During today’s global reveal, the Elder Scrolls Online team laid out their vision for 2024, taking players back to familiar stomping grounds from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
The West Weald
The West Weald, a region situated between Cyrodiil, Craglorn, and the Gold Coast, will play home to the events of The Elder Scrolls Online this year, with the city of Skingrad serving as the hub of the region. Skingrad was showcased in detail in the events of The Elder Scrolls IV, and this will be another example of Zenimax stretching their creative muscles to envision the city and surrounding region as they would have been a thousand years before their initial offerings in the previous game.
As a quick aside, given that the influx of Vampires was a problem during TESIV: Oblivion, I wonder if we will see similar themes in Gold Road. Who knows how long Janus Hassildor was actually in and around the city before taking up its leadership as a Vampire a thousand years later? Given that we recently had a Vampire-flavored Chapter in Greymoor just a few years earlier, this might be a stretch, but it would be another nod to the history of the series and serve as a connection point for ESO and TESIV, but this is purely speculation on my part.
However, it’s not just Skingrad that players will explore, but the entire West Weald region, which in itself has quite a few different biomes to uncover. While the city might be situated in the Colovian Highlands, a high-fantasy-inspired region that is flush with wine and sunshine, the Gold Road itself is more of a deciduous forest, lush with the colors of Autumn.
The West Weald also spills into Valenwood, which takes the region in a completely different direction with lush tropical jungles to explore. The Gold Coast, as showcased today, evokes autumnal colors, something that is depicted throughout the chapter.
The upcoming Chapter, which will be released on June 3rd for PC players and June 18th for Console fans, will feature all the usual trappings of an ESO expansion: a 12-player trial, world events, public dungeons, delves and the overarching storyline to tie it all together.
One aspect players will be disappointed to hear, though, is that the companions that have accompanied each chapter since their inclusion a few years ago will not be coming with Gold Road. Instead, they will launch this year, but as part of Q4’s update. This is meant to give the team more time to polish the chapter, as well as provide more polish on the companions without feeling the need to rush either.
Spoilers for The Elder Scrolls Online: Necrom incoming!
Welcome To The Jungle
Central to the story of The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road is the cliffhanger left at the end of last year’s chapter expansion, Necrom. As players uncovered at the end of the last chapter story, there is another Daedric Prince, long-forgotten and left to rot by an unknown entity.
The long-forgotten Daedric Prince, Ithelia, has no recollection of who or what she ultimately is, and even doesn’t remember how she became imprisoned. However, her return has seemingly thrown the West Weald, in particular, into chaos. Do you remember that jungle region of Valenwood? Yeah, apparently, it sprouted up overnight. A sect of Bosmer are trying to take advantage of the situation to restore Ithelia's powers.
One interesting note on the story is that there is a series of “capper” quests, a sort of epilogue, that requires players to have completed The Elder Scrolls Online: Necrom as well as The Gold Road in order to take part. However, like all ESO expansions, you needn’t have played any of the previous content to take part in the events of The Gold Road, but this is a nice nod to those veterans who have put in the extra time. Might be worth jumping into last year’s chapter to prep as we head into June?
Ithelia, on her part, is basically the opposite of Hermaeus Mora, the Daedric Prince central to Necrom. As Creative Director Rich Lambert put in a pre-brief ahead of today’s event, Ithelia’s jam is crystal and color - those Autumnal colors have meaning aside from evoking the golds of the Gold Road.
Scribing
As with all Elder Scrolls Online chapters, there is usually either a new class introduced (like last year’s excellent Arcanist) or a new system that gets baked into the MMO. This time, it’s the latter, and it’s an exciting one at that.
Scribing, which is described as a sort of “precursor” to Spellcrafting but is decidedly not Spellcrafting, will be coming with The Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road. Scribing is meant to be a way to truly customize your character, giving you access to customizable skills to completely change up the way you play.
As Lambert described it, it’s possible that Scribing was the first steps along the path that eventually led to the Spellcrafting we saw in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but the team at ZOS want to make it clear that this is not the same system. For one thing, the Spellcrafting in Oblivion could create just utterly broken effects, which is fine in a single player game. But for a multiplayer game where balance is key to making sure the game is healthy overall, that just isn’t possible.
Another reason why this should be looked at as different from Spellcrafting is that you’re not necessarily augmenting spells themselves, but that could have nothing to do with any Magickal properties.
One way to look at Scribing is by looking at how ESO handles weapon enchanting. Effectively, enchanting allows you to augment your weapons and armor with certain traits that change how that weapon or armor behaves. There are tons of combinations that create myriad options for players in enchanting, and the same looks to be true with Scribing.
So what is Scribing exactly? Scribing uses three resources to augment and customize skills. First, a Grimoire is needed, which is the core ability of the skill that never changes. One example of this is the Vault skill in the Bow weapon tree. Second, a Script is needed to change the characteristics of the skill. Each Grimoire has three sockets to fill, and the Scripts fill that void. The characteristics could add a Damage over Time effect, a healing effect, buffs, damage type, and more.
Finally, the Inks act as the consumable reagent as part of the affair, which is used to actually Scribe the ability. In doing so, you’ve effectively created a new ability that augments your build in unique ways.
While eventually it sounds like the goal is to expand Scribing to all skills in ESO, right now, the focus is on the skills every player has in common: Weapon and World skill lines. This includes things like the Mages Guild, Soul Magic, and more, while Weapon skill lines are included to ensure the widest possible gamut of players can interact with the new system when it launches this year.
One thing to note is that the Scribed skill does not replace an existing skill in your arsenal. As Lambert described it in a Q&A with the press and creators ahead of today’s event, it acts as a new skill in your arsenal, giving you access to both variants should you need them.
The team is teasing a deeper dive as we get closer to the chapter release in June, and it’ll be interesting to see how builds evolve with even more customization added into the mix. Let the theory crafting commence!
Another aspect coming with Scribing is Styling, which effectively lets you bedazzle your skill effects. This is meant to let you change the look of your ability’s visual FX, such as changing the color of the Wall of Elements effect to a different color. These are all unlockable during gameplay, so it creates a sort of “treasure-hunt” style event for players to pursue when it launches with Gold Road.
Looking Ahead
Looking ahead to 2024, we’re fast approaching Update 41’s reveal, with a preview stream happening next week on the 26th. PTS access will open up on the 29th, with the full Update 41 hitting PC and Consoles sometime in March.
Meanwhile, as we mentioned before, Gold Road will be launching this June, coming to PC and Mac first on June 3rd, while Xbox and PlayStation players will be able to jump into the West Weald on June 18th.
