The Elder Scrolls Online

[Celebii151]

An MMORPG being developed by ZeniMax Online Studios, a sister company to Bethesda. Basically, the events take place in the Second Era, 1,000 years before Skyrim's events. There is a war between three factions, the Ebonheart Pact (Nords, Dark Elves, Argonians), Aldmeri Dominion (High Elves, Khajiit, Wood Elves) and the Daggerfall Covenant (Bretons, Orcs, Redguards).

It is a time of strife and unrest. Armies of revenants and dark spirits manifest in every corner of Tamriel. Winters grow colder and crops fail. Mystics are plagued by nightmares and portents of doom.

Four years ago, in 2E 578, an arcane explosion of energy in the Imperial City set off mystical aftershocks that swept across Nirn. Mages died or went mad. Supernatural abominations from the plane of Oblivion, the Daedra, appeared in greater numbers than ever before. The constellation of the Serpent grew so large that it dominated the night sky.

So began the grand scheme of Molag Bal, Daedric Prince of domination and enslavement. His Dark Anchors, vortexes of evil magic, weaken the barrier between worlds, threatening to merge Nirn and Oblivion into a single, nightmarish hellscape.

In the midst of this chaos, three alliances vie for control of the Imperial City and the White-Gold Tower. High Rock, Sentinel, and Orsinium stand as one, united under the rule of the High King in Wayrest, Valenwood and Elsweyr have forged an alliance with Summerset, and Black Marsh, Morrowind, and Skyrim have joined forces and formed their own uneasy pact.

The Daggerfall Covenant. The Aldmeri Dominion. The Ebonheart Pact.

Three armies will take up arms against the Empire, and against each other, to wrest control of the Imperial City and White-Gold Tower from the dark forces of Oblivion itself.

Where do your loyalties lie?

[Loki]

While I'm sure story is a big part of the appeal for most fans, I'm actually less worried about that and more curious about the gameplay. As TES games have traditionally been played nothing like WoW and more of a 'click and it happens', I'm quite curious how that turns out for an MMO.

[Talon87]

I would not trust a company with a track record like Bethesda's to handle an MMORPG. Isn't the Elder Scrolls series the most notorious of our times for being rushed to stores while riddled with ridiculous bugs? Didn't it take Bethesda months to patch up some of Skyrim's crippling bugs from launch day? Would you really want these guys handling an MMORPG? It's one thing when you save right outside of a dungeon in Oblivion or Skyrim, you go inside, you kill the vampire boss, he drops the prize you were supposed to collect, and then when you go to pick it up it just magically disappears, the flag for it still being ticked off by the game ("You saw it, it was there! "), your chances to get that item being nil until someone fixes the bug. That's one thing. Even if you're stupid enough to save after seeing that happen -- or say you don't want to wait since that boss has to be killed before you can advance the plot so you kill him anyway and move on with the story -- even if that's the case, they fix the bug and they give everybody the missing item. (And if some people now get two copies of the item, fuck it, all the better for them and who really cares? You're playing a single-player adventure game on the PC all by your lonesome.) But what if you're doing an MMO raid, the boss drops a rare drop, you go to pick it up, ... and the moment it should've bound on pick up, it just ~disappears~. People in the raid get angry with you for somehow fucking up. You're horrified and confused and angry yourself. You guys just spent 3 hours doing this raid together, you won't be able to get back together for at least a week since some of you have lives, and ... the item you all worked so hard to get and which only has a 5% chance of dropping? You're never gonna see that particular instance of it again. You're not going to be able to convince a system admin to gift you one either. "You say the system ate your Gilded Sword of Dreyfeck? Yeah, you and every other pally under 13. Nice try, bub. " Maybe Bethesda will patch the event in like a week or two, but they've still totally fucked your entire group over, to say nothing of sowed some seeds of bad blood between you and others when friction arose over the mysteriously vanished loot.

[Loki]

I highly doubt that Bethesda would be using the same Gamebryo engine they used in their games. It's not suited for MMOs and is fairly outdated and (obviously) buggy as fuck. I heard they used HeroEngine as their basis (what SW:TOR used), but built a different engine from it. Not that that really means anything since Skyrim also uses a renamed Gamebryo engine, but still... not the same engine as the buggy games.

Also, even though Fallout 3, New Vegas, Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim are buggy as fuck, they've all gone on to sell ridiculously well, win awards, and steal our hearts.

[Blastoise]

Originally Posted by Celebii151

Where do your loyalties lie?

Is "move to F2P before release" a faction?

[Celebii151]

Necro'd. Just saying that beta signups have been opened for a while, invites are coming out end of the month.