Elder Scrolls Online Won't Be Buggy Mess, Says Zenimax
Beta testing will keep The Elder Scrolls Online from being quite so buggy as Skyrim and Fallout 3.
The Elder Scrolls Online game director Matt Firor recently told Edge Magazine in an interview that the upcoming MMOG shouldn't be quite as buggy at launch as prior titles like Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. He laughed when Edge pointed out Bethesda's buggy past with single-player games, saying that MMOGs add even more problems to the equation.
"There’s also many different types of tech problems when you create an MMOG," he said. "Account creation, servers, latency. The critical difference with MMOGs, though, is that you have a long beta test where you build up to thousands and thousands of players, and you tackle those problems as you run into them there."
The big difference between the upcoming MMOG and the more recent Bethesda titles is that it's currently in development at Zenimax Online using a completely new engine. That could be good or bad, depending on how you look at it, but the separation from the original core Elder Scrolls team could be seen as a clean slate for starting anew. Yet that doesn't mean players will feel like they're in an entirely new environment. Despite a new team and a new engine, lore will keep the MMO deeply embedded in Bethesda's fantasy universe.
"Even now, I come across lore that I didn't know existed," he admits. "It's just so deep. People play games for different reasons, but the people who respond to Elder Scrolls the most like to get immersed in a world so that they feel they're living there. They like to have freedom of choice to do what they want to do, and that's the part that resonates with us the most."
"This is what makes the IP so great for an MMOG already: people already know it's the kind of game where they can head out and explore and be rewarded for it," he added. "That's the one thing that player will learn immediately that's different about us: if you see something in the distance, you can go and investigate and be rewarded for it."
Firor also said that Zenimax knew it wanted to make an Elder Scrolls MMOG for a long time. Firor proposed the three alliances, the fight over the imperial city, and the setting 1000 years in the past. That got traction, and team went on from there.
To read the full interview, head here.
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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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lahawzel When was the last time a publisher claimed their game will be a buggy mess at launch?Reply
I'm not sure how reassuring this interview is supposed to be, but the only way to know about the state of the game with certainty is to play the MMO when it comes out. -
sundragon Famous last words...Reply
Exhibit 1. Skyrim at launch...
Exhibit 2. Diablo 3 at launch...
When making super complex games that have multiple possible failures such as servers, account authentication, DRMs, etc. Saying there will be no bugs is like tempting fate...
Fate is a bitch -
erunion Wouldn't want bugs to ruin their massively multiplayer "100% solo main story line" online role playing game.Reply -
unionoob its almost impossible to make game on launch without bags, even with beta testingReply
Without beta testing its hard to catch all bugs, because you just lack number of peoples who would try almost all possible ways to bug something, but on beta testing, devs tend to slack there own testing and trusting gamers will find bugs, but problem is that many beta testers just cba reporting bugs, they sometime bitch why something doesn't work, but tend to not report that problem and almost always thing " someone else already have reported it" + during beta testing many tend to report some minor bull crap and flood devs with reports and make them rought time to get to serious bugs.
-Sorry about my english :( -
bennaye Well the alternative is saying that their game will be bugged in some way or another. It's not as if they could say otherwise :LReply
At least Bethesda isn't heavily involved in the whole process. If they were, this statement would have been the biggest joke in history. Fallout 3, Fallout NV, Oblivion, Skyrim; all were buggy beyond belief. -
jkflipflop98 What we want : Skyrim with a friend or twoReply
What we don't want : Yet another tired Everquest clone.