The fantasy MMORPG and heavyweight The Elder Scrolls Online is playable for pre-order customers since a few days, the rest has to wait until Friday. The launch was, in terms of lags and queues, pleasantly smooth.
However, there were a number of bugs and exploits in the game that threatened to spoil the fun for some players. In response, Zenimax is now deploying the hardest measures available to a publisher: No, not ballistae and trebuchets, but patches and hotfixes!
The reasons for yesterday’s server downtime during prime time
Yesterday at half past six, the noise in the nation was loud. And there were still two hours to go until things got tough for the Bayern in Manchester: The TESO servers were suddenly taken down. At 6:30 PM! Right in the German prime time. Immediately, complaints arose that they were only catering to the Americans, and we German players were left out. Maintenance at such a time? Unthinkable.
However, the brief server downtime had good reasons. Some exploits in the PvP zone Cyrodiil gave an advantage to the very early starters.
We suspect: They will take care of that tonight.
Little Trouble in Big Cyrodiil
Yesterday, it was still possible for players, and sometimes it still is today, to take specific quests in the PvP area, turn them in immediately, and earn a considerable amount of prestige – and repeat that as desired. This behavior is known as “exploiting”: one abuses a faulty game mechanic for one’s own advantage.
During yesterday’s server downtime, the worst exploits were probably fixed. However, some players had already taken advantage of them by then and had played their way to a significant prestige lead.
Patch 1.01 is coming
With patch 1.01, which is now coming, Zenimax will fix further ways to gain prestige cheaply. The standard kill quest in the PvP area, where one sends 20 enemies to their ancestors, is now only supposed to be turnable once a day. At the moment, it can be repeated indefinitely.
Furthermore, Zenimax is addressing some quests that still have issues and require some /reloaduis or restarts. We also waited in vain yesterday in the service of the Aldmeri Dominion for the priestess to finally get her act together and finish her ritual. This is the experience of players in all factions. Whether the quest you curse is among them can be seen in the patch notes linked below.
However: Not a word yet about the buggy frog race!
King Arthur – the angling Saxon also sighted in TESO
Additionally, patch 1.01 addresses the dreaded issue of being dismounted unexpectedly. And players will be able to fully utilize the zoom options right from the first character. Currently, players have to create the first character blindly and can only examine the second hero more closely.
Zenimax also demonstrates that they are ready to adjust the balancing directly: Healers will now gain prestige more easily in PvP when one of their teammates kills an enemy. Healing will thus be more attractive in PvP.
And as a final note, although it sounds more like an April Fool’s joke: Apparently, it was possible to fish out particularly strong swords from a pond… maybe a programmer was inspired by the Arthurian legend.
Excalibur at level 10? Arthur could never have wielded it. Too low level for the fishing matter!
