Bethesda and Zenimax Online Studios' The Elder Scrolls Online will bring the familiar continent of Tamriel to the world of massively multiplayer online role-playing games for the first time.
Fans of the Elder Scrolls franchise are eagerly waiting to see how the developer will implement player versus player battles into the game. In a recent interview with the Guardian UK, game director Matt Firor explain how ESO's three warring factions will be at the heart of player versus player battles.
"Yes we have a PVP progression system that we haven't really talked about yet," Firor told the Guardian UK. "And in beta we'll go further into this, but you get Alliance Points the more you PVP, you get more abilities, and in that sense it's similar to Camelot where we had Realm Points."
He continued, "In Camelot though we had 47 classes that were all different, and after a while it was much more difficult to balance than it should have been - so if we've learned anything in the 11 years since it's let the players create the characters they want, and balance from there."
According to the interview, ESO allows any player regardless of class or race to pick up and use any weapon or piece of equipment. Firor says this makes the game symmetrical "in the sense that everyone has the same options, but of course not everyone's going to choose the same ones."
But don't worry about every player creating exactly the same generic character. Firor says that it is the game designers job to make multiple viable builds.
"As game designers you have to solve those problems no matter what class or character system you have," Firor explained to the Guardian UK. "In a true class-based system you run the risk everyone rolls the same class, but in a more open one the players will very much from the beginning try to find the most powerful build, and it's our job to ensure that there are many viable builds."
He says that ZeniMax is trying to avoid some of conventions of the genre when it comes to building your character.
"We're really trying to de-emphasize quote unquote classes," says Firor."And make the player's development more about their choices. So for example we want to give everyone access to something like having pets - if they want to. Right now a perk lets you be a pet person, so if you want that ability you can go and get it."
According to Firor many of the PVP battles will take place in a huge central zone called Cyrodiil, where up to 2,000 players can participate. The game is optimized to have 200 players battling on screen at a time.
"We're planning on having 2,000 people at once in Cyrodiil," says Firor. "In a particular fight our client is optimized to have 200 players on-screen at one time, which means you'll have very large battles within an even larger battlefield."
These large battles will feature players with different cap levels, so in order to even out the odds, ESO will automatically increasing everyone's stats.
"Everyone gets boosted up to the max level," Firor said. "But you don't get abilities you haven't earned yet -just the hit points and stuff."
Firor also explained that teamwork would play a big part in the large-scale wars. He said, We've designed the system to let players do all of those things, and it's up to them to figure out which tactics work better - but generally, if your entire army is in front of the gate and just beating the walls, you're gonna lose. Carrying the day needs teamwork."
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.
