The Elder Scrolls Online: My weekend Takeaway

If you don’t know already, The Elder Scrolls Online is an MMO set in the early history of the Elder Scrolls universe. The Imperial Throne sits empty after the previous incumbent is betrayed, bringing down the magical barrier that protects the world of Tamriel from Daedric (demon) invasion. All orchestrated by the Daedric Lord, Molag Bal who wants to turn the mortal world into the  extension of his home realm of Cold-Harbour. Infiltrating mortal cultists are influencing everything going on in the world including the tri faction war, using it as cover to gather sacrifices to feed and fuel their Daedric lord and his schemes.

This is where you begin, one of the many sacrifices fed to the powers of Cold-Harbour. Of course it’s not actually your body that is sacrificed, but your soul, sucked out of you like one of those fast food milkshakes. Other sacrificial victims soon lose their minds and humanity after such an event but you, the player, are once again the prophesised hero who becomes more than a mere mortal. Your class skills are based on your apparent career prior to receiving a fancy dagger/straw to the chest and this weaves a bit of daedric magic into them, giving you some pretty awesome abilities from day one.

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These magical abilities are class dependant, so a Dragon Knight has differing class skills to a Nightblade, Templar or Sorcerer. These class skills are split into three differing lines that unlock as you use and level up skills from that line. You also have a skill line for the type of weapon you are using, which is either Two handed, One handed and Shield, Duel Wield, Bow, Destruction Staff or Restoration Staff. When you hit level five for a skill you gain the option to morph it in two different ways.  For example, you could morph a stab attack to also have damage over time or a chance to stun.

 There are also three groups of armour; Light (cloth), Medium (leather) and Heavy (plate). There are no restrictions to what armour or weapons any class can use, it is perfectly possible to have a Sorcerer in plate armour wielding a greatsword or a Nightblade in light armour and a restoration staff. I’m not saying it would be incredibly effective but you could do it. Personally I went for a Nord Nightblade for some stealthy stabby hack and slash.

Like most MMORPGs, you just use what you can get your hands on to begin with and such is the case once you get back on to the mortal plane. In the starter area you are soon presented rack upon rack of basic weapons to choose from, so I chose twin one handed axes. I’m a Nord Nightblade remember, Nords use daggers to pick their toenails, not first choice weaponry. However, those axes didn’t last me very long when i soon started to pick up superior equipment as quest rewards. You soon end up the usual hodgepodge of gear, more so in ESO as every race has its own equipment design style. Thats ten different styles for item sets that all can be crafted by players and each can be learnt by anyone that get hold of the relevant rare book.

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Most of the quests in TESO are like the usual MMO fair, NPCs stand around with marks above their head waiting for the next player to come along and do the deed. The quest text is presented in the same way as conversations in other Elder Scrolls games, focusing on the NPC while they present their fully voice acted blurb. Occasionally you will find area quests where anyone nearby can take part, these will repeat whenever someone with the relevant quest comes within range. The problem is that if you arrive just as the final wave ends, you seem to still receive credit but have no idea of the story’s progression. You can just wait for the next person to come along to activate the quest but that’s no guarantee. Other quests will come to you, either by Courier or fleeing civilian if you near the quest area. Often quest lines conclude with a minor boss battle, these battles can eventually be done solo after some trial and error with the mechanics, but would be considerably easier with companions. There is currently no indication in the quest log or from the quest giver to say that you ought to be in a party, so while there is still room for improvement, I enjoyed the quest flow during my play up to level 11.

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I am really impressed with the crafting in ESO, it is basically open and accessible to all from the very beginning. Anyone can go collect the relevant materials and craft weapons and armour of their own, its basic but they made it. There are Blacksmithing, Tailoring and Woodworking for making equipment, Enchanting for enchantments, Alchemy for potions and poisons, and Provisioning for food and drink.  Gear scales in the usual colour indicators for rarity; White/common, Green/uncommon, Blue/rare, Purple/epic and so on. Rarer items have greater basic stats so an uncommon weapon does more damage compared to a common of the same level.  A player can take an item and use specific crafting items to upgrade its rarity. Each added upgrade item increases the chance of success but should you fail, you lose both the base item and upgrade items. It then becomes a bit of a gamble; do I use these three Dwarven Oils and go for the 60% chance that i will upgrade my favourite sword from an uncommon to a rare, or get some more because i really like this sword.

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A more advanced layer to the craft system are traits; constant, permanent enchantments that are part of the very fabric of the item of equipment and cannot be changed. These range from an increase of hit or dodge chance to an increase in the experience gained by exploring new areas. These are done by using certain gems in the crafting of the items and to learn how, you have to sacrifice an item with that ability by researching it. This destroys the item but allows you to replicate that bonus in any you build later. This is done per item; so if you learnt the exploration trait from iron boots you could not then apply that ability to either iron gloves or cloth boots. Only to any subsequent iron boots you produced.

A further advanced layer to crafting is the special crafting areas that you find out in the world. These imbue any items crafted at their stations with a special set bonus. However, you can only craft items with these set bonuses if you have already researched two traits in them. So for instance i want to craft some items to give a three piece set bonus for the chance to belch fire back at attackers (no really, there is one), I would have to have researched two traits on three separate items. Now considering you can research one item per crafting skill to begin with and some of them can take twelve hours, it is going to be some time before these stations see much use.

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Another point in ESOs crafting is enchanting or glyph crafting. This is done by collecting three different kinds of rune stones while out in the wild and sticking them together. The individual stones affect the power, orientation and effect of the resulting glyph. So you could have a strong lighting attack glyph for your weapon with one combination, or a strong lightning resistance glyph for your armour at the change of a single rune. You can find uncommon and rare runes for extra powerful effects but can only be used if you level and skill up on your enchanting.

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While Alchemy and provisioning are very similar to Skyrims versions, they are also very easy to level up. Provisioning especially, you find ingredients and recipes everywhere if you just take the time to open drawers and baskets. I found a poached egg recipe in the trunk at the foot of a Night-Lady’s occupied bed!

All the crafting skills have a gathering ‘Hireling’ ability that you can skill into, these ethereal minions send you materials for you to use, sometimes rare upgrade items too. These arrive through the game mail with a charmingly enthusiastic and illiterate note attached.

Like other Elder Scrolls games, you can skill up from reading books. There is also the Mages and Fighters guild to sign up to. The Mages Guild are concerned with the recovery of purple glowing books and scrolls hidden out in the world and have a storyline involving The Deadric lord of madness; Sheogorath. The Fighters Guild have been wholly contracted by some mysterious benefactor to defend Tamriel from the machinations of Molag Bal and his minions both daedric and mortal.

After spend a good amount of time with The Elder Scrolls Online, I believe it has legs; at least to begin with.  I did not get to experience the PVP or any of the later PVE content, I have only played as a Nord up to level 11. In this time I had a good taste of some of the various mechanics at ESOs disposal and found it to be quite promising. I look forward to future betas and I hope we get to test some of the later content.