wallets. ;)
 
I despise WoW for being so goddamn successful. Far too many MMOs springing up all over the damn place.



:rolleyes:

WoW? Where the hell were you in 1999? WoW isn't shit but Blizzard's answer to what Verant perfected the first time around with EQ.



This is back when you had to be over the age of 7 and have a brain to play MMORPG's:

everquestUI.jpg
 
WoW? Where the hell were you in 1999? WoW isn't shit but Blizzard's answer to what Verant perfected the first time around with EQ.

Right.

Sales figures wise: How does WoW these days stack up against EQ more or less?
 
And who started the MMORPG craze? It sure as hell wasn't WoW.

Exactly... also computers in general, especially ones capable of running 3d games, are far more ubiquitous now than they were when EQ1 was out ;).
 
ULTIMA ONLINE, everyone forgets about that game :(

But if you really wanna imagine an elder scrolls MMO, just be prepared for "nice graphics" that look flat . . . . .

they should fire their graphics design team, those guys must be stuck in the stone ages, i'd be surprised if they discovered fire, yet alone bloom or HDR
 
boooo :( I hope they still have a regular TES title in the works as well. MMO's blow
 
A TES inspired MMO would be pretty epic in my opinion. I would just prey Bethesda finds a way to incorporate player made mods.
 
A TES inspired MMO would be pretty epic in my opinion. I would just prey Bethesda finds a way to incorporate player made mods.

Honestly, with WoW still being the fad these days I think Bethesda needs to hold off on an MMORPG and take their time. By the time WoW loses it's popularity (which is happening already) Bethesda can step in just in time and reveal their creation.
 
I love the idea of a Elder Scrolls MMO. But did anyone else have an incredibly hard time reading the ShackNews bit? None of it made sense except the words Elder Scrolls...
 
I love the idea of a Elder Scrolls MMO. But did anyone else have an incredibly hard time reading the ShackNews bit? None of it made sense except the words Elder Scrolls...


I hear you. The writing was terrible.
 
If this is where it's going instead of an outright ES5 then I guess that's it for me and this series.

If they can do both, which is a tall order obviously, then more power to them.

IMO we will not see another mainline single player Elderscrolls game this generation. The graphics would be disappointing, I think they're waiting until new consoles arrive.
 
IMO we will not see another mainline single player Elderscrolls game this generation. The graphics would be disappointing, I think they're waiting until new consoles arrive.

That's truly unfortunate on a number of levels. Needless.

It's a pity they wouldn't make the game for the PC first and then port out like Dragon Age, as a recent example.

Everyone wins that way.
 
ULTIMA ONLINE, everyone forgets about that game :(

But if you really wanna imagine an elder scrolls MMO, just be prepared for "nice graphics" that look flat . . . . .

they should fire their graphics design team, those guys must be stuck in the stone ages, i'd be surprised if they discovered fire, yet alone bloom or HDR

What? Oblivion has both bloom and HDR
 
Yeah, when Oblivion came out it and Fear were the main benchmarks. May have been the best in graphics at the time.
 
What? Oblivion has both bloom and HDR
Yeah, but Oblivion's HDR is pretty bad, really. They somehow managed to 'break' the gradual eye adaptation rate, assuming it ever worked correctly in Gamebryo to begin with. Amusingly, FO3 suffers from the same thing.
 
I can think of about a dozen reasons the game would suffer for being an MMO, but the obvious one is the graphics - the Elder Scrolls games have always been on the cutting edge of graphics technology. If you're going to do an MMO then obviously you can't push the envelope there, since you have to make your game accessible to the masses. No MMO I've ever seen has had graphics anywhere near as good looking as a cutting edge single player game.

Conan...too bad that game was plagued with lots of issues once you got out the the newb/training area.

These single player RPG makers scare me when they want to jump into MMO (looking at you Bioware and now you Bethesda!) and wished they would just stick with the 2-4 player thing others have suggested if they had to brance into mulitplayer at all. In Oblivion the silence is golden and it feels more like a world where as in WoW is a real world with people all shouting "anal [assasin]" in trade chat.
 
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