Elder Scrolls Online blog details lock-picking, kill-stealing & more

The Elder Scrolls Online developer ZeniMax Online Studios has posted a new blog that runs down several game mechanics, such as lock-picking, XP sharing, character names and more.

It follows Bethesda's Fallout 4 trademark, registered right here in Europe.

Now, Bethesda's label-mates ZeniMax Online Studios has posted a new 'Ask Me Anything' blog update for The Elder Scrolls Online, this time touching on a variety of subjects.

First, there is a player cap when taking your guild into a campaign. It's been imposed for the sake of balance, says the devs. "Yes, campaigns feature a soft cap to limit the number of participants from one alliance," the post reads. "There’s room for overflow that will allow you to join your friends or guild members in an otherwise full campaign, but eventually there is a hard limit to that. You’ll be able to join campaigns with your friends, but we want to ensure that an alliance can’t bring too many additional combatants in and hurt the overall balance."

There's also a set of rules for naming your character, but these are pretty basic. The post continues, "You can use more than one space in your character name, so the examples you picked are all viable. In fact, the current limit is a maximum of four hyphens, apostrophes, or spaces in total, so you can come up with all kinds of names, like Nh’yen the Ter-Grol. This should be especially convenient for players who want lore-based names for their Argonian or Khajiit!"

What about online and dickheads stealing your loot or kills for the hell of it? ZeniMax writes, "Fighting the enemies of your alliance—NPCs as well as PCs—should be something every aspiring hero jumps at the opportunity to do. We don’t intend to limit helpful behavior in Tamriel by lowering the experience or loot you can take away from a hard-fought victory.

"If you help someone kill an enemy he is already engaged with, all you can do is take away some of the pride he might have felt by winning the fight on his own. He’ll still receive the full amount of experience and loot. If you did enough damage (or provided enough support), you might get some experience and loot of your own, too. And if the two of you decide to group together, both of you will get even more."

The studio does advise that you watch yourself when lock-picking though, as you can be attacked when your back is turned. "Tamriel is a dangerous place," they advise. "If you let your guard down while you focus on lockpicking, you might get attacked. Enemy NPCs might do this anywhere in the world, and hostile players will love the opportunity to surprise you in Cyrodiil. But then again, you never know what loot might be in that chest … maybe it’s worth bringing a friend to watch your back?"

There's plenty more through the link above.

What do you make of The Elder Scrolls Online so far? Let us know below.

Via Polygon.