The Elder Scrolls Online: The Next Great Fantasy MMO?
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So when ZeniMax Media Inc., the parent company of Elder Scrolls developers Bethesda Softworks, announced in 2007 that they were in the process of creating a new online-specific studio with the concept of making an full-fledged, AAA MMO in mind, I nearly fell out of my seat. Finally, nearly five years later, I was seeing the first hints of an Elder Scrolls MMO. In truth, the formation of ZeniMax Online Studios housed two possibilities: the team was either working on a Fallout-based MMO or an Elder Scrolls-based MMO. However, the fact that Interplay still held (and continues to hold and develop) the rights to a Fallout MMO left only one choice left for ZeniMax Online Studios:
The Elder Scrolls Online.
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Like the recent Elder Scrolls games that come before it, The Elder Scrolls Online will initially feature the ten basic races: Argnoians (lizardfolk), Bretons (magical humans), Dark Elves, High Elves, Imperials (basic humans), Khajiit (catfolk), Nord (barbarians), Orcs, Redguard (melee humans), and Wood Elves. Character creation will certainly be incredibly streamlined for those that want quick access to the game, but more advanced options will be available for those individuals that want to tweak their race and class to look exactly as they see fit. A few interesting options that will probably find their way into the game include selecting a birth sign (this was a popular feature in Morrowind and Oblivion), which will help differentiate characters at the outset.
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Finally, the combat in The Elder Scrolls Online will need to adopt the exact same system that's found in Morrowind and Oblivion: a point-and-click system rather than a target-and-auto-attack system. Although the world wide web has certainly advanced in terms of bandwidth issues, the ZeniMax Online Studios folks will definitely have their hands full trying to get this system down to a science.
