Elder Scrolls Online Highlights Character Progress With New Video

[Andy Chalk]

Elder Scrolls Online Highlights Character Progress With New Video

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The Elder Scrolls Online "Character Progression" video emphasizes that flexible character creation will be one of the game's highlights.

One of the more unusual aspects of Elder Scrolls games is the way they approach character development. Instead of saddling players with a particular class, they provide virtually unlimited access to a pool of skills and attributes and allow players to do with them as they will. The Elder Scrolls Online, as explained in the new "Character Progression" video, will take a different approach but, within the limitations of a faction-based MMO, aims to achieve essentially the same result.

At the most basic level, TESO players will undertake quests, kill monsters and gain experience that will allow them to level up. Characters will be defined by their attributes - health, magicka and stamina - and skills, both active and passive. Skills can be increased through usage and eventually "morphed" into more specialized abilities; high-levels players will gain access to extremely powerful, class-based "ultimate" abilities, and there are other special skills that only be discovered by playing the game.

It's a different and probably somewhat more restrictive approach to character development than we've seen in single-player TES games, but the nature of MMOs imposes a more pressing need to maintain some differentiation between the races and factions. Even so, it sounds like The Elder Scrolls Online will be about as flexible as possible under the circumstances, which is good news for all the Orc archers and Bosmer barbarians out there.

The Elder Scrolls Online is currently in beta [https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en/beta] and scheduled to launch in early 2014 for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.


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[CloudKiller]

Interesting. Shame it'll only take a week or two before everyone knows the cookie-cutter builds and anyone who chooses to play their way will and deviate from them will be branded a noob.

Still interested though, just wish there was more pve endgame focus.

 

[erbkaiser]

Still not interested in this game in the least.
The last thing I ever thought while trekking through Tamriel was "Gee this game would be so much better if a tonne of dickheads would run around talking about football and otherwise breaking the immersion, and the fact it has to maintain a steady world state for the countless players makes sure that none of my actions in this world really matter any more".

 

[Latinidiot]

This actually looks really good. I am anxious to see what it does, it's a shame I haven t got anything to play it on.

 

[Blindrooster]

The art style looks sorta similar if only a step back to compensate for an MMO. but the character animations just don't feel like TES to me. Looks more like a less cartoonish Guild Wars 2(which i enjoy btw) Not to be nit picky, it just doesn't seem interesting as an MMO. Loses a bit of charm as an MMO ya know?

I'm sure this questions has been answered but will Bethesda still have a true TES game in the coming years?

 

[Sidmen]

Still not interested in this game in the least.
The last thing I ever thought while trekking through Tamriel was "Gee this game would be so much better if a tonne of dickheads would run around talking about football and otherwise breaking the immersion, and the fact it has to maintain a steady world state for the countless players makes sure that none of my actions in this world really matter any more".

On the other hand, I HAVE often wondered how much the game would change if we could have 4-6 friends all exploring the dungeons of Tamriel at the same time.

I would love to have my Breton Enchanter meet up with my buddy's Orcish 2-Handed berserker, whilst my sister's Bosmer sneakthief is procuring the gold we need to buy all the ingots that my other buddy's Redguard blacksmith needs to make me some elven mail (because what magician doesn't wear armor? - honestly!)

Can't say I've ever wanted it to be Massively Multiplayer - but Co-Op would've been nice.

 

[Voulan]

Still not interested in this game in the least.
The last thing I ever thought while trekking through Tamriel was "Gee this game would be so much better if a tonne of dickheads would run around talking about football and otherwise breaking the immersion, and the fact it has to maintain a steady world state for the countless players makes sure that none of my actions in this world really matter any more".

On the other hand, I HAVE often wondered how much the game would change if we could have 4-6 friends all exploring the dungeons of Tamriel at the same time.

I would love to have my Breton Enchanter meet up with my buddy's Orcish 2-Handed berserker, whilst my sister's Bosmer sneakthief is procuring the gold we need to buy all the ingots that my other buddy's Redguard blacksmith needs to make me some elven mail (because what magician doesn't wear armor? - honestly!)

Can't say I've ever wanted it to be Massively Multiplayer - but Co-Op would've been nice.

That's always been my wish too. Although I believe in TESO you can actually select the players you want in your game through their big server (so language, country and age based selections, to get rid of those pesky 10 year olds), I still would like the actual exploration part of the game to be isolated, and in this it won't be.

I'd love to be able to play a single-player experience with the option of traveling with up to 6 friends, though. Like having followers in Skyrim, except they're actually responsive and have character, being real people. It makes more sense lore-wise, too - imagine legends of a group of warriors, rather than a single chosen one that somehow accomplishes everything. Perhaps in the main games?

 

[Kanova]

Can't wait until they make it F2P. Warning ect ect

 

[LostCrusader]

Can't wait until they make it F2P. Warning ect ect

I will probably be willing to give it a shot once they make that change, though I am worried that they won't be able to make that change like SWTOR did.

Also, your profile picture terrifies me.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I can't say much without breaking an NDA but let's say that everyone should steer as far away from this game as possible.

 

[Arawn]

Interesting. Shame it'll only take a week or two before everyone knows the cookie-cutter builds and anyone who chooses to play their way will and deviate from them will be branded a noob.

I too have seen too many "custom character" games fall prey to this. After some time there's a set "path" for any job/class. Want to be a great axe swinging warrior? You need to have X skill and Z trait. Otherwise your damage will suck or people won't invite you to party. Dwarf summoner? LOL newb! Orc cleric? WTF /quit! Call it the Min/max mentality or whatever, but it's rather dull. Sure I won't hit for 1000 each swing, but 950 isn't so bad. Having a smaller mana pool just means I'm more conservative with my spell casting rather than just spamming every few seconds. Unique builds bring about interesting results. Creative and innovative play styles over the simple straight forward methods.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

Flexibility is what we want within any TES game, MMOs included. This has me excited, I'll not lie. When I first heard about the four classes, I was about to flip the table. Using restricting classes that define how you play and what role you undertake in the MMO holy trinity of tank, dps, and heal is pretty much a death sentence for any new MMORPG coming out on the market, let alone something as unique as an Elder Scrolls game. Seriously, it was up there with when I first heard they weren't planning on having any first-person in the game, which was shortly rectified after so much feedback from the fans.

However, looking more in-depth into what a character can become with the skill lines and the morphing, its clear that you'll be carving out how you play through these base classes that pretty much just serve as the barest of foundations for your character. Very excited for this the more and more I hear about it.

 

[Blindrooster]

Looks more like a less cartoonish Guild Wars 2

I'm not sure you know what the word "cartoonish" means if you think that Guild Wars 2 (which uses a painted aesthetic) is "cartoonish" by any description of the word.

Hint: It doesn't mean "full of color", nor does it mean "a game that doesn't rely heavily on browns and greys".

Nothing against you, I'm just tired of people deliberately misusing the word "cartoonish" to describe MMO art that they feel is more colorful than normal. Because that's not what "cartoonish" means. And generally, this term is not only misused, but also used as an insult against the art style of the game, which only makes it worse. So I do wish that people would just stop using this term when it's becoming increasingly obvious that everyone has forgotten what it actually means.

Thanks for the art lesson. To ME it looks cartoonish. I could say it looks baroque if that's what I saw. And I even said I like GW2 so it wasn't meant to be derogatory. It might be aesthetic to you, but that's just not what I see.

Its like the Rorshcach test psychiatrists use. Nobody sees the same thing in the shapes and not everybody is going to like the same piece of art you do. Ever. Everyone is a critic, and that was my critique. No ill will meant to GW2 or this game.

 

[balfore]

I can't say much without breaking an NDA but let's say that everyone should steer as far away from this game as possible.

I tend to disagree I had a lot of fun with it as an MMO and thought it felt a lot like an Elder Scrolls game.