Game Informer har fått världspremiär på The Elder Scrolls Online och har tydligen en mastodontartikel. NeoGAF har sammanfattat det viktigaste… och jag och många andra förstår inte varför det här spelet ens existerar. Det verkar nämligen som om Zenimax har gjort ett Elder Scrolls helt och hållet utan Elder Scrolls. Jag kan dra igenom alla punkterna.

-Releasing 2013 for PC/Mac
-Developed by ZeniMax Online Studios
-MMORPG
-Den enda vettiga punkten, att inte dra in konsolerna i det här. Vi vet ju numera hur planerade konsolversioner av MMORPG:n brukar bli, eller hur Square?

-250 Person Team
-Started development in 2007
-Fritt översatt: vi började när World of Warcraft var som störst och det kostade snormycket att utveckla så det är för sent att ångra sig nu.

-”This time, saving the world from the awakening of ancient evil is only the beginning. What happens when hundreds or thousands of prophesied heroes all think that they should be Emperor?”
-Faktiskt en hyfsat intressant tanke.

-The game is fully voice acted
-Bra prioritering där, för The Old Republic blev ju en jättesuccé tack vare allt prat medan Skyrim och World of Warcraft var floppar… eller?

-Third person perspective
-Inte Elder Scrolls om det inte finns förstaperson åtminstone som alternativ.

-The game uses a hotbar to activate skills like other traditional MMOs
-Inte Elder Scrolls.

-Visually it looks like other Hero Engine MMOs like SWTOR
-The general art style is kind of like RIFT or Everquest 2
-Inte Elder Scrolls.

-You can’t be a werewolf or vampire
-Inte Elder Scrolls (inte för att jag bryr mig, men ändå)

-Crafting, alchemy, and soul stones will exist in an unrevealed form
-Det får vi väl verkligen hoppas.

-The game is set 1000 years in the past
-There will be Daedric Princes like Molag Bal, the primary antagonist, and Vaermina, ”whose sphere of influence extends to the dream world and the nightmares of mortals”, along with some unnamed others
-Constellations will be in the game a la Mundus stones (which work like guardian stones) and also give the answer to things like block puzzles where you step on the blocks in a certain order
-Tons of towns ranging from Imperial City, Windhelm, Daggerfall, Sentinel, Mournhold, Ebonheart, Elden Root, Shornhelm, Evermore, Riften, and a lot more
-Det låter väl hyfsat intressant och det är nog en bra idé att placera sig långt tidsmässigt från Arena och framåt, men fanns verkligen alla de där städerna då?

-Radiant AI will not be present
-Inte oväntat och Radiant AI är aaaaaningen överhypad ändå.

-There will be mounts, but no flying mounts
-Fast travel exists in the game in the form of wayshrines, which are also your ressurection point, and you can teleport from one wayshrine to any other wayshrine you have already visited
-Lika bra.

-There most likely won’t be dragons
-Bra, faktiskt. Skyrim gjorde en stor affär av att det faktiskt fanns drakar där, som inte hade varit aktiva på toklänge. Bara för att det här släpps senare ska det inte vara packat med såna då. Dessutom har World of Warcraft drakar så det räcker. Men hur ska man kunna fördela DKP?

-Sneaking will be in the game, but how it is implemented is undecided
-They’re not talking about pets right now
-There will be no player housing
-There will be no NPC romances or marriage
Här börjar det kännas som att en massa saker vi förväntar oss av ett Elder Scrolls inte ens är påtänkt. En enorm värld med stora ytor för spelare att faktiskt skaffa egna hus och leva icke-äventyrarliv skulle fylla en nisch som mer eller mindre har försvunnit sedan WoW och ge TESO en egen identitet, men icke.

-”It needs to be comfortable for people who are coming in from a typical massively multiplayer game that has the same control mechanisms, but it also has to appeal to Skyrim players.”
-Features most of Tamriel including Skyrim, Morrowind, Summerset Isle, and Elsweyr.
-”Not all provinces are included in their entirety; Zenimax Online is keeping large areas inaccessible to save them for use as expansion content. Nonetheless, every major area is represented to some extent.”
-As an example, Windhelm is fully implemented, but Winterhold and the mages’ college won’t be in at launch.
-Oroande. Hur tänkte de locka Skyrim-spelare med en helt annan spelstil? Att hela Tamriel finns med är däremot intressant, för det är ju många ställen vi inte har fått se än. Det återstår ju bara att se hur stora ytorna faktiskt är i speltermer. Kan vi ens förvänta oss ett spel som är tio gånger större än Oblivion kartmässigt?

-There are three player factions:
–Ebonheart Pact: The Nords, Dunmer, and Argoninans
–Aldmeri Dominion: Altmer, Bosmer, and Khajit
–Daggerfall Covenant: Bretons, Redguard, and Orcs
-Det här känns väldigt slött. De har bokstavligen bara delat Tamriels karta i tre delar (förutom Cyrodiil i mitten) och delat upp raserna efter det.

-”Recreating the freedom Elder Scrolls players expect within the World of Warcraft-style mechanics Zenimax Online is using for this MMO would be impossible without changing the way that players interact with the world.”
-As such, the game uses a hubless design
-Så för att skapa frihet så har man alltså tagit ett av spelbranschens friaste rollspelsäventyr och istället kopierat ett av de mest linjära MMO-rollspelen? Gotcha.

-For example, you don’t necessarily pick up a quest to do the following, but if you kill all the necromancers in an undead barrow, a shade you free at the end will reward you.
-However, to help you find these events, various NPCs you talk to will tell you where they are happening and put a marker pointing them on your map, which is obviously totally different than receiving a quest.
-Not all quests will have NPCs that indicate where they are
-Måttligt intressant men kör för det.

-The game uses MMORPG genre standards such as classes, experience points, and other traditional MMORPG progression mechanics, but they try to present it ”around the core fantasy presented by traditional Elder Scrolls games” such as traveling around and righting wrongs or seeking riches
-Det är alltså inte Elder Scrolls för fem öre då Elder Scrolls aldrig har haft traditionella XP och mer eller mindre avskaffat klasser numera.

-The game world is very large relative to Skyrim
-You can explore almost anything you can see
-You can’t master every discipline
-Får vi väl hoppas.

-The imperials are an enemy to all three factions, lead by the noble Tharn family and the King of Worms, Mannimarco, and are hatching a plot to take over all of Tamriel
-But BEHOLD, Mannicmarco is scheming with Daedric prince Molag Bal to take over the world behind the Tharn’s back
-Also, your soul has already been stolen by Molag Bal, which is the reason you can come back from death over and over again, and the starting plot is that you’re fighting Molag Bal to get your soul back from him
-Låter lite intressant och förklarar ju MMO-upplägget på ett bra sätt, lite som i Dark Souls.

-Hitting the level cap takes about 120 hours
-Each faction has their own leveling content
-Väldigt, väldigt lite, särskilt om det är delat mellan de tre raserna i varje fraktion.

-The game features three faction PvP where you fight to take over keeps and use trebuchets and other siege weapons to help do it. At the high end, you can have 100 v 100 battles. There are also farms and mines you can try to take over. Most of this happens in Cyrodiil where your goal is to take over and hold the Imperial City to get faction wide bonuses for it. If you have played Dark Age of Camelot, this probably sounds familiar. For those who haven’t, essentially the entire zone is a giant PvP area will all sorts of points of interest.
-The most accomplished PvP player on your faction becomes emperor whenever you take over the capital
-When you take over Cyrodiil, you will be able to adventure in it as a hostile city a la Kvatch
-En av få saker som faktiskt låter intressant, även om man personligen aldrig kommer att få någon sådan status. Men det är lite som Scarab Lord-grejen som jag gärna hade sett mer av i WoW.

-The game will have raids and heroic modes for its dungeons as end game content in addition to faction PvP
-There is also balanced PvP for people who prefer eSports
-The game will also have high end public dungeons
-Public dungeons are essentially instances that aren’t actually instanced, so anyone can be in them, so imagine a World of Warcraft dungeon that featured everyone on the server in the area instead of just your party
-There are standard instanced dungeons as well
-Hmm, inte särskilt intresserad av PvP i allmänhet så.

-Back on the topic of the skillbar, you have a limited number of skills you can use at any given time, and can change them whenever you’re out of combat
-The number of skills is equal to (paraphrase) ”a light and heavy attack with your current weapon that take up the first two slots, a few more spells related to your class, and an ultimate in the last slot”.
-The ultimate is used once you gain enough finesse, which is earned by doing well in combat
-Verkar inte alls som Elder Scrolls, men visst.

-You also get a bonus loot chest if you’re soloing and max your finesse, and you can also build finesse by comboing with other players
-For example, a rogue can put oil on the ground that a mage can set on fire
-A fighter can also spin in the firestorm a mage puts down, which sends out fireballs
-If you’ve seen Guild Wars 2 videos, the above will seem familiar
-You can’t combo with the abilities of enemy players though, so if an enemy faction player drops an oil slick, you can’t set it on fire
-Det funkade inte alls bra i Lord of the Rings Online men det funkade ju jättebra i Chrono Trigger…

-The Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood will be presented, but in what form isn’t detailed as their contnet is hard to recreate in an MMO setting
-Alltså, någonstans i raden av alla dessa distinkta Elder Scrolls-inslag som måste strykas för att de inte fungerar i MMO-sammanhang borde man kanske ha frågat sig om det är så jäkla lämpligt med ett Elder Scrolls-MMO…

-NPCs will try to work together and use player like behavior when fighting you, and (at least to my understanding) have stamina as well
-They want the AI to be good, so instead of enemies in a dungeon sitting around and waiting to be pulled, you will be attacked by the entire room and they will try to react to how you are playing
-The claim was not demo’ed to Game Informer
-Så vi får väl se.

-You destroy dark anchors to gain reputation with the Fighter’s Guild. They are large hooks that fall from the sky pseudorandomly and have Daedric guardians next to them. They are easier to kill with a group, and once destroyed, everyone who participated gets a reputation boost with the Fighter’s Guild, and eventually nets you rewards like new skills and abilities.
-Märkligt. Ankare från himlen? Vad är detta, ett JRPG?

-The combat model will not be real time due to latency
-The combat is based around a stamina bar which you can use to sprint, block, interrupt, and break incapacitating effects
-Blocking is the primary focus of these abilities, and can do things like stopping the secondary effects of attacks such as an ice spell slowing you
-Stamina also applies to PvP, so stamina management (and wearing down your enemy’s stamina) is important, as your crowd control abilities might be on a long cooldown, and if you use them before the enemy player runs out of stamina, they will probably just block the effect
-ZeniMax feels that having the stamina bar will help break down the Holy Trinity as stamina allows you to do things like tank
-However, healing is still a big part of the game
-There is also no aggro mechanic in the game, which is part of the reason stamina blocking and healing exist
-Alltså inte alls som Elder Scrolls utan snarare som Dark Souls… fast inte i realtid. Vilket liksom förtar poängen.

Ja, på det hela taget är det svårt att hitta ljusglimtar i den fakta som har dykt upp hittills. Det känns som att det enda sättet Elder Scrolls skulle kunna bli ett bra MMO är genom att ta tillvara seriens fördelar. Nu verkar det istället som att de har dumpat allt som gör serien unik och istället klistrat ett Tamriel och lite etablerade namn utanpå en fullständigt fantasilös WoW-klon. Å andra sidan har de jobbat på det i fem år så det lär ju vara polerat, men det ska till en sjuhelsikes polerad spelbarhet för att det här ska vara intressant för antingen uttråkade WoW-fans eller utstötta Elder Scrolls-spelare.