Everyone's been waiting on Bethesda to confirm, or at least say something about the Survivor2299 site being a teaser for Fallout 4, but the company seems content to keep its mouth shut and widdle away on other projects. Case in point with its upcoming MMO, The Elder Scrolls Online. It's been a while since last we heard much on the title, but there's a new video out that explains how players can build and progress their characters.
It's fairly basic: kill enemies, complete quests and such to earn experience points to level up. Finding sky shards scattered throughout Tamriel is another means of leveling up.
Once you do level up, you get a two points to spend - one for your skills, and another for your attributes. Again, fairly similar to most RPG titles' leveling systems: Attributes work towards your health, magica, and stamina, and skills define your character - if you want to build him or her as a tank, or magic caster for example.
Skill points are more specific, and can be used for learning abilities or skills. Go figure...
Each ability and skill belongs to a line, described as a "thematic connection" of abilities, similar to skill constellation in Skyrim. Ergo, the more you use abilities in a specific line, the more abilities you'll be able to access later on. Get good enough, and you'll be able to upgrade, or "morph" abilities and make them more powerful and effective. Get really good, and you'll gain access to "Ultimate" abilities, devastating and powerful techniques for each character archetype.
Using them is similar to a mega crash or super attack in other game genres, in that while they don't cost health or stamina, you will have to build up to use them. The video didn't go into detail how exactly that worked, or if it varied from ultimate to ultimate.
The video also brought forth some passive magical abilities that will affect your character, not unlike armor or equipment.
Things open up a bit more when the video gets into the different races, each of which has its own unique abilities. From there, players pick a class for their character, which determines another set of possible skills, abilities, etc. It may sound like it can also narrow options, but there's enough abilities and skills that any character can learn regardless of their race or class. Add in joining different groups and factions, or becoming a vampire or werewolf which in turn open up even MORE skills, there's an endless possibility of character designs.
Words only do so much, watch the video for yourself below.
The Elder Scrolls Online takes place 1000 years before the events of Skyrim, when Daedra and their creatures were considerably more numerous, and free to roam about the lands later reserved for more humanoid races.
A number of other races, creatures, and settings from previous Elder Scrolls games are set to factor into The Elder Scrolls Online in one way or another. The game is set for a release in the spring of 2014 for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
