ELDERSCROLLSUPDATE

The Elder Scrolls Online has certain player expectations going in, such as an expectation of the sort of quest structure you usually find in the series. More specifically, it’s the sort of structure in which you start off on some simple quest and wind up wandering off into some completely unrelated point of interest. A recent interview with creative director Paul Sage and lead content designer Rich Lambert reveals that the team is aiming for just that sort of model in the game.

As Lambert explains, the team wants to move away from the usual hub design in favor of several points of interest, each of which provides a little snippet of content and story. The points aren’t meant to be structured as an A-to-B affair; instead, you have several points of interest in a given region which build into a large overarching story. Take a look at the full interview for more information about how quests will work in the game and how players will be guided through objectives as they play.

 

Games in the Elder Scrolls series have always been about giving players the opportunity to become the game’s hero, and it looks like The Elder Scrolls Online will be no different. The title’s game director, Matt Firor, has announced that each character’s main storyline in the game will be “100% solo.”

Firor points back to the previous entries in the series, stating that “in The Elder Scrolls games, you’re always the hero… The last thing you want to do is have the final confrontation with Mehrunes Dagon as he’s stomping across the Imperial City, and you see like 15 guys behind you waiting to kill him.” While it’s a good point, we can’t help but wonder what kind of an impact this design will have on the social aspect of the MMO, but at this point all we can do is wait and see. Firor’s full interview over on Game Informer has plenty of extra information as well, so if you’re jonesing for more details, just head on over and check it out for yourself.

 

There’s a lot of pressure on Matt Firor these days as he heads production on The Elder Scrolls Online. Fans of the franchise have a lot of expectations about what the game will look like when it finally launches, but as Firor explains in a recent interview, his main concern is making the best possible game for the widest possible audience. Thus, rather than marketing specifically to everyone who loved Skyrim, the team is concerned with making the best possible overall game for a wider audience.

Firor also elaborates on the fact that the success of the game does not determine the future of the franchise. Bethesda and ZeniMax are different studios with different priorities, and the success of either helps the other. If you’re interested in the production values behind the upcoming title, take a look at the full interview. It’s light on game details, but it’s an interesting glance behind the scenes.

 

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.

 

See this strapping Dunmer lad? He’s got it all. Youth. Power. Insider status with the Mage’s Guild. And of course his handsome mug plastered all over the official Elder Scrolls Online website. One thing he doesn’t have is a name, and that’s where you come in (provided you’ve got a lore-appropriate imagination, that is).

Yep, ZeniMax wants you to christen this particular NPC so that he can more properly assist adventurers in Tamriel when the fantasy title goes live sometime that isn’t today. The naming contest starts on November 13th and runs through November 21st. Read all the entry details via the links below.

 

If ZeniMax seems a bit defensive about The Elder Scrolls Online, you can hardly blame the company. Since its announcement this spring, the upcoming MMO has been met with a steady chorus of fan disapproval due to perceived similarities with other themepark fantasy MMOs.

In a new interview with Kotaku, ZeniMax head honchos Matt Firor and Paul Sage attempt to accentuate the positive and differentiate TESO from its genre competitors. “When people sit down and play it, they’ll realize it’s different. Like our whole real-time combat system of blocking and dodging is all pretty much new,” Firor explains.

Firor also comes out swinging vis-à-vis the notion that TESO is nothing more than a World of Warcraft analog. “Making an MMO is making an MMO. I worked in the industry before World of Warcraft, so I can tell you that World of Warcraft had a lot of influences from a lot of games. Our priority is to make a great game and not to make a clone of anything,” he says.

 

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.

 

Ever since Game Director Matt Firor announced that Elder Scrolls Online would have a 100% soloable main story, we’ve been wondering just how much this will impact the game’s appeal and approach. Firor spoke with PC Gamer to elaborate on TESO’s format, saying that it was essential to make the story solo in order to establish the player as a hero.

While portions of TESO’s endgame and its PvP experience require grouping, Firor said that the core of the game will be played alone: “The way we do that in Elder Scrolls Online is there are parts of the game that you just do solo and you just do in a story instance. So the main backbone story of the game, which is your interaction with Molag Bal, one of the Daedric princes, you’re the hero in that story, so you experience that only yourself.”

Firor also addressed the team’s decision to eschew the skill-based system seen in newer Bethesda titles in favor of returning to systems seen in earlier Elder Scrolls games. “What we had to do to make it an MMO is to kind of evolve over to the multiplayer side and there are some things that come with that,” he admitted. “Since we have a PVP component to our game, it’s very difficult to make a skill-based game like in Skyrim.”

 

Have you been searching for a way to represent your favorite fantastical faction? Put down the stencils and spray paint: The fine folks behind The Elder Scrolls Online have seen fit to provide you with Twitter and Facebook avatars representing the Ebonheart Pact and its constituent races. Bear the crest of the Pact, Argonians, Dark Elves, or Nords with pride! While you’re at it, you might ogle the fancy concept art that accompanies the avatars.

If the Ebonheart Pact isn’t your fantasy consortium of choice, maybe you simply don’t know enough about it. In that case, an upcoming Q&A about the Ebonheart Pact may be just the thing for you. The TESO dev team is starting a bi-weekly Ask Us Anything Q&A to address questions about the game and its development. Each of the Ask Us Anything sessions will focus on a specific topic, which the team requests you keep in mind while thinking up your “anything” to ask. For the inaugural Q&A, which will go up next week, you can ask whatever you like about the Ebonheart Pact. You can find more information on the official site or submit questions through the official Facebook page.

 

Are you hoping that The Elder Scrolls Online will be part of the classic subscription model rather than go the free-to-play route? According to analyst Nicholas Lovell, founder of Gamesbrief, the odds are good that you’ll get your wish. Lovell notes that since the game began development in 2007, when subscription games were at their apex, Bethesda is likely to launch using the more familiar business model. Whether or not it will remain as a subscription game is another matter.

Of course, the price of play is far from the minds of most fans — the real question is what the game will look like when it’s actually playable. Director Matt Firor recently sat down to discuss the game’s earliest stages of development, the relationship between ZeniMax Online Studios and Bethesda, and working within the lore of the established IP. It’s an interesting look behind the scenes of development, and if you’re interested in the game, watching the video is certain to be six minutes well spent.