Elder Scrolls Online devs address 2024 roadmap \u201cdisappointment\u201d Zenimax Online StudiosElder Scrolls Online\u2019s Creative Director and Lead Encounter Designer addressed the \u201cdisappointment\u201d from parts of the player base after the launch of the 2024 roadmap. Assuring the game\u2019s fans they\u2019ll continue trying to \u201cmix things up\u201d. When the 2024 roadmap for the Elder Scrolls Online was announced back in January, it showcased what players had to look forward to in the year ahead. A new Chapter of story to play through, two new dungeons, a trial, a new combat system for magic, and new cosmetic and housing additions too. While some players were excited for the slated content this year, others expressed worry over a pattern they saw emerging. Some even vented their \u201cdisappointment\u201d this year\u2019s roadmap confirmed a \u201cnew norm\u201d for the game of one trial and two dungeons per year. But is this pattern intentional? Or just coincidental? Ahead of the launch of Scions of Ithelia, we spoke with ESO\u2019s Creative Director, Richard Lambert, and Lead Encounter Designer, Mike Finnegan, about the ins and outs of planning the game\u2019s roadmap. According to them, it\u2019s a bit of both. \u201cPart of it is that,\u201d Finnegan said, agreeing with the player sentiments above. Then going on to explain why this sort of pattern is a focus for the studio. \u201cBreeding that consistency is also a good thing, sometimes, so people can know what to expect. But we also have a lot of different pieces of content to cater to a lot of different players\u2026 Having a kind of beat for players that they can look forward to is good,\u201d he explained. Finnegan gave Trials as an example specifically, \u201cSo like, the \u2018trial a year\u2019 well, that targets a very specific group of players,\u201d he added, addressing the comment. \u201cTrials necessarily have bigger balance concerns.\u201d \u201cWe try to mix it up,\u201d Lambert said, \u201cBut there\u2019s also the realities of development too, it takes a long time to do this stuff.\u201d In the current environment in game development, the pressure to deliver regular content has created some unhealthy culture around time management and crunching. Thankfully, Zenimax Online Studios doesn\u2019t want to make crunch an aspect of their studio culture. A point both Lambert and Finnegan were clear to make. \u201cWe have a good idea of how long it takes and every once in a while\u2026\u201d Finnegan explained. \u201cWhen we can, and we take a look at when it would work to mix it up and stuff, we do.\u201d He then offered last year\u2019s Infinite Archive launch as an example of the team squeezing in extra side content on top of this \u201cnew norm\u201d players are perceiving. \u201cThat was a crazy change,\u201d Lambert laughed, referring to the development process for the new content. \u201cThere was a crazy amount of work to do with that for sure,\u201d Finnegan said. The Infinite Archives are just one example of new content systems arriving to keep it fresh for veteran players, and interesting to newcomers too. And at the end of the day, the team is proud of what they can accomplishwithout the need for crunch becoming part of their cycle. \u201cIt\u2019s really bonkers to me to think about what we have done over the last ten years,\u201d Lambert reflected, looking back over the game\u2019s ten years of development, mentioning major changes like the Justice system, the Dark Brotherhood skill line, and Imperial City as additional examples of the team\u2019s commitment to providing more than just dungeons and trials in every update. \u201cAll these things we kind of take for granted now, but those were major updates to part of the game.\u201d \u201cUltimately, what we want to do is create content that people are going to want to play,\u201d Finnegan concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Elder Scrolls Online devs address 2024 roadmap \u201cdisappointment\u201d Zenimax Online StudiosElder Scrolls Online\u2019s Creative Director and Lead Encounter Designer addressed the \u201cdisappointment\u201d from parts of the player base after the launch of the 2024 roadmap. Assuring the game\u2019s fans they\u2019ll continue trying to \u201cmix things up\u201d. When the 2024 roadmap for the Elder Scrolls Online […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}