The Elder Scrolls Online

[Threash]

Horrible slog, tried playing several weekends never managed to make it past level 4-5 cept once.  The newbie experience is the most boring drudgery you can think of, combat feels terrible.  The class/weapon/armor/world skill system actually has a lot of potential and seems like a lot of fun to play with.  Once you hit level 10, if you manage to stand the game that long, you can go pvp and you start thinking that maybe there might be something to this after all.  Everyone whos tried it, even those with very low opinions of the game has enjoyed it.  Not worth a box price and a sub, pvp and character building are good, rest of the game including the most important part (combat) is utter shit.

[Falconeer]

Includes some UI elements we got used to in Skyrim. Includes all the MMO tropes you'd expect.

Includes none of the things we liked about Skyrim. The MMO tropes included are late 2000s era.

I didn't bother with PvP. That's possibly its biggest draw. But it'll likely be a slice of the relatively small userbase they'll be able to retain after the first month, possibly DAoC-sized, maybe smaller.

In brief, I think of this as EQ2 vs WoW again, though TESO vs Wildstar.

Edit: I will say I gave this about 3 hours. Tops. It was just so painfully generic. Possible successes could derive from:

• Someone who really REALLY hopes for the DAoC style RvR and is willing to grind it out to get there
• Someone who REALLY gets into the ES lore and has a high threshold for boring combat
• Someone who is on their second MMO with associated starry-eyed hopes. Queue tears next month.
• Someone who is attracted to this as their very first MMO with the attendant "wow cool other people" first time experience. Queue tears and private longing glances at Wildstar in 2-3 months.

I agree with everything you said. One additional note, is that I feel exactly the same way about Wildstar. These games (both) will have a moderate success among those who can still stomach the same game we've been playing for 15 years as long as it has a new skin and tiny bit of combat improvements -and that is fine!-, but it this is just the n-th example of a new MMORPG coming out that makes me feel as exhausted and bored after 5 levels as if I'd played it daily for the past 6 months.

[Threash]

I was more disappointed with wildstar than with this if that counts for something.  It probably had to do with higher expectations though.

[satael]

All I'm looking for in this game is RvR like gw2 but without the culling (and this seems to deliver on that) so this will probably keep me occupied for a month or two (or even more if the guild I play with stays actively in the game)

[Ghambit]

I was mildly entertained though expectantly underwhelmed when I played.  The 'feel' of the game was horrible thematically (zones felt dead, quests were dry and boring, and more times then not it just felt like people running around beating on things).  Combat felt clunky as well; as I've already said (just long animations hiding the turns).  Combined with the dumbed-down choices/interface and you end up with not-much-depth really.

Overall, it's just lacking the complexity to justify a $60+ sub purchase... especially when compared to Wildstar, which frankly blows it away on theme (if you like sci-pulp), combat speed, and depth of gameplay.  If I had a good party-sized group to play with TESO could be fun though for a time as a semi-relaxing action game; but still - the price sux and it's not really what I'm looking for.

[Paelos]

Where to begin? You find yourself immediately in an underground prison with hundreds of other souls wandering around this area. You can't wander far, however, because everything is so gated that you only have one very linear way out. There's nothing to see here other than implements of torture and cages and running shriven, or whatever the hell they call it. You're dead, and you're in this place, and you want to get out. So, you talk to some chick who is voice acted, but the lips don't match up to what she's saying.

You are given a choice of weapon and then kill skeletons or something. Swinging a two handed sword has all the impact on an enemy of hitting it with a noodle. Not to mention that without clipping that works, you can run through enemies, messing up your targeting. Also killing things took forever. You can swing and swing and swing as you watch your efforts make very little dent in the enemy. When something does die, you better get the hell out of there and not take on 2 or 3 things, because they will corpse rape you.

First person mode doesn't work and completely fucks you over from the surroundings standpoint. You will stand in fire and have no clue. Things will hit you because they are respawning in a melee and you won't know why or where. If you're a lore whore and know the ES universe, they basically butcher the shit out of it in this game. They will make the factions completely around where they are and not care about past prejudices or whatnot. They will talk about names you've heard of just because you've heard of them. Molag Bal is the bad guy, which means we're back to fighting Daedra because they are going to rape the world. I think we did this one other time in Oblivion and it was stupid.

The world is soulless. You could care less about why you are there, and who is asking for your help. In places it doesn't look bad, but there's no reason for you to explore it. Everything is gated into this small little chunks and islands and hotspots. You won't want to go wandering around to find nice things or weird artifacts or odd locations. None of the NPCs will resonate with you except the one played by John Cleese with a pot on his head. Because that's funny, you see? He's crazy and he's John Cleese. Do you get it yet? Do you? LAUGH PEONS THIS COST MILLIONS!

Also, there's no reason to be killing things other than the fact they are in the way. Mobs are nothing but an annoyance to finishing your quests where you are tasking to find missing people on a small start up island. This is of course after the convoluted part in the beginning where you try to pull your soul back into the real world. The story made no sense. Even in the beta forums, people were panning the dungeon tutorial as pointless and stupid. They honestly could have followed the regular prisoner trope and dropped you at Starting Island 101, and you'd figure out that the combat is shit.

How shitty? Imagine a tab target skill system with a hack and slash mouse click pasted on top of it with absolutely no meaningful feedback. Targetting sucks. Hitting things provides no feedback. The UI on mobs isn't good enough. You have only one other real option besides hack hack hack, and that's block and hack at the same time to break up the enemy's timed SUPER ATTACK! If you can handle that, you'll kill legions of respawning garbage for no purpose over and over again until you realize you're not even level 4 yet. And you've played for 3 hours. And you log out thinking you'll want to try it later.

And you never load it again.

[Hawkbit]

Fake Edit:  I wrote a bunch of stuff then realized I care so little for this game it's not worth posting.

I expect more from games than what is offered here.  I'm not even sure I'd play this if it were truly f2p. 

[Abalieno]

EDIT: To expand a little, culling problems aside I was really happy with GW2 WvW.

All I'm looking for in this game is RvR like gw2 but without the culling (and this seems to deliver on that)

Wasn't culling fixed in GW2 almost a year ago? The new WvW map is absolutely excellent. Still low commitment, but at least it's fun.

[Margalis]

I agree with everything you said. One additional note, is that I feel exactly the same way about Wildstar. These games (both) will have a moderate success among those who can still stomach the same game we've been playing for 15 years as long as it has a new skin and tiny bit of combat improvements -and that is fine!-, but it this is just the n-th example of a new MMORPG coming out that makes me feel as exhausted and bored after 5 levels as if I'd played it daily for the past 6 months.

The difference is that at least some people seem to like Wildstar. I can't recall hearing about a single person anywhere that likes TESO. The reactions to it seem 99%+ extremely negative.

I can't see it even being a moderate success. Even if a few people do like it none of their friends are going to play it with them, so they'll stop soon enough.

[Cyrrex]

So this sounds like the biggest disaster ever.  When all they had to do was make a Skyrim co-op.

No, don't remind me how long this has been in development.  That is not an excuse.  That is the problem.

[Paelos]

Wildstar is going to be polarizing. I said something to that effect after I beta'd it. This isn't going to be polarizing at all.

[Lakov_Sanite]

If you like diku mmo in space wildstar is sure to be the bees knees.  It's just a matter of how many people want that.

[Tannhauser]

Pros and Cons

+++Tons of voice acting!  I would stop by some random dude and they would have a line of dialogue!  Beats SWTOR and TSW because they don't rattle on either.
++ Graphics are good and the engine is great.  I'm running it in Medium settings on my humble GeForce series 4 laptop card.  Butter smooth.
+   Surprisingly, I like the UI for the most part.  Inventory is actually ok and I like the tabs for it.  I like the clean UI but a couple of quibbles remain.
+   Do you like Skyrim?  Would you like to play Skyrim-lite?  Then this is for you!  
+   The crafting looks alright. I dabbled in a couple of things and it's simple and fun.
-   I don't like resource gathering.  Hard as hell to find plants for Alchemy.  Iron was pretty easy and I never chopped a log.  Biggest barrier to me crafting.  Annoying.
-   Most animations are lame.
-   Most armor is lame.  They need better textures.
---THE GRIND.  What year is this?  I was level seven and already in my third zone.  How will I make it to 50, is there enough content?  Dunno but they could up the xp a bit.
-- No AH?  Remind me again why this is an MMO?  Gouging other players is one of my little pleasures in MMO gaming, don't take that away from me!
---Box+sub+cash shop.  Sixty bucks isn't enough to buy an imp?  I mentioned that several times in-game and there was much fanboy wailing and gnashing of teeth.
-- Bugs, lots of bugs, but apparently I was playing an earlier version before the bugs were squashed.  Hrm.  We'll see.

Prediction
This game will sell a LOT of boxes with folks hoping for Skyrim Online.  But the exodus after the first month will rival that of the Jews from Egypt.  
 

[Bhazrak]

One of the biggest problems ESO has going for it is the first several levels. They suck, a little less if you start as Aldmeri Dominon. It's a very linear start where exploration at that time typically nets you finding some hidden chests with green quality loot. It's a stupid design decision, and it can take a few to several hours before you get past them. Sadly, a lot it seems don't, and that's where most of the hate comes from.

And for whatever reason, maybe it's the aesthetics or the feel of it, but I cannot get myself interested in Wildstar at all. It feels so much like Space WoW to me and even after trying rather hard several times, I just cannot enjoy it. Exact same feeling whenever I attempted to play WoW again.

But ESO? I like the background/lore/setting of Elder Scrolls in general. I also love MMO launches, something about them is still to me so fun and hectic. I know I'll get a solid month of game play from this at least and honestly that's more than most 50-60 dollar single player games ever give me. I don't expect any MMO to keep me longer than a month anymore, haven't for several years. If ESO does, I was be happily surprised and throw them 15 dollars.

[sam, an eggplant]

My feeling is a lot of the negative opinions about ESO is because people didn't get past the tutorial and newbie zones, which are completely on rails and not particularly interesting. Once you get past level 10 or so the world opens up, combat becomes more challenging, and the experience is just dramatically richer. Zenimax did themselves a disservice with the weekend-only stress tests, because people didn't have enough time to get to higher level. Even when they allowed you to keep your character, they were level-capped at 17.

I preordered ESO, but I agree that it will likely go free to play or (like GW2) buy to play in 9-12 months. I'll get my money's worth.

Can't talk about my personal experiences with wildstar as it is still under NDA, but from all the public streams and such you should have a very good idea if you'll like it. Wildstar is WoW in space with a combat system that is likely to be highly annoying for many. You can tell tons of money was spent on both games. Neither one learned any lessons from GW2.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Watch the first 14min gameplay video for the southpark RPG.  You don't have to wait to get to the fun in video games, I refuse to buy into the 'wait til X level where the REAL fun begins' bullshit argument ever again.

[sam, an eggplant]

I'm not saying the later game excuses a poor introduction. It absolutely categorically doesn't.

MMOs require huge time investments, and when deciding which one to play, you need to look at more than the first 5 hours. It goes both ways. Remember Age of Conan.

[disKret]

I stoped playing at lvl 7 I think - where the quest bugs out (summon some 3 ghosts at tombs with a torch) - quest was bugged and there was nothing else to do anywhere, this one quest was blocking whole progress. Go figure how much is there to do in open world.

[Lantyssa]

I played twice.

The first time I couldn't make it past the tutorial.  The second I forced myself to finish the tutorial and didn't make it past rifling through the books in a few houses.

I liked that I can read a book and it went into a log I could refer back to later, making it both a collection game and a personal library.  That was the only thing that struck me as a positive.  I'm not sure I'd play this if it were f2p, but since it has a pay model from 2004, I'll definitely pass.

[Sir T]

OT, but reading this reminds me of vanilla unpatched Morrowind (yes I'm dating myself) where they hadn't figured out that you needed a health indicator for an enemy. Somehow, they thought that waving a sword in someones face till they fell down, without so much as a blood splash to indicate if you were hitting or even damaging them, was "immersive." This was the days before the internet had really hit, so getting out a patch to fix this glaring oversight wasn't exactly an easy task, but hey did patch in an enemy health bar fairly early.

Just saying that bethsedia was not exactly unknown for colossal screw ups even in its "golden age."

[Venkman]

I'm not saying the later game excuses a poor introduction. It absolutely categorically doesn't.

MMOs require huge time investments, and when deciding which one to play, you need to look at more than the first 5 hours. It goes both ways. Remember Age of Conan.

I find those two statements contradictory though.

MMOs don't become magically more fun after the first 5 hours. Generally, by then you're either already having fun and psychologically invested in the game, or you're psychologically invested in the promise of what you think later levels will be enough to slog through the early parts.

As you say, neither excuses a bad introduction. But to then say you need to look at more than the first 5 hours is to imply you can't tell if you'll like something until you've suffered through said bad introduction.

Nobody gets that excuse. Because of WoW, GW2 and other MMOs that are fun right out of the box. Ya know, just like every single other genre of gaming that has never been able to rely on the sheer masochism of the collected idealists who still long for the bygone MUD days when rednames would converse with them. AoC is only a good reference for that excuse making.

MMOs never should have been allowed to rely on the excuse-making that got it through most of the 2000s. And they certainly cannot now, now that so many other types of games have ripped off all the compelling concepts that used to be unique to MMOs (xp, levels, achievements, quests, persistent environments, etc).

I'm glad there are some people who like TESO. And I'm glad they do feel it ok to slog through what they admit is a subpar onboarding experience. But that onboarding is why it will underperform its way into a f2p hail mary when they reset what success is and start bragging about how they monetize the 1% whales.

[Hawkbit]

I played twice.

The first time I couldn't make it past the tutorial.  The second I forced myself to finish the tutorial and didn't make it past rifling through the books in a few houses.

I liked that I can read a book and it went into a log I could refer back to later, making it both a collection game and a personal library.  That was the only thing that struck me as a positive.  I'm not sure I'd play this if it were f2p, but since it has a pay model from 2004, I'll definitely pass.

This was exactly my same play experience and opinion. 

[Miasma]

The game is nothing revolutionary or amazing but it doesn't deserve the drubbing it's getting here either.

If you have grown hateful and cynical of anything that has the scent of an mmo don't buy this, it's just more of the same with an elder scrolls setting.

If you still like mmos and also like the elder scrolls series then buy this game*, it's a nice enough blend of the two.

The first couple areas aren't very good but only take minutes and then hours to get past.  Once you are in your faction's larger more open areas the elder scrolls feeling kicks in and all is good.  I doubt it has an enjoyable endgame but I'm sure I'll have fun for a couple months.  If you like pvp it is essentially daoc which a lot of people liked for whatever reason.

My only real complaint is how combat wants you to be dynamically moving with wasd but how all your specials also use the keyboard.  Unlike WoW and other games like it you can't move around using the mouse because both buttons are linked to attacks.  So your left hand is either moving with the flow of combat or correctly triggering your rotation, but it's impossible to do both.  Very annoying.  I might actually try using a 360 controller on my pc.

* You can also just wait a year after which it will probably be free to play.

[LC]

I don't know how to describe how terrible this game is with words... The closest comparison would be:

Imagine you order the most expensive pizza from the best pizza restaurant in town. Instead of cooking the normal delicious pizza, they go across the street to a grocery store and purchase the cheapest frozen pizza available. They bring it back to the restaurant and everyone takes a turn urinating and defecating on it before sliding it into the oven. After it cooks they put it in the box and send it out for delivery. The delivery guy arrives at your house, but refuses to let you look at the pizza until you hand over the money. As soon as you hand him the money, he opens the box and smashes it into your face. Then he runs away laughing while counting your money.

[Ingmar]

The core issue is they tried to split the difference between two games and ended up with something that will please neither camp. It cuts corners on both the MMO and Bethesda sandbox side that will annoy people who come for either of those experiences.

If I had to pick out just one thing that just felt completely awful, though, it was having to share quest 'dungeon' areas with other players. Example: someone asked me to go to the bottom of a family crypt and get something. I ran down to the item, got it, came back, without ever seeing a single monster - the place was packed with other players killing things more or less instantly when they spawned. When I got back to turn it in, the guy had a bunch of crap to say about the stuff I was supposed to fight down there. That feels awful. Those sorts of quests very badly need something akin to SWTOR's micro instancing, but I gather it's something of a design goal to never instance, so blech.

[Cadaverine]

If I had to pick out just one thing that just felt completely awful, though, it was having to share quest 'dungeon' areas with other players. Example: someone asked me to go to the bottom of a family crypt and get something. I ran down to the item, got it, came back, without ever seeing a single monster - the place was packed with other players killing things more or less instantly when they spawned. When I got back to turn it in, the guy had a bunch of crap to say about the stuff I was supposed to fight down there. That feels awful. Those sorts of quests very badly need something akin to SWTOR's micro instancing, but I gather it's something of a design goal to never instance, so blech.

This was my biggest gripe with the game as well.  It's annoying in any MMO, but for some reason, it was even more irritating than usual this time around.

[Nija]

Wasn't culling fixed in GW2 almost a year ago? The new WvW map is absolutely excellent. Still low commitment, but at least it's fun.

Culling wasn't fixed until the 60 people I have in my friends list hadn't logged into the game in 2 months time.

Way fucking late. They didn't/don't give two fucks about WvW. Who knows who is playing it now.

Also I love how they add ranks to WvW but don't give existing people credit. I have 30,000 kills but I'm realm rank 2 or whatever. LAUGHABLE MAN, HA HA!

[Venkman]

If I had to pick out just one thing that just felt completely awful, though, it was having to share quest 'dungeon' areas with other players. Example: someone asked me to go to the bottom of a family crypt and get something. I ran down to the item, got it, came back, without ever seeing a single monster - the place was packed with other players killing things more or less instantly when they spawned. When I got back to turn it in, the guy had a bunch of crap to say about the stuff I was supposed to fight down there. That feels awful. Those sorts of quests very badly need something akin to SWTOR's micro instancing, but I gather it's something of a design goal to never instance, so blech.

Holy shit TESO does that? Instantiated dungeons free of the Blackburrow/Crushbone problem of other people was a selling point in freakin' City of Heroes.

Gods I feel like Bones in the 1984 hospital rescuing Chekov in Star Trek IV: "sounds like the goddamn Spanish Inquisition"

[Threash]

Yeah, that is easily the worst part of the game.  Actually worse than the combat, which is bad.  But the PVE is so bad you sorta don't mind that it goes faster.

[Rasix]

Wasn't culling fixed in GW2 almost a year ago? The new WvW map is absolutely excellent. Still low commitment, but at least it's fun.

Culling for WvW was removed nearly a year ago (March 26).  For PVE it was removed August 20.

[sam, an eggplant]

The game is nothing revolutionary or amazing but it doesn't deserve the drubbing it's getting here either.

That's basically how I feel too. I imagine I'll play for the usual 1-3 months, and get my money's worth. It's no GW2 or EQN, but it should be a fun diversion.

[Tannhauser]

If I had to pick out just one thing that just felt completely awful, though, it was having to share quest 'dungeon' areas with other players. Example: someone asked me to go to the bottom of a family crypt and get something. I ran down to the item, got it, came back, without ever seeing a single monster - the place was packed with other players killing things more or less instantly when they spawned. When I got back to turn it in, the guy had a bunch of crap to say about the stuff I was supposed to fight down there. That feels awful. Those sorts of quests very badly need something akin to SWTOR's micro instancing, but I gather it's something of a design goal to never instance, so blech.

Holy shit TESO does that? Instantiated dungeons free of the Blackburrow/Crushbone problem of other people was a selling point in freakin' City of Heroes.

Gods I feel like Bones in the 1984 hospital rescuing Chekov in Star Trek IV: "sounds like the goddamn Spanish Inquisition"

Some dungeons are public, like above, and some are private for your 5-man invited group.

The problem for me is that after GW2, TESO feels like a step back in MMO evolution.  GW2 isn't robot jesus by a long shot, but it's colorful, fast, fun and great for combat and exploration.  I'm not sure what TESO's role is, maybe it's just MMO's are popular, here's one based on TES.  Fit us for our money hats now kthxbye.

[tmp]

Holy shit TESO does that? Instantiated dungeons free of the Blackburrow/Crushbone problem of other people was a selling point in freakin' City of Heroes.

Perhaps it does it because if you want to play TES game without other people in your dungeons, they've made a few of these already

[Senses]

The only difference between the type of person that gets bored after 5 levels and the type of person who thinks you have to endure the first 5 levels before the fun starts is that the latter *wants* to like the game.  This is basically the one true bonus of a trusted IP.  People give you alot of benefit of the doubt.

[Venkman]

Yes. As long as you comform to that IP well. I guess TESO does have that in its favor.

Holy shit TESO does that? Instantiated dungeons free of the Blackburrow/Crushbone problem of other people was a selling point in freakin' City of Heroes.

Perhaps it does it because if you want to play TES game without other people in your dungeons, they've made a few of these already

Oh awesome, the "go play something else" defense.

No, see, the genre outgrew the idea that dungeons are public space not because it was innovative to try something new, but because the technology progressed to a point that it could solve a fundamental user experience problem. Public space dungeons resulted in exactly the situation people have in TESO, where a dungeon is already cleared and the major mobs perpetually camped. Good luck to anyone who doesn't have friends in whatever meta-game guild is camping that area until they outgrow it, or the dozens of huddled masses who have no idea what's going on except to kill anything that moves.

Have you heard of "DKP"? That was invented by the players specifically to solve for this problem.

Bad idea is bad. Bad idea is worse when it was devolved out of the expected MMO experience a freakin' decade ago. A bad idea reemerging in a 2014 MMO is theoretically new and innovative except it is still a fundamentally bad idea in every way except being "new" to the mythical new set of players coming to their first MMO ever, at a time when MMOs are no more new than they are experimental.