Elder Scrolls Online Beta: Impressions From Tamriel

[ron1n]

Haven't touched the beta yet but everything I'm hearing is just reinforcing my expectations.

The IP is continuing to drag this game down.

Everywhere I read about it, it's nothing but comparisons to 'skyrim' even though the game is being made by a different development team and is another MMO, not 'Skyrim but with other people'.

I foresee soo many people buying it then dumping it after the first month when they realise it is in fact an MMO and not some make-believe online single player experience that could never exist (at least not with the current hardware and tech)

Instead of comparing it to Skyrim, people should be comparing it to Wildstar or Guild Wars 2 or any other new MMO titles.

I also think this game looks set to suffer the same problems that Warhammer Online did. I.E: Too much of a split between the PvE zones, the RvR lakes and the Battlegrounds. They should have just made the entire game one giant RvR/PvP lake and added in dynamic PvE content that could be tackled while also having to fend off enemy players.

In warhammer, there was such a disconnect between the PvE and PvP modes that it felt like two separate games pasted together rather than a cohesive experience. And crap like the pre-order bonus (allowing people to play as any race in any faction) just sucks away the sense of competition and immersion from the PvP. I mean, why even bother having the convoluted back story for each faction if you're going to completely ignore it anyway? =/


TL;DR It's looking like Warhammer Online 2.

 

[barbzilla]

From my experience in game, it has strong potential if it moves to F2P, but as a P2P model, it will fail hard. There are a number of reasons I can't list due to NDA, but the primary one is this, with so many F2P or B2P options out there, you would have to make an unbelievably good game to get people to want to pay you $15 a month. That is the flat out truth. We are well beyond that payment style anymore (with very few notable exceptions).

As for the game itself. I've had fun with it, but I don't think I would be able to get into it enough to play regularly (much like most MMOs), so I won't be purchasing it (since I don't have any interest in paying to maybe play a game).

 

[DugMachine]

Overall the game is just average to me. Nothing about it stands out and I get bored easily. That said, when and if it goes F2P I may pick it up to pass the time but the game has lost my interest.

 

[Augustine]

There was half a million beta keys on curse yesterday, how does NDA still apply?

YES. Yes it does. I suggest you remove/edit your post immediately.

 

[weirdee]

soooo

wait wait wait

the NDA doesn't apply to the Escapist reporters or something? How am I even supposed to discuss this with any kind of depth?

 

[weirdee]

The NDA is packed into the terms of use megadocument the first time you start the game, I think.

 

[Augustine]

There was half a million beta keys on curse yesterday, how does NDA still apply?

YES. Yes it does. I suggest you remove/edit your post immediately.

I'm not sure what you mean. I didn't sign any NDA myself, I just jumped in with the beta key I got from curse.
Unless you're reffering to some forum guideline I don't understand?

All the content of the closed beta is still under NDA. It has been stated explicitly by the developers. I cannot know the specifics of when and where you accepted the agreement, perhaps when you use the key you presumed to have agreed to abide by NDA.
Not knowing the rules does not absolve one from responsibility to follow them.
If you want to take your chances with Bethesda's lawyers - its your call. You have been warned.

 

[shintakie10]

soooo

wait wait wait

the NDA doesn't apply to the Escapist reporters or something? How am I even supposed to discuss this with any kind of depth?

You're not, thats the basic point. Honestly its terrifyin how close we are to the game launch and they're still under such a heavy NDA on the beta.

The only reason to have an NDA last this long with it being as close to the game launch as it is would be if you have absolutely 0 faith in your product.

 

[Childe]

I think this is some of the only good press I've seen come out for ESO.

Nearly every person I've talked to who has gotten a beta invite generally responds to the question of how is it with a resounding "Meh."

Ya that was my experience. Now i had really bad lag and couldn't get past level 4 or so but my reaction to that was "oh well. I felt no pull to going back. The combat was interesting the first couple of times but it ended up being something between traditional mmo and TES style combat which became boring quickly and like the article said you don't really unlock skills quickly enough to keep things interesting. I think it would have been better for the game if they had used to skyrim tier system rather then trying to make skill unlocking a similar thing to talent trees we see in WoW and other MMOs. For a single player game having to have a certain skill at a certain level to get a new one is fine but the game is built around that but if you end up having to use the same 2-3 skills all the time, not because you want to but because those are the only skills that you have then it just doesn't work. The graphics and voice acting were good and the storyline seems interesting. As for quests i think its impossible to have a MMO without standard fetch quests/ kill X things so i don't really mind as long as the rest of the game makes up for it. In the end i think that while the game looks pretty and seems to have thought behind it, its not really worth it and it certainly isn't worth a $X/mo fee to play. But these are just my thoughts, i wouldn't be too surprised if the game as a small cult sub-section of TES fans.

 

[Jessta]

I put aside a day to play the TESO beta recently and I've gotta say it's kind of meh for me
(Note 5/10 means average for me, no major improvment, 1/10 means major decline, 10/10 means amazing improvment

the combat is awesome as far as MMO's go but not as awesome as skyrim with a good deal of abilities you can only use while in combat and while targeting a viable source + when you hit someone while sneaking you break sneak making it next to impossible to assasinate multiple targets, little things really not enough for me to say I hate it. 9/10 compared to WoW, 6/10 compared to most elder scrolls games


The character creation is again pretty cool as far as MMO's go but otherwise shitastic as far as an elder scrolls game goes, you're options are pretty much bulky, thin, or somewhere inbetween in all things, you can never take any of your sliders high enough or low enough to make your character look particularly different and each of the races only seems to have 8 or so preset hair do's all of which look about as good as the human hair cuts from WoW with only one or two semi decent haircuts and everything else looking like you're trying to be a modern age weirdo, something that doesn't really fit with the adornments they give that are all significantly better and make you look like you're trying to be a 18th century manly man. 7/10 compared to most MMO's, 3/10 compared to most Elder scrolls games

the exploration has good looking environments but again not something I would look for in an elder scrolls game. I was very disappointed that I couldn't drop items to decorate the environment in anyway like in most Elder scrolls games but I accepted that would lead to to much trolling in an MMO. what I really didn't like was that most of the plants I saw weren't able to be harvested, most of the random props laying around were NOT interactable, when creatures died they didn't drop what they were holding but instead dropped stuff from a randomized list, most often 1 GP but occasionally I would kill an archer and get some linen pants or whatever.
Basically it has the loot system and environment interactivity of WoW with an environment skin somewhere between Skyrim and oblivion. Overall 6/10 exploration compared to most MMO's and 2/10 exploration compared to most Elder scrolls games.

The Immersion also sucks nuts, the storyline is essentially another 'you're the chosen one and the only one capable of saving the world' shtick where as soon as you step out the door you're greeted by 100 other chosen ones doing the exact same thing. Then once you're done with that and you enter into the world it's not uncommon for you to have to queue up behind a quest giver and wait for them to keep respawning so you can turn in your quests. Oh you want me to kill 5 rats? ok done, oh you're congratulating that guy on killing five rats, ok, I'll wait. oh hey there's 15 other guys that killed 5 rats... oooooooh boy better wait my turn (This might be fixed but still the positions of the quest givers+The scope of what you do kind of takes out the excitement of the thing, not to mention the 6 or so guys with mohawks that will inevitably be in the middle of every quest)... 4/10 compared to most other MMO's, 3/10 compared to most TES games.

All and all as an MMO it's pretty good 6.5/10, cool combat system but otherwise another WoW clone.
All and all as a elder scrolls game though 3.5/10 it's no where near as good as the norm and it doesn't offer that sense of being there that morrowind through skyrim have offered in the past. It just doesn't feel like a big exciting world for you to find your place in.


PS. Screw Race based factions, Why are we still doing race based factions? Those are super dumb and it's annoying as hell that it's like oh, do you want to play with your friends? Of course you do! here's the three races capable of playing with your friends! oh you want to be a mage? WELL CONGRATLUATIONS you're friend is a Khajit and the race that gets a bunch of benefits for a being a mage on this faction is a weird looking elf so your race is pretty much chosen for you!

(I'm aware you can go against the META and decide to just ignore all those extra bonuses but I'm also aware that every MMO I've ever played has very quickly ended up leaning heavily on the end game and that the developers either have to choose to make it so that the people that minimax their stuff are so ungodly powerful they blaze through all the end game challenges like butter and upset the balance of the in game economy OR they have to choose to make it so that the people that do not minimax are absolute garbage and can't do anything in the endgame, with the only way around this being to make it so your options aren't for statistical bonuses but rather situational abilities.
That being said none of the racial abilities they've shown so far are situational.

also I understand this game is still in Beta but I'm highly skeptical even a quarter of this stuff is going to change the final release.

 

[weirdee]

at this point, given how many keys were handed out, i sort of doubt they can enforce the nda entirely anyway

 

[SirDeadly]

I found it very disappointing, I don't want to say too much but I found it hard to distinguish between human players and humanoid enemies. Really it would rather just stick to WoW if I have to pay a subscription.

 

[Denamic]

I found it very disappointing, I don't want to say too much but I found it hard to distinguish between human players and humanoid enemies. Really it would rather just stick to WoW if I have to pay a subscription.

You can turn on nameplates, but I find it really detract from the experience. You get more information, sure, but it's really unnecessary information that only contributes to visual clutter in the end.

 

[Nurb]

I too got ahold of a key recently, and was very unimpressed. It looks a lot like Everquest 2's engine just beefed up a bit, and the combat is a bit awkward with controls feeling clunky and laggy.

Everything has that washed out Skyrim look too, even a tropical island

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I've seen some good press for ESO from a few people. I don't understand it. I feel like they must have played an entirely different game than I had. The several times I played during the various beta events, I didn't come away with a single positive in my entire experience. Every single thing about the game was entirely forgettable. Even the character creation certainly doesn't do it for me, because I've played games like City of Heroes, which have quite a bit more.

 

[Killclaw Kilrathi]

Am I the only one who thinks the graphics are sub-par? And this is coming from someone who doesn't consider them to be a major part of games. I had everything set as high as possible and the game looks like Age of Conan with possibly even lower resolution textures. Most containers and trees turn into a smudgy mess if you walk up to them.

Also, what's with the lack of ragdoll physics? Surely the supposedly high end PS4 and Xbone are capable of handling it, and having a pre-rendered death animation for everything just looks silly. I jumped from the top of a tower and slammed into the ground at terminal velocity partway up a hill, only to do a sort of demure fainting onto a couch animation at the end and collapse rigidly in place.

I'd also be remiss to not bring up the fact that you can't harm NPCs or get arrested, they just stand there calmly while you fill their face with instantly disappearing arrows. Pickpocketing doesn't work either, you just talk to them from stealth mode. I know there are restrictions on what you can do in multiplayer games but surely there are ways around this other than mandating that every player be an incorruptible, impossible-to-do-wrong hero.

And yeah I'm aware it's still a beta, but it's bloody close to the release date now and if they're not at the "finishing touches" stage by now they're doomed. This isn't some Kickstarter or Steam Early Access, it's a finished product at release and they only have a few weeks to get it all done.

Don't get me wrong, I already bought the game and I really want it to be a success. In fact I REALLY want it to considering the digital standard edition I got cost an outrageous $89.95AU, the exact same as the brick and mortar copy. But if they want me to play beyond the initial 30 days they're gonna have to make a lot of changes in the next few weeks leading up to release, because so far it's just a mediocre generic fantasy MMO with an Elder Scrolls visual mod installed.