Update: Beta Tester Leaks Elder Scrolls Online Gameplay Footage

[Corven]

Actually pleasantly surprised by how much it's not a generic fantasy MMO.

- There's manual blocking and it seemed quite effective. In the fight he died damage was noticeably reduced when he blocked.
- There's no tab-targeting, although there does seem to be some aim-assistance.
- First-person mode is in and animations likely to follow.
- No quest markers seem to be present, especially no floating exclamation or question marks.
- Full movement during combat, no standing there and hitting each other in turns.
- Stamina-based sprinting is in, which hopefully is not used only for sprinting meaning it'll be an actual choice.
- ES style stealth is in, no turning invisible (besides spells that may be included) and hopefully taking some actual skill.
- ES style alchemy seems to be in, judging by the ingredients found on the starting rats. Hopefully this means all ingredients will be useful and not just high-level ones.
- Challenging? I must admit it's been a very, very long time since I've ever died in the starting zone of a MMO. The tester seemed to die easily when taking on multiple opponents and not doing much to avoid damage besides blocking once.

Certainly many things look like utter shit, the UI especially. But those are all the type of things that can be, and usually are, improved during alpha and beta stages.

The things that can't, the basic combat system, seems to be in working order and actually looks quite fun.

I'll definitely continue to keep an eye on this, it looks more and more promising.

It's kinda sad that so far besides your comment, pretty much everyone else has decried this game as a WoW clone especially since most of the information we have about the game show's that it is more in line with Guild wars 2 in terms of it's gameplay mechanics.

 

[Aussie502]

Not sure why everyone's calling this a WoW clone. I don't really see anything that resembles WoW besides the outdated graphics. It actually looks more like Skyrim than what I expected.

 

[Somebloke]

Looks, in a multitude of ways, strikingly like Age of Conan (...for the hour or two that I tried, in vain, to enjoy that title).

 

[Hagi]

It's kinda sad that so far besides your comment, pretty much everyone else has decried this game as a WoW clone especially since most of the information we have about the game show's that it is more in line with Guild wars 2 in terms of it's gameplay mechanics.

Most people here don't really play MMOs from what I've noticed.

Every MMO will look like a WoW-clone to them just like every FPS will look like a CoD-clone to someone unfamiliar with that genre and every RTS will look like a starcraft-clone to someone unfamiliar with that genre.

It takes some knowledge and experience of a genre to be able to distinguish between the differences that exist in these games.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

sadly, I must agree: generic MMO pretty much right here.
why are people so afraid to stray from the WoW formula?
why the HELL can't they just make it more like the other TES games, just scaled to MMO level (slower leveling, harder prices/etc.)? not to mention the apparent inability to bring graphics to a niveau that doesn't scream like "from 6 years ago" (or at least make the graphics more scalable so people with hardware from 10 years ago can still play it)
*sigh* will give it a try either way. Maybe gameplay and graphics is not everything to a game : O

WoW sells like crazy; people "clone" what's popular.

Same reason for the influx of CoD-like FPS' in the recent years.

I still might check it (TESO) but only because it's Elder Scrolls.

I get that, but since when was stagnation so popular?
I mean, they could do BETTER already DID better. Instead they're trimming it down to decades old mechanics.

It's really that simple; safe, tested formula= guaranteed return.

Bethesda/whoever is developing it isn't feeling risky, I suppose.

 

[The_Echo]

I am saddened the video doesn't indicate how many times the game crashed. Beta status aside, random crashing is kinda Bethesda's trademark.

So Bethesda, now you have your MMO itch out the way and it will fail. They all fail. Get to making TES6, which is what people actually want, and make it more like Morrowind than Skyrim.

Bethesda isn't developing this. It's Zenimax Online. Far as I know, Beth is working on a new expansion for Skyrim at the moment.

OT: It does look a bit... er, boring? I'm not seeing the WoW-clone gameplay you guys are. Outside of the hotkeys, it looks like pretty standard (which is to say, mildly lackluster) Elder Scrolls combat.

But it is in beta. So, I'm not going to make any real judgments just yet.

 

[Busard]

Holy crap does it look dull. I cringed at that first mudcrab fight, because this shit right here is what you can expect to do for the rest of your levelling except with slightly more spells as you go.

 

[walrusaurus]

Deeply Unimpressive, but also totally unsurprising. Since Morrowind the elder scrolls has been more a feat of scale than of creativity. But in a genre lousy with massive open worlds with far to little to do that's not going to help them here.

I'll still give it a shot, but honestly after the crushing disappointment that was the old republic i find it very difficult to get excited about any new MMO.

 

[Karadalis]

Least effective fireballs i have ever seen in a game. Also way to much WoW formula... the small differences arent big enough.

And seriously? Another CLASS based system? The elder scrolls games where allways about creating a character to your liking including his skills... it was one of the keypoints of the series.

Take it out and all you have is a generic fantasy mmo that looks like age of conan and shares to many similiarities with WoW

 

[piinyouri]

Actually pleasantly surprised by how much it's not a generic fantasy MMO.

- There's manual blocking and it seemed quite effective. In the fight he died damage was noticeably reduced when he blocked.
- There's no tab-targeting, although there does seem to be some aim-assistance.
- First-person mode is in and animations likely to follow.
- No quest markers seem to be present, especially no floating exclamation or question marks.
- Full movement during combat, no standing there and hitting each other in turns.
- Stamina-based sprinting is in, which hopefully is not used only for sprinting meaning it'll be an actual choice.
- ES style stealth is in, no turning invisible (besides spells that may be included) and hopefully taking some actual skill.
- ES style alchemy seems to be in, judging by the ingredients found on the starting rats. Hopefully this means all ingredients will be useful and not just high-level ones.
- Challenging? I must admit it's been a very, very long time since I've ever died in the starting zone of a MMO. The tester seemed to die easily when taking on multiple opponents and not doing much to avoid damage besides blocking once.

Certainly many things look like utter shit, the UI especially. But those are all the type of things that can be, and usually are, improved during alpha and beta stages.

The things that can't, the basic combat system, seems to be in working order and actually looks quite fun.

I'll definitely continue to keep an eye on this, it looks more and more promising.

As I scrolled throughout he comments my mouth dropped lower and lower.
I honestly was shocked people are saying this looks generic.
I'm just reiterating some of the things you said but not many MMO's have
Full combat movement
That style of a stealth system or hell, a stealth system at all
Organic quest acquisition (as organic as it;'s ever been anyway)

I would also add that it looks...well like an Elder Scrolls game.
That's a fairly good example of what Hammerfell would look like I imagine.

Holy fuck I'm excited about an MMO.
Someone, slap me.

 

[VladG]

Never really got my hopes up for this game, and this footage has done nothing to improve that. Still, beta is beta and the first 10-15 minutes of gameplay doesn't really mean that much.

As far as I can tell it's GW2 with a coat of Elder Scrolls paint.


Wildstar is looking better and better though.

 

[VladG]

Not sure why everyone's calling this a WoW clone. I don't really see anything that resembles WoW besides the outdated graphics. It actually looks more like Skyrim than what I expected.

Oh, you know... just like FPSs used to be Doom clones, so nearly every MMO is a WoW clone (though, sadly, most really ARE WoW clones)

After some 20-30 years, you'd think people would realize just how iterative games really are.

I don't think it looks like a WoW clone in the least. If anything, it resembles GW2, but even there it's a limited comparison.

What this game doesn't look like, is FUN. Sure, the 10-15 minutes of actual gameplay in a starter area are probably very far removed from the actual experience but... it's kinda like the GTA IV of MMOs... it's got a bunch of stuff that sounds great but simply missing that extra something, that little spark that could make it truly fun.

 

[MadBlueWinnie]

I feel the problem at the moment is that if you didn't tell me that this video was Elder Scrolls Online, I wouldn't have even known. It looks nothing like an Elder Scrolls game. And it sure as hell doesn't feel like one.

 

[Korskarn]

Well, doesn't look like it will be getting any of my money. A couple of things:

1 - No, it's not WoW style combat. However, TERA is the current king of action combat, and it doesn't seem to play anything like that.

2 - Wall o'text questing? Is that even a thing any more? I was hoping that died out 5 years ago.

3 - Stealth is TES style ("detected" etc.) but the reason it works in TES is because NPCs are largely slow and predictable. Trying to sneak up on even 1 PC who will be sprinting and turning all over the place will be very difficult, let alone groups of PCs doing the same thing. I haven't seen any in-depth stealthing, but it's hard to imagine that this mechanic wont be broken at certain level brackets (i.e. completely useless at low levels, completely op at higher levels)

4 - I haven't seen ANYTHING "MM" in this "MMO". There's NOTHING here that seems to benefit from having other players around other than the standard "things die faster". All the quests shown are personal to the player, there seem to be no world events random strangers can join to assist, and even though the combat with another player was brief there seemed to be no options for synergy - after 20mins it was still just hurling fireballs.

Look, I know it's "just beta", but it's pretty damn rare that a game goes from "uninspiring" to "great" within a beta. If the features that make it great aren't what the game is centered around (and therefore usually what goes in first) then it's probably going to go from "interesting" to "disappointing" instead. We've seen that happen all too often.

 

[INVALIDUSERNAME]

You can pretty much guess what the comments on Youtube were gonna be even before it started.

So now that I can stick to Guild Wars 2 while I wait for Wildstar since this looks like unmitigated ass in a box, I can watch the flame wars on websites around the land.

 

[Yuuki]

Subscription-based or not? Because if it is, I'll pass.

Guild Wars 2 will most likely have this beat a million times over while costing no more than a standard singleplayer game ($60).

Those saying "wow clone", I WISH this was a WoW clone but it's really doesn't look like it. The aesthetic style is muddy/brown, it looks awful compared to WoW's cartoony colorful style, the character animation looks jerky, the combat style looks like it's aim-based and the camera is far too close to the character to let you have big angle on everything, etc. Nothing like WoW.

The least MMO developers can do is take WoW's STRENGTHS and one of the greatest things I loved about WoW was the camera and character control. Running on land or zipping around on a flying mount felt so graceful, easy and intuitive. Everything was also beautifully animated.

But then, who am I fooling with a Bethesda vs Blizzard comparison, those two companies aren't even in the same galaxy when it comes to quality control

 

[Smooth Operator]

Look guys I understand if you aren't knowledgeable in this but it's not a WoW clone.
However the basis they are building on is that very very old MMORPG principle, with only select features being replaced to emulate TES while mostly doing the same old, so if you are expecting this to be anything like TES games then you are out of touch with reality, because there are limits to MMOs that just can't be overcome.

So if you look for yet another MMORPG then this might as well be your next, if you look for more TES then it is the wrong item.

 

[Childe]

I'm amazed about how people complain about generic. As long as the game is well done there is no problem with that. And at this point ALL games are pretty much generic as in the theme as been done before