The ESO answers questions about its livestream

If you’re a fan of The Elder Scrolls Online, you were probably glued to the livestream earlier this month. But a single stream doesn’t give you nearly as many answers as you’d like to have. So the development team took the opportunity to answer questions that potential players had about the stream, from game mechanics to elements as innocuous as UI components. And even if you were watching the stream with rapt attention, there are probably details that you missed.

For example, the answers reveal that the game no longer includes a minimap, using a compass instead to encourage more player exploration. The party seen in the dungeon was also roughly level-appropriate, meaning that the healing and damage on display was roughly indicative of what players can expect from actual combat. Several of the animations shown were more or less finalized, but other elements (such as first-person mode) are still being tweaked. You can catch a few more tidbits from the full set of answers on the official site.

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bardamu1999

I tell ya, even though I read disheartening things about this game, every single one of these screenshots just draws me in.  A lot.  I feel like a kid again, looking in wonder at those Larry Elmore paintings on the covers of those early D&D books.

mourasaint

Bethesda games, and Elder Scrolls in particular, have always been perfectly suited for a seamless transition to the MMO genre: vast virtual landscapes filled with hundreds of generic-looking NPC’s—voiced by a total of three actors (plus INSERT MINOR HOLLYWOOD CELEBRITY HERE) spouting out poorly written dialogue as they hand you a multitude of boring, uninspired trash-quests—recycled art-assets, floaty controls, character clipping, clunky combat, broken camera angles, and bugs, bugs, and more bugs…

And still they somehow managed to garner widespread “critical acclaim” (I’ll let you figure out how, exactly).

If Bethesda managed to con entire masses of people into gobbling up their atrocious single-player games, imagine what they’ll do with a massively multiplayer game that in all likelihood will be considerably superior to all their single player outings (considering it’s being developed by Zenimax).

Make no mistake, it’s going to be a phenomenal success.