Elder Scrolls Skyrim Online.

The Fifth edition of the Elder Scrolls series, Skyrim, an action role-playing game with an expansive world for players to explore developed by Bethesda Game Studios. Bethesda has teamed up with Zenimax Online Studios and they have recently announced a Beta sign up to try out the long awaited release of Elder Scrolls Online. Skyrim is available for the Xbox 306, PlayStation 3, and PC and like the previous four installments, you play your character but there is no online so you cannot play with your friends or random people, you are all alone in a world of NPC's(Non-Playable Characters). Skyrim is located on the continent of Tamriel, a vast land with dense forests, frozen mountains, lush scenery with a magnitude of animals and even dragons soaring over head.

There will have to be a lot of work put into Skyrim to ensure that everything works properly for the Online release. In an interview between Matthew Reynolds of Digitalspy.com and Matt Firor, a game director for Bethesda, Matt Firor states that "We've also reproportioned some of our NPC (non-playing character) and player figures, and retextured and tweaked some of our structures and buildings." The online installment of The Elder Scrolls' story will take 100 years before Oblivion (The fourth edition of The Elder Scrolls) and Skyrim. Matthew Reynolds asks "What does setting The Elder Scrolls Online hundreds of years before Oblivion and Skyrim allow you to do?" Firor responds with "It allows us to be able to tell stories about a time that is not well documented in lore, but what is known is very useful - mid 2nd era is known basically as a time of destabilization, lack of central control in Tamriel and lots of outside influences causing problems (invasions, pandemics, etc). It's a perfect setting for The Elder Scrolls Online. It has the familiar provinces and races, but a different cast of characters and stories. Also, it gives the player another era of Tamriel to explore, a time that is a little more unsettled than the Tamriel that they are used to in the other Elder Scrolls games."

Taking such an expansive game that is made solely to be played alone; completing quests, fighting monsters, exploring dungeons, and gathering resources and then turning it into a massively played online game will take a tremendous amount of work but in the end I personally believe it will work out for the best. The online portion will add new aspects to the game such as group-questing and Player versus Player or PvP, where people will fight to the death, most of the time in hopes of gaining what items the player they were fighting had. Matt Firor explains that there will be alliances that are in a conflict and the players get to chose from one of three alliances. Players will work together within their alliance to fight for and defend Cyrodiil, a province and even the throne of Tamriel, the whole continent of Skyrim. Firor also talks about how different the 360 degree radius that you as a player can see, such as games like World of Warcraft, as opposed to other first-person PvP games such as the Call of Duty franchise. This gives players a larger screen to find enemies, especially those behind them. (Elder Scrolls Skyrim Online Interview).

Opening the online to beta testing allows both Bethesda and Zenimax Online to gather information about the game such as bugs and glitches, as well as positive and negative feedback from the players allowing for changes before finalizing the game for launch (Sign Up for Elder Scrolls Online Beta).

Winda Benedetti from Nbcnews' technology section asks the big question of why. She asks "Why make a massively popular single-player game series into a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game?" Again, game director Matt Firor answers. Firor says that the main reason for the online is a tremendous opportunity to get new players who have never experienced MMOs before to just jump in and play online ('The Elder Scrolls Online' invites gamers). Not only is it attracting people who have never played MMOs but this also has a tremendous opportunity to attract people who are really interested in the player-versus-player aspect, so the community for The Elder Scrolls will grow immensely with the addition of online.



Below is the official Bethesda Trailer for Skyrim Online.

For those of you who play Skyrim and are interested in signing up to play the beta, you can sign up here at the beta signup.














Sources;

Reynolds, Matthew. "'Elder Scrolls Online' interview: The beta, first person and Skyrim." www.digitalspy.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/interviews/a458194/elder-scrolls-online-interview-the-beta-first-person-and-skyrim.html>.

Benedetti, Winda. "'The Elder Scrolls Online' invites games to test the new Tamriel." www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog web. 1 March 2013. < http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ingame/elder-scrolls-online-invites-gamers-test-new-tamriel-1B8057219>.

Mlot, Stephanie. "Sign Up for Elder Scrolls Online Beta Test Now." pcmag.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2414557,00.asp>.

"The Elder Scrolls Online Beta Sign-Up." www.elderscrollsonline.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://signup.elderscrollsonline.com/>.

BethesdaSoftworks. "The Elder Scrolls Online - The Alliance Cinematic Trailer." www.youtube.com web. 1 March 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0jNT5cMwxw0>.