Video: The Elder Scrolls Online live stream
An afternoon epic - cut short by server maintenance. Doh!
UPDATE 7th April 4.15pm: Due to some surprise game server maintenance (a surprise to us, anyway), we've had to cut this live stream short. Sorry!
Original story: Bethesda's titanic new MMO, The Elder Scrolls Online, launched on PC and Mac Friday. Like several before it - Star Wars: The Old Republic and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning spring to mind - it's a mega-budget attempt to make a famous brand work as an online world, and to reap some of the subscription riches that World of Warcraft has been hoarding to itself for the past 9 years. Most of those other attempts have failed, or have at least resulted in a switch of business model to free-to-play. Will Zenimax Online Studios, hoping to catch a ride on the massive popularity of The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, fare any better?
As with all MMOs, we'll be taking our time with the review; look our for it in a few weeks' time. Early impressions are of a solid game, albeit one that - like The Old Republic - is stuck awkwardly between its single-player RPG heritage and the demands of a persistent online world.
In the meantime, Ian's here with a longer than usual live stream to show you how the game stands at launch. He'll be playing from the start as a Nord in the Ebonheart Pact (one of the game's three factions). He has a pet monkey, apparently. Catch the stream below, live from 2pm to 6pm British Summer Time.
