The director of The Elder Scrolls Online, Matt Firor, has explained why Zenimax has included public dungeons in the game.
Firor spoke to Edge mag on why he loves public dungeons and how he thinks it’s a shame there aren’t so many in the recent MMOs.
“Public dungeons were my favorite thing about EverQuest,” Firor piped up, “I can’t think of an MMOG since then that’s had them.”
“When you think back to the fun MMOG moments in the first generation, it’s standing there, terrified, in an enclosed space, waiting for someone to come along and save you. We can’t do that punitive gameplay that they did in those days, but we can put people together in places where they want to work with others.”
The Elder Scrolls Online aims to encourage in-game social interaction through more than just the use of dialog and interfaces. The public dungeons are “basically a space that’s designed for people who are not grouped together to go into to fight,” Firor explained.
“It’s a great place for people to connect with other players and they’re very important to us, although we still have instanced private dungeons and end-game raid dungeons for groups of up to six players too,” added Firor.
“Each one of these public dungeons is soloable, however, and there are a lot of them, but they’re also dangerous. Lots of creatures, very close together. Basically, if you solo it, you’ll need to find a place to heal, and then you might find another player there who’s exactly like you, and needs help, and then you can fall in together. You’ll have met someone that, hopefully, you’ll want to stick around with later on.”
Firor’s aim for The Elder Scrolls Online seems to be to create something that’s a combination of features of the old and new MMOs. There’s public dungeons, yes, but the leveling up and questing templates are to be much more akin to those found in modern titles of the same ilk.
Published: May 31, 2012 04:28 pm