Since I'm one of the biggest fans of The Elder Scrolls Online, when I was given the opportunity to sit down and interview Rich Lambert, the Creative Director for ZeniMax Online Studios (the developers behind ESO), there might have been (there definitely was) an extended happy dance involved.

The Elder Scrolls Online started a year-long content schedule earlier this year called The Dark Heart of Skyrim which began with the DLC GreyMoor - a dark look into a slice of TES:V Skyrim lore. With some of the new content already out and fans happily submerging themselves in the darkness, we had a chat about the studio’s plans for ESO, spiders and tattoos (ironically the last two being in my least favourite and most favorite lists of conversational topics… in that order).

Rich joined the chat with his beloved puppers behind him, ready to steal the show (I use the term puppers loosely here as they resemble small horses and quite frankly are probably taller than me if they stand on their hind legs).



Mr. Rich Lambert. It’s an honour to be speaking to you. First off, can you tell us how you got into ESO? What was the path to helping to make this amazing game?

Rich: Wow. So that was... 13 years ago - 2007. I was actually a producer on Oblivion, so I worked at Bethesda Game Studios before and I used to bug Todd Howard all the time about how this would make a great online game - ‘We should really do this, we should really do this.’ And he humoured me, but he was like, ‘Yeah, no, we’re focused on these other games.’ One day he called me into his office and Matt Firor was there and Todd was like, ‘Matt, this is Rich, Rich this is Matt. Matt is going to lead up the effort for doing an MMO. Matt please take Rich - all he does is talk about making MMOs, that’s all he wants to do so please get him away from me.’ And yeah, we’ve been working together ever since.

In terms of the new DLC Greymoor, can you walk us through how the team came up with the darker storyline?

Rich: One of the things we always do when coming up with the next chapter or the next story is we kind of look back on what we’ve done. We had just finished coming off of Elsweyr and kind of the Season of the Dragon, and that story. Well it isn’t happy because dragons are ravaging the countryside and whatnot. It’s a little bit more lighthearted, the culture that we focused on with the Khajit. They are a little bit more kind of happy-go-lucky, you know? It’s a little bit of a different feel. So we wanted to do something that was very, very different. That’s why we focused more on the dark, serious side of things, rather than kind of what we’ve done in the past. On top of that, we knew that we wanted to go to Skyrim and we wanted to find a way to give players a little bit of that nostalgia, but also show them some things that they necessarily might not have seen in Skyrim before. So the Overland, you know, where you get to go and you get to explore Solitude and see your traditional Skyrim, and then when you go down into Blackreach, that is where we really do our own thing and you’ve never seen these places before in Skyrim, which is fun for the developers.

Being fans of it, and working with Bethesda before on Oblivion, it’s probably something that you had a lot of fun diving into?

Rich: Yeah, it’s always fun going and kind of reimagining things and also adding to the world. The Elder Scrolls has been around for 25 years now, and we get to add to it, which is awesome.

Do you find the concept that you have for the year-long content ‘Dark Heart of Skyrim’ has worked better for the team and for the community?

Rich: Yes and no. So I think that it makes it a little bit easier for the team in general to kind of be on the same page. They know for the entire year this is what we’re working on and these are the areas that we are going to, so it’s easier for people to be in the same headspace. Before, when we were working on things that were very disparate, it was kinda hard because art is usually almost a year ahead of us, so they are working on ‘this’ stuff while the content teams are still working on ‘this,’ so there were issues there. From the players point of view, yes it makes it easier for the players to kind of know where to start, where to stop, how to get in and how everything is kind of related, whereas before it was very different. So yes, pluses and minuses. I like it, I think the team enjoys it as well and I think the players thus far enjoyed it too.

I must say that I have been enjoying it quite a bit myself. In terms of the whole year that we’ve got - we still have a few months left. What do you think fans are going to be most excited about?

Rich: We actually just put our update 27 on PTS (Public Test Servers) last week, so we’re on our second week of that. That has the new dungeons and some of the new story. Players thus far on PTS have really enjoyed the new mechanics that we have done in the dungeons. The fourth quarter story DLC I think is going to throw players a few curveballs. (It’s at this point that Rich gives an evil little smile). I don’t think it’s going to be what they’re expecting in terms of story and kind of how the story finishes out and I’m really excited for players to kinda start to dig into that and see that stuff.

Now I’m all excited! Does this mean an increase in Champion Points?

Rich: No. So we are very very close.. We’re like THIS close to actually talking about what we’re doing with the Champion Points system. It’s something that players have wanted information on for just over a year now because we stopped adding to that and stopped increasing the player power because it was causing issues. We’re almost ready to talk about that. Soon hopefully.

There’s been a lot of speculation about whether or not ESO is ever going to go cross platform. There’s been some dodged questions so I was wondering if you guys were any closer to an answer for that?

Rich: We don’t. We know players want it. It is not a very easy problem to solve. Each Megaserver, each platform has it’s own unique environment, it has it’s own unique economy, and kind of merging all those things together is a very very difficult challenge. We also made some initial assumptions when we started building the game back in 2007, which aren’t necessarily compatible with that cross platform play. We don’t have any plans in the short term to do any of that stuff.



Speaking of Megaservers, would there be any plans in future to possibly add more than just the North American and European Megaservers?

Rich: I think that is something that we are constantly evaluating and looking at. If it makes sense, we will probably do something like that. Right now we don’t need to, the servers can support the player base that we have. But who knows? We’re slowly starting to expand the game, which is, you know, exciting. We’ve been around for 6 years now, and we just implemented Russian localisation. We’ve gotten a lot of really good buzz and praise for that and we are seeing the Russian market really embrace that. So who knows?

I have a question that has plagued me since I started playing ESO - who is so obsessed with spiders?

Rich: (Big laugh) They are a big part of the lore. It’s funny, one of our community managers, Gina Bruno, she HATES spiders. So every time we do something that has spiders, she comes and sits down and she’s like ‘why do you keep doing this to me? Like anything but spiders, please.’ We get that internally as well. They are an interesting creature though. It’s something that we try to not overuse, but I guess we still overuse a bit.

Do you have a specific storyline or mission in ESO that you particularly love?

Rich: Oh there’s so many different ones, and for so many different reasons. I think probably the Orsinium storyline is the one kinda closest to my heart. That was one that we worked really hard on right after launch to figure out how we wanted to kinda tell stories going forward. That one is always going to be close. I am particularly fond of the Manor of Reveries storyline in Summerset with alchemy. I think that is a really good example of kind of how inclusive the world of Tamriel is and that kind of shines a spotlight on that which is cool. I could probably rattle off a few more but those two kind of stand in the forefront for me.

When you play ESO what class do you set up? Do you have a particular character or do you jump around?

Rich: I have one of every class in magika and stamina, but I tend to keep going back and playing my ‘Stamplar’ - my stamina Templar. That’s kind of my go-to and the one that I do a lot of my achievement hunting on so I guess that’s my main. But I do play them all.



There was a challenge put to you last year - If you hit 100.000 viewers on the Elsweyr announcement stream, you would have to get an Elder Scrolls themed tattoo. What was going through your mind when Kelly let you know that you had reached the target?

Rich: Honestly I thought there was no way we were ever going to hit that mark. It was such a big number, it was more than twice what we have ever gotten before, and so I was like ‘yeah, okay… sure… we can do this. There’s no way it will happen.’ And then I was like 'well.. Now I have to do it.’ I’m also not the most comfortable with needles. I don’t like them. So I think you kind of see all the blood in my face drain when Kelly mentioned that within 2 minutes of the stream starting we hit it. It was a bit of a shock, but I love it. It was a great experience. Now it’s a part of me - I just love it.”

Are you considering any more?

Rich: “(sheepishly) Yeah, I have a few other ideas. The lady that did it, Lydia, has actually become really good friends with myself and my wife. So we talk a lot about what we could do next, how we want to do it, where to go, so it’s pretty cool you know. Going through that whole experience and meeting someone like that and turning out to have a really cool relationship with them.

I was wondering if it was divine intervention that you met someone to do your tattoo named Lydia?

Rich: (chuckles) Yeah, it’s kind of interesting, isn’t it? And she is a HUGE Elder Scrolls fan!

Are we going to be expecting any more DLC to come out after the Dark Heart of Skyrim?

Rich: We’re not slowing down - that is definitely for sure. We’re already working on next year’s chapter. If that helps reinforce that we’re not giving up. We have lots of things planned, we’re not slowing down. ESO is in a really good state right now and so we’re going to keep supporting that.



You guys are really committed to performance - Since the really big update at the beginning of this year, have you seen improvement?

Rich: Yeah, we’re seeing big improvements in terms of loading times and general client stabilities, so less crashes, things like that. We’re not done yet - we still have lots of work to do. Actually this latest update that we have done on PTS has a lot more improvements in there. So a lot of memory things, our focus is on general combat performance. So that’s why we reworked, rescripted a lot of the abilities, player abilities, item sets. We’ve done a bunch of server improvements for this update. The dreaded intermittent load screens - we’ve done a bunch of fixes for those. So we’re just going to keep banging on this, keep working on these problems until we get them to a place that we’re happy with.

So ESO has been around for a few years, and people getting into it now are a little intimidated by the amount of lore involved and facing opponents with max Champion Level points. Do you have any advice for anybody who would be starting out playing the game now?

Rich: The biggest thing is don’t treat it like your typical MMO, where you rush to end game to get all the max level gear and whatnot. ESO is a journey. It’s all about your experience through the world. Take it slow, explore it. Figure out how the game works and do it at your own pace. You’re never really behind, and so play it the way you would any other Elder Scrolls game and you will find the magic.



*Interview conducted by Sheree Buchholz