Bethesda and ZeniMax Online Studios' upcoming massively multiplayer role-playing video game, The Elder Scrolls Online is really big. How big? It is one of the biggest games planned for 2013.
In a recent interview with The Guardian UK, The Elder Scrolls Online game director Matt Firor talks about how the new MMO is set on the entire continent of Tamriel as opposed to previous games that have been set in sections of the landmass.
"The lore about the era we're in has been kind of sketchy," Firor told the Guardian UK. "All we know is it's a time of big unrest and the provinces are fighting each other with no central control. That's the perfect setting for us, because we can tell the stories about this unrest and how provinces are forming alliances or fighting each other over the imperial city."
Firor also explains how revisiting familiar location will be the same but different at the same time. He basically explains what it means to take The Elder Scrolls 'Back to the Future.'
"The first thing you'll notice is the similarities. The buildings look similar, the stone's similar, the general setting of the city in the zone looks the same, Firor said. "The differences are it's a different layout, I mean it's a thousand years before, the town itself is different in its makeup, the political system is different."
He continued, "You'll still walk out of the gates and recognize you're in Skyrim, and things like that little stream in front of the city, there's a lot of continuity in that sense. I guess I'd say it looks similar, but feels different."
In the interview, the Guardian UK asked the games director about how ZeniMax has expanded the single-player combat system from previous games in the series to the new multiplayer ESO. Firor explained that the co-operative and competitive battles have forced the studio to make some changes to combat.
"We found as we played the game we liked certain character builds, so we've made enemies that essentially share some of those character builds," He explained to the Guardian. "We're trying to simulate, basically, how players fight in groups - we want enemies to be using those tactics against you, so they'll help each other out, buff each other, heal each other. One might throw a pot of pitch and then a mage sets you alight - so now you're on fire and you're slowed down."
Firor also explained that the first few hours of the new game would feature player versus enemy segments rather than competitive play.
"Yeah we don't know exactly when that point is," Firor said. "Right now it's on level 10, which is about 15 hours of gameplay. Our thinking is at least a few hours of PvE to get the controls and how combat works - we don't want to throw 'em out there too soon, but we always want it all to be up to the player to choose."
He also explained that there would be areas in the game called "Adventure Zones" where players will be able to battle against enemies by themselves or with other like-minded players.
"You can go and explore the wilder parts of Tamriel, and our long-term PvE content is based around these areas," Firor said. "So if you're at a very high level but still want to play PvE, you can head to adventure zones and go explore solo or team up with similar players, and we'll probably tie some really big group quests into them."
You can check out the rest of the interview here on the Guardian UK. Check out the new CGI trailer below and tell us what you think about the new game in the comment section.
