The Elder Scrolls Online, SMOKE SKOOMA ERRY DAY Options

[Crushinator]

Bethesda announced the long-rumored Elder Scrolls MMO yesterday, and released the teaser trailer today. To say I'm hyped is a sever understatement! TES is one of my favorite game settings, and the worlds they craft will be fantastic for a multiplayer experience. Skryim felt like they were already laying the groundwork for an MMO anyways, with all the crafting and faction stuff. I think I'm most excited about just being able to actually explore the various nations of Tamriel that are talked about but never actually featured in a proper game, like Elsweyr, Black Marsh, Summerset Isle, etc.

I'm really interested to see how they implement TES style character progression in an MMO setting. I hope the perk-focused leveling from Skryim is still intact.

Details leaked from the Game Informer article were listed on a NeoGaf post:

-Releasing 2013 for PC/Mac
-Developed by ZeniMax Online Studios
-MMORPG
-250 Person Team
-Started development in 2007
-"This time, saving the world from the awakening of ancient evil is only the beginning. What happens when hundreds or thousands of prophesied heroes all think that they should be Emperor?"
-The game is fully voice acted
-Third person perspective
-The game uses a hotbar to activate skills like other traditional MMOs
-Visually it looks like other Hero Engine MMOs like SWTOR
-The general art style is kind of like RIFT or Everquest 2
-You can't be a werewolf or vampire
-Crafting, alchemy, and soul stones will exist in an unrevealed form
-There will be Daedric Princes like Molag Bal, the primary antagonist, and Vaermina, "whose sphere of influence extends to the dream world and the nightmares of mortals", along with some unnamed others
-Constellations will be in the game a la Mundus stones (which work like guardian stones) and also give the answer to things like block puzzles where you step on the blocks in a certain order
-Tons of towns ranging from Imperial City, Windhelm, Daggerfall, Sentinel, Mournhold, Ebonheart, Elden Root, Shornhelm, Evermore, Riften, and a lot more
-Radiant AI will not be present
-There will be mounts, but no flying mounts
-Fast travel exists in the game in the form of wayshrines, which are also your ressurection point, and you can teleport from one wayshrine to any other wayshrine you have already visited
-There most likely won't be dragons
-Sneaking will be in the game, but how it is implemented is undecided
-They're not talking about pets right now
-There will be no player housing
-There will be no NPC romances or marriage
-"It needs to be comfortable for people who are coming in from a typical massively multiplayer game that has the same control mechanisms, but it also has to appeal to Skyrim players."
-Features most of Tamriel including Skyrim, Morrowind, Summerset Isle, and Elseweyr.
-"Not all provinces are included in their entirety; Zenimax Online is keeping large areas inaccessible to save them for use as expansion content. Nonetheless, every major area is represented to some extent."
-As an example, Windhelm is fully implemented, but Winterhold and the mages' college won't be in at launch.
-There are three player factions:
--Ebonheart Pact: The Nords, Dunmer, and Argoninans
--Aldmeri Dominion: Altmer, Bosmer, and Khajit
--Daggerfall Covenant: Bretons, Redguard, and Orcs
-"Recreateing the freedom Elder Scrolls players expect within the World of Warcraft-style mechanics Zenimax Online is using for this MMO would be impossible without changing the way that players interact with the world."
-As such, the game uses a hubless design
-For example, you don't necessarily pick up a quest to do the following, but if you kill all the necromancers in an undead barrow, a shade you free at the end will reward you.
-However, to help you find these events, various NPCs you talk to will tell you where they are happening and put a marker pointing them on your map, which is obviously totally different than receiving a quest.
-Not all quests will have NPCs that indicate where they are
-The game uses MMORPG genre standards such as classes, experience points, and other traditional MMORPG progression mechanics, but they try to present it "around the core fantasy presented by traditiona Elder Scrolls games" such as traveling around and righting wrongs or seeking riches
-The game world is very large relative to Skyrim
-You can explore almost anything you can see
-the game is set 1000 years in the past
-You can't master every discipline
-The imperials are an enemy to all three factions, lead by the noble Tharn family and the King of Worms, Mannimarco, and are hatching a plot to take over all of Tamriel
-But BEHOLD, Mannicmarco is scheming with Daedric prince Molag Bal to take over the world behind the Tharn's back
-Also, your soul has already been stolen by Molag Bal, which is the reason you can come back from death over and over again, and the starting plot is that you're fighting Molag Bal to get your soul back from him
-Hitting the level cap takes about 120 hours
-Each faction has their own leveling content
-An example quest is the story of Camlorn, where you have to stop evil werewolves who have their eyes set on conquest. First, you have to do a "standard MMO kill and collection quest" to sto ghosts from attacking some mages and soldiers. The ghosts are reliving a battle that the werewolf leader was in. You summon a ghost to find out what's going on, and the ghost tells you to wear her dead husband's armor to re-experience the battle he died in. You then get transported hundreds of years into the past to fight this battle. During this battle, you can choose to save the dead man's wife or to pursue the Werewolf leader. ZeniMax chooses to save the man's wife, who then tells you that the Werewolf leader is weak to fire. This information is helpful when you fight him, but you don't actually need to do this quest before fighting the werewolf leader if you don't want to. Basically, you can skip parts of quest chains if you want, but you get some benefit for playing the whole thing. Also, whenever you go back to the town you just saved, everything there hails you as a hero.
-The game features three faction PvP where you fight to take over keeps and use trebuchets and other siege weapons to help do it. At the high end, you can have 100 v 100 battles. There are also farms and mines you can try to take over. Mots of this happens in Cyrodiil where your goal is to take over and hold the Imperial City to get faction wide bonuses for it. If you have played Dark Age of Camelot, this probably sounds familiar. For those who haven't, essentially the entire zone is a giant PvP area will all sorts of points of interest.
-The most accomplished PvP player on your faction becomes emperor whenever you take over the capital
-When you take over Cyrodiil, you will be able to adventure in it as a hostile city a la Kvatch
-The game will have raids and heroic modes for its dungeons as end game content in addition to faction PvP
-There is also balanced PvP for people who prefer eSports
-The game will also have high end public dungeons
-Public dungeons are essentially instances that aren't actually instanced, so anyone can be in them, so imagine a World of Warcraft dungeon that featured everyone on the server in the area instead of just your party
-There are standard instanced dungeons as well
-Back on the topic of the skillbar, you have a limited number of skills you can use at any given time, and can change them whenever you're out of combat
-The number of skills is equal to (paraphrase) "a light and heavy attack with your current weapon that take up the first two slots, a few more spells related to your class, and an ultimate in the last slot".
-The ultimate is used once you gain enough finesse, which is earned by doing well in combat
-You also get a bonus loot chest if you're soloing and max your finesse, and you can also build finesse by comboing with other players
-For example, a rogue can put oil on the ground that a mage can set on fire
-A fighter can also spin in the firestorm a mage puts down, which sends out fireballs
-If you've seen Guild Wars 2 videos, the above will seem familiar
-You can't combo with the abilities of enemy players though, so if an enemy faction player drops an oil slick, you can't set it on fire
-The Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood will be presented, but in what form isn't detailed as their contnet is hard to recreate in an MMO setting
-NPCs will try to work together and use player like behavior when fighting you, and (at least to my understanding) have stamina as well
-They want the AI to be good, so instead of enemies in a dungeon sitting around and waiting to be pulled, you will be attacked by the entire room and they will try to react to how you are playing
-The claim was not demo'ed to Game Informer
-You destroy dark anchors to gain reputation with the Fighter's Guild. They are large hooks that fall from the sky pseudorandomly and have Daedric guardians next to them. They are easier to kill with a group, and once destroyed, everyone who participated gets a reputation boost with the Fighter's Guild, and eventually nets you rewards like new skills and abilities.
-The combat model will not be real time due to latency
-The combat is based around a stamina bar which you can use to sprint, block, interrupt, and break incapacitating effects
-Blocking is the primary focus of these abilities, and can do things like stopping the secondary effects of attacks such as an ice spell slowing you
-Stamina also applies to PvP, so stamina management (and wearing down your enemy's stamina) is important, as your crowd control abilities might be on a long cooldown, and if you use them before the enemy player runs out of stamina, they will probably just block the effect
-ZeniMax feels that having the stamina bar will help break down the Holy Trinity as stamina allows you to do things like tank
-However, healing is still a big part of the game
-There is also no aggro mechanic in the game, which is part of the reason stamina blocking and healing exist

[Crushinator]

First Screens:

[Kazicht]

Great! Another farmville clone.

[HC82]

Hmm... Looks like an Everquest clone graphically. Hopefully it take everything awesome about Elderscrolls and doesn't neuter it to be complacent with the typical MMO standard.

[Crushinator]

Yeah, even though I love the TES IP, I'm a little leery that they are going to sacrifice the freedom and open-endedness the series is known for to just shoehorn it into a generic MMO concept.

At least since this is being developed by a separate team, it won't affect development of any proper single player TES games (or Fallout for that matter).

[Scan_Man]

Yeah, even though I love the TES IP, I'm a little leery that they are going to sacrifice the freedom and open-endedness the series is known for to just shoehorn it into a generic MMO concept.

At least since this is being developed by a separate team, it won't affect development of any proper single player TES games (or Fallout for that matter).

Exactly. I thought during the development of Fallout 3 and Skyrim they were saying they would not go down the MMO or online co-op route for this very reason. I guess they were just saying that publicly until they found a way to make it viable? Heroengine is great if you want to crank out a MMO in a couple years. Hopefully they are not using the beta version like Bioware did for SWTOR.


I hope the leveling is not a zone to zone thing; the hubless sounds interesting. I expect for an Elder Scrolls MMO for you to kind of get lost in the world and do whatever.

[DarkEpyon]

Um.... ok.

Not sure if want.

Let's hope they find a happy medium somehow.

[Knightsword]

I can not confirm or deny the existence of a batch of beta invites going out.

[Scan_Man]

Yeah, even though I love the TES IP, I'm a little leery that they are going to sacrifice the freedom and open-endedness the series is known for to just shoehorn it into a generic MMO concept.

At least since this is being developed by a separate team, it won't affect development of any proper single player TES games (or Fallout for that matter).

Exactly. I thought during the development of Fallout 3 and Skyrim they were saying they would not go down the MMO or online co-op route for this very reason. I guess they were just saying that publicly until they found a way to make it viable? Heroengine is great if you want to crank out a MMO in a couple years. Hopefully they are not using the beta version like Bioware did for SWTOR.


I hope the leveling is not a zone to zone thing; the hubless sounds interesting. I expect for an Elder Scrolls MMO for you to kind of get lost in the world and do whatever.

Got to quote this as a reminder because from what I played it turned out like this. The atmosphere is there, but maaaaaan does it feel like "Elder Scrolls Lite." I feel like it is right there from being something special but plays it way too safe.

The player authorship is not present. Player authorship is one of the reasons that makes Elder Scrolls (and other games like GTA and Dark Souls) popular. The experience of playing the game and then having a unique experience that you go and tell your friends. Here you are doing the exact same thing with your friends.

Going to play more. But, I've played better free-to-play Korean MMOs over the years. Mechanics in game are not really anything special. Though the combat is an improvement over what you can find in the single player Elder Scrolls games for what it is worth.

[Crushinator]

Disappointing to hear, but not unexpected.

Curious as to what makes the combat better than traditional TES games? And do you think its applicable to TES6 as an offline solo game?

[Knightsword]

I found combat to rather annoying, when in 3rd person. The targeting sight was in static in the center of the screen and not in front of the character. So you had to have that on the enemy instead of just facing the enemy with your character like it is in Skyrim. It would be fine for first person viewing, but third person with your character off center it wasn't great. Otherwise yes I agree with the ES Lite comment.

[Crushinator]

Can you play it first person like in Skyrim or is it better in third person like most MMOs?

[Scan_Man]

First Person and third person are both fine and I think are viable either way. Now that Knight mentioned it, I do remember that same issue with the targeting sight in 3rd person. Took some adjustment. But traditional MMO tab targeting is there if you don't want to manual aim.


As for the combat it's mostly the same. The reason I say it is an improvement is due to the MMO hotkey nature of quickly using abilities. None of that right and left hand thing. Makes the combat feel a bit faster. Plus you have a legit roll dodge (not like Guild Wars 2 where rolling just gives you an evasion bonus or whatever).




I think this game would be better if they did not go full blown MMO. The best part was when I was out in the world alone and not having 15 other players jumping around doing the same thing I was doing. Maybe something similar to like PSO or Dark Souls. Something that will feel natural though. Like if it caps the amount of players you run into based on context. Like small towns you might be limited to you and up to 5 other players. Big cities, can have any max. From participating on the beta forums, a lot of people feel the same. Even in one thread an administrator/developer on the game had to even say something along the lines of: wait until the game comes out and players get spread out in the world more. LOL! Yeah, maybe because no one is going to be playing it!

Not many disagreeing opinions about this game, which does not look good for this game. Which is different than most beta impression of MMOs, where there are more varying opinions.

Some more impression on Neogaf:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php...9995&page=7

[Oddies da Nerfed]

Best way to describe the game is its an MMO with some Elder Scrolls paint. But it feels like an MMO, plays like an MMO, it is an MMO. Not an Elder Scrolls game.
Too much had to be given up to make it an MMO as well, which is the worst part. Lets face it, TES games particularly of late have not had much depth to em, but yet its so easy to sink stupid numbers of hours in to em, and one of the biggest reasons is the game lets you write your own story. How many of us when Morrowind, Obliv, or Skyrim came out were playing along with similar time invested but had such massively different experiences based on how we played as we each wrote our own story. TESO gives up all that. It is a dumbed down striped down console feeling stale RPG made MMO with GW2 combat mixed in to mashing left mouse button.

About the only choice you have is do you want this horribly robotic voiced TTS NPC to follow you, or this horribly robotic TTS and also partially voiced over NPC to follow you. Don't think I bothered with one quest description or any lore because it is just so fucking horribly presented.

I have beta tested a lot of MMOs over the years, TESO has the unfortunate disctinction of being one of the few that just bored me to where I stopped playing and didn't bother going back the rest of the weekend. I would rather play X3:AP, Old ass Evil Genius, an alpha stage game Spacebase DF-9, even the thoughts of starting a fresh level 1 on WoW appealed to me more than TESO.