14 DAY TRIAL // The Elder Scrolls Online, a massive multiplayer online role playing game based on the popular Elder Scrolls series from Bethesda, has just received some more details that highlight quite a lot of its features and emphasize the ways it will improve upon many other online games like World of Warcraft or Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Bethesda and Zenimax Online Studios surprised quite a lot of people last week when they announced The Elder Scrolls Online, confirming that players would be able to explore the history of the franchise through a multiplayer experience.
The first screenshots, however, haven't exactly gotten fans interested in the game, as its visuals are a far cry from those of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which is the latest single-player installment in the series.
In order to get people more interested in the experience, Game Informer magazine has now posted a new list of details about the online RPG, and how it will manage to incorporate lots of elements from previous Elder Scrolls games, including Skyrim, but also from a variety of online titles, like World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic, or Rift.
First up, The Elder Scrolls Online will have lots of features from Skyrim, from a massive open world to all sorts of details about the lore of the franchise, especially since it takes places 1,000 years before the events in the single-player games.
The world will be filled not just with quests, but also with a variety of other adventures, from treasure hunting to exploring and charting dangerous areas.
While other elements, like player housing, haven't been introduced in the online game, Zenimax is trying to implement lots of features that make sense into the new experience.
As opposed to World of Warcraft, The Elder Scrolls Online will have a heavier emphasis on cooperation, as players that work together when taking down an enemy will both get full credit and rewards.
The public dungeons from the new game will borrow heavily from World of Warcraft's famous Blackrock Depths experience, which should allow players to explore open worlds and take down enemies that are present in a variety of locations, instead of wandering through tight corridors.
Player-versus-Player combat will also be improved, as those looking for a fight can go to the province of Cyrodiil, where a civil war is taking place. Here, every player will see his stats boosted to maximum level and can fight during large-scale conflicts, especially since the game's engine can display up to 200 players on the screen.
From Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Elder Scrolls Online is borrowing the fully voice story, which should help players that aren't into reading massive amounts of texts about quests and characters.
Zenimax is also putting a heavy emphasis on single-player design in order to offer the same variety as BioWare does in its Star Wars MMO.
The studio is also trying to implement some of the features seen in Rift, from dynamic public content, where players need to destroy dark anchors spawned by the Daedric prince Molag Bal, to polished mechanics that will result in smooth experiences, no matter how many players are online at a time.
As you can see, The Elder Scrolls Online is looking to be much more than just Skyrim with multiplayer. Hopefully, the Zenimax Online studio will be able to make players see this before the game's release in 2013 for PC and Mac.