The Elder Scrolls Online Previews
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PC Gamer goes hands-on:
Books on shelves and tables can be read, and in some cases these lead to quests or earn you experience. Potions and other consumables can be gathered from barrels and chests. It's not as high-fidelity as Skyrim there are no dynamic physics objects, and the greater majority of items are static and cannot be interacted with but it works as an MMO adaptation of a traditional Elder Scrolls idea.
Combat gets a similar treatment. As in the previous games, you press the left mouse button to swing or fire your weapon and hold the right mouse button to block. Power attacks can be charged up and enemy spells can be interrupted with a bash. On top of this is six hotkeyed abilities, an ultimate ability, and a hotkeyed consumable item such as a healing potion. Spells and special moves are cast instantly and have no cooldown: instead of establishing a combat rotation à la World of Warcraft, it's a lot closer to how Skyrim and Oblivion handled favourites menus. Unlike those games, however, spells don't need to be assigned to a hand before they can be cast so expect to see a lot more mixing and matching of weapons and magic. Success in combat is a case of expending your reserves of health, stamina and magicka to suit the situation. Blocking, dodging and using special melee attacks, for example, all consume a regenerating stamina reserve, making split-second decisions just as important as theorycrafting a great skill build.
Gaming Decoded rounds up what we know so far:
One feature the Elder Scrolls Online will bring back to the world of MMOs is the public dungeon. These caves and ruins are designed much the same as the private instanced dungeons in some of the more recent MMO titles such as World of Warcraft & Star Wars: The Old Republic (to say that once a certain level has been reached, new areas of the dungeon will open up, and you'll be able to see the results of your actions), but their major difference is that these areas will not be segregated from the regular world; the purpose is to create areas to encourage players to group together and work as a team. Players are never penalized for working together. If one player helps another player vanquish a foe, even if you've never been grouped together, everyone involved will get the same experience, loot, and quest credit payoff.
The Elder Scrolls Online would not be the Elder Scrolls without the opportunity to join guilds. Fortunately, this MMO will not lose that feature. Players will still be able to choose a guild to join and increase their character's reputation by completing quests within that guild.
And Ten Ton Hammer dives specifically into the races:
The Dark Elves or Dunmer inhabit the war torn region of Morrowind, which has helped hone the Dunmer's skills in combat. In terms of physique the Dark Elves usually have a tall slim build with their definitive feature being their red eyes. Like other elves they also have a great talent for magic and use it very effectively both in and out of combat. That's not the only trick up their sleeve however as they're also good with the short blade, so good that you'll find many Dunmer assassins in the Dark Brotherhood.
Despite their tumultuous relationship with the Nord, ultimately the gerater threat of the Akaviri invasion resulted in the Dunmer joining the Ebonheart Pact.
