Today, ZeniMax Online Studios has released the 40th major update for its MMORPG, The Elder Scrolls Online, on PC and Mac. Console users will get the same update with the usual two-week delay on November 14th.
This free update (roughly 2.78GB in size) adds several community-requested features, such as:
- a Group Finder tool that lets people create groups and find fellow heroes interested in various activities;
- the Grand Master crafting stations that allow Grand Master crafters to replace the various crafting stations of each trade skill with a single one;
- a full rebalance of Jewelry crafting that brings the costs of this trade skill in line with the others;
- improved rewards from Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, and Undaunted daily quests;
- tweaks to gold and experience rewards for quests all across the game;
- a new Patron Deck for the Tales of Tribute collectible card game that was introduced last year with the High Isle Chapter.
Of course, Elder Scrolls Online's Update 40 is also packed with bug fixes and balance tweaks. You can read about all that from the official patch notes. However, the star of the update is undoubtedly the brand-new Endless Archive, an infinite dungeon-type experience available to solo and duo players. In an interview with Wccftech, ZOS Lead Encounter Designer Mike Finnigan explained why the developers chose this party size:
We settled on two players because it's been a feature that's been requested by a lot of players. Ever since the Maelstrom arena came out, people were like 'I'd really love to do this with a friend of mine'. We heard that feedback and we thought that this was the perfect opportunity to do that, one of the caveats being that you still also have to be able to do this solo.
We went into it with that kind of duo thought in mind, getting the tools and the backend support in order to make duo work was of prime importance to this. But honestly, it all stemmed from the years of feedback that we've heard players saying they would really love to have dedicated duo content.
Finnigan said the Elder Scrolls Online development team is always checking the community's feedback, so if there was a strong desire to expand the Endless Archive to four-player groups, it might happen in the future.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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