Suvudu Universe

What is in a name?

This week comes an official name for my The Elder Scrolls Column – The Journey Onward.  The one attribute that sticks out about any Elder Scrolls game is the journey itself.  Most people I know don’t’ play the game to necessarily get to the end, but they play an Elder Scrolls game for the journey.  This is generally how I play the games as well. I don’t think I’ve beaten a single game but I’ve had fun traveling through Morrowind, Cyrodiil and Skyrim.   The experience of living in this world is what brings people to Tamriel and keeps them riveted to the seats.  There are often many parts of the game that aren’t as good as what you’d find in other products that are much more focused.  However, the combination of all the parts brings a game out that is enjoyed by millions.  Whenever I play a new Elder Scrolls game it’s about always journeying onwards and experiencing new things.  I hope The Elder Scrolls Online will keep this tone even as an MMO.

Lore – The Prison at Coldharbour

Slight spoilers to the beginning of The Elder Scrolls Online follow.

In The Elder Scrolls Online, like every other Elder Scrolls game, the player starts in a prison.  This prison is a bit more metaphysical in nature than the previous entries.  Called Coldharbour, this prison is a place where the dead are gathered for the use of one of the mightiest Daedra Lords.  This demonic prince is known as Molang Bal and wants nothing more than to enslave the width and breadth of human souls.

Every player starts in a jail cell in this Coldharbour prison.   Most everyone that the player meets throughout the first section is are nothing but lost and tortured souls this Daedric prince used to help move forward his twisted plans.  With a little help from a blind sorcerer known as The Prophet and an actual human, the player makes his or her way through a rioting prison and out in to the world of Tamriel.  At the moment I’m unsure how a bunch of souls without bodies are rioting and fighting. I guess these ‘souls’ would appear ethereal when on the human plane, but are solid as you or I when in one of the planes of Oblivion.  Throughout the prison break, the player meets up with several characters I’m sure will be seen again. One is voiced by John Cleese and is sure to appear later.  (Then again, Patrick Stewart played a character that was in Oblivion for all of ten or fifteen minutes.)

After breaking out of the prison and being reincorporated in to a human body, the player is unceremoniously dumped in to the human world known as Nim.  Where the player ends up depends on what faction is picked during character creation. Every faction will be in the classed Elder Scrolls setting of Tamriel but the location is a bit fluid at the moment.  When I played, each faction dumped the player on to a starter island.  On these islands, the player ran through a series of quests and was basically locked in until the right quests were completed.  As of last week, ZeniMax Online has decided to forgo those starter islands and push each player in to the main city of each faction.  I haven’t tried this yet but it is suppose to help increase the feeling of freedom in the game world.  The islands aren’t disappearing but they will be a destination instead of an area locked in with no way out.

TESO Forums – Delving in to the community

Last week I spoke a little bit about how toxic I found the TESO community.  The people I found in many places seemed to be nothing but trolls and fanboys/girls that didn’t seem to care about ruing the fun for anyone else.  Fortunately this opinion is slowly changing as I interact with people on the official Elder Scrolls Online forum.

A couple of days ago I posted a thread titled “Where are you from and what is your background?”  I basically summarized a conversation my brother and I had, in which he marveled at the diverse nature of Elder Scrolls fans.   He mentioned that he met many people from all walks of life that play the series. Very few seem to fit the typical geek stereotype.  So, in an attempt to get to know the people in the TESO community, I started that thread.

It seems like Bethesda has a policy that no forum thread should go beyond 200 posts.  The first thread reached that amount in a matter of thirty hours or so.  After that thread was closed, I posted a second thread with the same name.  As of this writing, there are forty-six responses to the new thread.  I think my brother’s theory on the variety of people that like this series is true.  I’ve been enjoying participating and watching these two threads come together. It has given me a bit more hope that the community won’t stay as soul crushingly bad as I experienced during the last beta weekend.

It interests me that so many people wanting to play TESO are older. I don’t mean old, but I do mean in their thirties or above. The last MMO I played with a mature population like that was The Lord of the Rings Online. This lead to some of the best community events and Role Playing experiences I’ve had inside an MMO.  I hope that the mature attitudes of an older audience will have the same effect on TESO.  Not discounting younger fans, but those with some life experience can act as mentors and guides to the younger ones.  What I experienced in the last Beta Weekend felt more like being on Xbox Live. I don’t really want that in an MMO and now have a big of hope there will be one portion of the community that isn’t like that.

Next Time on The Journey Onward

There is supposed to be another Beta weekend starting Friday, March 14.  If that is the case, I will have more pictures up and more thoughts about the game in general.  If not? I’ll delve a bit more in the Lore that underscores the foundation of The Elder Scrolls Online.

Until we meet again, keep on that journey of life.

 

All imaged taken from the official Elder Scrolls Online website.