How Necromancy Works as a Crime in The Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr
The new Necromancer class is just one of the features coming in The Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr DLC, due to launch in early June. Along with the whole new region of Elsweyr, with its quests and dragons to contend with, players will be able to play Necromancers for the first time. However, necromancy has long been considered taboo or outright illegal in Tamriel. As such, how will the people of Elder Scrolls: Online react to its practice?
How Necromancy Works in The Elder Scrolls Online’s Justice System
“If you’re set on mastering the dark arts in ESO,” explains ZeniMax Online Studios, in a recent post; “you’ll discover that playing a Necromancer requires a certain level of subtlety not found in the game’s other classes. When designing the Necromancer class, the team wanted the choice to be meaningful for reasons other than its three new Skill Lines, and this meant tying the class into the game’s Justice system, bringing consequences for Tamriel’s would-be liches.”
As a result of this, any player who uses certain Necromancer abilities where NPCs can see them could find themselves with a criminal bounty. Fortunately, not all of the abilities are criminal acts, but some certainly are. According to Kyle Nowak, the combat designer who worked on the Necromancer; “There are abilities that are borderline, like Render Flesh, but raising bodies out of the ground is glaringly obvious and will get you in trouble.”
Fortunately, the game’s designers worked to make sure that this wouldn’t be too harsh a penalty for the Necromancer. After all, if players are constantly suffering harassment by law enforcement just for playing their class, it could get tiresome quickly. According to Nowak, the developers made sure that multiple witnesses wouldn’t result in a multiplied bounty. Additionally, they checked lots of the game’s existing content to make sure it wouldn’t cause problems. Some NPCs who appear in the game’s quests and delves can be witnesses in the Justice system. As such, there were instances where Necromancers could theoretically get a bounty just for participating in a quest!
As announced yesterday, ZeniMax is calling this week, ‘Necromancer Week’. The studio is reportedly planning on revealing even more about the new class very soon. As such, fans should stay tuned to our Elder Scrolls news page for the latest updates.