A single player TES game on ESO's timeline

drsalvation

I recently heard that final fantasy 14 is getting a single player version of its game.
And it made me wonder about a lot of things.
First of all, we all know the elder scrolls games for the stories and freedom of quests (well, we obviously know them because of the bugs, and in recent games, the modding support). I remember playing oblivion without knowing anything about the franchise and when I failed to save some farmer's sons from an attack of goblins in a farm near chorrol, I thought I'd fail the quest, instead I was rewarded with something low and the game continued. I know Morrowind fans will immediately claim that oblivion and skyrim are very limited, but I'm talking about my first TES experience.

It was one of the first games I saw where that kind of freedom was allowed and didn't advertise it as much as the fable games, and I was immediately hooked, and when I realized fallout games were also doing that, that's when I was lost in the bethesda games.

In comes ESO, which I know it's Zenimax, not bethesda, I've been playing ESO ever since it released on cosnoles, in fact, ESO is the reason why I'm still on xbox (I was gonna get a ps4 at the time, but the preorders for ESO's collector's edition weren't available for PS4, so I got the Xbox version and then an xbox to go with it... I just needed to play as imperial).

And the story and lore in ESO is amazing...
unfortunately, ESO being a service in shape of a game, it executes the story so badly.

You did stop the planemeld... but did you really? It's a service that must go on, so your actions have no consequences in the world, dolmens will still drop.
You got your soul back, but did you? You're still capable of doing "special" things that others can't (even tho it's not specified it's because you don't have a soul anymore in later DLC's, it's not really specified WHY, it's obviously because of your missing soul)
And because we keep getting new expansions on this service, none of those expansions could actually have any impact on other expansions, they all have to be self-contained, which is why prologues are always in vanilla zones, which is why (most) new radiant quests are also in vanilla zones.

And unfortunately, this game will always be burdened by the curse of an online service, preventing it from executing the awesome stories in any meaningful and impactful way, that's why you'll always see oblivion portals in leyawiin, dolmens in vanilla zones, dragons elsewhere, etc. And you could imagine that the three banners would stop and think about how meaningless a throne becomes when there's vampires, dragons, 2 daedric princes invading SIMULTANEOUSLY (maybe more daedric princes? I haven't played summerset yet).

It has gotten to the point where writers stopped trying, we don't get dialogue choices anymore and are forced to one single choice which can be annoying, we do get some quest ending choices on side-quests which are irrelevant and their end choice isn't impactful to the world. There's no role-playing in this game at all. And how can we blame them? It's a service that must go on.
It's hard enough already to make an impactful choice in a single-player game because a franchise requires continuation, so now for a service that keeps getting expansions?

Imagine if this was a single-player game, where you could join either alliance, or do what I've been wanting to do ever since this game was announced: Join the imperials to defend Cyrodiil, and eventually put an end to the three banners war. Where defeating molag bal and stopping the planemeld would actually mean that Tamriel could be at peace and dolmens would no longer drop.
Why is it that they only drop in vanilla zones but not in Leyawiin or Solitude? Is there any actual lore to explain that? Are we supposed to treat expansions as "sequels" we can start before the main game and they take place in years in the future from the vanilla game, or is everything happening simultaneously?

I dunno, all of that I just wrote is kinda irrelevant, I just know that services will end eventually, I doubt ESO will be a multiplayer game forever, consoles will need versions for those platforms, and how long until old versions of consoles will stop being supported? How long ahead of the line on future consoles are going to be held back for old consoles? And at what point after the player base drops will Zenimax decide to pull the plug? And what happens if the servers are shut down? WIll we get lan-support for local games, or will we just be locked in the m,ain menu never to be able to play it again? Will ESO ever be treated as a game instead of a service at one point? Will we ever see the stories from ESO unfold in their potential in a game that's actually a game?

Kesstryl

At this point I would love this as a single player game, or some version of it, as I also love the stories and lore, but hate the direction that cuts off role play and pushes the game towards those who see it merely as a game to beat and not a world to be immersed in. I hate how Account Wide Achievements has destroyed the coherence of the game world for my alts, and I hate how ZOS seems to not care about how it breaks the game world. I'd love to play the game divorced from their bad decisions like I can with the single player Elder Scrolls games. I think the only way this will happen is when Zenimax does cut the plug and the fans end up making an emulator like other's have done for cancelled games. We would have quite a long wait until then.

Danikat

A game set during ESO's time period where players end the Three Banners War and bring peace to Tamriel would contradict pre-existing lore, which says the Interregnum and the fighting between races and kingdoms goes on until 2E 854 when Talos claimed the Amulet of Kings and used it to relight the Dragon Fires - declaring himself emperor. Even then it was a long time before he actually united all of Tamriel.

ESO is set in 2E 582 so there's about 300 years to go before that happens.

That's deliberate - the developers chose to set ESO during the Interregnum partially because they knew they wanted a PvP campaign with massive battles between factions and players able to choose any of the sides and partially because other than near-constant war and the Dragonfires being unlit, meaning daedra could come to Tamriel, not much was known about that period of time so they had relative freedom to write new storylines. And with it being 300 years before the situation would change significantly they wouldn't have to worry about ESO running long enough that it clashed with established events. (Of course that was before they made the odd decision to say everything in the game happen in one year, which isn't always reflected in the writing in-game because NPCs will talk about older releases as if they happened some time ago.)

So I think the most we could hope for is some sort of cease fire where the different kingdoms remain independent but aren't actively attacking each other, or maybe alliances shift over time and different groups are in conflict. But without a dragon born who also has the military and/or political skills to get themselves recognised as emperor by more than a handful of people we're not going to see a third empire and individuals like that are very rare.