ELDERSCROLLSUPDATE

The Elder Scrolls Online will be playable on the show floor this year, so read on to get all the details and plan your visit to our booth.

From August 22nd through August 25th, more than 300,000 gaming enthusiasts will travel to Cologne, Germany for Gamescom, and we wouldn’t miss it for the world! We’re bringing dozens of gaming stations to our booth at the show this year, which will be open to all players ages 12 and up.

Our booth will be located in Hall 9.1, Stand A031 B030, and we can’t wait to meet you. If you’re going to stop by, let us know on Twitter—we’d love to hear from you.

Can’t make it out to Gamescom this year? We’ll be sharing the fun on Facebook and Twitter with photos and more from the show floor, and you can expect to see some new interviews and articles from the press. We’ll post a recap on our site after the event, so stay tuned even if you can’t stop by.

We’re sending more invites to The Elder Scrolls Online beta.

We’re sending yet another wave of new invitations to the ESO beta today, hot off the heels of our most recent round last Friday. Check your email to see if you’ve been invited, and don’t forget to look in your spam folder just in case.

For those of you using Gmail, don’t forget that our beta invitations show up in your “Promotions” tab by default. We’d hate for you to miss yours!

If you didn’t get an invitation today, don’t worry—the beta is still growing. We’ll let you know whenever we send new invitations, so come back soon or follow us on your favorite social media site for updates. Thank you for your enthusiasm!

Join us as we check out the newest community creations, articles, podcasts, and more.

Twenty issues in, and The Elder Scrolls Online fan creations just keep coming. Every week, we love digging in to discover new fan creations, from imaginative fiction to the latest fansite articles. Come along as we take a look at this week’s newest links. If you have a link you’d like to see featured, send it to us at community@elderscrollsonline.com; we’re always looking for new material.

Fan Art

We’re always inspired by the talent of ESO fan artists. Take a look at some recent works, and don’t forget to visit our official ESO Tumblr page for more!

A Bosmer – By Emanuel “Kyisha” Marsjo on TESO-RP

The Elder Scrolls: Flag of the Daggerfall Covenant (Wallpaper) – By Okiir on DeviantArt

Breton Male & Female – By Shanku on Tamriel Foundry

Fan Fiction

Journey to Tamriel through the eyes of other ESO fans.

Daydreams on the Plains of Battle  – By Caleb Davis

“It has been almost two centuries since I slipped in that wretched potion…” thought Elendil to himself. He sat against a tree, on a nice grassy plain looking towards the walls over a quarter mile away that guarded the boarders to the country of Cyrodiil. The walls were being attacked by his Majesties Army of the Aldmeri Dominion. The Catapults and Battering Rams slammed and speared there ways inch by inch into the Imperial walls.

The Running Tree: Chapter Eleven – By Donovan Fouts on Elder Scrolls Off the Record

“What is it, child?” the old mer asked. He directed the question at the young apprentice standing in front of his desk, though he had not raised his eyes to look at him. He couldn’t recall this one’s name—Kalamon or Kalatar, he thought—but whatever his name, the sudden interruption would be punished. The wizard grinned at that.

Scum – By Triskele on TESOF

Guards were placed at the outskirts, though they were of the more ceremonial nature, this close to Sentinel and civilization. The troops were around their fires, roasting hares, cooking broth, playing dice, making jokes, honing their blades, and telling stories of home. The stars above their heads were unveiled, jewels far away in the enormous ink setting of night. All was well. But not in the patriarch’s tent.

Theodyne Robillard of Hammerfell and The Daggerfall Covenant: Part 3 – By Theodyne Robillard on TESOF

It had been quite some time now since Theodyne had joined the ranks of The Council of Arcanea. He had become a trusted protector of the mages that made up the ranks of the council and more so had made quite a many friends. To him, he had found the family that he lost years ago. Theodyne looked to the archmage, Alator Virane, as a sort of father figure and followed him without question. But there was one dark night that would drastically change the course of his destiny and impact young Theodyne’s life in such a profound way, that he would never be the same man again. On this night, young Theodyne would be reborn…..

The Elder Scrolls Online has come a long, long way in a short period of time. When last we played the MMORPG, it lacked that definitive Elder Scrolls feeling. Its exploration, combat, and nearly everything else was pure MMO in an Elder Scrolls skin – and it was incredibly attractive.

Zenimax Online has gone to great lengths to tune its online role-playing game toward the Elder Scrolls hardcore. Never mind the recently revealed first-person option. Everything in ESO makes sense in a way typical MMOs don’t. Brawling with wildlife works like it did in Skyrim: They’re simply part of the world, and you’ve stumbled into their habitat. Skeleton armies amass in haunted spaces. Quarantine guards go from good to villainous when you uncover their secret ploy to poison a Morrowind city.

The Elder Scrolls Online does not waste time with petty fetch quests, arbitrary conversations, and meaningless empty space. Like Skyrim, there is always something to discover or uncover. It brings a similar sense of Skyrim wonder to a massive recreation of almost everything that defined the untouchable RPG franchise. I played two hours – one in an early area off the coast of Skyrim. The snowy plains, familiar architecture, and soothing, atmospheric music nailed the Elder Scrolls vibe. If not for the other players lining up to unlock chests (an unfortunate consequence of online play, but not one I understand), I could have been convinced this was a Skyrim sequel.

Combat, in particular, has improved dramatically. Not just from the previous single-player Elder Scrolls game, but from the last version of ESO Bethesda let people play. Where Oblivion and Skyrim lacked the ferocity and physicality you’d expect from a melee-centric battle system, ESO brings convincing weight to its heavy hitting. Smash a skeleton with a hammer and it recoils as though it’s just been smashed with a hammer. Throw a spiritual spear into a mercenary captain and she’ll fall to the ground. Fighting in The Elder Scrolls Online doesn’t feel like an MMO in the way Elder Scrolls used to.

A small, subtle improvement that cements ESO’s commitment to the series rather than the genre is the interface. The clunky map from previous demos has been eradicated in favor of a UI nearly identical to Skyrim, complete with the compass bar up top. Quests are more focused, perhaps because of their narrative coherence and relation to a given area, than the more open-endedness of objectives offered in Skyrim or Oblivion. This isn’t to say ESO lacks the sort of alluring freedom to wander aimlessly – it’s simply more concise and features fewer distractions. Not that distractions aren’t there, mind.

Team up, or don’t.

Adventurer camps are fewer and far between, but what you’ll find there is more substantial. Notes about nearby, mysterious fish you can catch which require bait you haven’t yet found. Journals surrounding missing siblings, someone’s issues with authority, or discussions of religious zeal occupied much of my time. Rarely, if ever, will you encounter an arbitrary hunt for a missing book. Mundane quests are dead. Everything in ESO has a story woven through it, comparable to, and arguably done better than, Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Indeed, The Elder Scrolls Online is, at its heart, an MMO, but don’t let that scare you away. ESO manages to make its story content approachable when playing alone while encouraging multiplayer team-ups at later levels. It has no reason to apologize for its MMO-ness, either, because its superb fusion of philosophies. I’ve always found The Elder Scrolls and MMOs equally overwhelming in their grand scope, wealth of options, and liberty to explore. ESO is, despite its gargantuan space scattered across numerous provinces, less intimidating. It eases players into the world and multiplayer by giving them purpose, something to strive for while offering the flexibility to wander tighter areas.

And that’s where The Elder Scrolls is at its strongest.

Just about every MMO player has an IP he’d like to see undergo the MMO treatment. For some of us here at Massively, that IP is Bethesda’s long-running Elder Scrolls series. Due to a deep reservoir of lore and the fact that earlier games in the series (notably Morrowind and Daggerfall) were more MMO-like than many modern MMOs, we’d love to see what Bethesda would do with such a beast.

Apparently we’re not the only ones, as SystemLink has posted a bit of speculation on a possible The Elder Scrolls V, highlighting a few job postings as evidence in support of its theory. While we’re not completely sold on the author’s conclusions — mainly due to Bethesda’s plainly articulated stance on the massive genre — we suspect this won’t be the last we hear of an Elder Scrolls MMORPG..Maybe a co-op where still where it runs on a server so you can just log into your game and see what your friends, who you have invited, have done. You can create a living world and what not.

ZeniMax has unveiled the first trailer for its newly announced The Elder Scrolls Online MMORPG. There’s no gameplay on offer at this early stage, and the clip itself is rather short. It’s long on subtle bits of awesomeness, though, including a brief tease of the familiar Elder Scrolls melody and a glimpse of the game’s logo (which features a telling three-part design to go along with the game’s announced three-faction PvP).

At this point, we’re still in the dark about almost everything TESO-related. Will it be a sandbox? A themepark? A marriage of the two? How’s the crafting, the character customization, and the questing? Your guess is as good as ours, so take a look at the clip after the break and let us know what you think in the comments.

Honestly, I’m going to wait and see, it is entirely too early to either praise or hate. I will say though, that Bethesda has a very tough road to follow. On one had, if they choose to follow the road with player freedom (sandbox), then they could potentially alienate a portion of their fanbase, due to the reduction (if not removal) of the ‘hero’ aspect. Alternatively, if they choose to follow the road which is ‘story driven’, then they alienate another portion that enjoys the openness of the past titles

Either way it seems Bethesda will piss off someone, but I think they really need to think and choose one path, because shooting for the middle ground does nothing but piss off those on either end, while producing a watered-down shell which the middle will play for five seconds (and while bitching the entire time) as they move on to the next sad attempt to appease the ‘WOW Crowd’.

As to a sandbox potentially eliminating the ‘go anywhere and kill everything’ approach that has existed in the single player games, I don’t believe that to be the case. If done correctly, a sandbox would deliver that exact ideal situation (This is what MMOs used to be like).

For what’s its worth, my two cents.

Well, one of the industry’s worst-kept secrets has been officially put to rest courtesy of Game Informer. There is in fact an Elder Scrolls MMO in the works, and ZeniMax Online has chosen the print magazine for its initial reveal.

Despite a professed lack of interest in MMOs from Elder Scrolls notable Todd Howard, the project has been ongoing for a number of years now, according to the game’s first press release. The dev team is headed up by Matt Firor, known primarily to gamers for his work on Dark Age of Camelot. Like DAoC, the new Elder Scrolls title will feature three-faction PvP. We’ll keep you updated as Bethesda releases additional details.

Every time i played morrowind, oblivion or skyrim i always thought how much cooler it would be to play with someone else. Now i always thought in a coop sense and dont really see how an MMO could work with this IP but im willing to remain hopeful.

If you’re a fan of The Elder Scrolls Online, you were probably glued to the livestream earlier this month. But a single stream doesn’t give you nearly as many answers as you’d like to have. So the development team took the opportunity to answer questions that potential players had about the stream, from game mechanics to elements as innocuous as UI components. And even if you were watching the stream with rapt attention, there are probably details that you missed.

For example, the answers reveal that the game no longer includes a minimap, using a compass instead to encourage more player exploration. The party seen in the dungeon was also roughly level-appropriate, meaning that the healing and damage on display was roughly indicative of what players can expect from actual combat. Several of the animations shown were more or less finalized, but other elements (such as first-person mode) are still being tweaked. You can catch a few more tidbits from the full set of answers on the official site.

 

They say you need to see it to believe it, so cozy on up to the following gameplay video of The Elder Scrolls Online to judge whether or not this upcoming MMO belongs in the same league as Skyrim. The video’s commentators believe it does, and they spend over 20 minutes analyzing the game’s NPCs, lighting, dungeons, and voice-overs.

There’s also significant discussion (but no related visuals) about TESO’s character creation, which the commentators say is not in the same league as most MMO systems. Check it out after the break!

 

QuakeCon, hailed as the largest LAN party in North America, kicked off yesterday, and since MMO fans have been clamoring for some uninterrupted Elder Scrolls Online gameplay, ZeniMax chose QuakeCon as the venue to show off its latest addition to the Elder Scrolls franchise. Starting right now (at 1:30 p.m. EDT), Creative Director Paul Sage and other lead designers are livestreaming direct from Dallas, Texas. Our intrepid reporters are watching along, providing a periodic liveblog in this post as well as frequent chatter in our comments. Watch the stream and join the conversation right now!

[Update: The stream is over now, but we’ve collected the important bits beyond the cut, and Larry’s liveblog in the comments is still viewable!]

Notes from the livestream:

Pete Hines, VP of marketing, explains that ESO will allow you to “be what you want to be; play what you want to play.”
Creative Director Paul Sage introduced and begins the actual presentation.
Nick Konkle, gameplay lead, begins showing off the character creator for the Ebonheart Pact.
The demo starts in Deshond in Morrowind.
Mouselook is always on.
Left click to attack; hold down for heavy attack. Right click to block.
The compass sits at the top of the UI, showing POIs.
When you join a guild, you gain skill lines. Each class has three skill lines. Paul Sage: “You can make skills behave the way you want it to behave.”
Game is fully-voiced.
Nick is teleporting to using wayshrines and riding a horse.
Crouch/stealth mechanics and easy weapon swapping demontrated. Any class can use any armor or any weapon.
Paul Sage: “When you discover new things, you get experience for that.”
Easy travel to group in a safe location near your groupmates.
Three skyshards grant you a new ability.
It looked as if you could use a bow and magic at the same time. Weapon swapping really easy.
Game gives the player a heroic feel by fighting multiple enemies at one time.
No fighting over loot because it’s instanced to each player.
Nick is playing a Templar. Roles can be switched by switching weapons. “You play the role you want to play,” reiterates Paul Sage.
NPCs work together. If one NPC drops blue oil, another might set it on fire. They work together against your party.
Soul gems allows you to rez your teammates or rez yourself. Every time you die, your armor degrades.
NPCs can work with your group.
Mudcrabs confirmed 😛
The game is due to release in Spring 2014 on PC, Mac, XboxOne, and Playstion 4. Sign up for beta. And that’s it!

The presentation starts 40 minutes and 49 seconds into the video below.