The Elder Scrolls Online: update plans detailed, director responds to criticism
The Elder Scrolls Online had the same kind of launch as every MMORPG to date - a bit rocky, and characterised by extremes of critical reaction. Director Matt Firor has said Zenimax Online is working hard to correct issues and respond to negative feedback.
In a new blog post, Firor said he believes some of the lower-scored reviews the game has attracted are often related to bugs and other performance issues.
"As you can see, we’re hard at work addressing them and will keep rolling out fixes. The important thing for you, the community, to know is that we’re looking at ALL the feedback (from critics and from players), we’re addressing any shortcomings, and we’ll continue to do so. This game will get better and better every week," he said.
Interestingly, Zenimax Online is planning to set up a series of blogs and other materials highlighting how much of a good time happy players are having, which suggests the developer feels a bit besieged by negativity.
In the meantime, though, Bethesda has awarded an extra five days of game time to early subscribers to compensate them for downtime during the game's launch month, and will continue to work "diligently to keep ESO balanced, stable, and fresh for veteran players".
"We’ve gotten through our launch month well and are heading towards our first update soon. After that, expect many more good things in ESO," Firor added.
Below you'll find a list of features in active development and intended for future updates (along with fixing bugs, combatting black market gold farmers, and balance tweaks).
- A system that allows grouped players to see each other even when they’re in different phases
- A justice system—steal from and kill NPCs and deal with the consequences if you are caught
- Migration of European Megaserver to our European datacenter.
- Field of View (FOV) adjustment
- Armor dyeing and tinting
- Two new Veteran Dungeons: Crypt of Hearts and City of Ash
- New region of Craglorn with a new Trial (the Serpent)
- Increased ability to pick up items in the world
- Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood storyline and quests.
- Spellcrafting
- Horse Racing
- Dragonstar Arena—similar to Trials, but built for a group of four
- Improvements to fishing
- Crafting system improvements
- Improved Looking for Group system
- Better NPC facial animations
- Guild functionality updates: guild store interface updates, customizable guild insignias, tabards, and guild ranks, and Guild Kiosks—guild stores open to everyone that are available to the highest-bidding guild.
- Auto-leveling dungeons that level to your group leader
- Awards when you repeat dungeons
- Imperial City PvP dungeon
Thanks, Ausgamers.