The Elder Scrolls Online Wants You, Right Now-ish
SWTOR got it wrong - oh so very wrong - but here we are once again, looking at a mega-bucks MMO that could make World of Warcraft wriggle around uncomfortably, like it's wearing underwear a size too small. Like it or not, Skyrim is a game which crossed to The Other Side, that strange and terrifying world of people who play games but don't follow gaming. Y'know, Normals. As such, Bethesda's upcoming massively multiplayer monster-stabber The Elder Scrolls Online has at least a chance at a very big audience, not purely the MMO-educated. We shall see!
Today's big news, though, is that Bethesda have opened up beta sign-ups for TESO, and they have a fancy-pants new trailer too. Guess where I've put that?
Basically the trailer is a group of Tamriel super-friends (presumably one from each of the game's main factions) duffing up some baddies in a HI-OCTANE Peter Jackson movie sort of way, all meeting up then looking like they'd quite like to murder each other. There's some pretty impressive CGI facial work in there too:
BIFF, etc.
As for beta sign-ups, well- you'll be wanting to go here to do that. "Timing and details of the start of playtests will be provided at a later date to those who register", and only "selected" registrants will find themselves approved. I wouldn't mind being selected: I know TESO appears to be doing things very differently to all previous Elder Scrolls games and that's caused some controversy among the faithful, but I'd very much like to make my own judgement from experience.
Lest ye forget, here's what the game proper looks like:
Release date-wise, all we have is '2013' still - which at least would imply beta-time mightn't be too far off.