MF: We are the most accessible game of its type out there. This not only ensures that there’s always something new for our players, but shows that we are committed to the game and continually improving it. Since our initial console launch, we’ve been doing major content updates on a quarterly basis.
#How are the elder scrolls games connected update#
RL: I think there are lots of reasons but if I have to pick just one, I’d say a lot has to do with our update cadence. If you had to pick one reason for its continued popularity, what do you think that is? All of these were important, but with One Tamriel, the game really took off.įast-forward to today and The Elder Scrolls Online is one of the most popular MMOs around. We also made the game Buy-to-play, so you could play it without a required subscription, and finally – in 2016 – we added One Tamriel, that removed leveling as a barrier to player grouping and exploration. We added the Champions System to give end-game players an advanced leveling system, added an outlaw/stealing/fencing system, and a ton of other fixes and tweaks. By triangulating the three, we came up with a plan that focused on the “Elder Scrolls” part of the experience. We canvassed the community, we looked at internal metrics to see player habits, and we had our own opinions.
We had some technical issues, but those were mostly fixed in the first couple of weeks, and after that, we concentrated on assessing what players liked and didn’t like about the game.
Matt Firor: The launch wasn’t so much rough – it was more that the game didn’t deliver on some of its promises, the largest being that it would be a true Elder Scrolls experience. It took us almost two years to do, but now that it's done it was probably the single best thing we did to the game. The arbitrary level gates that prevented players from exploring, the alliance-specific story paths, level barriers to grouping with your friends… all of these we removed to open the world up and give the players the freedom to explore the world at their own pace, and in their own way. We ended up settling on something that would be called “One Tamriel,” which involved removing all the barriers to exploration. We spent a great deal of time wrestling with this one, including Matt and I having a three-day session at his house over the Christmas holidays one year discussing potential solutions. The second major initiative - freedom of exploration, was a much harder problem to solve. That one change made a huge difference in believability and feeling of the world being real. We didn’t have that in ESO at launch and didn’t until the Justice system launched in early 2015. Taking food off plates, all of those types of interactions. World interactivity focused on making the world feel more believable – players were used to being able to rummage through objects in Elder Scrolls games – stealing things from barrels, boxes, sacks…etc. Two major initiatives came out from that decision – improving world interactivity and freedom of exploration. A lot of players reacted negatively to that and so the team took a hard look at the game and what we wanted it to be – ultimately deciding to focus more on the Elder Scrolls aspects. It was a hybrid of MMO and Elder Scrolls “light” as we were trying to appeal to both MMO & Elder Scrolls players at the same time. Rich Lambert: A lot of the feedback at launch centered on the fact that ESO didn’t feel Elder Scrolls enough. What parts of the game did the community dislike, and how did you eventually turn things around?
The Elder Scrolls Online had a rough launch back in 2014. RELATED: The Elder Scrolls Online: Blackwood Chapter Feels Like A Return To Oblivion With the game's massive Blackwood Chapter just around the bend, we had the chance to connect with creative director, Rich Lambert, and Matt Firor, studio director of ZeniMax Online Studios, to discuss the history of ESO, how the game has changed over the years, and how it toes the line between being an "Elder Scrolls" game and an MMO. Yet, here we are seven years later, and ESO has fully established itself as one of the most popular MMOs on the market. The Elder Scrolls Online has accrued more than 18 million players since launching in 2014– a feat no one could have predicted back then, given its rocky start.
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