If you haven't signed up for the Elder Scrolls Online beta yet, now might be a good time. This weekend the official The Elder Scrolls Online Twitter account announced the next beta event will be announced
"very soon."
And when it comes back, it'll come back with a
huge list of updates, bugfixes, and improvements for the 0.18 version, according to a list of patch notes shared on Reddit. Highlights include:
• Thousands of fixes for quest issues across the entire game.
• Now after the tutorial completion, new characters will go directly to first alliance city where you will then have the choice to go to the starting islands.
• Starting leveling is slightly quicker, while higher-level is a bit slower.
• Implementation of Molag Bal’s newest threat – Dark Fissures, smaller version of Dark Anchors.
• Player to NPC collision.
• More orchestral music across all zones.
• Many gameplay improvements, including balancing and polish to class and weapon abilities.
• Many updates and improvements to the UI.
Many of the new changes are based on player feedback, so it's nice to see the TESO team listening to the early feedback about what works and what doesn't in the beta, such as in this explanation of the decision to include NPC collision:
"In order to make the world feel more substantial, you will now collide with NPCs, including collision with NPCs in combat. We’d appreciate everyone’s feedback about how this changes the way the world – and especially combat – feel, and of course any bugs you find with this new feature. Please note that this will not affect PvP combat with other players; collision is only on NPCs."
Sign up for the beta at
https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en/beta.
The Elder Scrolls Online releases to the PC and Mac on April 4, 2014 and to the Xbox One and PS4 in June of 2014.
