The Elder Scrolls Online: In Search of the Lost Imperial City

In The Elder Scrolls Online, a data miner has been searching for the Imperial City, the missing piece of the puzzle in the mosaic of Cyrodiil.

The Imperial City in The Elder Scrolls Online has been planned for a long time. Allegedly, developers have been talking about how important it is for Cyrodiil even before its release. It became a major topic in July 2014, where detailed concepts were discussed, and it seemed that it could be released in 2014.

At the moment, however, it has fallen behind, as the Champion system was prioritized first to fix the endgame in TESO. Then the attention shifted to the Justice system to open the game for “Skyrim” fans. Next came the Buy2Play transition, and then the focus will be on consoles, and then probably content for DLCs will be needed: Maybe the Imperial City will be part of that.

What is the Imperial City and why is it so important?

The Imperial City is meant to bring dynamism to Cyrodiil. When one of the 3 factions is dominant there and occupies more castles than the others, it gains access to the Imperial City, a fantastic place for PvE, where there are numerous advantages: special crafting styles, skyshards, quests, items, and more. This is the most important aspect of the concept: the Imperial City is kind of an “El Dorado,” a city of gold (only with many monsters), where players need to spend as much time as possible.

The concept stipulates that the dominant faction goes there, resulting in fewer players in Cyrodiil, making them no longer “dominant” here. As long as players are in the Imperial City, they fill their pockets until another faction becomes “dominant,” gains access to the Imperial City, and evicts the previously dominant faction.

This would create a constant cycle in Cyrodiil: One faction would be in the Imperial City, another would be trying to get in, and the third could be working to become the next “dominant” faction.

This design element has already been tested in the PvP classic “Dark Age of Camelot,” from which TESO has borrowed quite a bit. Here, “Darkness Falls” was the element of chaos, revitalizing static conditions in the borderlands.

When will there be new information about the Imperial City?

Officially maybe on Friday. Brian Wheeler, the PvP lead of The Elder Scrolls Online, will be a guest on the internal show ESO Live. However, it’s hard to expect anything solid to come out right now, as too much is happening beforehand.

However, there is a very resourceful data miner on reddit dominoid73, who has already compiled various screens and facts about the Imperial City. These are all data that are not yet accessible in the game but were hidden in some of the massive patches that were downloaded at some point. It mainly concerns gameplay. The rough details are known. Players are supposed to gain access to the Imperial City through “the sewers” and engage in a kind of city battle against demons and servants of evil to fight for the “great treasures”.

The data miner has also gathered further details (as mentioned: None of this has to actually go live):

• There are supposed to be two new 4-player dungeons

• 

  Three different crafting sets
• A PvE arena
• more than 30 quests
• 9 skyshards
• Additionally, 6 Mundus stones-like buffs that function in an area around the player who activated them. Among other things, they increase bow skills, two-handed weapon combat skills, grant increased stamina regeneration while using a shield, make it easier to escape CC effects when using two-handed weapons, increase healing abilities, or the range of destruction staff spells.
• There are supposed to be 6 districts that can be occupied by a faction, which would then bring benefits for the players.

The most exciting thing that the data miner has uncovered is this gallery of screenshots from two weeks ago, which mainly focuses on the Imperial City:

You can find additional information from last July, when Zenimax presented all these new concepts – our partner Darion also made a video about it. Since then, little new information has been heard about the Imperial City. Maybe there will be more on Friday; until then, the screens and info will have to suffice. And… probably for quite a while longer. The wait for the Imperial City, which seemed so close in the summer of 2014, will keep players of The Elder Scrolls Online occupied for at least another six months, in our opinion. But maybe it will actually come sooner. The concept seems to be in place.