Fus-Ro-Details! – HUGE Elder Scrolls Online Update! [TL;DR Edition]

The good folks at Zenimax Online Studios unleashed a torrent of information last week by hosting a gathering of press and fans, to see how the game has changed and taken shape since the small helping we got last spring at E3.  All the resulting articles and screenshots ‘asploded’ onto the news feeds today and we’re here to help you distill that noise into a TL;DR.

Afterwards, if you want to grab the ol’ Eye Drops and read each article yourself – links of all we could scour up will be included at the bottom.

Some of the critical highlights:

• Full Social Media Integration from day one.
• ONE MegaServer to rule them all with areas instancing all the time to hold folks. You can tailor who is with you in your instance with some matching toggles in the games settings. (Like role-play)
• Instance hopping will be allowed.
• Matching also takes into account your friends and who you played with recently.
• Still has the sand box feel.
• The Elder Scrolls Online is currently in pre-alpha development with ZeniMax Online and is scheduled to release sometime in 2013 for the PC and Mac.

The Nitty Gritty:

• 1-50 non-convergence leveling for three factions.
• [Spoiler]  You out as a prisoner and lose your soul. You spend 1-50 trying to get it back.
• TES – Style character creation including body size, face mesh, etc.
• Join one of three factions:
  1. The Ebonheart Pact – Dunmer (Dark Elves), Nords (Viking/Norse)  and Argonians (Reptile)
  2. The Daggerfall Covenant – Bretons (Human) , Redguards (Human)  and Orcs
  3. Adlmeri Dominion – Altmer (High Elf), Bosmer (Wood Elf) and Khajiit (Thundercat Feline)

• First and Last Name right out of the gate.
• Any class can wear any kind of armor.
• Skills are in a common pool that anyone can access.
• Some abilities are tied to chosen class and unlock as the character levels.

• Three stats: Health, Stamina and Magicka – which unlock more skills as they level up.
• You choose which stat to level similar to Skyrim.

Combat and Classes:

• Revealed class names so far: Dragonknight, Templar, Sorcerer, and Warden.
• Stealth and crouch sneaking is back – no word yet if skills/leveling will be attached to it as well
  Combat.  You do vanish to the viewer and become semi-transparent when spotted.
• You have a charge meter called ‘Finesse’ (Same for all classes?); it unlocks your ultimate attack.
• Combat abilities are highly entertaining.
• No tab-targeting.  Mouse reticule overlay targeting like TERA. Sounds like it is glitchy in pre-Alpha.
• No kill stealing – everyone gets credit who was involved.
• No aggro meters.
• Skyrim-like controls ability mapping to mouse.
• Combat FEELS a lot like Oblivion and Skyrim.

Looting:

• No baskets on shopkeepers’ heads.
• Not everything will be lootable BUT there is a lot of Elder Scroll Style looting still available.
• Personal instanced loot on corpses.

Crafting:

• Will be there, not yet implemented, no details on it are available.

Questing

• Less do X things / kill Y things.
• Lots of freedom to choose how to resolve quest conflicts (Kill, Capture, or Free).
• Stumble onto quests while exploring / lots of wide space of no monsters or quests like other TES.
• NPCs you let survive could show up later for new and interesting quests/events/other stuff.
• World/Environment is phased depending on quest state. Changes upon update or completion of quest.

Grouping:

• Normal group dungeons.
• Open public quest event areas.

Price Structure

• No news there. No idea if its ftp, subscription, digital direct only or whatever.

PvP:

• 3v3 faction/realm PvP vying for control of Cyrondiil.
• Sign up for Campaigns by yourself or with your guild to fight for your side!
• You can join friends’ campaigns to assist them if different from your choice.
• Restrictions in place to prevent switching campaigns regularly.

Screen Shots:

That’s all I could distill before my brain overloaded in ESO-SQUEE.  Here are the promised links so you can set your brain on overdrive, as well!

 

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http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=30900

http://tamrielfoundry.com/2012/10/eso-media-event/

http://www.examiner.com/article/the-elder-scrolls-online-screenshots-show-new-monsters-heroes-and-vistas

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/10/22/massivelys-hands-on-with-the-elder-scrolls-online/

http://www.rpgamer.com/news/Q4-2012/102212a.html

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Elder-Scrolls-Online-Screenshots-Travel-Across-Tamriel-48432.html

http://www.rpgsite.net/previews/416-the-elder-scrolls-online-handson-preview 

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/821/feature/6819/The-Elder-Scrolls-Online-The-Comprehensive-Preview.html 

http://www.rpgfan.com/features/Elder_Scrolls_Online_Hands_On/index.html

http://acolytesguild.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/elder-scrolls-online-preview/

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