Bethesda and ZeniMax Studios upcoming massively multiplayer role-playing video game, The Elder Scrolls Online has just opened registration for game's beta test, which means the game is ready for people to start playing it.
In a recent interview with NBC News, Matt Firor, director for The Elder Scrolls Online, explained why Bethesda has decided to make an MMO and what the launch of the beta means for the game and the development team.
"This is a big moment for us," Firor told NBC News. "The beta announcement means that we're confident that external people can get into the game and start playing it and have fun, and also give us feedback about how the game is, how sticky it is, how much fun it is, how reliable it is."
For many fans of the franchise the biggest question is why has the studio decided to bring The Elder Scrolls into the realm of MMO gaming. According to Firor, The Elder Scrolls Online presents an opportunity to bring the new fans to the world of Tamriel.
"The Elder Scrolls games have been around since 1994 and so this was the chance to actually deliver the whole world of Tamriel and let players explore the whole thing and do it with friends," Firor said. "This is a tremendous opportunity for us to get a whole new group of players that haven't experienced MMOs before to jump in and play an online game."
Firor told NBC News that his team has spent a lot of time making sure that the new game feels and plays like other entries in The Elder Scrolls franchise.
"[The changes] were all 100 percent driven by, 'hey, we need to make sure that the minute anyone sits down to play the game, they know it's an Elder Scrolls game,'" Firor told NBC News. "We went to the mouse-driven combat system that anyone who played 'Oblivion,' 'Morrowind' or 'Skyrim' on a PC will easily be familiar with."
He added, "We made the character proportions a little more realistic and a little grittier. We did a whole bunch of things with the content to just kind of give the feeling that it's the Elder Scrolls world."
He also said that fans do not have to worry about the game feeling like a replica of other popular MMO games. The combat system will maintain the strategic feel of the franchise. Megaserver technology will also help to separate the game from other titles in the genre.
"When I walk into the game, I have my friends list from the whole game there," Firor explained. "And I can chat with them right from the menu screen. I can just jump in and play with them if I want. When I click play, it puts me into whatever part of the world I was in when I logged out, and it puts me in a game segment with my friends, with my guild-mates and so forth."
You can check out the rest of the interview here on NBC News. Check out the new CGI trailer below and tell us what you think about the new game in the comment section.
