Elder Scrolls Anticipation

In the world of fantasy RPG’s there are many good games, a handful of great series, and one true king of the genre, the Elder Scrolls. Every eagerly anticipated instalment from the award winning series creates a shockwave across the land, cementing itself as a staple of the genre and showing RPG’s that this is how it’s done. Yet no matter how exceptional each game may be, there has undoubtedly been the same statement uttered countless times by fans, “This would be a great multiplayer game”.

There have been many ideas thrown around to suggest a way in which Bethesda could implement multiplayer into the series, such as joining a friend’s game as a mercenary like the Fable series, jumping into a friends adventure and transferring all the goodies to your own world as Dead Rising 3 does, or as a gladiatorial arena to have it out with other players to determine the greatest warrior in Tamriel. Bethesda has finally put our suspicions to rest with the announcement of The Elder Scrolls Online; Bethesda’s first MMORPG.

Right from the off there have been mixed opinions on Bethesda’s tangent of the series. That being said, gamers are excited for TESO, very excited. There are just some issues that have cropped up. With the Elder Scrolls shifting from single player RPG to MMORPG, there are aspects of the series that made it so popular that are simply not possible to implement in an online elder scrolls.

One moment that no Elder scrolls player can deny experiencing, whether it be Morrowind, Oblivion or Skyrim, is littering the land with weapons, armour or piles of junk just as a means to keep jogging when over encumbered. In this process you may have dropped something important to your character in the middle of nowhere. However, have no fear, this is the Elder scrolls. Simply retrace your steps and you will eventually trip over your discarded items, whether you’ve ran to town and back or spent 50 plus hours adventuring.

Now that’s great, thank you Bethesda, very helpful. But imagine a world with thousands of players dropping there unwanted items wherever they please, and it staying there forever. The rolling hills of Tamriel would soon become a landfill of cabbages, torches and iron weapons. However this issue, believe it or not, is not of countless digital litter bugs, think of how much the performance would plummet with the amount of physics acting upon all those items. ALL the time.

Despite lacking the quirks of the single player open world adventure, TESO promises to deliver the very best aspects of multiplayer to the world we know and love. Rather than lone questing, TESO focus’ on party based adventuring and full scale battles amidst online players.     

So what do we know so far? This tale begins with Molag Bal, the daedric prince of domination and enslavement stepping up to become Tamriel’s newest and greatest threat. He’s up to his old tricks and has weakened the barriers between worlds, allowing his armies to seep through the cracks of oblivion to wreak havoc. Whilst the fate of the Imperial City and the Ruby Throne falls into the hands of Bal worshipers, three unlikely alliances form, each with their own agendas, but all with their eyes on the Ruby thrown.

TESO allows players to be a part of the Daggerfall Covernent, the Ebonheart pact, or the Aldmeri Dominion. Each faction has its own races, lands and bonuses to offer players and all are available to choose from. As well as being part of a mighty faction, players have the option to join or create their own guilds, allowing joint questing with friends online.

With all these impressive added online and multi-player features to the newest Elder Scrolls, TESO looks like a very promising next step for Bethesda’s award winning series. Although the game may lose some of its inherent traits that made the series such a popular franchise due to its more focused approach to multi-player, players need not worry as the rich backstory and lore of the Elder Scrolls universe runs deep in TESO, meaning players will soon forget about not being able to find their leg of venison they left outside a cave twelve levels ago. Any lone wolf adventures out there shouldn’t be to disheartened. Although your race will determine which faction you be a part of, you have no obligation to join faction or even join other players on quests. You can simply strap a sword to your back and head out into the wilderness. Saying that however, if you do participate in faction related conflicts you have the opportunity to become the Emperor himself! Doing this will benefit your entire faction as well as giving you some very powerful upgrades to your fighting capabilities.

The Elder Scrolls Online is a game that has very big boots to fill, living in the shadow of its previous instalments. Hard-core fans of the series should go into it with an open mind and not be too disappointed it differs from the game series they fell in love with. TESO promises a lot of exciting changes to what we are used to and looks to be one of the most exciting fantasy games of the year. So grab a weapon, join a faction and prepare yourself for war.