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What Makes The Elder Scrolls Online A Modern MMO

With such long development cycles, it's difficult to create an MMO that feels modern. As the game director of The Elder Scrolls Online, Matt Firor wants to ensure that the game is heeding lessons from past MMOs. Working extensively in this one genre, Firor thinks that he has pinpointed several key downfalls of the genre and is looking to avoid them for ESO. Check out the video below to hear him talk about the evolution of MMOs, how to make a player feel like a stand-alone hero in an online game, and how he plans on handling criticism of the game.

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Comments
  • I still have my doubts but you know?, maybe they'll shock us all.
  • I don't want t be negative or anything but frankly, I have yet to see something that makes TESO stand out as a unique MMO. At this point it looks like any other MMP except with TES lore. I hope That in the coming months they can prove me wrong.
  • Is this the real life or just fantasy.....

  • Still sounds like an MMO with some small quality of life changes. If they want to make you feel like you're the hero, why does it have to be an MMO?
  • http://tinyurl.com/goodb4biz    .. ... . .

  • I didn't really want this game to be made but now since I've read it in a GI mag it's starting to sound really good :D

  • want to know what would make it truly modern? real time combat, first person style.
  • Great... Why is this becoming an MMO... hopefully it's real time first person.
  • I like the idea of having the main storyline be an instanced experience that focuses on the player's character. I agree with Firor that being on a really cool, epic quest and then seeing a whole line of other players waiting to complete the same quest really breaks the immersion of the game.

    I also like his take on what "raiding" in ESO will encompass, mainly pitting large groups of players against large groups of monsters. In most MMO's these days the raiding format is usually: kill 2-5 trash mobs, walk a bit, fight boss, rinse/repeat. I'm excited to see how ESO will try to break that mold.

  • i dont know but up until now everything ive learned about this game tells me that its just another desperate try to milk more money out of the (recently)declining mmo market. This, to me, looks like a dev. team thats too afraid to make the really bold, revolutionizing and risky choices that would otherwise make this project stand out from all rest and make it a success, which could be comparably easy, mostly thanks to the incredible depth of the elder scrolls lore and the huge fan base that comes from oblivion and skyrim that would probably buy it if they were somehow convinced that its worth their time. Despite all that i still hope that they manage to make something respectable and worthy of bearing the name of elder scrolls because im one of those people that always wondered about how it would be to play, skyrim for example, but with actual people roaming the cities and landscapes of the game instead of npc's... i've always believed that it would make the game more interesting for some reason, but who knows maybe im wrong..
  • You guys should have typed interviews for those of us who can't watch videos as efficiently.
  • People that hate this game most likely have never read the GI article on TES MMO; it looks really promising and actually I'm very excited for this game. Knowing both Zenimax Online and Bethesda(Owned by same company) are working on it together and making sure its lore is correct and the combat seems promising as well. Finally in dungeons mobs won't just watch and look as you slaughter their allies.
  • "how to make a player feel like a stand-alone hero in an online game"

    Why is this a goal?

    Sorry, but MMOs are fundamentally different than singe player games. The developer can't just make everyone feel special when there are thousands of people populating the game world. When the game is telling everyone that they're the big *** hero, then no one is the big bad-ass hero. I'm not criticizing the game yet, because I don't know how they plan to implement this goal, but I just feel that this approach is all wrong from the start. Didn't they learn from TOR? If you want instanced story quests, and to have your character feel like the only hero, then make a f*cking singleplayer game. Not an MMO.

    As far as making it feel "modern" - well how about trying to make it DIFFERENT than every other MMO on the market? I see nothing about this game yet that has revealed any large, fundamental changes to the standard MMO formula. Even if they had made something trivial like having first-person views, at least it would be something different, and would feel like TES!

    Unless anything big changes, this looks like this is going to be Bethesda's very own TOR. Too bad they didn't learn any lessons from that failure.
  • I am eager to see Skyrim online.  After dropping so many hours in the games I am excited to see something new and challenging.  Meeting other fans is cool.  It has such an eclectic fan base.

  • It's pretty cool that his office has a view of Cyrodil ...I think I see Harcane Grove.  Someone should photoshop/animate a minotaur in behind him.. just some stocky hooved legs passing by thru the window.

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  • Havent they see all that choped wood from the window?Its not very good to make an interview in front of a winwod in front of a destroyed florest.
  • Havent they see all that choped wood from the window?Its not very good to make an interview in front of a winwod in front of a destroyed florest.

  • Video doesn't even appear :/

  • This may or may not turn out to be my first MMO.
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