Elder Scrolls Online

[Musashiclaw]

Anyone tried it?
Whats your thoughts?

We set up a CLAW guild on Ebonheart so if anyone is playing hit us up as it would be good to group with a few from Thelanis.

I play a little between raiding in DDO.

[Uska]

From the game play vids and talking with people I say its a fail

[Failedlegend]

Its basically an Elder Scrolls games with a bunch of MMO **** thrown at it which basically makes it not an ESO game...ie you cant just randomly murder npcs, they`ve added in classes so far less character build freedom, you cant steal anything, none of it is instanced so any sort of sneak based character is useless because the melee guy or the archer or basically anyone but you is going to kill the thing your sneaking after, any story/immersion is killed b y the fact that theres 50 other people running around killing the same boss your after.

So yeah...its bad...from what I knew everyone was looking for a co-op Skyrim instead we got a crappy MMO with a ES skin...think Neverwinter calling itself a DnD MMO or SWTOR calling itself KOTOR 3

[Ivan_Milic]

I give it 1 year before it goes f2p.

[Munkenmo]

I didn't go in expecting it to be like multiplayer skyrim. I've had realistic expectations and I feel they've mostly been met.

Alot of the reasons why some people like DDO will be the exact reasons why they'll dislike open world MMO's like ESO.
There is plenty of depth to character creation, I enjoy the combat & I think they've done a fairly good job on the open world.
Some more instances would be nice, but it's a game in it's infancy, content comes with time.

The game is a bit buggy atm, but still fun to play for now.

[Ungood]

I give it 1 year before it goes f2p.

You think a whole year? I was going to give it 3 to 6 months, tops.

[Uska]

Its basically an Elder Scrolls games with a bunch of MMO **** thrown at it which basically makes it not an ESO game...ie you cant just randomly murder npcs, they`ve added in classes so far less character build freedom, you cant steal anything, none of it is instanced so any sort of sneak based character is useless because the melee guy or the archer or basically anyone but you is going to kill the thing your sneaking after, any story/immersion is killed b y the fact that theres 50 other people running around killing the same boss your after.

So yeah...its bad...from what I knew everyone was looking for a co-op Skyrim instead we got a crappy MMO with a ES skin...think Neverwinter calling itself a DnD MMO or SWTOR calling itself KOTOR 3

I also understand there is some weirdness with grouping on some quests

[Alizar]

I just watched a video on you tube showing gameplay and it looks boring to me. The 3rd person view combat looks bad making the first person view the one you would have to use but I don't like that view in an MMO. I couldn't see any combat numbers or way to judge how well your character is doing. It seemed to be just button mashing until the monster dies. Also having the monsters outlined in white red whatever looks silly. I also don't like the look of the monsters, they look bland. Oh and the compass vs map is silly too.

[Kawai]

heh
there will always b little fanboys crying this sux or that sux.
trying to sway opinion. hehe. goobers.

truth is...
its not ElderScrolls, if thts what u r looking 4.

at least, not like anyone is used to.
ive only played skyrim and dabbled in Oblivion. (which is too old for meh to really get into)

the world itself is beautiful, ofc.
there is tons of stuff to do.

crafting is awesome. period.

there are classes. but theyre very well balanced.
-and plenty of choices to customize them.
--even in depth splits of same enhancements.
each perk u can morph to do differnt things.
and later, u can respec if u like. and not for $$$$$$$$$$$!
heh

if u r into Archery, as in skyrim, u will NOT like this.

if ur a CasterBoi who luvz to nuke stuff. u will like this.

if ur a MeleeHead who appreciates being able to effectively BLOCK and use timing and skill to hit back, you will luv this.

partying is easy once you figure it out.

Guilds are more like real world. ie: HUGE wins.
wont be any little 2 man guilds.

AH is bound to Guild... as an example.

the PvP is confined to Cyrodiil.
and its like a whole different game inside there.
for the better.

in the end. i lov it. but im mostly Ranged Archer with meh toons.
so im not exactly thrilled with it atm.
takes some getting used to, anyway.

But home will always b DDO.
so anyway, bleh to the grumpies. :P

oh, and PS:
the Red Glow someone whined about can be totally faded or turned off.
and no, the only button mashing u will b doing will get u killed.

[Ykt]

I wanted to play the beta, I downloaded the 22gigs client beforehand, and when the beta weekend started 3 hours later, it wanted to re-download the whole 22 gigs again.

I said "hell no!" and removed this waste of space from my hard drive.

[A3oN95]

I was in most of the betas, but ended up not buying the game. Trying to make a micro-review of my experience there:

+ I guess I can say the combat "grows" on you, and after a while it actually "feels" a lot better than it "looks".

+ The scenarios are amazing (having played some of the older ES games, it's amazing seeing some places that I had only read in the lore books)

+ The graphics and soundtrack are really nice. I also like the artwork style they use (more Elder-Scrolls-alike, not the Generic-Fantasy-MMO's-omfg-look-at-those-shoulderpads staple). This, along with the scenarios' I previously mentioned and the little easter eggs scattered throughout the lands, make exploring an nice experience imo, the world is "disbelief-suspension-worthy";

+ I like the interface's simplicity (maybe it's just a tiny little bit too simple), and I REALLY like being able to actually SEE all the eye candy stuff just ahead of me, instead of the buckload of bars filling all of my screen in some games, including DDO (this parody image comes to mind)

~ The character building customization is nowhere near as good as the one in single-player games, and worse than ddo's (although DDO atm isn't exactly an its peak in terms of diverse character builds/playstyles' viability imo... bue the devs are working on it at least). Half of the build combinations I saw were really under-performing comparing to others, and I believe a very few FOTM builds will probably rule the game until/unless they balance it. In spite of all this, it's still way better than most MMOs in this regard, and it's also really nice in the aesthetic customization;

~ The current map is really big for a game which is launching now, and it doesn't feel as empty as I feared it would be. However, I was disappointed that I couldn't just walk through the world map freely like in the single-player games: the map is divided into "zones", there are loading screens between each "zone", and because of this there's a LOT of very interesting places between the different zones that you never get to see (aka: half of the world map you see is basically just a map, you can't visit it). The fact that you need to get to level 50 to be able to visit the lands controlled by the other factions makes the available destinations even smaller in number;

- Once you start questing, I realized why I always end up coming back to DDO up to this day: quests in ESO go like "go fetch me 10 of this", "go kill 15 of those", all your generic-theme-park-infinitely-boring-fetch-kill-escort-loop all over again. I had a sparkle of hope when, during a quest, I had to make a choice that could influence the outcome of the quest (The Witcher fan here :P). Unfortunately, these quests are really rare, and in this example it didn't really make any noticeable long-term difference, it just changed the reward I got in the end.

- The story, at least up until lvl15, is boring, and the characters are dull (DDO's Jeets has a lot more personality than any character I met in ESO so far, and I don't even like Jeets that much). I remember when I met the leader of my faction (you have to choose one of 3 rival factions when you start) thinking "really!? THIS is the kind of person I'm serving and fighting for!? I'd like to quit and become factionless, pleeease..."

- At least during the beta, one of the most important things for an online Elder scrolls experience wasn't met imo: grouping was nothing like the "co-op epicly awesome saga" many players were waiting for. If something, it was actually worse than average, compared with most MMOs I played. It was basically single-player mode (although the quest quality was as bad as the "radiant quests" in Skyrim) with 20 more people around you, playing their own single-player-online-game (weird concept :P). Grouping together just served to make the killcount increase faster in the dungeons.


All in all, it's one of the best generic MMOs I played so far (maybe it seems better to me than it actually is, because I enjoyed the SP titles and/or for nostalgic reasons). But it's still exactly that, a mostly generic MMO. All the boring repetition of the same 2/3 actions that we've been fed for the last 10 years is still there. It was a big step back in terms of story-telling and adventuring (the single-player wasn't exactly great in this area either, but now we don't have the modding community to save it). And although I can completely understand the idea behind most of the decisions Zenimax made, I really doubt that their game + the franchise's name are enough reasons to justify the price tag they're trying to push on the market.

[Micron]

Once you start questing, I realized why I always end up coming back to DDO up to this day: quests in ESO go like "go fetch me 10 of this", "go kill 15 of those", all your generic-theme-park-infinitely-boring-fetch-kill-escort-loop all over again.

Thankfully, DDO devs and quest designers still seem to realise this, too.

[Memnir]

In my opinion, was neither a good MMO nor a good Elder Scrolls game.
I wanted very much to love it, but it just felt wrong on both fronts.



I give it six months, tops, before it goes F2P - and probably with as cripplingly laughable F2P options as SWTOR had at first.

[Uska]

In my opinion, was neither a good MMO nor a good Elder Scrolls game.
I wanted very much to love it, but it just felt wrong on both fronts.



I give it six months, tops, before it goes F2P - and probably with as cripplingly laughable F2P options as SWTOR had at first.

I really wanted to like it but not possible sigh. Worst one I have looked at in a while

[Dandonk]

I was so looking forward to ESO. Even thought it might mean a break from DDO for a bit. Then I tried the beta.

[Full_Bleed]

I found that eso was at its best when you were ignoring the mmo part of the game. Grouping was probably one of the most flawed implementations it had going due to the phasing and disconnect from the combat numbers and conditions.

But it looked good. Crafting was meaningful and had a lot of potential. The world felt big and diverse. And I think they had a lot of fun and original quests with a cool concept holding it all together. The PVP (faction vs faction really) in cyrodil was a nice addition and was a lot of fun in small doses (though largely meaningless).

The interface was probably dumbed down a bit too much and the class system a bit too flexible and formless. And inventory management was seriously inadequate given the amount a lootable items.

In general I enjoyed the game though... but felt that the price was not suitable for a casual player and that it would eventually end up f2p... at which time I will consider playing it. You can see that they have already planned for the transition.

[JOTMON]

ESO is decent, but not a game that will draw many from DDO.

ESO has lots of player build versatility which is decent, but you are still basically pidgeon-holed to 6 hotkeys.. remided me of neverwinter/starwars

I would peg it as Skyrim WOW wannabe.

Party size is limited to 4

PVP will probably be a big component, but personally PVP is not a big aspect of gameplay for me.

Open area's are the recycling of the same mobs over and over which you have to kill and everyone else (even in your party) have to kill to get recognition for the quest requirement.
Some random locked chests in the open area once unlocked can be looted by anyone in the vicinity and the first person to loot the chest gets everything whether in your party or not.

Player behind the controls skill is more of a driver than class skill/ability.. for example anyone can pick a lock with lockpicks with good quick button dexterity.. class build has no real impact.

I don't believe it is a contender for taking people permanently away from DDO any more than Starwars or Neverwinter was.

DDO has a complicated unique gameplay along with the DnD template that has really drawn in the PnP crowd into this game.

[Dawnsfire]

After Skyrim, I was really looking forward to this game. I'm glad I got the Beta invites. They saved me $60.

As a generic MMO it isn't that bad. The art is very good and compared to most MMOs and character creation was flexible (though you are partially pigeonholed by classes). But questing is the typical MMO fare and combat gets a bit boring once you get used to it. The NPCs are flavorless and I cannot tell you how great crafting is because when I played a lot of it was bugged. Guildies told me the PVP wasn't that bad but I never tried it because it wasn't my thing.

I am sure there are folks that will enjoy it but I doubt it will become the 'next big thing'.

[darkly_dreaming]

I really, really wanted to like this game. The teaser trailers looked really cool and since I had never played any Elder Scrolls games I didn't have any particular expectations. I played in several betas and was not really disappointed, but definately not excited about the game.

The character creation was interesting, but I didn't like that you were (unless you purchased the pre-order) forced into a particular alliance based on race.

The character progression seemed very forced, with not terribly many options for customization.

The UI was very simple - too much so being used to DDO's options.

I did like the ability to mark places on the world map, it made navigation pretty easy.

I liked the quests and the voice acting, the graphics and artwork were very nice. I did not however like having dozens of other people running around in the same space, probably doing the same quest, but not interacting. For me, while not a MMO role-player, it definately broke my emersion.

The last straw was the entry cost, being $60-70 for the game PLUS $15 a month. For a game I was on the fence with, that pricepoint definately pushed me off onto the 'not worth the money' side.

[Uska]

I really, really wanted to like this game. The teaser trailers looked really cool and since I had never played any Elder Scrolls games I didn't have any particular expectations. I played in several betas and was not really disappointed, but definately not excited about the game.

The character creation was interesting, but I didn't like that you were (unless you purchased the pre-order) forced into a particular alliance based on race.

The character progression seemed very forced, with not terribly many options for customization.

The UI was very simple - too much so being used to DDO's options.

I did like the ability to mark places on the world map, it made navigation pretty easy.

I liked the quests and the voice acting, the graphics and artwork were very nice. I did not however like having dozens of other people running around in the same space, probably doing the same quest, but not interacting. For me, while not a MMO role-player, it definately broke my emersion.

The last straw was the entry cost, being $60-70 for the game PLUS $15 a month. For a game I was on the fence with, that pricepoint definately pushed me off onto the 'not worth the money' side.

Yeah that was the same in SWTOR that and the phasing thing which made grouping kind of hinky.