It's not a logical step at all. The core principles of TES games would simply be lost in an MMO. I want to be immersed in a world and be the hero of many narrative driven questlines, I DON'T want to share that with a bunch of people who don't give a shit about the experience. Can you imagine leetspeak and griefing in a TES game? Ugh.
I think an MMO could be done quite easily. Whereas in the normal game you can join multiple different guilds, in a MMO you can join just one guild and it could be the one closest to your chosen attributes. For example is you chose to be a Mage sign and have main attributes in Destruction magic and conjuration you could join the Mages guild. If you choose to be a fighter with main attribute as longsword and shield you could join the fighters guild. If you prefer stealth you can join the thieves guild or the dark brotherhood or whatever it's called.
They could also create extra guilds independent of the fighters and mages guilds.
With subscription fees to pay it would be possible for them to create a huge world to play in. Rather than just one region such as Morrowind or Cyrodil they could create the entire elder scrolls world of Tamriel >>
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Ultimately depending on which species you choose will determine which region of Tamriel you begin in but you can 'emigrate' to other regions and wherever you buy a house or save point is where you return to again when you rejoin the game.
To make sure guild members stick together it can work the same fashion as in the game, if you attack one of your guildmembers you get kicked out and have to prove yourself worthy to get back in if you want to. If you decide you want to switch guilds you can go to special shops where you can pay money to change your attributes to allow you to join the mages guild for example, you will still retain all the points you acquired but get to redistribute them to your new attributes.
Since not all players of such an MMO would even want to join a guild they could instead set up and create a raiders camp that others or even your friends could join where you hide out in the bushes and pray on passers by or traders.
There could be an opportunity in the game to purchase a shop and sell any goods you have to other players. To prevent every tom dick and harry from doing this it could be that you have to pay a large amount of money in order to obtain a shop so it would be a major investment.
Members of the mages guild who get the chance to empower their own weapons at those mages alters could sell the weapons onto members of the fighters guilds for a nice amount of gold because members of the fighters guild don't have the ability to create magic weapons.
Fighters guild members could manufacture weapons to a greater calibre than any weapon mages can obtain allowing them to trade these weapons with mages.
The possibilities are endless in an elder scrolls MMO and not much needs to change in the game play.
People can join forces together to raid dungeons, crypts and ruins and share in the loot.
Every now and again there can be an in game worldwide quest that would involve every player online at the time. There could be NPC characters in the game capable of giving mini quests to whoever decides to speak with them.
Perhaps one of the huge quests is that the gates of Oblivion or one of the other realms has opened and people needs to go through the gates and close the gates.
Inside each guild there could be a voting booth which allows you to vote in leaders of the guild every so often. Guilds leaders can declare war on other guilds such as the mages guild if for example a mage attacked and killed a fighter. This could allow for epic sized guild battles.
