Three designers of ZeniMax Online Studios - Maria Aliprando, Nick Konkle, and Brian Wheeler - sit down to talk about gameplay and PVP in the Elder Scrolls Online, and we've got it embedded right here for your viewing pleasure. It covers a lot of the PvE combat, rewards systems, synergy with magic and abilities, and the like. There is a lot here, so be prepared to listen to a podcast. 

If that's not enough, there's also an extensive discussion with Matt Firor - a name who is rapidly becoming very fun to say out loud - on Edge Magazine that covers the return of public dungeon, doing away with World of Warcraft's now-standardized instanced dungeons. 

A single-player game wrapped up in an online multiplayer world a weird concoction, and it's scaring hardcore Elder Scrolls fans. Today Matt Firor, developer for ZeniMax Online, explained in a PC Gamer interview how it will all work. The real money line, however, comes here:

“The way we do that in Elder Scrolls Online is there are parts of the game that you just do solo and you just do in a story instance. So the main backbone story of the game, which is your interaction with Molag Bal, one of the Daedric princes, you’re the hero in that story, so you experience that only yourself.”

This is, essentially, the same thing that Star Wars: The Old Republic has done, or the Lord of the Rings Online before it. The question, of course, is begged: If The Elder Scrolls Online is just like those games (and I'm not very entrenched in the Elder Scrolls lore) then why would I play this game? Hopefully, it's the level/skill system, which promises to be significantly different from the traditional experience-and-level affair. 

One of the big things, right after the huge announcement that TESO was a real thing and it was actually happening, was that lots of Elder Scrolls fans remembered that they had just licensed the HeroEngine, famous for The Old Republic. The implication was kind of scary - instead of Bethesda's usual method (IE building it from scratch) they would be borrowing another engine. In a Game Informer interview, game director Matt Firor explains the role of the HeroEngine with TESO, and here's the real answer as to why it was licensed;

"It takes a long time to write game engines, especially MMO engines, which are inherently more complicated than typical single-player ones. So, we decided to license the HeroEngine to give us a headstart. It was a useful tool for us to use to prototype areas and game design concepts, and it provided us the ability to get art into the game that was visible, so we could work on the game’s art style. [...] Think of HeroEngine as a whiteboard for us – a great tool to get some ideas in the game and start looking at them while the production engine was in development. "

They explain further about some of the ambitions of the Elder Scrolls Online and how they are approaching the "just another MMO" mindset fans have as well, and put some worried minds at ease.  

First details of the Elder Scrolls Online's factions have arrived, first dealing with the Aldmeri Dominion, and then the Daggerfell Covenant. The former composed of high elves, the wood elves, and the Khajiit, and the latter dealing with the orcs, the Redguards, and the Bretons. In case you're not an Elder Scrolls fan, there's an entire explanation of each race, the provinces, and the faction's motivations. More to come in the following week with the third faction, the Ebonheart Pact. 

With the closing of their "Friends and Family"  beta test on the 28th of February, today Zenimax Online Studios has announced that invites for their first closed beta test will be sent out near the end of this month. That's right Elder Scrolls fans, you're ascension to the throne draws near!