The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind Q&A and System Requirements

With The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind just over a month away from launch, the official blog has been seeing a lot more activity, including a developer Q&A about the new Warden class and the system requirements that your PC or Mac will need to meet in order to return to Vvardenfell. Let’s begin with the requirements:

PC SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Minimum:

Windows 7 32-bit; Intel® Core i3 540 or AMD A6-3620
3GB System RAM
85GB free HDD space
DirectX 11 compliant video card with 1 GB of RAM (NVIDIA® GeForce® 460 / AMD Radeon™ 6850) or higher
DirectX compatible sound card
Internet broadband connection

Recommended:

Windows 7 64-bit
Intel® Core i5 2300 or AMD FX4350
8GB System RAM
85GB free HDD space
DirectX 11 compliant video card with 2 GB of RAM (NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 750 or AMD Radeon™ HD 7850) or higher

MAC SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Minimum:

OS X 10.9; Intel® Core i3 540 or higher
4 GB System RAM
85 GB free HDD space
AMD Radeon™ 5870 (1GB of VRAM) with OpenGL 4.1
Internet broadband connection

Recommended:

OS X 10.11
Intel® Core i5 2500S or higher
8 GB System RAM
85 GB free HDD space
AMD Radeon™ HD 7870 or higher with OpenGL 4.1

And then move on to a bit from the Q&A:

How do you ensure the Warden is balanced when ESO: Morrowind launches, and what data do you collect to help make changes in the future?

Wrobel: We compared Warden abilities on a 1-for-1 basis to the other class abilities, as well as looking globally at each class in terms of its damage and resources. With ESO: Morrowind, we performed an analysis of ability costs against resource recovery rates for all classes to make sure everything is even.

Player feedback (collected from forums, social, or in-game reports) is also very important to us, too, and we often use it as discussion points in our design meetings. Most often, it points us to specific areas of the game that we then investigate further with extensive play testing and data validation.

Once players get their hands on the Warden, our business intelligence team captures data about the decisions they are making. We know about all the most popular abilities, morphs, gear, Mundus stones, etc. We can then take and filter this data to create a model of what Wardens are doing in PvP, PvE, and at lower levels, helping us find where adjustments need to be made.

The Warden’s ability animations appear as natural, flowing motions. When building these abilities, what kind of direction did you receive, and how much freedom did you have to create something unique?

Littlefield: We were given a clear and broad direction from the gameplay team, allowing us to have a lot of creative freedom. The final goal was to tell the story of each ability through the Warden’s animations, effects, and sounds complementing each other. From an animation perspective, every move is calculated and methodical, with flourish!