Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road Chapter Announced – Here’s Everything You Need to Know, Straight from ZeniMax

Like clockwork at this time of the year, ZeniMax Online Studios has announced Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road, the MMORPG's next Chapter. Wccftech attended a remote press presentation to get the full lowdown on what's on the way to the game that more than 24 million players played to date.

As Elder Scrolls lore buffs have probably already surmised, this expansion will bring players to the West Weald, a zone sandboxed between the Gold Coast to the West, Craglorn to the North, Reaper's March and Malabal Tor to the South, and most importantly Cyrodiil to the East. The West Weald was, in fact, featured with its main city of Skingrad in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Skingrad is coming back in this Chapter and will be the new hub city in the region.

In Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road, the West Weald is split into three biomes: The Gold Road, the Valenwood Annexation, and the Colovian Highlands. The former features a forest full of bright gold, red, and Autumn-like colors, while the Valenwood Annexation is a jungle rainforest and the Colovian Highlands is more rocky.

Story-wise, this expansion continues directly from the previous one. Those who played the main quest of Necrom to the end know it ended with a cliffhanger, which ZeniMax had never done before. As such, Gold Road will bring that plot thread to an end (and won't have a cliffhanger of its own). After you've completed both Necrom and Gold Road's main quests, you will be able to access a series of 'capper' quests. Without spoilers, the central character featured in this new Chapter is brand new and yet very important to the Elder Scrolls lore.

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Much of the content available in Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road is similar to what players of the MMORPG have come to expect from Chapters: six new Delves and as many new World Bosses, two new Public Dungeons, one new Trial called the Lucent Citadel, one new World Event, new World, Group, and event Dailies, new Housing and Antiquities content. Overall, it should amount to roughly thirty hours of content, the same as previous expansions. There is a difference with the past couple of years in that the two new Companions will be added with the Q4 update instead of coming with the Chapter in June.

However, the developers more than made up for it by introducing a major new feature: Scribing. A long time ago, ZeniMax Online had plans for a feature called Spellcrafting that would have allowed players to customize their spells, not unlike the Spellcrafting seen in Oblivion. The feature was first shown at QuakeCon 2014, a few months after the game's debut on PC. Two years later, though, it was indefinitely shelved due to its complexity.

Scribing is, in the words of Game Director Rich Lambert, the studio's take on a precursor to Spellcrafting. The goal is to provide more customization while keeping a fairly narrow focus at launch when only the Weapon and World (Mages Guild, Fighters Guild, Soul Magic, Assault, and Support) skill lines will be customizable.

Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road will introduce Scribing through a multi-quest story arc featuring a character named Ulfsild, who researched the precursors of magic and discovered Scribing. The system is based on these Scripts that can be plugged in to tweak a skill to the player's liking. The presentation showed the following Scripts: Primary (Physical, Venom, Fire, Bleed, Immobilize, Restoration, Taunt), Secondary (Restoration Over Time, Snare, Recovery, Mobility, Hawk Eye, Damage Over Time, Defiance), and Tertiary (Force, Savagery & Prophecy, Expedition, Vulnerability, Maim, Lifesteal, Evasion, Off Balance).

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For example, starting from a basic skill in the Bow line that shoots an arrow to the ground and bounces the character out of danger, players could add Venom, Hawk Eye, and Vulnerability. As a result, the arrow itself would deal Poison damage in a predetermined range, the skill's activation would grant the player character a stack of Hawk Eye for five seconds, and damaged enemies would suffer a Minor Vulnerability debuff for ten seconds.

There are some limitations. For example, if you choose one of the damage types as the Primary script, you won't be able to also get a heal with Restoration Over Time from the second script. This is why the Scribing system is being structured with various tiers.

It's not just about tweaking what the skills do but also what they look like. Scribing will also add Styling, the ability to change colors to a skill, starting with 22 styles at the launch of Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road with more coming later. For example, you could make the Wall of Elements Staff skill purple if you wished. Lambert also said doing this would open up new possibilities for the development team, such as potentially adding new skins for pets. All 22 styles available at launch will be earned in-game rather than purchased with Crowns.

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We also got a first look at the Elder Scrolls Online 2024 roadmap. The first update due in Q1 will bring two new dungeons, Oathsworn Pit and Bedlam Veil (as a premium DLC), a prologue quest, and various quality-of-life features. The Chapter release in June will deliver the aforementioned content plus performance improvements. Q3 is set to add a new 'really cool' Housing feature and Q4, as mentioned earlier, will add two new Companions and a PvP feature that is not Cyrodiil related. More details on the Q1 update are going to be shared on January 26 through a developer livestream, just before its debut on the Public Test Server on January 29.

After the presentation, Rich Lambert answered a few questions. Here's a summary of the most interesting tidbits:

• The team believes the game is in a good place when it comes to balancing, except for a few outstanding hybridization things left to add, like potions and food.
• A story mode for dungeons is on their list, but it's not high, as there are already three difficulty modes (normal, veteran, and veteran hard mode).
• Regarding higher difficulty in the open world, it's a tough one to solve as they tried that at launch, and a lot of people left because it was too challenging. The story stuff is purposely easy so that anyone can do it.
• The Infinite Archive will be expanded at some point in the future, as the team only had time to create seven of the 21 planned class sets when the endless dungeon launched late last year.
• Improvements to the Guild system are also on the list.
• Crossplay is complicated due to choices that were made very early on in development. It's not happening anytime soon. At the same time, they hear the feedback from the community.
• ZeniMax is still looking at a potential solution for itemization other than just adding new sets (of which there are already a ton).
• Rather than looking at ways to increase the inventory size, which would put more stress on the servers, they'll try to reduce the inventory pressure. Something on that front is coming soon.
• 'PvP is definitely a big part of our future', said Lambert.
• Scribing will support at least one ability per skill line. It will use a new currency called Inks when you want to create or modify an ability.
• Tales of Tribute will continue to be supported.

Elder Scrolls Online: Gold Road launches on June 3 for PC and June 18 on consoles.

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