Gaming The Elder Scrolls Online

Wow, it sounds hideous. Couple that with the (unintentional?) cartoon graphics, and I think I'll pass.

I enjoyed reading the review though - did you ask Giblets the dog what was wrong?

 

Pleased I didn't take the plunge with this one after losing so many hours to Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim.

MMO's are just becoming plain generic games, all of them now copy the WoW template due to its success, instead of this I think another ES game should have happened. Sounds like they are just wanting to try and take a few WoW players from Blizzard.

At £9 a month though it sounds like its hardly worth the time and effort

Good review, glad to see some honest criticisms about the game instead of a wow, awesome its another huge Elder Scrolls game, slap an 8 or above on it for the packaging and artwork on the box alone!

 

I was so looking forward to this game. I thought it might be the first real MMO that I would be able to start with everyone else, get behind and really enjoy. I was extremely happy and thankful to Bit-Tech for offering out the codes for access to the final BETA weekend not long ago... and I am even more thankful after that experience as it quickly became clear that I wanted nothing to do with TESO.

I admit that I didn't play it for very long but surely that is more their fault than mine, as I was astounded by just how quickly every single aspect of the game left me feeling frustrated or just plain bored. The first issue I had was their choice to change the control layout as I found it most annoying and certainly not intuitive going in to TESO straight from hours of Skyrim.

The problems were continued by just how dreary the opening sequence is and once you escape the prison realm and first enter the real world it actually felt like the reverse as there were/are dozens of other players just appearing seemingly from nowhere, most of which stand around like broken NPCs doing absolutely nothing but then there are those who know a little of what they are doing and so horses start to appear once again from nowhere and so populated areas are teeming with horse riding maniacs.

This list of reasons for negative feelings goes on... and on... and on... and that was just the first 10-15 minutes of playing and I managed a couple of hours worth before finally calling it a day and residing myself to the fact that TESO and maybe MMO's themselves just aren't for me. So negative are my memories of that experience that I could not even bring myself to read this review all in one go. (Sorry)

This only leaves me to say 'Bring on TES VI', I just hope they get round to building a new engine for it.

P.S. I actually rather like Rich Tea biscuits which I find eminently more pleasing than the humble Digestive.

 

Honestly I think that the objectivity in this review is pretty slanted. It feels like the reviewer either doesn't like MMOs in general, or is trying to review this game as a single player game. What's the point either way?

I'm a big fan of the concept of MMOs, but rarely the implementation. I've played and ditched World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Tabula Rasa, Eve Online. For me the closest the genre came to perfection was Ultima Online, the second age (before they created the fluffy land that ruined the game).

1) Formulaic quest structure is a common complaint, but show me a game that breaks away from this? Even the Witcher 2 had 'kill xx'; 'gather xx' quests. Why is this so damning for ESO?

2) Yes, the game features players that also appear in the quests you are pursuing. Surely that is the nature of an MMO. I certainly didn't go into the game with the expectation of never seeing another player. If you want a malleable world for the individual then why are you playing an MMO?

3) What is the issue with the 'E' key? Most games have a single interact key. Would the reviewer prefer that hammers, axes etc. require different hot keys? Should we have to complete a challenge each time we need to open a door? For some reason an entire paragraph was dedicated to the letter E..

4) Crafting isn't even mentioned - most other reviews have complimented this as one of the most involved and rewarding systems they have seen.

5) You mention PvP as being a small part of the game, yet neglect to mention that you can completely ignore PvE and level entirely through the PvP segment of the game.. to the extent that I saw a level 17 Emperor running around Cyrodiil, the alliance versus alliance map.

Frankly I loathed all the TES single player games - despite their open nature and epic scale, they all felt empty and lacking a soul. The voice acting was categorically terrible; the animations were awful and the quests felt like you were in some kind of fluffy carebear land. By comparison I'm actually enjoying ESO questing a lot more - rather than having to handicap myself like in Skyrim where I was practically one-shotting dragons by about 10 hours into the game, it's still continuing to provide a challenge.

Ignore the negative review, play it for yourself and get beyond level 10 (which it seems the reviewer hasn't actually reached). Unfortunately pieces like this assassinate games before they get started and god knows we need a game that can topple WoW with it's garish graphics, unashamed grinding and questing monotony.

 

Isn't that the case with any opinion piece? It is bound to reflect the tastes of the person writing it, rather than exactly mirror your own thoughts.

It always makes me chuckle whenever an honest review is published on here, someone always creeps out of the woodwork to criticise the reviewer as though the published word is supposed to be taken as gospel. It's not - it's a viewpoint. Others will adore the game and forgo a trip to the pub to pay the subscription each month, whilst I would not have been swayed to play it even by a 100% score.

On topic, I only play ES games because they are single player, so no thanks TESO.

 

Really enjoying it, me. Level 18 Breton Mage from Daggerfall Covenant.

 

+1

Objectivity beyond decent journalism is quite hard in a game review. Either you like the writer or you don't. Incidentally, I enjoyed the review and it summed up my thoughts quite well too.,

 

Just to confirm how you're rating games, do we still got by 50% is average? Making this below average but not bad in your opinion.


On a slightly different note, do you guys plan on reviewing Dragon Commander? I know Joe did the original preview was quite taken with it.

 

I played this in beta ( got to level 30 and had a boosted max level for testing of end content) and was very disapointed it is a poor game and most mmos really do need to rethink there general ideas and plans of what the player base wants.

After 10 years of WoW players would like something a little different than kill xx quests or collect xx quests.

Why do we need every MMO to be a WoW beater games like Star Trek online have aquired a dedicated player base since they went F2P so has Star Wars. No game will ever see WoWs crazy sub numbers ever again times change.

Even the next big hope of mmos in Star Citizen will not see massive numbers that WoW had at its peak it will just not happen.

Id prefer they offer a unique online based game and if they had done that correct then theres a chance that this could of been good.

My biggest complaint is with the combat systems, Healing is such a pain that no one will want to play a healer long term. Melee combat is also about 20 times slower than Ranged combat does not really play well with newer mmos where combat is fast and fluid.

The other major issue is grouping is very hard to really do your not sharing quests even in a party for 90% of the quests you can help each other kill a mob but most of the areas appear to want people to play solo thats hardly a MMO.

 

Not really. Journalists should always strive to be objective, whether they are writing about politics or computer games. Reviewing an MMO while holding it to the standards of a single player game is completely ridiculous.

On the one hand the reviewer is complaining that there are other players doing quests at the same time (shock), then goes on to complain that multiplayer content and PvP only represent a small part of the game.

How can multiplayer content represent a small part of the game if other players are always present in your quests?

Why does the reviewer focus so much on the single player aspects of an MMO? Where is coverage of the grouping tools? Group PvP (whether solo or fighting as a group of 300 players)? Public dungeons? Private dungeons?

It feels like the reviewer ran through the tutorial sections, levelled to about 10 and then called it a day.

 

I agree completely with Soylent Red!

The author of the article hasn't even't scratched the surface, and his graphic settings are on Medium to Low also.

Get yourself a GTX780 and put everything on Ultra. Then show some proper screenshots. Don't say "cartoon" graphics, because they are 10 times better than any MMO out there, and by far better than vanilla Oblivion & Skyrim.

Also do not compare apples and oranges. MMO doesn't mean WoW or WoW clone either.
If in search for the next WoW alternative there is Wildstar and the gazillion, many F2P, clones of WoW.

If you want a different game, might say a successor to the 13 year old DAOC, then TESO is that game.


There is no reference to the sheer size of the game, where each alliance zone is 2+ Skyrim map sizes, plus whole Cyrodiil from Oblivion (+10%), with PvE content (Cyrodiil) also that lasts as much as half the Oblivion alone. (with all geography there also)

Nor reference on PvP on a ridiculous big battlefield, with hundreds of people per side.

How a meaningless game like BF4 or Titanfal, with tiny maps and small teams per side in an single instance that lasts 15 minutes, gets higher score than a PERSISTANT battlefield at the size of Cyrodiil with hundreds of people per side (3 way)?


And not going to get into details for crafting but only say is a light version of the complex system EVE Online is using, and real time reverse engineering part of it.

You want to play the next WoW clone? TESO is not for you. Maybe look for Wildstar.

You want to play a different game, a hybrid between TES & MMO then try TESO.

 

Of the reviews ive seen this is far from the worst its recieved and most coments are what people said about the game 2 months ago.

If it comes on sale as most mmos do after 6months then others will try the full game for themselves.

Most tried the beta and hated it and they were big elder scrolls fans myself included. If you want to make a Story based MMO it can work Star Wars did it with phased instances for all the story content. But they also fixed it to work as a group which is not how ESO is currently its very broken in that respect.

Myself and a friend were going to play it and level up together but we relised during our testing that its not really the fastest way to level with our limited play time we would of spent maybe double or tripple the amount of time just because of none shared drops.

We even reported that issue during beta testing that the game is not encouraging group play.

Personally do not play a MMO anymore and are doing my best to avoid them as there has not been a great game in years plenty of Everquest clones ( WoW is basically just Everquest done right ) but nothing unique.

This had the chance to be unique. You play it so its a bit different if you still play it one years time let us know how you feel then. As thats the true test of a MMO game if you still play in 1-2 years time.

Last few I played lasted 3months Guild Wars 2 was that, Star wars was 6months, Star trek 3 weeks. And that is as a big SW and ST fan.

WoW I played for 3 years for the record to end of the burning crusade and left it at that.

I can understand you do not like the review but theres other reviews, Everyone who is a big follower of this site has read alot of user reviews in the forums where the game has recieved alot worse user reviews than this review says. ( this review is kind as I would not of given it 40% )

 

It seems like everyone made their judgement during the beta test and haven't actually played the finished product. That's a bit like saying DayZ is rubbish now so i'm not going to play it in a year. For example, your statement above is just incorrect - everyone who gets a decent hit or hits in on the target will get their own unique loot drop. If for whatever reason you don't get a drop then you can just wait a minute or so for the next spawn.

Simples. Hardly a deal-breaker.

I don't know why the MMO-haters emerge to announce that they hate MMOs every time. Why bother?

 

Yes there's a storyline plot running through the game which is experienced solo, but this is purely delivering background information to explain what is going on throughout the game. It holds the same level of importance as the single player campaign in Battlefield 3.

I think the issue here is that people with no MMO experience are going into this game expecting TES 6, which it clearly isn't, and judging it by the same merits. If you want a single-player game, get Skyrim or wait for the sequel. There is no sense rating an MMO down because you're not the only player that feels like the saviour of the world. Every MMO is the same in this sense as you're all doing the same quests, but because the reviewer chooses to focus on this part he also neglects the areas where the game stands out from it's peers (like the depth of the PvP element, the crafting etc.) Again this is a bit like the critics that reviewed BF3 PURELY on it's single-player campaign - it's missing the point.

Objectivity is all about fairness. The shallowness of the article suggests a lack of understanding of not just the game, but the genre as a whole. As a reviewer you have a duty to the industry to provide a fair review and not assassinate games - with an MMO you can't do this without sinking a decent amount of time into the game, to experience and review all aspects of it. It's a bit like watching the first 10 minutes of a film from a genre you don't like and then walking out to write a 3 page review.

 

this isn't really an MMO - its at best an online co-op version of skyrim. I`ve played many many mmo`s over the years , coming from everquest originally , via wow , also playe champions and star trek , beta`d warhammer (liked the area group quests) and played the ultimate sandbox mmo = eve.

this sadly though isn't a `real` mmo - sure theres people around , but the community is lacking - to quote dragonlance (sort of lol)` I do not follow Tanis. We are merely traveling in the same direction... for the time being`

that to me is how this plays - you *might* see others on your route through the world or you might not

edit:

every single MMO is trying to emulate the success of wow - 10 years now and still going , and a game which can lose as many subscribers in 1 quarter as other games have had their entire lives....have you noticed how wow has changed over the years? taking the best `mods` and aspects of other games and using them themselves.


and you cannot compare an FPS to an RPG game . ever. 64 player maps with all and sundry methods of killing , both close and far, mmo`s cant quite match that.

and you say you `need` a 780 to experience this in its glory? want to buy me a £500 video card then? you can make skyrim look photo realistic - with 100+ mods running and bringing SLI titan`s to its knees. that's NOT what an mmo is about - its about bringing a game to the masses -, you know those with £300 machines who actually pay the bills not the elitists who can spend ££££ on a pc then cry when it doesn't tax the pc.

which is why WOW has gone the tote it has - the few hundred `elite` raiders don't pay the wages - the millions on average machines do and to survive in this game you must appeal to the lowest common denominator

 

I'm amused by how reminiscent this is of All Points Bulletin.

Unfortunately, I fear they hamstrung themselves by trying to make an Elder Scrolls game. If they'd have thrown everything away but the lore, and started afresh, they probably would've made a better MMO - but then all the Elder Scrolls fans would have pilloried it.

Obviously these types of games are tremendously lucrative if you get it right, but even with massive budgets it's clearly very difficult to get right.

 

I understand some of the gripes in the review, and yes, there are currently still issues with the title; however, if you like Elder Scrolls lore and MMOs, I'd have to say give it a go.

Despite the issues, I find it a very satisfying game. Don't be put off by the review. It is an MMO worth experiencing. I think the PvP battles are epic. The 200 player keep assaults remind me of Warhammer online when it was at it's busiest. The good points massively outweigh the bad (in my humble opinion) and although it shouldn't be the case in an ideal world, most games launch with issues these days in a rush to market them. I'm confident this game will develop as time goes on. The ES fan base is huge.