The Elder Scrolls Online: The death of a beloved franchise or just a d

[marharth]

A subscription based MMO doesn't work the same with marketing and sales obviously. You can't just get people to buy the game on launch and call it success. You need long term subscribers, and that isn't going to happen if you have a game no one likes.

[Maharg67]

I did not use the poll because it did not have enough options; it could have had such options as 'will wait and see' or 'have no opinion'.

 

I am going to wait and see until enough people have played it and reviewed it, have given their opinions and then I will start to make my decision.

[Syco21]

"Different engine, different team" - Words of this nature were spoken about New Vegas. Result? Buggy mess. Who did the QA? Bethesda, not Obsidian. Not that it would have made much difference in that particular case, Obsidian is possibly the only company worse about bugs than Bethesda.

 

Zenimax may as well BE Bethesda. It's all the same people on the back end of things. It's only useful as a legal distinction.

 

Their lack of coherent QA procedures will bite them in the ass on this one. There's just no way around it.

 

Obsidian are a good example. When presented with a broken New Vegas Bethesda released it anyway, when they presented Sega with Alpha Protocol Sega told them to go away and fix the games problems.

Ugh, Sega released a broken Alpha Protocol. It was broken because Sega couldn't make up their mind about what they wanted.

[JimboUK]

"Different engine, different team" - Words of this nature were spoken about New Vegas. Result? Buggy mess. Who did the QA? Bethesda, not Obsidian. Not that it would have made much difference in that particular case, Obsidian is possibly the only company worse about bugs than Bethesda.

 

Zenimax may as well BE Bethesda. It's all the same people on the back end of things. It's only useful as a legal distinction.

 

Their lack of coherent QA procedures will bite them in the ass on this one. There's just no way around it.

 

Obsidian are a good example. When presented with a broken New Vegas Bethesda released it anyway, when they presented Sega with Alpha Protocol Sega told them to go away and fix the games problems.

Ugh, Sega released a broken Alpha Protocol. It was broken because Sega couldn't make up their mind about what they wanted.

 

Sega were clear on what they wanted, they wanted an RPG, what Obsidian gave them barely resembled one and hence they were told to fix it thus causing the delay. The final product worked, it was just a bit crap. Had it been Bethesda they'd have released it anyway, you can tell that from the state of the stuff they publish.

[Arthmoor]

Bethesda isn't making it. A entirely different team with a entirely different background is making it. The only time I could see Bethesda having any influence is if they need to talk about lore stuff.

Bethesda isn't developing it. They are however publishing it, and marketing it. So it's entirely false to say they have nothing to do with it. They will be the ones giving the red or green light on the production release, which as we already know means buggy mess at launch.

 

Also, Zenimax and the two Bethesdas are populated by essentially the same people. They're just separated the way they are for legal purposes.

[lwj5573]

Bethesda isn't making it. A entirely different team with a entirely different background is making it. The only time I could see Bethesda having any influence is if they need to talk about lore stuff.

Bethesda isn't developing it. They are however publishing it, and marketing it. So it's entirely false to say they have nothing to do with it. They will be the ones giving the red or green light on the production release, which as we already know means buggy mess at launch.

 

Also, Zenimax and the two Bethesda's are populated by essentially the same people. They're just separated the way they are for legal purposes.

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Absolutely correct...which include tax purposes and corporation profit tax identification. hence they arrive, at this point, at a profit market scheme with no direct capital output...to sub contract. And it is equally incorrect to infer that in a sense Skyrim was not marketed as any other MMORPG in that the server download was sold to STEAM for redistribution. Unlike any previous versions. Why? because they realize that they could have sold potentially tens of thousands of discs even after their cut from STEAM hence keeping their actual disc production and redistribution costs to a minimal.

 

War Craft and many others who originated as MMORPG... same same....and initially knew this or realized it quite rapidly. The debate aside for the moment on whether Skyrim should become a total conversion to MMORPG.

 

It's a scam to gain profit with little concern for QA and an already identifiable market that the corp big wigs know..... will bite for their love of the game line.

[lwj5573]

Bethesda isn't making it. A entirely different team with a entirely different background is making it. The only time I could see Bethesda having any influence is if they need to talk about lore stuff.

Bethesda isn't developing it. They are however publishing it, and marketing it. So it's entirely false to say they have nothing to do with it. They will be the ones giving the red or green light on the production release, which as we already know means buggy mess at launch.

 

Also, Zenimax and the two Bethesda's are populated by essentially the same people. They're just separated the way they are for legal purposes.

 

 

Absolutely correct...which include tax purposes and corporation profit tax identification. hence they arrive, at this point, at a profit marketing scheme with no direct capital output...to sub contract. And it is equally incorrect to infer that in a sense Skyrim was not marketed as any other MMORPG in that the server download was sold to STEAM for redistribution. Unlike any previous versions. Why? because they realize that they could have sold potentially tens of thousands of discs even after their cut from STEAM hence keeping their actual disc production and redistribution costs to a minimal.

 

War Craft and many others who originated as MMORPG... same same....and initially knew this or realized it quite rapidly. The debate aside for the moment on whether Skyrim should become a total conversion to MMORPG.

 

It's a scam to gain profit with little concern for QA and in an already identifiable market that the corp big wigs know..... who will bite for their love of the game line.

[marharth]

Zenimax online is a team of 250 people, none of which are a part of Bethesda.

 

It being published by Bethesda obviously is not affecting it in the same way it has affected Skyrim or Oblivion. It has been in development since 2007. Knowing how Bethesda normally deals with games they would have already released it by now.

 

Also once again, it is completely different with a MMO. This is not the same as Skyrim because you can not release a buggy game on launch and get "sales" since sales do not exist here. You have subscribers who you have to constantly satisfy no matter what.

 

Unless this is going to be GW2 style (which I highly doubt since they decided to go the WoW clone route, and they have put a lot of money into it since 2007) it will not be as buggy as previous TES games.

 

Also how did Warcraft originate as a MMO? It was previously a RTS game. There were three Warcraft games before WoW.

[lwj5573]

Zenimax online is a team of 250 people, none of which are a part of Bethesda.

 

It being published by Bethesda obviously is not affecting it in the same way it has affected Skyrim or Oblivion. It has been in development since 2007. Knowing how Bethesda normally deals with games they would have already released it by now.

 

Also once again, it is completely different with a MMO. This is not the same as Skyrim because you can not release a buggy game on launch and get "sales" since sales do not exist here. You have subscribers who you have to constantly satisfy no matter what.

 

Unless this is going to be GW2 style (which I highly doubt since they decided to go the WoW clone route, and they have put a lot of money into it since 2007) it will not be as buggy as previous TES games.

 

Also how did Warcraft originate as a MMO? It was previously a RTS game. There were three Warcraft games before WoW.

 

 

I hear what ya saying but I don't trust the corp run around nor do I necessarily trust the prime subs...to include zenimax. Iirc it will still have to be licensed from Bethesda as an adjunct to the prime name line hence they will be compensated...but ya correct reference Warcraft..I misstated that poorly. My apologies. These games,imo, remain best suited as a single player with at best minor expansion for additional 'limited' multi use, 3-5 players. iow from another system/disc/user eg. Diablo series prior to their MMO crap. But I appreciate ya opinion. thanks.

Edited May 8, 2012 by lwj5573

[shotgun188]

There would be a lot less confusion if Beth Soft was called Zenimax Softworks. People are always confusing Beth Soft with BGS.