Elder Scrolls Online - Interview @ CGMagazine

CGMagazine interviews Creative Director Paul Sage with a few questions about the development of The Elder Scrolls Online.

Comics & Gaming Magazine: How did the idea to do an Elder Scrolls MMO come about, and why now?

Paul Sage: Ever since the release of Morrowind, people have been comparing the Elder Scrolls games to MMOs, largely because of their shared breadth and depth. Likewise, people want to play in the Elder Scrolls universe with their friends. The marriage of the two seems like a natural fit. As for why now? This is when it all came together. Honestly, the timing of the release isn’t as important as the quality of the game we release.

CGM: Each of the past Elder Scrolls games has had a progressively bigger audience, is The Elder Scrolls Online being made to capture the players of the core series or those that are more inclined to play an MMO?

PS: We’ve found there is a large crossover in the two audiences, and they aren’t that separate. Lots of Elder Scrolls players are also MMO players, and vice-versa. That said, we feel what makes Elder Scrolls games special combined with great social systems from MMOs is what will make us stand out.

CGM: What are some of the most important things that needed to be done in order to have this feel like a unique experience and to give it the Elder Scrolls feel in such a different type of game.

PS: Importance of The World View – this is a fancy way of saying our interface is reduced in favor of showing things in the world. Looking into the world and seeing what is happening there is more important than watching your interface. We concentrate on the audio-visual portion of the game more than text and numbers.

Active Combat. We’ve concentrated a lot on making sure the combat system is active and engaging. You need to react to what enemies are doing in the world, and it needs to be something that challenges you.

And a highly interactive world. A hallmark of the Elder Scrolls series is world interactivity. Picking up things scattered throughout the world, having NPCs speak to you, traps, lockpicking, and lots of other things. These are important for the feel of the world and making sure it comes to life.

Also, choice for the player. Having a very robust progression system, the ability to equip any weapon type or armor type, and making choices in quests and how you do quests really gives the player the ability to stand out in the crowd. Their experience is going to be very unique. A unique experience within the same environment can help spark good conversation with friends.

There are many other things such as our Alliance War, the way our dungeons work, our social systems, etc. that will also make the game unique. But the core building blocks of the game start with these four things.