The Elder Scrolls Online has gone through tremendous amounts of testing; so much so that developer ZeniMax Online Studios is promising a "polished, lag-free launch experience," a rare occurrence for many online games (see: SimCity, Diablo 3, Battlefield 4).
"We will make sure that no matter where you live, every player in North America, Europe, Oceania and many places beyond, will have a polished, lag-free launch experience," promised game director Matt Firor in a pre-launch ESO update. "Based on the existing number of our beta signups and because we anticipate that the ESO community will continue to grow after launch, we plan to add capacity to keep up with demand in both our North American and European datacenters."
"The North American and European megaservers will first be hosted in North America. This gives us a more efficient way to address any platform issues that may arise at launch. After the initial launch phase is over, we will move the European megaserver to the European datacenter – but this will be a seamless migration for users, without additional downloads, logins or action required," he explained.
And in the event that there are more players on day one than anticipated, ZeniMax has added overflow servers, temporary places where you can begin playing — gaining experience, earning loot, etc. — without wait.
"The character you create and everything gained as you temporarily play on an overflow server will transfer back with you when you log in the next time on the main megaserver," Firor assured. Although you'll still be able to group on the overflow servers, other social features like PvP or access to your friends list and guild will be unavailable.
"…we want to offer this option to allow players to get into the game quickly, create a character and start to enjoy ESO without delay," Firor explained. "This way, you can log in and play, and when the queue shrinks, you can switch to the megaserver and continue to play with the character you created."
Much of Firor's post was a retrospective on The Elder Scrolls Online's lengthy beta period, where the game director touched on a many of the improvements that have been made as a result of the in-depth testing and player feedback. You can read it in full here.
The Elder Scrolls Online will be released for PC on April 4, 2014. The highly anticipated MMORPG is also coming to Xbox One and PS4 but not until June 2014. Bethesda and ZeniMax opted for the staggered launch to ensure a smooth release experience across all platforms.
