ZeniMax Online Studios hints at TES5 imo

[marharth]

http://zenimaxonline.com/faq.html

 

Don't know if anyone has read that, but pretty sure they are going to make TES5 a mmo after reading that...

[Megatarius]

Yep.

[iamsaige]

I hope not. Last thing we need is another mmo :|

[ub3rman123]

They said MMOG, not MMORPG. Although maybe that's just to remove hints.

[BFG99]

Honestly, I'll be interested to see what they come up with if TES5 is an MMOG. I've been underwhelmed by pretty much all of the dedicated MMOGs on the market, but if done correctly I think it could have a lot of potential. For example, I remember fondly that Neverwinter Nights had a decent single player campaign AND online player capabilities. A game with Elder Scrolls-level quality that could do both single player and MMOG would be fine by me.

[Megatarius]

I agree with the first part of what you said, BFG, but not the second. I've always been of the opinion that there's such a large modding community for this game because it lacks quality. I won't go into a rant here, but many aspects of vanilla Oblivion would have recieved failing grades at the digital arts school I recently graduated from. (It's a well reknowned school in the San Fransisco area.) Sure it's fun without mods for a while, but the ability to change it so easily is what makes it truly great.

 

If they come up with a way to integrate at least partial modding into an MMO, that would be a sight to behold.

 

 

Speaking of said digital arts school I attended a workshop recently there that featured guest speakers from a major developing studio. They talked about getting a job, and how to present your work. They discussed MMO's for a while, saying they are the current money makers.

 

My good friend Ben Franklin says TES V will be an MMO. Here's hoping TES VI is not.

[BFG99]

I agree with the first part of what you said, BFG, but not the second. I've always been of the opinion that there's such a large modding community for this game because it lacks quality. I won't go into a rant here, but many aspects of vanilla Oblivion would have recieved failing grades at the digital arts school I recently graduated from. (It's a well reknowned school in the San Fransisco area.) Sure it's fun without mods for a while, but the ability to change it so easily is what makes it truly great.

 

If they come up with a way to integrate at least partial modding into an MMO, that would be a sight to behold.

 

 

Speaking of said digital arts school I attended a workshop recently there that featured guest speakers from a major developing studio. They talked about getting a job, and how to present your work. They discussed MMO's for a while, saying they are the current money makers.

 

My good friend Ben Franklin says TES V will be an MMO. Here's hoping TES VI is not.

 

 

Well, keep in mind this IS a 4.5 year old game (first release 20 March 2006). I tend to give it some credit because, IMHO, it is superior in several but not all aspects to other games of its day. That said, it's far from a perfect product - with time we've learned about countless bugs and mistakes, from rather frivolous (some dialogue mistakes here and there, Paintbrush ladders) to major (A-Bomb, quest breakers, or the unpatched version of SI). The game engine itself has limitations - it was never designed for a multithreaded processor, for example - and a number of Vanilla elements such as Persuasion or Conjuration seem rushed or unbalanced. And we all know how much Bethesda games like to CTD.

But still, even with mods, I don't think Oblivion would have the staying power it has enjoyed were it not for a pretty decent Vanilla experience thanks to Bethesda. I played Oblivion for 2 years on PS3 - where no mods other than SI and KotN are available - and thoroughly enjoyed it, before moving on to the PC and mods. Don't get me wrong, I continue to play 4 years later due to the mods, but that's not what first attracted me to Oblivion, nor what got me hooked.

 

I will definitely agree with at least one of your comments though - I have no idea how modded content would work in an MMO environment, but if Zenimax figures out a way to do so effectively while still maintaining balance and stability, they'll have an overnight hit on their hands!

 

And, is your friend a person, a historical figure, or a $100 bill? :)

[Megatarius]

I got pretty bored with vanilla after about two weeks. What really disappointed me was the fact that on the way from Weynon Priory to Kvatch, I was attacked by the same damn wolf like ten times. And it was pretty much regular, and it was pretty much the same battle music each time. I remember going through the Siren's Deception Quest, and afterwards being very disappointed that you couldn't return the clothes to their owners. This was all on the first night I ever played it, which was late July 2009.

 

I can't remember exactly how I discovered it could be modded, but I do remember at some point after that night, I was scouring the net on a mission to find a particular kind of mod. I would have been embarrassed about it then, but after seeing some of the things that have been done with HGEC, I'm not anymore. I was sick of my girls always having to go completely pantsless if they wanted to show some leg. The sack cloth shirt kind of hung down, but I got sick of wearing it all the time. That was actually the first thing I looked for. Something not so... conservative. To this day I'm not really a fan of how staunchly buttoned up and conservative the whole game feels. I'm not just talking about clothes. The entire game is just so "by the numbers", both in terms of historical styles of clothes and architecture, but also in terms of cliches that have already been established in fantasy. There's nothing really original here. It's pretty much Lord of the Rings, except Mordor is actually in Hell instead of over some high mountains. The game is the opposite extreme from Conan and Frazetta type stuff. I think it's good that they didn't fall into the scantily clad bimbos and half naked oiled up muscle bound barbarian trap, but it couldn't hurt to look at the aspects of that stuff that did work on a practical level. The violence, and the grittiness. This game is not gritty enough. It has no teeth. (Except the zombies. They're R-rated all the way. Very disgusting.)

 

 

And Ben Franklin changed his mind. He actually says a penny saved is a penny earned. My good friend Alexander Hamilton on the other hand....

[Ferryt]

I'm just not into the general online gaming experience. What I'd rather see is something like Oblivion, but with the ability to host a game for a few friends. That would make the issue of how to deal with mods pretty easy. Everyone has the same patches and mods or the game doesn't run. To me, that would be a lot of fun, since you could then engage in various quest lines as a group, or even take on opposing sides of an issue, but you wouldn't have other people ruining things by interfering or perhaps killing some NPC that you need later on for some reason.