Elder Scrolls: Online (ESO) is now one of the most successful MMORPGs. But it wasn’t always like that. The developers have now revealed what they would have done differently at the release.
Elder Scrolls: Online is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. However, for a long time, things did not look good for the MMORPG in the world of “The Elder Scrolls”:
- At the release, many players expected a WoW in a new guise or at least wanted it to be like WoW.
- A weak balancing, bugs and technical issues, as well as an endgame that was far too short, also caused a lot of frustration.
- In addition, there was a mandatory subscription model that many players were also not interested in.
However, ESO has changed radically over the past 10 years and a lot has happened: ESO is no longer a game with mandatory subscriptions, and with Tamriel Unlimited, many restrictions have been lifted, making the game more accessible over the years.
The developers now explained that despite the many issues, there was only one thing they would have done differently.
They should have chosen a game to develop
What did the developer say? Rich Lambert, Creative Director for ESO, explained in an interview with PCGamer that he would change at least one thing if he were to develop ESO again:
The only thing that comes to my mind would be to choose the game you want to make.
Because the many problems of ESO arose mainly from the fact that they did not yet know where they wanted to develop the game. There had been two competing versions for the direction of the game, and they tried to reconcile both options. But that simply did not work and caused a lot of problems.
His colleague, Matt Firor, studio head of ESO developer Zenimax Online Studio, stated that he probably wouldn’t have done anything differently. Because the many problems had proven valuable in the long run for the development of Elder Scrolls: Online. Certain things, like the funding model, could be much better assessed by learning from the mistakes.
More about ESO: The same Rich Lambert was concerned that the big and important update “One Tamriel” would destroy the game. But today, the MMORPG makes billions. You can read the entire interview on MeinMMO: Lead developer on the most important update of ESO: They were sure, ‘that we would kill the game this way.’
