For many people, daydreaming is a necessary way to get through the workday with sanity intact. Some dream of love, others dream of money, and some dream of fame. Others dream of slaying mythical beasts in a land that ultimately revolves around them, and that’s where the Elder Scrolls series has made its niche.
Starting in 1994, with the release of The Elder Scrolls: Arena, Bethesda Softworks has been giving your average consumer the experience of being the one true savior of a world. In 2012, Bethesda further improved on the experience with The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, which featured a massive graphical overhaul compared to it’s predecessor, as well as a massive, open world to explore.With 3.5 million copies of the game sold within the first 48 hours of it’s release, and 7 million sold within the first week, it’s obvious that Skyrim scratches an itch that a lot of people have.
The Elder Scrolls Online is Bethesda’s attempt to enter an established, cutthroat market: the world of massively multiplayer online games, or MMOs for short. Borrowing a highly praised IP and a highly successful formula from it’s single-player siblings, The Elder Scrolls Online tries it’s hardest to bring in that ‘one true savior’ feeling at every turn. At the same time, it tries to fit as many players on the same screen at once, each playing out their own ‘one true savior’ fantasy separately from each other.
The Elder Scrolls Online takes place before any other game in the series. Set during the Interregnum, a period of war and civil unrest after the in-game world’s ruling government, the Second Empire, crumbles, ESO features both player-versus-enviroment and player-versus-player combat. Players can pledge their loyalty to one of three alliances in the game, and fight with and against one another for their respective alliance’s control of the capitol. Players can also band together to fight dangerous creatures and evil monsters spread throughout the in-game world.
Player-versus-player combat is largely focused around castle sieges and large scale combat. This is both The Elder Scrolls Online’s bane and benefit, with hundreds of players duking it out with each other at once being one of The Elder Scrolls Online’s main selling points, as well as a major source of crippling lag.
Player-versus-environment combat is focused mostly around Trials, which are lairs full of challenging bad guys, designed to be conquered by groups composed of twelve people. Four-man group receive love as well, with smaller dungeons being designed for groups of that size. Four-man groups can also attempt the Dragonstar Arena, a survival-based ‘horde’-type dungeon, where players are pitted against wave after wave of enemies, each one stronger than the last.
For players that like to remain on their own, The Elder Scrolls Online also features several major storylines that a player can complete at their own pace. Technically, you can complete these storylines in a group, but doing so is nearly impossible due to how the game is designed.
The Elder Scrolls Online tries for the best of both worlds with it’s phasing system, which is designed to allow each player to impact the in-game world with their decisions, as in previous installments, separately from other players. At the same time, it tries to give people this innately single-player feeling in a multiplayer game, resulting with neither the MMO nor the RPG side of The Elder Scrolls Online being exceptional. Instead, you have two good, but not great, sides of a game that constantly conflict with one another.
Like with all MMOs, it’s far too early to tell how The Elder Scrolls Online will fare. These games are designed to be played on a constant basis for years, and, so far, The Elder Scrolls Online is holding up well in that regard.
