Kotaku‘s Stephen Totilo got to see The Elder Scrolls Online live and in person last month and managed to slip some very pointed questions to ZeniMax Online‘s Matt Firor and Paul Sage.
When Totilo asked the “biggie” — why do so many people think your game resembles World of Warcraft? — he got a rather frank answer from Firor:
Making an MMO is making an MMO. I worked in the industry before World of Warcraft, so I can tell you that World of Warcraft had a lot of influences from a lot of games. Our priority is to make a great game and not to make a clone of anything. You saw a lot of things [in the demo today] that have no analogue in pretty much any other MMO. I think the answer there is: the more information that comes out about it—and when people sit down and play it, they’ll realize it’s different. Like our whole real-time combat system of blocking and dodging is all pretty much new. And the fact that it’s based on health, stamina and magicka—you have to maintain your stamina bar to block and it’s all real-time—gives it a completely different feel from any MMO.
It wouldn’t be the first time in the interview that Firor suggests people just need to play the game to understand it. Which could be addressed in a rather basic manner, one would think…
Sage and Firor address some of the other “it’s not Elder Scrolls” concerns with reasonable explanations, such as:
- Third person works better than first person because MMOs typically have a lot more action and you can’t see arms in TESO‘s first-person view.
- You’ll have health, magicka, and stamina, just like in every Elder Scrolls game.
- And the bit about player housing being “difficult”… that might have not been totally accurate.
Still, it all boils down to when the general gaming public gets a look at the game, whether hands-on or through a gameplay trailer. Until then, all we can do is view it through other people’s eyes.
Loading ...
