Wondering if anyone is excited to play ESO? I loved the beta and although its an extra $15 a month, I am going to support it for as long as I can. TES has meant a lot to me over the years and I cannot wait to explore and have an awesome experience. Thoughts?
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I like how pretty it looks… but there are a few gameplay things I have issue with (no instancing, random party quirks, etc.)…also I’m usually a staunch Anti-MMO guy (2 reasons for this: 1. I HATE grinding. 2. I could never before justify paying monthly for a game I already bought due to time constraints.). But this may be that gateway MMO truthfully… I love me some Elder Scrolls.
It’s an MMO. It’s about the grind and about monetizing the grind. Beta was so-so, but it is clear where the game will end up…
Meh.
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TESO wasn’t a grinder at all, as far as I got in Beta. Aye, I did play many MMOs in the past as well. After a while they all played the same, for mentioned reasons. However, TESO was the first MMO I actually wanted to read the quests, to know what all the fuzz is about. And I read every book in the shelves I did yet not read… 
You won’t get around without killing/collecting a specific number of creatures/items, but as far as I experienced, they try to not play that card excessively, as it is with other MMO…
The actual downside on TESO, according to me, is the subscription system: Paying full price for retail and in addition every month a fee. But then again, they have to earn some money with a game that was certainly pretty expensive in development and also needs constant supervision by e.g. techs, not to mention the needed hardware for servers. You don’t rabble together a product over certain years for just a handshake and a smile.
Maybe other publishers took another route with their games, but hten again, you don’t know their plans and/or bilancing… 
I play long time whit TES and is top RPG game … but is to expansive(half price we pay only for title) and for start will be have to meny bug … i be wait for change for free to play … i not pay for Diablo 3 and i do this same whit TES online. i buy now Age of wonders 3 and Van Helsing 2 vs TESO i still get more money for buy another game whit normal price.I like single player game if i want mmo i go play whit volleybal
I’ve got mine preordered, but I’ll be playing this one on X1 rather than PC (longstanding plans with friends before I went the PC route.). Played the beta and didn’t feel grindy to me, but I’m one of those “check every nook and cranny” type players anyway. I played Skyrim for so many hours, the disc finally broke, lol. Love this series, but am not thrilled paying full price for the game AND a subscription fee on top of it. One or the other, but not both, ughhh.
Did the Beta. Thoroughly unimpressed. If you’ve played pretty much any other MMO you know exactly what this one will be. Completely run of the mill and nothing new or unique to make it stand out.
I tried the beta and nothing about it made me all that interested in spending $15 a month just to play an MMO. Admittedly I like the idea of playing a werewolf character but not THAT much. The beta looked “nice” but I wasn’t blown away nor did I come out of it with the urge to pay for a monthly subscription.
I am gonna play. Beta was good fun. PvP was especially fun. Is it perfect? No… but its got good story, enjoyable mechanics, a nice “real” looking art style, and the kind of PvP I loved in DAOC. It doesn’t hurt that its different enough from other MMOs out there to provide a change of pace if nothing else.
I’m a major TES fan. I’ve replayed Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim to death. I admit I went into the MMO beta sessions with low hopes. Pretty much what I expected is what I found. Endless MMO grinding, the other players acted like jerks, and it lacked the imagination and freedom of an Elder Scrolls game. I prefer the standalone games where you can make a contribution that affects the game environment or you can work your way up to some level of accomplishment where balance with other players isn’t a factor. There was nothing in the beta sessions that led me to think this will play any different than any other MMO and that is the sad fact of it.
Admittedly my opinion is bitter because this will delay an Elder Scrolls VI by countless years so not to compete with the money-mill MMO.
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This was the big thing for me. I really felt the loss of having a wide variety of skills you could build up, and instead having everything tied so rigidly to your class. The restriction on secondary weapons (IE, you can’t hotswap weapons until, what level FIFTEEN?) was ridiculous. I also don’t like that the game’s story was instanced, so you didn’t get to have a real impact on the world.
Basically, they took everything that makes TES series unique, and tossed it in favor of bland generic MMO mechanics.
I don’t want to play the exact same story quests as everyone else. I want to be able to complete a quest, and have it be known among the other PCs “HERE is the one and only Hero of (Insert City Here)!” No, “Oh yeah, this guy also finished that instance.”
Probably the most fun I ever had in an MMO was in the Legacy: Dark Age and Rise of Sauron persistent worlds for Neverwinter Nights 2, where when you participated in a story event, it actually MEANT something.
2 Likes
I cant wait to play, ill be up and 5AM my time, to play when it opens and i didnt have any grind issues in the beta, just quest bugs, but it was beta.haha. TES are great single player games and ESO is going to be a great Multiplayer game, that just happens to be massive ahaha
I couldn’t agree with MJJ and AMBARYERNO more. It has literally nothing that made Skyrim, Oblivion et al the amazing games they are. I’ve logged almost 1000 hours between Skyrim and Oblivion, and countless more on Star Wars: The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2 so I’m no rookie to the TES series or MMOs. ESO loses everything that makes either type of game enjoyable.
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Well… as much as I love the elder scrolls series, it doesn’t look very good at all in my opinion. and I know, I know, “It’s the beta version”, but there are some aspects of the game that you cant use that excuse for, such as the game modes and so on. There isn’t anything in the game at the moment that differentiates itself from any better MMOs out there.
I haven’t even played the beta… but I can just see that the combat is worse than Skyrim’s(I love skyrim, but I’m not afraid to admit that.)… It looks so damned clunky… I don’t care for graphics, but I’m not totally seeing what makes this unique in comparison to any other MMO I want to play.
Also, I heard it’s destroying the lore of the series, and that doesnt make it sound any better.
I’m definitely not buying it. Maybe if it goes F2P i’ll play it, but for now? Not a chance.
This game is made by Zenimax online studios. NOT BETHESDA. ESO is in no way delaying the next T.E.S game. For goodness sake guys, read up on it if you’re gonna make a point.
The Beta gave me no reason to buy it though. However the Devs are really open to feedback. I believe that it will become a better game over time.
As soon as I read Faction Locked Races I lost all interest in ESO. This alone goes against all of the previously established freedom that TES is known for. Ridged class structures? Another serious flaw that goes against anything TES. No thanks, I’ll stick to the single player games.
TESO is outright awful. Here is exactly why:
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Hit scan Combat System.
You know that whole thing about “Skryim” combat in an MMO? Yeah, you’ve been lied to. This an outdated hit-scan system, basically, there are NO projectiles. As long as you left click when the enemy is in your crosshairs, you hit them, the only way to dodge or be dodged is if the enemy moves out of the crosshair before you left click. You might be wondering “does it atleast FEEL like skyrim’s combat?” No. No it does not, it feels worse than anything you’ve ever played before. If you’ve played WoW, this is basically the same concept but without cooldowns and you’re required to aim. Some of the moves still wont trigger without a target though, with an error message appearing on the top right of your screen saying “Invalid Target.” There’s even channeled AoE and Cone AoE abilities and the ground even “lights up” in red so players know to run out of the area before it hits. Theres no locational damage either, so if that 2H sword wielding dragonknight is running at you and you shoot an arrow into his leg, he just loses some health and keeps on running. -
No Ammo.
Yup, shoot arrows infinitely, there are no ammo requirements or anything even remotely that realistic. -
The Shunning of Havok/Physics.
If you’re hoping for smooth, immersive animations and effects, forget about it. NO one can disagree with me when I say that the animations in ESO are a total joke. I still personally believe that the animation team was trolling when they put these in the game, but Matt Firor was too incompetent to know it. -
Brain Dead NPCs.
Artificial Intelligence is non-existent. The NPCs function EXACTLY as they do in WoW. In a major “battle” theres nothing but some NPC “enemy soldiers” standing around at 10-20ft intervals in “crouch” position just waiting to be killed. If you’ve ever played a human in WoW, you’ll know what I mean when I say it’s like the Blackrock Orcs in the Northshire starting zone. -
Crime? Theft? Thieves Guild? Nope.
You can take some things from around the world, but no one says anything about it. Guards don’t care, residents don’t care, nothing. Everything is yours for the taking. -
Art Style thats Impossible to take seriously.
Sure, it looks better than games like WoW, but the problem is that the art direction they’ve taken (which looks E-X-A-C-T-L-Y like SWTOR) makes the game feel childish. It gets worse, almost all of the assets look completely generic. Armor, and clothing look like they came from a totally generic medieval MMO, and weapons, especially swords, frequently look like toys. Know that I am not even slightly kidding when I say half the swords in the game look like paddles. Even the creatures are generic. The first time I encountered a skeleton, I knew I was going to be disapointed playing ESO, they’re generic plain white skeleton. Nothing at all like the Draugr we’ve seen in skyrim. -
Kill and fetch quests that feel exactly like WoW.
Yup, every quest I encountered from level 1-11 was the type of quest you’d see in WoW. “Find this guy, and he’ll give you another quest” then you find him “Help me, I lost my favorite [insert tool or item here] please help me find it sir!” Theres even the exact same kind of “weaken the enemy first then channel cast to steal his soul” quests that you’d see in WoW. NOTHING is revolutionary about this game’s questing system. -
Nothing about this game is even slightly immersive.
You CAN’T sit on chairs in this game (just like SWTOR), instead, you can type /sitchair and your character pulls a full-sized wooden chair seemingly out of his ass and then sits on it. You can’t pickup and drag bodies, you can’t pickup and drag objects, nothing. Oh, but here’s the kicker, in order to fish, you don’t need any tools or anything, you can’t like equip a fishing rod and mess around with it or anything. Instead, you click on the WATER and if it’s fishable water, your character will then fish (You guessed it! He pulls a fishing rod out of his ass too). Thats one of the few thing you can click on that actually triggers an animation or reaction. There aren’t even mailboxes in this game. To read mail or send/receive items, you just open up your interface and check your “outlook” style mail window. -
6-hour day and night cycles…
Yeah, they don’t work on real time. Instead, every 6 hours it turns night time. There are 4 day-night cycles per real-life day. Oh, if you’re wondering, no, the night’s are not even slightly darker than day time. Just a dark blue sky above you when you look up. I’ve yet to experience any of the weather changes despite 5 full betas for over a year, but they said they’re putting weather effects in. Oh, and for those who may be wondering why I played through 5 betas if the game is this bad, it’s because I kept telling myself “It’s just beta, it’ll get better!” It never got better. -
Every interior requires a loading screen or fade-to-black.
You can never like, take cover in a building and pop out behind your enemies. -
Voice overs that can make your ears bleed.
Most of the voice overs are so badly read you won’t believe it’s not a low-budget indie game or a badly done mod. No no, I’m not talking about the MS Sans voices, I know those were placeholders, I’m talking about the actual voice overs. Also, facial expressions are barely existent, just a ton of weird eye motions and mouth twitching. When last I played the beta, none of the voice-overs were lip-synced, but I have no idea if that is going to be fixed by release. By the way, I’ve never seen anyone f*** up a “conversation” screen before, until I played ESO. -
Movement Impairing Interface.
When you open your inventory or any other menu, your character stops moving and spins around to face your screen. If your looking for that health potion a few hits before death, forget it, your MORE f***ed if you open your inventory. -
Interface based crafting.
Yup, pretty much the same as Skyrim, in order to craft, you just click things in an interface menu. Except, you can do everything at ONE station. Smelt ore at the anvil, break down armor at the anvil, and make the armor at the anvil. No “Smelter” or “Forge” or “Grind Stone” or “Workbench” here. It’s just as boring and unimmersive for other professions too. -
Unrestricted Fast Travel.
You can fast travel by finding a “wayshrine” which you pray at (channeled animation) then instantly teleport into thin air from location to location. It’s like they were trying on purpose to flame off those who love immersion. It costs gold but not much, so you can pretty much forget about attacking/taking enemy towns in some world PvP action. Enemy raid groups can appear out of thin air instantly before you know whats going on. -
Everything else sucks too.
Horses appear out of thin air, there are neon colored armor and weapons like in WoW (not quite as bad as wow, but it’s there), the story is dismal and boring, none of the quest-givers or NPCs have personalities, there are so many special effects that large battles look like raves, there are no next gen features at all - no environmental effects like getting wet or sweating, no blood or gore (although I think you can cut off heads, which is the only reason they got an M esrb rating), no environmental destruction, nothing. They did just add “solid” units though, which means you cant run through NPCs anymore, but they did it in the worst way possible. It’s basically a solid block around the NPC that you can’t pass through, no collision, pushing, or anything.
5 Likes
Saw a lot of that in the beta, yep. Had nothing of interest to get me to not only buy the game but spend the $15/mo. just to keep playing it.
Pass, pass, pass.
For me, it isn’t amazingly stunning and it doesn’t offer anything that would make me want to pay 15$ a month (and pay 55$ for the game). I can see that this game has TES hardcore fans jumping and will probably survive on them for a while, but I’ll wait for it to go f2p and then maybe try it out. Correct me if I’m wrong, but everything except WoW has gone f2p eventually (in EvE online you just have to learn the system and then you can play it for free).