For all of you who didn’t have a chance to join the ESO team on a special Reddit AMA today, we summarized the most important answers in the list below:
Your beta account is your live account, you won’t need to create a new one when the servers go live on the 30th (for pre-purchasers).
Also, if you have been in the beta and are going to play when ESO launches, don’t uninstall the game – when the servers go live, just run the same patcher as you always have, and any delta files will be downloaded from there. You don’t need a clean install. This will save you lots of time over completely re-downloading the game.
Q: Can you tell us the exact time the servers will open on early access and launch day?
For 5 day early access:
North America (East): 7:00 AM EDT, Sunday March 30th–
UK/IE: 12:00 PM WEST, Sunday March 30th–
Central Europe: 1:00 PM CEST, Sunday March 30th–
Sydney, Australia: 10:00 PM AEDT, Sunday March 30th–
Singapore: 7:00 PM SGT, Sunday March 30th —
For 3 day early access:
North America (East): 7:00 AM EDT, Tuesday April 1st–
UK/IE: 12:00 PM WEST, Tuesday April 1st–
Central Europe: 1:00 PM CEST, Tuesday April 1st–
Sydney, Australia: 10:00 PM AEDT, Tuesday April 1st–
Singapore: 7:00 PM SGT, Tuesday April 1st–
…and for launch:
North America (East): 7:00 PM EDT, Thursday, April 3rd–
UK/IE: 12:00 AM WEST, Thursday, April 4th–
Central Europe: 1:00 AM CEST, Thursday, April 4th–
Sydney, Australia: 10:00 AM AEDT, Thursday, April 4th–
Singapore: 7:00 AM SGT, Thursday, April 4th
Q: Will the FOV slider and/or changes be out for release?
The FOV slider will not be in for launch.
Q: What can we expect in Cash Shop?
Cash Shop: The next items available for purchase are a name change service, and possibly some vanity pets. We have no timeline for these, so don’t expect them soon, and there aren’t concrete plans for anything else at the moment after that.
Q: Will there be some ingame way to change factions for people who didn’t preorder?
Explorer Pack Bonus: playing any race in any alliance is a pre-order perk. We have no plans to offer this bonus in any other way.
Q: Why did you decide to make characters start in the first main city with an option to go to the starter islands, rather than starting characters on the starter islands with the option to skip?
Starter Islands: We made this decision to give the players lots more choice in the early moments of the game. Not being able to leave the starter islands was too much on rails. So, we made the starter islands just “islands” and let players explore them when they want, along with other level 3-8 content. But after (much) feedback, we made it too hard to find the quest giver to send you to the island, so we are making one more change before launch: now, you’ll find a questgiver directly outside your front door to direct you to the islands. You don’t have to go there, but you can if you want. Choice.
Q: Can you speak to the plans for Templar’s and magicka regeneration after the change to Restoring Spirit?
Alright, so I know this is a tricky one, because the old restoring spirit passive was extremely flexible and powerful. I am very sensitive to the fact that the changes we make can sometimes have an effect on the builds that you spent a long time developing. I promise you we each take balance changes very seriously.
The reason for the change to the restoring spirit had more to do with how it scaled as players progressed through Veteran ranks (especially beyond rank 10) than with how it was performing in the level 1 – 50 experience. We considered a few options for altering that value, but ultimately, we decided on a % reduction to all costs gives the class a lot of flexibility and scales very well in the long term.
I guess that doesn’t answer your specific question: can I speak to the plans for Templar’s Magicka recovery after that change? Short answer is, it’s something I am actively looking at, but i don’t want to speak to specific changes just yet until we are fully confident in the design and implementation. I hate not be able to give you details just yet, but I wanted to at least let all the Templar’s know that I am aware of the feedback and looking into it.
Q: Can you confirm or deny a Sweet Roll Atronach vanity pet at this point in time?
I can neither confirm nor deny this. But it would be yummy
Q: what do you guys find more interesting, a vertical expansion to skill lines (adding more skill lines, essentially), or a more horizontal approach, where we see more expansion of currently in-game skill families?
I think both are very attractive, but in the near future, I would expect to see completely new skill lines
Q: Why do you continue to reduce experience from mob kills?
There was a way, because of spawn rate and other factors, to level very quickly in public dungeons and other spaces. We track leveling times and can see anomalies like this. So we had to shore this up to make sure people didn’t level quite so fast in this way. It was by far more efficient to level in public dungeons than anywhere else, so we brought this more in line with questing.
Q: What’s with the random dismounts?
What’s with the random dismounts?
Q: Will there be any kind of organized market?
Guild Stores will be our in-game market, but we are looking at ways to expand this with our upcoming guild changes. We do not want a global auction house, however.
Q: Is there a reasoning that the Khajiit passive Carnage doesn’t work with Bow/Ranged attacks?
That’s a bug. Whoops! I thought we fixed it already. I’ll check to make sure that’s fixed today! Should be good to go for launch.
Q: Will the possibility for roleplayers to tag themselves as such at launch, or will we have to wait for a later date to be able to do so?
This is something we will be working on. No promises – we have a lot to do, but yes, we want to be able to better support roleplayers.
Q: Do you guys have plans to implement dueling?
For the time being there are no plans to put in duels as we want player vs. player combat focused on Cyrodiil, and fighting the enemy not your friends.
Q: Do you guys gave plans to implement a gladiator arena for players to fight?
For the future, we’ll be paying close attention to what players ask for whether it’s sport style PVP, Arenas, or adding more Keeps to Cyrodiil or different campaigns. That’s the beauty of continually supporting E.S.O. after we ship! =)
Q: What direction do you see expansions taking
I think we will have good sized content expansions at a regular cadence. That is our goal. We will talk more about any plans for a larger expansion well after launch.
Q: If a group of people are on the same quest will each member’s gathers/kills be a cumulative thing, or individual as they are in the beta?
For now they are going to be individual, but may change in the near future. It really depends on the quest.
Q: Once the game is released, what will be the development focus for the next few months?
Our first Adventure Zone, Craglorn will be our first focus. Expect to see lots of info on that soon.
Q: Will updates/expansions ever cost extra money in the future?
all regular content updates will be provided as part of subscribing. We will probably do some kind of expansion in the future, we don’t have concrete plans for that at the moment.
Q: Will there be addon free campaigns upon release?
No, all pvp campaigns will have the same ruleset, but we are taking steps to ensure that UI mods won’t give players an advantage in PvP over a player that doesn’t have one.
Q: How many months after release do you think the first major content update will release?
First major content release: as soon as possible after launch – this is Craglorn. Expect to see more info very soon.
Q: Will switching weapons work reliably in combat eventually? Right now weapon switching sometimes bugs out in combat and pvp and fails to work.
We are definitely aware. It’s a surprisingly complicated problem, and we have been taking steps to make it work better for the past several months. Issues with button responsiveness are a very high priority for us, so hopefully we’ll have it fixed for you very soon!
Q: Are there any plans for a mentoring system to be implemented to be able to play with new/lower leveled players?
This is one of the things we are specifically talking about with player separation. No guarantees, but we are looking at the total system and what separates players.
Q: Will characters be able to revere the divines in some way?
Of course! Whenever you kill another player in Cyrodiil or destroy an enemy army you’re more than welcome to scream out “FOR ARKAY!” or Akatosh, or maybe Stendarr…
Q: what’s the maximum size of a guild?
500 people. And you can be a member of up to 5 guilds.
Q: Any plan to change/remove the 20 kills quest in Cyrodiil?
There are discussions about adding more PVP Quests in Cyrodiil or simply making the Kill 20 players quest a bit more available around the Keeps instead of back at the home portal Keeps.
q: What kind of updates are planned for PVP?
We’ll be looking at what the players want beyond Cyrodiil or within Cyrodiil after we launch. If it’s Arenas, more keeps, more caves, or whatnot, we’ll be listening! For the interim though, we are adjusting the NPC defenders to stay in line with the power curve of players and looking at adding additional archetypes of defenders.
Q: Do you have anything planned regarding Dark Anchors interrupting things like big zergs fighting each other or keeps being sieged and then a dark anchor pops up in front of the wall etc. Anything Molag ball would like to contribute to the chaos in Cyrodill?
We tested that a bit internally and found that it got a bit too crazy with 3 alliances fighting each other and adding dark Anchors into the mix at a keep or resource. For now we’re not planning on adding this to the keep battles.
Q: Can we expect any costumes for reaching high ranks in PVP as a reward?
There is high level armor which can be purchased and the Emperor gets their own costume as well. That’s not to say we’re done with high ranking PVP gear/costumes, but we’ll see what the players ask for post launch =)