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Rumour: Bethesda to Announce An Elder Scrolls MMO In May 2012
Post by Eorl @ 08:12pm 16/03/12 | 20 Comments
According to an anonymous source at Tom's Guide, ZeniMax Online Studios and Bethesda are expected to announce Elder Scrolls Online in May 2012. While this is obviously nothing more than a rumour at this point, given the popularity of the franchise and the recent acclaim and success of Skyrim, it's understandably getting a lot of attention. Purportedly set a millennium before Skyrim, the only other forthcoming detail is that the game is said to feature three playable factions.
An industry source that wishes to remain anonymous revealed the name of the new MMO to us, and confirmed that the game would take place a full millennium before The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Using the Elder Scrolls Wiki timeline as a guide, Elder Scrolls Online will likely take place during the “Second Era,” or several hundred years before any of the other Elder Scrolls games. This information was corroborated by two additional sources before publication.

Elder Scrolls Online will have three playable factions, according to the tipster. Not much is known about the factions, except each is represented by one of three animals: A lion, a dragon, and a bird of prey (either a phoenix or an eagle, we aren’t sure).
A May 2012 announcement is suggested, to be followed by a greater reveal at the E3 expo in June. The article also talkes of further plans to show the game at Quakecon in early August, alongside id Software's Doom 4, which has also been churning in the rumour mill of late.


bethesdathe elder scrolls online





Latest Comments
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DK
Posted 10:49pm 16/3/12
just gizzed my pants
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mental
Posted 10:50pm 16/3/12
The bugs, omg the humourous, puzzling bugs that will inhabit this world will be glorious!
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BladeRunner
Posted 11:02pm 16/3/12
Less MMOs - More RPGs. We do not need any more MMOs at this time, MMO space is saturated well enough for now.
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DK
Posted 11:31pm 16/3/12
them some mighty large pants.


thank you. this might be because im drunk atm
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Dan
Posted 11:47pm 16/3/12
Really hope not. I love Bethesda's ability to tell a story and gives the player enormous flexibility to experience it in so many different ways. An MMO would severely limit that freedom, because when playing with other people, so many elements of the game have to be reined in to keep everyone on an even playing field.

I can see how a lot of Elder Scrolls stuff would tuck into an MMO mold, but on a selfish note, I have trouble seeing how the result would be a game that I would be interested in playing, and I don't like the idea of a great proportion of Bethesda's talented resources being committed to a project like this when I love their singleplayer games so much and want as many of those as possible from them.
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Lithium
Posted 12:06am 17/3/12
I remember reading somewhere that Bethesda said they were never going to bring out a multiplayer of any kind to Elder scrolls.
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deadlyf
Posted 12:34am 17/3/12
Really hope not. I love Bethesda's ability to tell a story and gives the player enormous flexibility to experience it in so many different ways. An MMO would severely limit that freedom, because when playing with other people, so many elements of the game have to be reined in to keep everyone on an even playing field.
I tend to disagree, at least from a story point of view. There is still plenty of potential for a great personally tailored story in an MMO, just because most MMO's feel that it's not an important part of the game doesn't mean it can't be done.

The reason Bethesda shouldn't make an MMO is because they are not capable of doing so. You can get away with a buggy singleplayer game as long as it's mostly functional but bugs are MMO killers and Bethesda are incapable of making a game that isn't infested with all sorts of weird s***.

That and their combat is ass.
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Dan
Posted 06:30am 17/3/12
I tend to disagree, at least from a story point of view. There is still plenty of potential for a great personally tailored story in an MMO, just because most MMO's feel that it's not an important part of the game doesn't mean it can't be done.
Never said there wasn't,. SWTOR obviously does this well. My point was that MMOs sacrifice a lot of the interesting game mechanics, freedom and emergent gameplay that you can only really pull off in a singleplayer experience -- because a multiplayer game needs stability and balance, not to mention the whole game economy side of things.

And yes, bugs are definitely a factor in that. But Elder Scrolls and Fallout 3 aren't necessarily buggy as hell because Bethesda coders are sloppy, but because of the absurd amount of freedom they offer players and the impossibly high number of variables that inherently creates.

An MMO would have to forgoe many of these features in the name of stability and balance, and I'm saying that it's difficult to see how what would be left over could still be a game I would enjoy playing.
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Mosfx
Posted 08:20am 17/3/12
I'd rather a co-op Elder Scrolls game.
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Hogfather
Posted 10:17am 17/3/12
Yeh a co-op extension to skyrim would own.

Even if it was just a situation where players joining could only support the host's quests and story that would be more than fine. Add in steam drop in and out and you have a winner.
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Mosfx
Posted 10:08am 17/3/12
Yeah the 2nd player just takes over the roll of the companion with current gear, it would allow a drop in/out ability without affecting the main game.
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Nerfy
Posted 11:11am 17/3/12
I dunno... The Elder Scrolls world is ok, but, eh. Too many mmos as it is, christ I haven't even done half the content in Skyrim after 110ish hours.
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Eorl
Posted 11:14am 17/3/12
I dunno... The Elder Scrolls world is ok, but, eh. Too many mmos as it is, christ I haven't even done half the content in Skyrim after 110ish hours.

I still have yet to start the main quest...
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Nerfy
Posted 11:20am 17/3/12
I played for the first time today since finishing the main quest months ago. I recommend putting it right off, it's crap in the middle, and feels sort of final once finished (and all the other quests were awesome while that served as the backdrop).
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Cat Scratch
Posted 12:29pm 17/3/12
Scrolls mmo might mean less development of the current and possible future single player game... not sure I want that.
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Steve Farrelly
Posted 09:56am 19/3/12
I don't think it will be Elder Scrolls, rather, it will be the Fallout MMO :)
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Outlaw
Posted 10:44am 19/3/12
+1 co op
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koopz
Posted 07:14pm 19/3/12
The bugs, omg the humourous, puzzling bugs that will inhabit this world will be glorious!


I'd have to agree - I've spent the last two weeks using console commands to force objectives to complete - only to be stuck with a dozen or so unfinishable missions... is 'unfinishable' even a word?

Youtube has been good to find out how things should end thankfully.

Even though Skyrim has (mostly) been a great game - I'm not a MMO kind of consumer..



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dranged
Posted 08:20pm 19/3/12
Skyrim lost it for me when you couldn't fast forward through all the NPC chatter without having the text subtitles update on demand
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