Games The Elder Scrolls MMO

[Fefner]

Bit of info on this game got released today, sounds promising.

http://acolytesguild.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/elder-scrolls-online-preview/

http://tamrielfoundry.com/2012/10/combat-in-teso/

http://tamrielfoundry.com/2012/10/gameplay-impressions/

 

[BloodOmen]

I dont see how they can pull this off and claim its an elderscrolls game tbh

1) none of the staff that worked on the previous games are working on this (or werent last I checked)
2) how on earth can they allow the exploration you could achieve in the previous games without being raped if you go somewhere you arent meant to be? enemies scaled to your level on the previous games... without that feature it'll just be another "Goto X do X quest advance to X hub for X progression" MMO

Ultimately nothing unique about it except the brand name, shall be avoiding it like the plague.

 

[PLightstar]

Just doesn't seem appealing. The classes, should be the same as the main games. (I know they took them out in Skyrim) Really is the game no one asked for.

 

[Ctuchik]

One of TB's mates have played the pre alpha and he's kinda impressed. Apparently the mobs are quite a lot smarter and try to use skills that work well with other mobs skills.

Hate to admit it but i'm kinda interested now... Might even make myself ignore the title of the game and just play it as yet another MMO with no expectations, and with that in mind it might actually turn out ok.

Here's the "review" (no footage other then screenshots, he wasn't allowed to film anything). But he is a major elder scrolls fan so i kinda trust him.

Oh and all you small group pvp'ers might actually have something to hope for.


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLp0ykvotEI&feature=g-u-u

 

[old.Tohtori]

TBs mate is such a understating way to describe Jesse

 

[Ctuchik]

An acquaintance TB loves to mock then?

 

[Ormorof]

3 faction pvp + no reset bullshit sounds pretty damn good to be honest

 

[Fefner]

I love the server idea, problem with GW2 atm is that ppl are swapping servers every week and there is a big issue about night capping. My only concern is the cleric idea, anyone can be clerics isn't a good idea, stealthing clerics just seem utter ridiculous.

 

[BloodOmen]

The night PvP was fucking horrid when I played, French and German servers just took everything while everyone was asleep, it more or less made the whole "Upgrade keeps etc" idea completely redundant during the night. They failed rather hard at balancing such things, they should have had guards/keep doors/weapons that scaled up in difficulty when X realm or X defender was clearly outnumbered to atleast give people a chance.

I enjoyed the PvP in general its just a shame they failed so fucking bad on the WvW, I could have done a better job with my hands tied behind my back, both eyes poked out and my hair set on fire.

 

[Pertan]

Well this game looks promising, but then so did Warhammer and many other mmorpgs.

 

[Amphrax]

I am also lookinng forward to this...The only problem with all these new MMO games that have come out are all compared to DAoC gameplay and pvp... Now, if you imagine that DAoC never came out in the first place... would you still have the same view on these MMO's?

 

[BloodOmen]

If what that guy said in the video rings true and they 100% stick to it then it'll be ace, so many companies stray away from the lines tho and fucking ruin it so we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[Ormorof]

i just hope that by making an MMO it doesnt mean the end of other Elder Scrolls games in the future, not everyone wants to play online

 

[Nate]

Nah they'll make another fallout game next, after a few more expansions in skyrim.

 

[svartalf]

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/1...nline-gets-shiny-concept-art-bi-weekly-qanda/

Massively's hands-on with The Elder Scrolls Online
by Matt Daniel on Oct 22nd 2012 10:00AMFantasy, Galleries, Screenshots, Classes, Events, real-world, Events, in-game, Game mechanics, Previews, PvE, Opinion, Hands-on, Massively Hands-on, The Elder Scrolls Online0


Last week, I ventured forth from the subtropical paradise (read: sweltering wasteland) of the Florida panhandle to the frozen northern wastes of Maryland to visit the studios of ZeniMax Online to spend some time with the studio's premiere foray into the MMO space, The Elder Scrolls Online.

The Elder Scrolls Online has caused quite a clamor since it was first revealed back in May. Since then, everything has calmed down, everyone is discussing everything reasonably, and... I can't keep a straight face. In reality, MMO gamers are deeply divided about TESO, and some vocal potential players are most displeased to see the venerable sandbox world of Tamriel being reduced to yet another themepark MMO experience.

So after about four hours of hands-on time with the title, I'm here to answer some questions. Have the folks at ZeniMax run The Elder Scrolls off the rails, or have they just taken it in a bold, new direction? Join me after the cut and I'll tell you what I think.
The Elder Scrolls Online

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  Let me first answer the question on everybody's mind: Does it feel like an Elder Scrolls game? It does, mostly. The game's art team has done a fantastic job of recreating the kind of beautiful scenic vistas that players have come to expect from the series, and it's clear that much attention was paid to keeping the world consistent with previous games. I was delighted to notice that the very same unique Nord urns I had looted the crap out of in Skyrim were scattered around the various tombs and barrows I explored in TESO. Of course, TESO deviates a bit from the previous titles in the series, mostly by necessity, but I'll get to that later.
  
  
  
  
  For my time with TESO, I was able to play only the Ebonheart Pact faction, which is made up of the Dunmer of Morrowind, the Nords of Skyrim, and the Argonians of Black Marsh. Being the filthy elf-lover that I am, I went with the Dunmer. The two classes available in this build of the game were the Dragon Knight and the Templar. The Dragon Knight was described as a front-line fighter with reality-altering magic, while the Templar was more or less what you'd expect from a class called the Templar: magic, support, that kind of thing.
  
  Now, TESO does character building a bit differently than most games in that any class can wield any type of weapon and wear any type of armor. In addition, all characters have access to a common "pool" of abilities granted by increasing skill in particular fighting styles (one-hander and shield, dual-wielding, two-hander, etc.) plus an additional pool of abilities granted by investing points (awarded upon leveling up) into one of your three main stats: health, stamina, and magicka. For instance, I invested most of my points in the stamina stat, thereby unlocking a passive sprint speed bonus and an ability that granted me health and stamina after I killed an enemy. Because of this system of progression, a player's class really dictates only the class-specific abilities he unlocks as he levels. So with that in mind, I chose the Dragon Knight because the description mentioned altering reality, and I'm a sucker for the Alteration school of magic.
  
  My Dunmer began his journey in a remote island northeast of Skyrim known as Bleakrock. Off the coast of the isle, scouts had spotted approaching ships thought to be an invasion force of the enemy Daggerfall Covenant (consisting of Bretons, Orcs, and Redguards). It's worth noting that this starting experience begins at level 2 after Molag Bal has stolen my soul and all that good stuff, but that opening segment of the game wasn't available to us. At any rate, my now-soulless Dark Elf was assigned the task of searching Bleakrock for missing villagers while the rest of the village prepared to evacuate. With my goal set for me, I sallied forth into the icy mountains of Skyrim.
  
  
  
  
  If you've ever played an Elder Scrolls game, TESO's controls will be immediately familiar to you. WASD moves your character, the mouse controls where you're looking/aiming (no tab-targeting here, folks), spacebar jumps, shift sprints... you get the idea. The combat controls are also taken directly from previous TES titles. Clicking the left mouse button will swing your weapon, whereas holding it down will charge up a power attack and holding right-click will block incoming attacks.
  
  So while we're on the subject, let's talk about combat. I mentioned earlier that TESO varies from previous titles in a few ways, mostly by necessity, and combat is one of those ways. It's obviously very difficult to implement the combat of, say, Skyrim directly into an MMO. And honestly, I always thought that combat was one of the series' weaker points. As a dual-wielding character in Skyrim, I got very familiar with the "strategic" combat style of running up, spamming power attacks, and backpedaling furiously. Maybe it's just me, but I never found it terribly tactical or exciting. TESO captures the spirit of the series' combat in a way that is better-suited to an MMO environment, and in my opinion, considerably more engaging.
  
  The closest comparison I can draw to an existing combat system would be Champions Online, but it has a few twists of its own. One of the features I thought was pretty awesome was the finesse system. During each fight, you're rated on your combat prowess based on how efficiently you take down your foes. For instance, enemies will periodically charge up power attacks that can be blocked by holding down right-click. After the player blocks a foe's power attack, the enemy will briefly be "exploitable," which means that performing a power attack on that enemy will do major damage and knock him to the ground. Properly blocking attacks and exploiting enemies will earn you finesse points, which serve a few different purposes.
  
  
  
  
  First, you're granted an experience bonus based on your finesse score, and if the score is high enough, you will also be given a loot chest that can contain shiny new gear. Secondly, finesse points charge your ultimate ability, the first of which is unlocked at level 5. My Dragon Knight's first ultimate ability (I was told that players can unlock different ultimates as they progress through the game) was called Dragon Armor, and when activated, it gave me a sweet set of spiky armor that caused fire damage to any enemies within proximity. All of the abilities I was given access to had pretty high "wow" factors. My personal favorite was Fiery Reach, which shot a flaming chain to my target, pulled him to me, and stunned him momentarily so I could take my leisurely time in laying the smack down.
  
  Overall, the combat has a strong action flavor and flows really well. Taking on a group of enemies and surgically blocking, retaliating, and using abilities while watching your finesse score rise has a way of making you feel like a badass. Unfortunately, the combat suffers from an incredibly finnicky targeting system that can make fights involving multiple mobs and/or ally players somewhat frustrating.
  
  In essence, you can attack or use abilities only if your targeting reticle is currently over a valid target, so if you and three of your best buddies are going to town on some hapless zombie, it's pretty easy for abilities to simply not trigger because your friend's attack animation put his pinkie finger in the way of your targeting reticle. I'm admittedly a bit disappointed that there's no real-time hit detection, so you can't simply swing your sword and hit the enemies in the arc of the blade, and there doesn't seem to be any way to dodge incoming projectiles. I can understand why those things can be problematic to implement, but the current targeting system needs a great deal of work.
  
  Another thing that long-time players of The Elder Scrolls are surely familiar with is robbing entire towns blind by looting every last wheel of cheese from the poor townsfolks' cupboards. Those players will be happy to know that this capability returns in TESO but in an understandably more limited fashion. While every single urn and crate isn't lootable, many are. And unfortunately, no, you can't put a basket on a shopkeeper's head and then rob him blind. In fact, most of the containers I came across contained crafting materials, which were useless to me because crafting hasn't been implemented, but the devs assured me that crafting will be quite valuable in the finished game.
  
  
  
  
  One thing that really stood out to me was TESO's quest design. You always hear people talk about how they want to nix the kill-ten-rats style of quest design, but TESO is actually taking strides in that direction. While there were a few kill X mob quests, most of the quests I encountered weren't so tedious. The moment I noticed the change in design happened when I was given a quest to free some members of the Fighters Guild from spider webs in a cave. In any other game, there would be a number of generic "Wriggling Web" NPCs that I'd have to destroy, and some of them would contain enemies I'd have to fight, while others would contain nothing at all, and I'd end up searching 20 webs before I found the three people I was looking for.
  
  But this was not the case at all. Instead, all of the webbed NPCs were the guild members I was looking for (and I'm fairly positive it wasn't just some fluke of the RNG), and the combat of the quest came simply from fighting the nearby spiders as I searched for the trapped folks. The game also attempted to put a more entertaining twist on the kill X mobs quests it did have.
  
  One that comes to mind is a quest in the Bal Foyen area of Morrowind that had me throwing netch eggs at Daggerfall Covenant troops to cause nearby bull netches to attack them. Overall, I noticed that I wasn't constantly looking at my quest tracker, wondering when I'd complete this stupid objective, and I wasn't fixated on my XP bar, either. It also helps that the game actively encourages exploration with out-of-the-way points-of-interest that can contain shiny loot or interesting side-quests, which mimics the time-honored Elder Scrolls experience.
  
  I also had the chance to experience some of the game's group content in the form of a public dungeon known as the Crow's Wood, set in a plane of Oblivion. The surreal flavor of The Elder Scrolls' outer planes was well-captured by a series of quests involving talking crows, giant bats, and a sorcerer's deal gone sour. That last one is of particular interest because it served up an interesting moral dilemma.
  
  
  
  
  Long story short: A sorcerer made a deal with a hagraven that involved the hagraven's granting the sorcerer arcane knowledge under the condition that the sorcerer spend the rest of his (presumably unnaturally long) life with her. Surprising absolutely no one, the sorcerer tries to renege on his end of the deal, and it's up to the player to decide how things play out. Do you force the sorcerer to keep his part of the bargain or free him from the hagraven's bondage? Or maybe you just kill 'em both because you can't be bothered with such silly trifles. Personally, I made sure Mr. Magician upheld his word because I don't like a double-crosser and anyone who's making bargains for eldritch power is never a good sort.
  
  Group combat against champion monsters was satisfying aside from the combat targeting quirks I mentioned earlier. The champions present a reasonable challenge that requires a bit of strategy, but of course the loot they drop is usually worth it. I wasn't able to go up against any bona fide bosses, but if the champion mobs are any indication, players should expect fights that rely on quick reactions and high mobility to survive.
  
  One of the last bits of TESO I got a look at before my playtime was over was a Dark Anchor. Dark Anchors are anchors sent by Molag Bal from his plane of Coldharbour in an attempt to pull Tamriel into his domain. Of course, we can't allow that to happen, so players are able to destroy these Dark Anchors in a public-quest-style encounter. All players have to do is run up to the Anchor and get to killin'. All players in the area will get credit for helping to send the Dark Anchor back to Molag Bal, and destroying Dark Anchors will earn players favor with the Fighters Guild. While I took down my Dark Anchor solo (we had about five minutes left, so everyone was running around like a madman), I can see them being a fun distraction but not much more than that unless the difficulty ramps up immensely when more players are participating.
  
  Ultimately, I left my time with The Elder Scrolls Online feeling considerably more optimistic than I had expected. The team at ZeniMax Online has done a great job so far recreating not just the world of Tamriel but also the feeling of an Elder Scrolls title. A few small quirks aside (and really, it's pre-alpha; I didn't go in there to nitpick bugs), TESO is shaping up very nicely. If you're one of the folks who thinks that what ZeniMax is doing to The Elder Scrolls is tantamount to blasphemy, I urge you to fight back the rage and keep an eye on this game because it may end up surprising you as it surprised me. If you've got any questions or if you'd like to question my loyalty to The Elder Scrolls, feel free to speak up in the comments and I'll answer everything the best I can.
  
  
  
  Massively's not big on scored reviews -- what use are those to ever-changing MMOs? That's why we bring you first impressions, previews, hands-on experiences, and even follow-up impressions for nearly every game we stumble across. First impressions count for a lot, but games evolve, so why shouldn't our opinions?
  
  
  
  Tags: bethesda, bethesda-softworks, bethsoft, daggerfall, ebonheart-pact, elder-scrolls, elder-scrolls-online, factions, featured, galleries, gallery, hands-on, morrowind, oblivion, opinion, preview, previews, pvp, rvr, sandbox, screenshot, screenshots, skyrim, tamriel, tes, teso, the-elder-scrolls, the-elder-scrolls-online, three-faction-pvp, three-way-pvp, zenimax, zenimax-media, zenimax-online, zenimax-online-studios
  

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  The Elder Scrolls Online gets shiny concept art, bi-weekly Q&A

  by Elisabeth Cardy on Nov 2nd 2012 4:30PMFantasy, News items, Community Q&A, Dev Diaries, The Elder Scrolls Online0
  
  
  
  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.
  

  • Source: Ask Us Anything
    , Ebonheart Pact concept art
  • More coverage: Official site

  
  Tags: argonian, argonians, ask-us-anything, ask-us-anything-related-to-the-topic-we-have-prescribed, bethesda, bethesda-softworks, bethsoft, community-qa, daggerfall, dark-elves, ebonheart-pact, elder-scrolls, elder-scrolls-online, faction, factions, morrowind, nord, nords, oblivion, please-dont-suck, pvp, qA, rvr, sandbox, skyrim, tamriel, tes, teso, the-elder-scrolls, the-elder-scrolls-online, three-faction-pvp, three-way-pvp, zenimax, zenimax-media, zenimax-online, zenimax-online-studios

 

[Aada]

I dont see how they can pull this off and claim its an elderscrolls game tbh

1) none of the staff that worked on the previous games are working on this (or werent last I checked)
2) how on earth can they allow the exploration you could achieve in the previous games without being raped if you go somewhere you arent meant to be? enemies scaled to your level on the previous games... without that feature it'll just be another "Goto X do X quest advance to X hub for X progression" MMO

Ultimately nothing unique about it except the brand name, shall be avoiding it like the plague.

You said the same about GW2, you still went ahead and smashed the game in a week

 

[eksdee]

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlEipFtHw7o

 

[BloodOmen]

You said the same about GW2, you still went ahead and smashed the game in a week

Regardless of what I say Aada I always try mmo releases, I can hardly give criticism after release if I don't try them before hand

 

[Raven]

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlEipFtHw7o

OK, quite excited now.

 

[BloodOmen]

OK, quite excited now.

I like how it looks, graphically its pleasing but again graphics dont make a game, release date is set for 2013 (I assume the back end of the year) so I assume beta will come around jan-april time or something.

 

[eksdee]

It looks cool, won't be excited until I hear something about the PvP though. I like how it looks like an updated DAoC though.

 

[BloodOmen]

Must admit the survey you have to take when you login sounds ace, more games need to copy it tbh.

 

[Nate]

Sounds exactly like GW2 but with Elder Scrolls skins.

 

[old.Tohtori]

The only, and only, problem i have with this is that i can counter pretty much everything i've heard with "I'll just start skyrim".

As an MMO it sounds delish, but part of the MMO is the world and other games of this world give me a better view of the world. In a sense

 

[Dutch_NS]

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlEipFtHw7o

This will be my last MMO i am going to try, i tried them all after Dark Age of Camelot and all failed on the PVP part. Guild Wars 2 beeing 1 of the biggest disappointments after having such high hope it will be like camelot.

With Matt Firor who created Dark Age of Camelot till TOA i have a little more faith that the game will go the Camelot way. What makes or breaks the game in pvp will be, the crowd controll options and a speed class.
There needs to be a challenge for a 8 man guild group to take on a group of 25/50 players, if this is not provided, it will just be standoff zerg fest like Guild Wars 2 is.

Things i dont like is the 220 people cap per zone in pvp. Give back the epic Dark Age of Camelot battles @ relic keeps. Where almost 1500 people batle each other.

So this will be my last MMo that im going to try, if it fails im done or Mythic has to pull a Dark Age of Camelot 2.

So lets wait and see !

 

[BloodOmen]

This will be my last MMO i am going to try, i tried them all after Dark Age of Camelot and all failed on the PVP part. Guild Wars 2 beeing 1 of the biggest disappointments after having such high hope it will be like camelot.

With Matt Firor who created Dark Age of Camelot till TOA i have a little more faith that the game will go the Camelot way. What makes or breaks the game in pvp will be, the crowd controll options and a speed class.
There needs to be a challenge for a 8 man guild group to take on a group of 25/50 players, if this is not provided, it will just be standoff zerg fest like Guild Wars 2 is.

Things i dont like is the 220 people cap per zone in pvp. Give back the epic Dark Age of Camelot battles @ relic keeps. Where almost 1500 people batle each other.

So this will be my last MMo that im going to try, if it fails im done or Mythic has to pull a Dark Age of Camelot 2.

So lets wait and see !

The cap would be needed tbh, going off the graphics alone even 220 people will likely lag the fuck out of the average users PC, just hope they get all the coding done well because i'd hate to see a repeat of SWTOR laggyness even if its not the same people but you know.

 

[Ormorof]

The only, and only, problem i have with this is that i can counter pretty much everything i've heard with "I'll just start skyrim".

As an MMO it sounds delish, but part of the MMO is the world and other games of this world give me a better view of the world. In a sense

perhaps, depends how much depth they go into story wise i guess, but getting to explore the full Tamriel sounds pretty damn awesome to me

 

[Fefner]

I think the cap is needed but it wont have queues. There will be overflow type zones but you always get put in with your guild mates and it tries to place you with friends also. If it works it will be the end of servers i reckon since it's a very good idea. Why GW2 didnt think of this tech i have no idea. This will be my last mmo also so i hope it plays well and feels good.

 

[Ctuchik]

The only, and only, problem i have with this is that i can counter pretty much everything i've heard with "I'll just start skyrim".

Sure, but with that logic why should we play anything other then UO for multiplayer and Doom/wolfenstein for singleplayer?

 

[old.Tohtori]

Sure, but with that logic why should we play anything other then UO for multiplayer and Doom/wolfenstein for singleplayer?

Not quite the same comparison. The point there is that skyrim/oblivion/etc already give all that this game gives from an exploration/RP perspective and in better quantity/quality.

Only thing, personally again, this game would provide is community interaction(which i don't have the time for really) and the pre-story to the world.

As said, as an MMO, sounds really good.