ELDERSCROLLSUPDATE

Sign ups for beta testing Bethesda’s upcoming MMO The Elder Scrolls Online are now being accepted.

Anyone who registers to try out the game ahead of launch will be eligible to become a beta tester, though not everyone will be asked to participate. It also isn’t clear when the testing will actually begin, though the company has said timing and details of playtests will be provided to those who register at a later date.

A new trailer for the game has also been released containing more details, which you can check out below. It introduces in depth the three main alliances battling for control of Tamriel and the Imperial City: the Aldmeri Dominion, Daggerfall Covenant, and Ebonheart Pact.

The Elder Scrolls Online is the first title in the popular franchise to venture into the MMO space. One of the more interesting features that Zenimax Online has promised will be part of the game is the introduction of “Megaserver technology”. This means that you won’t have to make sure you and your mates select the same server or shard when starting the game in order to play together, but will instead be able to constantly interact through one connected world.

The game is currently only planned for release on PC and Mac in 2013, though we have heard previously that a console version hasn’t been ruled out. It’s also worth noting that it hasn’t been announced whether the game will require a subscription fee or not.

While there was plenty of huge news at E3 last week, one of the most interesting announcements was surely Bethesda’s decision to bring The Elder Scrolls Online to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. After the announcement, we sat down with Bethesda VP of PR and marketing Pete Hines to ask how he expects the MMO to transition from PC and why he thinks it will appeal to console gamers.

“There was a time a long time ago when everybody told us that Morrowind was never going to work on the Xbox, that that audience did not get those kinds of games, that they were too complicated and too big. Then Morrowind sold like gangbusters,” Hines told IGN. “Then they told us that you can’t release a game in May, it will never sell. We released a game you’re not supposed to do on a console in a month when you’re not supposed to release it, and it killed. Then we did Oblivion, and it did really well on two platforms. Skyrim, obviously, tore it up. I’m not allowed to give the number, but there are just insane numbers of people that have played Skyrim on the current generation of those platforms.”

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You’re not doing keyboard and mouse on a PS4, but otherwise the game experience should look and feel and play exactly the same.

“Obviously nobody’s played it on PS4, but there are tons of people out there who know Skyrim, who know the Elder Scrolls games and know what that’s like,” Hines continued. “The thing that we like is that when people are coming to play Elder Scrolls Online, they say, ‘I just felt like I was playing an Elder Scrolls game. The MMO part didn’t hit me in the face. The controls are the same and it feels and looks similar. I’m just going out and exploring and finding stuff to do.’”

“We think that if we make a game that hits all those same kinds of notes – if you like this about Skyrim, Elder Scrolls Online does all these things, and then there’s the chance to play with your friends and giant PvP battles and all this other stuff that we can do – that is going to find an audience on those platforms like it did with Skyrim. I can’t give an exact number, again, but I do think that there is a large number of people who really like Skyrim. They want more of that. If they can do more of that and play with their friends, that’s a win.”

Given Skyrim’s troubled history on PlayStation 3, we asked Hines if the decision to make The Elder Scrolls Online’s beta available first on PS4 was an olive branch to PlayStation gamers.

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If we had to make changes to the game that these guys are envisioning to get it out on consoles, that’s not something we would be doing.

“It wasn’t intended that way,” Hines told us. “It was more just that when we were talking to the Sony guys, they were super excited about what we’re doing and what we can do together. They wanted to be big part of this. There’s been a big culture change at Sony. The folks that are there now, that we work with, are not the folks that we were working with a year or two ago. Guys like Adam Boyes and the team that he’s put together on the third-party side – which is who we interact with – I think are being super proactive at reaching out to us. They’re saying, ‘we love your games. I played Skyrim for 200 hours. I want to do more with you guys. What do you have going on?’ Honestly, Adam was like, ‘when can I come out and see everything that you’re making? I want to see everything you’re doing.’ Nobody had ever asked us that before. So just that dynamic is a little different.”

“It’s obviously a very different game,” Hines continued. “It isn’t any easier to do on a console, it’s just different. The issue is with an open world game, you can pick up every single object in a game and take cheese wheels and throw them down a hill. We have to keep track of all that. It’s very different compared to an MMO, where you have freedom, but it’s not that same insane level of freedom, where every single object in the world is modeled and physicked and movable. If you did that in an MMO, literally two seconds after you launch, it’s just insanity. Everybody starts knocking everything over, all over the world. So it’s scaled back from that standpoint, to allow the freedom of, ‘oh, there’s lots of people in the world that I can play with,’ and all that stuff.”

Hines also addressed whether or not the game will retain a full feature set on consoles. Has anything been cut compared to PC?

“If we had to make changes to the game that these guys are envisioning to get it out on consoles, that’s not something we would be doing,” Hines said. “But we feel like, as it is, right now, obviously the controls have to work differently because you’re not doing keyboard and mouse on a PS4, but otherwise the game experience should look and feel and play exactly the same. So why not put it out on those things? If we could do it on 360, we would probably be having that conversation, but it’s different. It’s not exactly the same. The ones that support it as envisioned are the ones that we’re putting it out for.”

Look out for much more from our conversation with Hines in the days to come. Until then, read our hands-on impressions of the PC version and find more in our The Elder Scrolls Online wiki.

An Elder Scrolls console MMORPG? Matt Firor, executive producer of ZeniMax, seemed convinced it could work during a recent chat with him, and despite my lingering concerns with other aspects of ESO, I’m prepared to believe him. I’m aware that I may be in the minority. When the news broke during E3 that ESO would be coming to both the PS4 and Xbox One along with the PC, many onlookers reacted as if the Oblivion crisis were at hand. Either a console transition would sacrifice some vague notion of complexity, it was believed, or it would fall flat on its face in the absence of “essential” PC elements such as modding capabilities. I beg to differ. ZeniMax has an ace up its sleeve: if it stays true to the series’ roots, it has a better chance of success than all console MMO efforts that have come before it.

I’d be a fool if I didn’t think some concern was justified. After all, console MMORPGs have consistently failed despite numerous attempts to give them legitimacy. Heck, most of them have never even made it to store shelves on the Xbox 360 in particular. Not only are they subject to the lifespans of console generations, but they’re usually designed with the ability-bloated templates of EverQuest and World of Warcraft in mind. That just doesn’t work with consoles. Elder Scrolls Online was designed differently, however, and Firor claims it was a happy accident of the process. “We were committed to an Elder Scrolls MMO long before we made the decision to go to console, so even on the PC, players have a very minimal interface and a small button bar,” he said. “By doing this early in the project, it makes designing for a gamepad much easier.”

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The Elder Scrolls series itself already has a strong console heritage.

But if Elder Scrolls Online has an undeniable advantage over the pile of failed console MMORPGs of years past, it’s that the Elder Scrolls series itself already has a strong console heritage stretching all the way back to Morrowind in 2002. That’s how I’ve personally experienced the series since Oblivion, partly out of a need to play new content as it appeared, and I haven’t really regretted it despite the absence of the PC community’s many brilliant mods. Quite the contrary; I found a visceral satisfaction in using triggers to swing weapons and draw bows on a gamepad that I never found on keyboards, and I like the immersion of not being able to run to the command console every time a quest didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to. And so it goes with Elder Scrolls Online.

Which brings us to the combat. Put lightly, the Elder Scrolls series has never been known for intense or visually interesting combat,but there’s a gritty realism about its simple slashes that’s well suited to gamepad-driven gameplay. The first time I played, I remember how much it “felt” like Elder Scrolls in this regard — the use of left and right mouse buttons to block and attack, the optional near-absence of a UI — and I recall wanting to hook a gamepad up so I could see how well it performed. That feeling extended to the progression of the combat, which is limited to a mere six button slots on both PC and consoles. As Firor explained, “As you use abilities (class, weapon, guild, other), they get better, and eventually you can morph them into more powerful versions of the base ability,” he said. “There’s plenty of choice — and remember, your base attack, heavy attack, and block abilities are performed with the mouse buttons or gamepad, not with the ability bar.” Standard Elder Scrolls gameplay, then — familiar to both PC and console players.

If we deliver the Elder Scrolls experience that gamers are looking for, we’ll be fine.

And therein lies a possible key to the Elder Scrolls’ future success: In Firor’s words, “we’re an Elder Scrolls game, first and foremost, and if we deliver the Elder Scrolls experience that gamers are looking for, we’ll be fine.” That means we’re not looking at something so drastic as pulling characters from a real-time strategy game and dumping them into an MMO (as in Warcraft), but rather an attempt to make “Skyrim with friends.”

“We definitely wanted to make the game very accessible to Elder Scrolls (RPG) players, and make sure that ESO doesn’t hit you with too much jargon, interface, or options in the beginning,” Firor continued. “Experienced MMO players will find most of the gameplay they are used to, but it is definitely filtered through an Elder Scrolls-type interface and experience. And yes, the more that the game feels like Elder Scrolls, the better we’ve reached our goal.” So long as ZeniMax keeps that simple and lofty goal in mind, the concept has tremendous potential; indeed, it might be doing itself a disservice by marketing itself as an MMORPG. It helps, too, that ESO takes up the current drive toward single-player play in MMORPGs with zeal, leaving most quests outside of instances perfectly soloable.

But let’s be honest. There’s not much point in playing an MMORPG if you’re going to go it alone; much of the appeal of the genre lies in the way it lets you tackle a challenge with a group of other people, and with better results than what you find in most office meetings. This will be the biggest hurdle for ZeniMax, particularly since grouping in console MMORPGs involves unwieldy alternations between gamepads and keyboards or (at worst) enduring immersion-breaking epithets in voice chat. Firor himself admits that ZeniMax is still searching for a solution. “We’re in the middle of designing these [social] systems now,” he said. “We’ll have much more detail on them in the coming months.”
“We’re in the middle of designing these [social] systems now.”

It’s the other systems that worry me. Player levels and the associated lack of a reason to return to starter zones, ESO’s overreliance on instanced zones, and a general feeling of crampedness — all these aspects clash with the signature open-world Elder Scrolls experience. Even now, 250 hours into my Skyrim playthrough, I still enjoy questing and fighting around the humble river town my character first saw at level 2, and I want to find that feeling in ESO. Other RPGs might have legitimate claims to better combat or storylines, but few if any succeed so well in creating the sense of traveling through a living world. That, I believe, is what we all want to see in an Elder Scrolls MMORPG, and that’s what ZeniMax really needs to deliver. As for gamepad integration? Eh, don’t worry about it. The Elder Scrolls has had that down for years.

 

 

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.

 

Our first gameplay stream has fansites abuzz! Find out what they’re saying and see some new fan creations in this issue.

Last week’s live gameplay stream from QuakeCon got you all talking. If you missed it, you can watch the replay here. Once you’ve seen it, check out the coverage on our fansites in today’s issue and get in on all the discussions. We’ve also gathered up some new fan art and fiction, and hope you’ll enjoy these creative works. If you have something you’d like to see featured in the Chronicle, send it to us at community@elderscrollsonline.com and we’ll take a look.

Community Events

Check out what some the awesome ESO fan communities around the web are doing!

This Friday, August 9th, at 7:00 PM Eastern (EDT), the ESO All-Stars will be hosting their latest live stream round table event! In this episode, they plan to talk about all the latest ESO news and answer some of your questions. We’ll see you there!

Here are your hosts:

Andrew “Atropos” from Tamriel Foundry
Brian “Rothalack” Schaaf from GameSkinny
Evarwyn and Joe “The Widget” from Elder Scrolls Off the Record
Jesse Cox
Josh and Kyle from Shoddycast
Mark “Lord Hammer” Taylor from Guild UMBRA

Get all the details in their announcement.

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!

Amaziah Hadithi the Redguard Templar – Art by Sriinknorei, Character by Swordsaint

The Elder Scrolls: Flag of the Ebonheart Pact (Wallpaper) – By Okiir on DeviantArt

Khajiit Male & Female – By Shanku on Tamriel Foundry

Fan Fiction

Journey to Tamriel through the eyes of other ESO fans.

Casting Shadows: Chapter Two – By BlytheAlarynn on TESOF

The sun was set low in the sky. It was cradled by two sizable hills and blanketed by a sky of woven gold. It dimly illuminated the field below. The area was wide open and seemed to stretch out for miles upon miles. Bees buzzed lazily around wild flowers that grew in luxuriant clusters wherever they pleased. Two nearby butterflies fluttered in circles around each other, vibrant flashes of color glimmering off their wings. A welcomed breeze flew past, teasing the tall grass that tickled the skin of the three bodies that sat in the center of it all, soaking up the scenery.

The Deserter: Chapter 2 – By Davek on TESO-RP

Dazog sniffed the air carefully. He was right, the smell of wet moss hung faintly in the air, which meant he was heading in the right direction. He wasn’t looking forward to confronting a mage, particularly an Argonian one. He was hoping this “dangerous stranger” was just some novice alchemist practicing his tradecraft in solitude in the hills. Dazog remembered hearing somewhere that magic-users like their privacy in order to study. He assured himself it was just some harmless student.

Scorched – By Triskele on TESOF

She narrowed her eyes against the unforgiving light of the scorching sun, the linen over her mouth to protect her lungs from the sandy winds not able to make her forget about her cracked, swollen lips, deprived of water. One foot, she thought. One foot, then the other. And continue like that. Behind her lay the lonesome trail of her boots, footsteps in the red dunes, leading all the way back to a small crevasse, above which vultures circled. Her horse had not made it.

Theodyne Robillard and The Daggerfall Covenant: Part 2 – ByTheodyne Robillard on TESOF

It had been months since the night that Theodyne had met Alator Virane and joined the ranks of The Council of Arcanea. But even still he could sometimes feel the creature’s blade in his shoulder as if it were still there. Sometimes he would even place his hand on the scar to make sure the wound was still closed even though it had long since healed thanks to the magic of Alator.

Fan Music

Listen to these excellent fan compositions, inspired by The Elder Scrolls Online:

Farrun – By Armin Gutjahr

News and Articles

Get the latest news, info, and editorials from ESO fan site writers:

Elder Scrolls Online Info

Gameplay Presentation at QuakeCon
Roleplaying Roundup

Elder Scrolls Off the Record

Digging Into Character Progression in ESO
ESO Livestream Reactions

ESO-Wiki

Addons in Elder Scrolls Online

ShoddyCast

Ask Us Anything – Recent Questions from the Shoddience #3
Elder Scrolls Lore: Ch.12 – Bretons of High Rock
Poll Results – Ranged DPS Takes the Cake and Blows It Up Too

Tamriel Foundry

A First Look at Templar Skills in ESO
An Overview of Cyrodilic Geography
Quakecon Video Dissection: Reactive Combat
Weekly Screenshot Dissection – Jungle Bridges

TESO Elite

ESO Live Game Play Preview
Immersive Details #6 – Why can’t I repair?
“Show your Faction Pride” Contest: Winners Announcement

TESO-RP

Guild Spotlight: The Blacklight Dragoons
The Tamriel Witness – Chronicles of The Elders Scrolls
Tales of a Magpie: The Five Hundred

Podcasts and Videocasts

Hear fansite personalities discuss all things ESO:

BabyMakersGaming

Elder Scrolls Online Actual Gameplay (QuakeCon 2013) and Live Dungeon Run (Bow Gameplay)
Elder Scrolls Online Livestream Gameplay and Next gen Consoles
Elder Scrolls Online New Gameplay Footage (Die Ogrim!)
Elder Scrolls Online Roleplay News and More!

CVG

Exclusive Developer Interview + ESO Gameplay
New Gameplay, MMO’s for beginners and character creation

Elder Scrolls Off the Record

Episode 77: Sitting…

Force Strategy Gaming

Elder Scrolls Online Gameplay & Impressions (Quakecon 2013 Footage)
ESO First Person Gameplay (Elder Scrolls Online)
Tamriel Tavern – Roleplaying, Scamps, Tribunal (ESO News)

GamerLCD

First Person Mode Gameplay + Live Stream

JTechTV

ESO Gameplay! -ESO RECAP EPISODE 13- Elder Scrolls Online- With MrJtechtv & Klumzy

SpartanJesters

Character Creation From QuakeCon 2013
QuakeCon 2013 – Elder Scrolls Online – LFG system Information
Quake Con 2013 – Elder Scrolls Online – Mount Info (NEW)
Quake Con 2013 – Elder Scrolls Online – Templar Skills Shown

TESO Elite

What’s In It For Me? – TESOCast Episode 19

TrekkerCrew

Breakdown of Gameplay From QuakeCon 2013

TwonkHammer

TESOCast – Ep 19 – Where Are We Going With This?

Question of the Week Answers

We’ve gathered up some of your answers to last week’s Developer Question of the Week. Watch the video to see the full question, and look for a new Developer Question of the Week this Thursday.

“Ashe Rune (30 second stun), Incinerate (DPS), and Bane of the Undead (30 second fear). I would stun then before they get to me. Incinerate, and if they manage to live through that, fear them. I would use the tight corridors of the catacombs to my favor.” – Ryan Nesbitt
“Charm—to convince the Orc from the Fighters Guild to do the job for me. Did it with only one spell! Am I Archmage yet?” – Nathan Hoffman
“A wise Breton mage taught me to never start a fight without these three spells at the ready: Conjure Bound Greaves for the safety of my knees, Conjure Enhanced Pastry Pouch Seal because a stolen sweetroll is no silly matter, and Conjure Dremora Lord because they are over powered.” – William Thai
“THREE SPELLS—you are seriously going to give a new player that many spells for their first quest? What luxury! Usually a new mage gets ONE spell, sometimes two, but THREE?” – Hawk Wind
“I would bring a turn undead spell. It’s a catacomb, after all—there are going to be undead. A fire spell (an undead’s weakness), and maybe a summon creature spell to guard me. To me, a good mage should always be ready for any situation and quickly adapt.” – James Cain
“My first character will be a spellsword joining the guild. Dual-wielded swords combined with lightning-based spells will be my choice. Some of the crowd control abilities will take a second seat, and lastly a healing spell, to get myself out of trouble when working alone.” – Anathros Luciendar

QuakeCon 2013 Coverage Roundup

Catch up on The Elder Scrolls Online coverage from QuakeCon. Don’t miss the replay of our first live gameplay stream!

We had a great time meeting everyone who came out to QuakeCon last week and presenting our very first gameplay stream on Twitch. If you missed the stream or any of the interviews and articles from the show, don’t worry—we’ve got a collection of the latest to share with you. Please enjoy the coverage, and don’t miss the uncut replay of the gameplay stream, which includes a dungeon run!

 Articles

CVG – “Like Skyrim, the world begs exploration and rewards you for doing so. It feels lived in. Every person has a name, everything you kill (rats and cows aside) a story.”

Den of Geek – “Although it’s not slated for release until next year, The Elder Scrolls Online is looking pretty good already, and is certainly attempting to keep the series’ feel without sacrificing the depth we’ve come to expect.”

EGM – “In the end, I was amazed that the two hours I had with the game flew by as quickly as they did. It’s obviously hard to get a serious taste of what an MMO has to offer after only a few hours, but I like what I’ve seen so far.”

Game Chatter – “ESO looks amazing.  This is better than any MMO that I have played.  The land, buildings, NPCs all look incredible.  The movement of your character is fluid, even in combat.”

Gamefront – “One aspect that went unmentioned — but that I noted — was that, despite Sage mentioning that the viewpoint player was fairly high level, there was only one hotbar on screen, with only eight abilities on it. Oddly enough, this may be the “feature” that most excites me about TESO — it won’t be ‘Hotbar Manager 2014.’”

Gameranx – “The world of Tamriel looks amazing and the attention to detail is mind-blowing.”

Geek.com – “There’s very few online games that have the potential to be as big as World of Warcraft, but I think The Elder Scrolls Online is one of them.”

IGN – “Everything in ESO makes sense in a way typical MMOs don’t.”

Machinima: Inside Gaming Daily – “I’ve turned from a total skeptic to one of the players that will be knocking at the gates on launch night.”

MMORPG – “All in all the world felt very alive and familiar to me. And it made me very happy that it was so familiar and what I expected.”

Platform Nation – “Seeing and not just guessing where such attacks were coming in from definitely put a focus on movement, which is a nice change from standing there and clicking until RSI set in.”

Polygon – “There’s a truly unprecedented amount of customization — for an MMORPG, at least — to be found.”

Videos & Interviews.

CVG

Elder Scrolls Weekly – Exclusive Developer Interview + ESO Gameplay
Elder Scrolls Weekly – New Gameplay, MMO’s for beginners and character creation

MMORPG

Interview with Nick Konkle – On Guilds, Being Emperor, and Much More

Todd Kenreck

ESO QuakeCon Playlist (Interviews with Paul Sage)

Check your email! We’re sending more invites to The Elder Scrolls Online beta.

We’re sending another wave of invitations to the ESO beta. Check your email to see if you’ve been invited, and don’t forget to look in your spam folder just in case.

If you registered with a Gmail address, you may have been switched over to their new tabbed inbox view. If you have, you’ll see tabs for “Primary,” “Social,” and “Promotions” at the top of your inbox. Our beta invitations will be sorted to the “Promotions” tab by default, so make sure to look there.

We’re still ramping up our beta test, so don’t worry if you didn’t receive an invitation yet. 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!

 

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!

Last week was a huge week for MMO fans. We were expecting some cool news from Sony Online Entertainment about EverQuest Next from SOE Live. Despite not being a huge EQ follower, I was enormously interested in what SOE (one of my personal favorite game developers and publishers) planned on doing with its staple franchise. Then Bethesda announced that for the first time ever the ZeniMax team would show in-game footage of the Elder Scrolls Online on Twitch TV. Specifically, players wanted to see the first-person view not seen at previous conventions. ZeniMax delivered, and the crowd went wild.

I believe both presentations were wonderful, and I would be lying if I said that both presentations didn’t pique my interest. I would also be lying if I said that I had no concerns about how each of the games will be received. I talked about it with my guild, Nefarious Intent. We have some hardcore Elder Scrolls fans and some MMOers who have been playing EQ games since the ’90s. During the course of the debate, we came to the conclusion that the audience of each game expects something completely different and that pitting these two titles together is completely unfair. So of course that’s why I have to do just that in today’s column.

Why are there different expectations between ESO and EQN? How is it going to be completely possible for both games to be highly successful?

I’m going to mention this one more time because I think it is indicative of the direction that Elder Scrolls Online is taking: Creative Director Matt Firor said on Gamereactor, “This is more a multiplayer Elder Scrolls game than an MMO.” Not only does that properly set the expectations for the audience, but it might also be the saving grace of the ESO marketing strategy. It sets the expectation for the player and at the same time informs the audience which kind of player ZeniMax expects to play ESO.

Massively caters to a wide audience of gamers. We feature articles about MOBAs, shooters, sandboxes, themeparks, and whatever Beau does. All of them are online; all feature a massively multiplayer component. However, our roots — and our core audience — are in classic MMORPGs like Ultima Online and EverQuest. This trend was never more evident than in the performance of the articles featured last Friday.

As regular readers of this column are aware, we did a point-by-point liveblog as ZeniMax presented a dungeon in ESO. It was wildly popular, even by our standards. And had it been the only thing featured that day, it would have blown all the other articles out of the water. On the low end, I estimate it performed about 1000% better than the average Massively article. Then an hour later, MJ released her reveal of EverQuest Next, which surpassed the Elder Scrolls article with about three times the readers. I was surprised by both articles’ performances. But what does that ultimately tell me?

First, it made me jealous that MJ’s article did better than mine. Curse you, MJ! But what it really told me was that Massively’s audience is really interested in the type of game SOE is presenting: a sandbox-y, make-your-own-content kind of MMO. We really hadn’t seen a well-made AAA sandbox MMO in a long time. The last one to my knowledge was Fallen Earth, but its overall performance was underwhelming. Before that I’d have to point to Star Wars Galaxies. But thanks to the geniuses at LucasArts, the NGE cut the legs out from under the game and now it is no more. We simply haven’t seen many AAA sandbox MMORPGs since Ultima Online. I don’t know if that says something about the audience or the creators, but there it is.

From what I gather, EQN will fill a niche that MMORPG players have been wanting for a very long time. Props to SOE for seeing that and taking advantage of it. But I said that I believed that ESO could be successful as well, which is true. What niche is ESO filling? I would say it’s filling about 7 million niches, one for every player who wished that he or she could have played Skyrim with a few thousand friends. Based on the gameplay shown at QuakeCon, I think ESO feels a lot like Skyrim. The gameplay is very similar, and it even employs a very similar minimalist UI. The gameplay footage and the statement made by Firor solidified the target audience for me: ESO is aimed directly at new MMO players, TES players interested in porting their single-player experience online. That, coupled with the enormous number of platforms the game will release on, gives it the best chance to be a highly successful game, even if its current target isn’t the long-time MMO player.

What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Despite the target audience, are you going to play still? I am, but I play different games for different reasons. What about you? What would motivate you to play ESO and EQN at the same time?

Usually, I split this column into a bit about my personal topic and a bit about what the commenters are talking about. This week, I want to deviate from that just a bit by featuring an incredible video series that Shoddy Cast developed over the last few months called Elder Scrolls Lore. This series, sitting now at 12 chapters with more to come, presents the history of Tamriel in a documentary-style video presentation. Seriously, if I didn’t know that this was a made-up land in a fictitious universe, I swear it could have been a show on the History Channel. I’ve included the latest episode below, but you should really check out the whole series. If you love TES lore, then you have to watch this.

 

 

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!