Does the World Need An Elder Scrolls Online?

Does the Elder Scrolls really need to be an MMO? Or better yet, does the world really need another generic fantasy MMO? So far, what little I have seen about The Elder Scrolls Online has me wonder what the team at Zenimax Online have been up to since 07; does it really take that long to make your standard tank/healer/dps MMO? For me, The Elder Scrolls series is not about joining up with four, or five, or forty other people to kill some monster so I can have a chance for that piece of gear I am looking for, I have WoW for that thank you very much. No, The Elder Scrolls for me is about being an adventurer in a foreign land with nothing but the open wilderness to guide you. I love the freedom Morrowind, Daggerfall, and Skyrim gives gamers, and that feeling you get when delving into a random crypt or tomb is very different and much more satisfying than trying to find a group or queue for that same dungeon I have finished time and time again. I play WoW and The Elder Scrolls for different reasons, and I don’t need or want one that is trying to be the other.

Now I can understand wanting to develop an MMO. Looking at how much money Blizzard makes because of WoW (or what we can assume they make) and it is not hard to see why everyone else is sticking to the same formula. But therein lays the biggest problem plaguing modern MMO design: everyone is trying to make WoW with a different skin, when gamers want something new and different. We already have WoW to play, why would people want to play the same game again? Is it really any different if I am healing you as my Priest in WoW or as a Jedi in The Old Republic, or as whatever in any other game?  Sure, I would love to explore the entirety of Tamriel in The Elder Scrolls Online, but with us already knowing that some of the provinces are off limits/not done so they can be included in futureexpansions I am left to wonder why I would ever play this game if my biggest draw is incomplete.

I love the idea of the MMO, and I love playing the MMO, but I am ready for a massive multiplayer experience that is new and exciting. I am ready for new ways of interacting with the world and the countless other players within these large digital realities, and I wonder how long it will be until something truly new and exciting will enter into the MMO space. Until that day comes and I am playing this new, unique, and exciting MMO, I am content to play WoW and patiently wait. Hell, I have pets to collect for Mists of Pandaria`s upcoming Pokémon Pet Battle mode anyway.