Bethesda To Have An MMO-Dev Sibling

Gamasutra is reporting the exciting news that Bethesda's parent company ZeniMax has just announced they are opening a new studio dedicated to online games. It's going to be headed by Matt Firor, formerly of Mythic Entertainment. "Firor worked for Mythic for 10 years, serving as the producer for the company's popular MMO Dark Age of Camelot, as well as taking a lead role on all of the studio's other projects. Since leaving Mythic in 2006, Firor has worked as a consultant in the online gaming industry, advising publishers interested in entering the online market ... The studio is expected to continue to take on staff over the next 18 months in order to establish 'an entire MMO-sized team,' according to Firor. Specifics on planned subject and platform for ZeniMax's MMO have not yet been revealed." Fallout's MMOG rights are still firmly held by Activision so ... Elder Scrolls Online, perhaps?

Re:How Many?

[Havenwar]

Ah well that is my general plan yes, I tend to wait and see. Still, the trends are not encouraging, and even good studios make bad moves. These days everyone and their mailman has a plan for an MMO of some type, so... I can't say I am overwhelmed with the news. Now if a Fallout MMO was actually coming out any time soon I would be more enthusiastic, even though my pessimistic streak says that will probably be screwed up as well. Simply put the game industry in general has too much imitation these days and not enough innovation. I keep feeling like I am playing the same game again.

Re:How Many?

[Reason58]

Give me fun gameplay, lots of content, and character progression that isn't shackled by that atrocity known as class, and you'll have my $15/mo.

Ultima Online [uoherald.com]

Over a decade old, and it is a classless, skill-based system just like the amazing innovation that is Oblivion.

Watch as they hate on thieves

[QuantumG]

One of the best parts of the gameplay of Oblivion was the thief skills. Any house you want you can pick the lock, steal goods and sell them to fences. Only the best thieves get access to the best fences. There's even a mythology around it: the mysterious Gray Fox!

Compare this to 99% of online games where thieves are universally hated on. The sneak skills don't work. The pickpocket skills only work on poor NPCs and mobs. Lock picking is virtually non-existent.

Virtual world designers hate thieves because they don't play the game in straight lines. They're not trying to get more kit or grind up levels. They're more like hackers, trying to find the interesting nooks and crannies of the game. Using the thief skills you can finish every mission in Oblivion almost without killing a single monster. Fine for a single player game, but how do you balance such awesome skills in a competitive online world?

Ugh...

[Drachemorder]

Just as long as this doesn't steal time, resources, or people from their single-player RPGs, I'm okay with it. But if it does, even just a little, I will detest it. I hate MMOs.

Re:How Many?

[nick_davison]

That being said, I would drop cash in a heartbeart to play a MMORPG with Oblivion-like gameplay.

The best thing about Oblivion is what happens to it when it's modded. Almost every single PC review will talk about how the available mods turn it in to the game it should have been - from interface enhancements to losing powerless vampires and demons at low level and losing indestructable uber wolves at high level. The biggest complaints most reviews seem to have with its expansions is that they play with the mods turned off again and realize how much they miss them.

Unfortunately, MMOs tend not to be moddable - losing the best aspect of Oblivion's gameplay.

Then there's their second best feature - completely exploitable gameplay. No "balanced" MMO is going to let you create a spellcaster with custom spells that drop cold defenses by 100%, increase cold damage by 100% and do so much damage on touch that they're one shot kills. Whilst that utterly appeals to the hacker gamer mentality, it's something that'll have most players whining about how "unfair" it is.

While it's theoretically possible they'll carve out a niche, inventing an MMO that gives all of those advantages back, doesn't claim to be balanced and stops worrying about whether people can powerlevel or have to suck up grind or not... something tells me that no current publisher has the nerve to risk it. Shame. Seeing those aspects of Oblivion make it to the MMO space would be one hell of a breath of fresh air.

Re:How Many?

[Gideon Fubar]

to quote a UO playing friend of mine "please go die in a chemical fire".

UO is terrible. It was only acceptable when it was released because it was the only thing most people knew about as far as persistent online games were concerned, and even then that's because Sierra didn't advertise The Realm anywhere near enough.

UO suffered (and in some cases still suffers) from terrible gameplay and lag issues, as well as having a solid community of griefers, necessitating a shard system which removes PvP from the game completely for anyone who wants to play without being constantly pwned and teabagged by Legends and Epics.

Otoh, they let you collect the brains of those you slaughter.