In a typical MMO, players spend a ton of time staring at their UI, looking at cool downs rather than actually focusing on what’s taking place in the game. For The Elder Scrolls, ZeniMax doesn’t want players to miss out on the massive multiplayer battles that are taking place, and therefore they have taken steps to make a less intrusive UI.
Unfortunately, a lot of ZeniMax’s musings are more of a conceptual nature than an exemplary one, but if the goal is to keep players focused on the battles we’re all for it. They claim that their, or more specifically Bethesda’s, work with consoles has informed their approach, and without a lot of the technical restrictions in the way they can make a “more immersive battle experience.”
As an offshoot of that idea, ZeniMax is also trying to make monster or boss encounters much more engaging, and therefore much more challenging in The Elder Scrolls Online. Rather than making them a “speed bump” that players can run through whilst completing several other tasks, the monsters in their MMO should require careful attention to movement and pattern.
It’s unclear how much of an influence the console version of The Elder Scrolls, like Skyrim, have informed the MMO’s gameplay and tool set, but ZeniMax’s explanations imply quite a bit was drawn from the console experience. When the game was first announced players maligned the lack of originality on display, but reserved full judgment for further examination, which has demonstrated an MMO that at the very least is trying some new and exciting things. Bethesda should be in full force at E3 2012, so look forward to a full preview of The Elder Scrolls Online in a little more than a week.
How would you like to see ZeniMax employ a minimalistic UI for The Elder Scrolls Online? What percentage of the MMO should mimic the console experience?
Source: PC Gamer
