ESO First Person: See No Evil, Pown No Evil, Get Powned By Evil

You’re in the fire, Broseph.

With the announcement of the inclusion of the famed first person perspective that the Elder Scrolls series is known for, it got me thinking, will those who choose to only see what’s in front of them be a hindrance to the rest of the group? My guess would be a resounding yes. Now I’m not hating on the first person perspective in general, I use it all the time when I play ES games. With the better animations in Skyrim I do find myself occasionally scrolling out to view my badassery, but I don’t often play in this view. Third person is a bit awkward when trying to aim a ranged ability or when I’m standing on the quest item i can’t find. Okay, maybe not that bad, but you get the point.

The problem in ESO will be your lack of peripheral vision. I am sure we have all experienced this problem in ES games when you get smashed in the back because you had no clue that enemy was there. An even more fun example is when you back off a ledge attempting to kite an enemy and pull the rest of the room. While a minor problem in the single player games, there is no reload option in ESO due to its MMO nature. If the enemy fights are as complicated and sophisticated as Zenimax claims they will be, FPers will be in for a bad time.

I see nothing wrong with someone happily questing alone in first person view because it helps with the immersion aspect, but it will severely gimp groups in harder content. When others are relying on you to not stand in the fire, or back into more enemies, this view will be a poor choice. I can see the LFG chat now, “No FPers!”. I believe this will be one of the first problems the game encounters (and hopefully one of the only). Oh yeah, and gods forbid I stumble upon some poor soul in PVP using FP view, free backstab!

It has also been said that there will be a survey system implemented to better place you with like-minded players. It can be used for selecting things such as “I prefer to solo” or “I hate pvp”. I don’t know that it will include an “I like first person” option, that may be too specific, but one can hope.

In closing, I don’t see myself refusing to group with players based on what view they are using, but if I can tell you are using first person and you suck, I will make faces of disapproval, and probably just heal you.