The Elder Scrolls Online tutorial and early-game overhauled due to beta feedback

[THUMBS]

PC beta players felt beginning of MMO was "too constrained"
Though The Elder Scrolls Online is still a fair distance away for us over here in the land of Xbox, the Bethesda MMO has been going through final testing in preparation for its launch on PC in a few weeks. It's thanks to this testing we now know about a few changes we can assume have been made to the game before it comes to the Xbox One later in the year.

Writing on the Elder Scrolls blog, game director Matt Firor has claimed that surveyed players previously suggested the opening of the open-world MMO felt too constrained: "The game was originally designed that way so that new players were not overwhelmed, and could learn the game before dealing with more challenging situations."However, this has now been tweaked, with Firor saying that after completing a newly-streamlined tutorial, "new characters now wake up in the first major city of their respective Alliance as opposed to being forced to go through the starter islands." Matt also suggests that the level curve has also been adjusted so that new adventurers will still have "plenty to do and discover without running into enemies that are too powerful at the start."

Matt also spoke a little bit more on the Xbox One and PS4 versions of the game in an interview with The Examiner, saying that the use of a user interface similar to previous Elder Scrolls titles has helped with developing this one for couch-friendliness.

"We base our UI look and feel on Skyrim and Oblivion - simple, out of the way, with an emphasis on having the player look at the world, not at the UI. That philosophy is just as valid on console as it is on PC, so it makes our transition over to console easier than it otherwise would be. That being said, we are making many changes to our UI to make it more controller friendly."The Elder Scrolls Online is set to release on Xbox One sometime in June - anyone here spent any time in the PC beta, and what do you think? In the meantime, here's Ed's thoughts from his recent preview.