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ESO: Reading between the lines of the official Previews
ste2000
Member EpicPosts: 6,194
One thing is clear about ESO, it is not going to be the next big thing.
Even though the NDA is still up and people who played Beta are not allowed to express their opinion on the state of the game, by reading the official previews from different sites it looks like the game has some issues.
Compared to the raving previews that SWTOR received before its release, ESO mixed reviews are quite worrying.
We all know how SWTOR turned out to be (average), so the fact that ESO is not getting the same level of hype from the press, it's cause of great concern.
It is clear that some people like the game and pre-order it already, so I am not saying that ESO is a disaster, but I am not sure it is worth the box price + Subscription at this point.
Since the NDA is still up all I can do is to link the Previews I agree with more, I wish I could post some of my impressions, I might actually point out some positive aspects of the game (because it has it)......... but Zenimax decided not to trust players by refusing to lift their NDA (or maybe they are not really too confident with their product).
So here you go my favorite Previews:
Angry Joe Preview (although I disagree with few things but I can't say)
Comments
The complaints mostly rave about
- its not Skyrim... ( but then if you want to play skyrim, its been available for years)
- it does not feel like an MMO but like a single player MMO. ( what did you expect if you crossbreed a single player RPG with an MMO)
- it costs money to play ( i have been playing monthly subs for MMOs for over 15 years, best thing its still as expensive as 15 years ago)
- graphics and annimations are bad ( latest press videos show vastly improved armors, combat annimations)
- Combat does not fit an MMO... (Now dont view the combat as part of the single player solo expeience, but as part of multiplayer PvE and PvP, gives a whole different view on the combat system)
- single player stories dont belong in an MMO ( clueless, TSW, SWTOR and LOTRO are only popular because of their stories, so are single player MMOs)
- the game has classes ( but more freedom to create your own chracter profile then almost any other MMO)
- i miss the freedom of roaming the lands as i see fit ( you canfreely roam 70% of the world as soon as you reach 50, which combines the freedom of Elder scrolls games with a typical leveling leveling MMO)
seems most beta players are happy and buying the game, because they realise its what it is, a good themepark,mainly story driven, with a sepperated PvP game..
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Want to add on the rockpapershotgun review too?
this game just feels like a mix of a whole bunch of other games thrown together.
You've got the skills, skill bars, dodging mechanics that scream GW2. you've got the voiced quests of STWOR (spacebar, spacebar, etc). you've got the graphical awesomeness of AOC. you've got the combat of Vindictus ( in slow motion, and without the exploding crates). You've got the factions of DAOC. And yes, you've got the lore of TES.
it is very pretty to look at. it is very quest driven (ugh, more quests...). the combat is just ok, nothing to write home about. it does not feel like any of the TES games, if anything it reminds you just you much better TES games actually are. it feels a lot more like GW2 without tab targeting and a different lore.....yawn....
Now, i haven't played pvp or any of the group content yet, but from what i've seen so far, i don't see myself playing this for more than a month or so. it just doesn't have it's own identity, it all feels like you've done it all before. i certanly don't see myself subbing, unless the pvp and group content is out of this world good.
all in all i'd give it a 7 (IF they remove all the bugs before launch).
this like a thousand times over. Ive never heard so much crying in my life over this game. I thought GW2 was bad but this takes the cake on this site. People wanted skyrim online so badly now its just spoiled brat entitlement syndrome 1000x over.
I think that besides the animations being HORRIBILLZ and the combat being way detached, the game suffers the most on
-not being enough MMORPG for many mmorpg'ers
-not being enough ESO for many fans of the IP.
Other than that, we can't tell anything since everything beyond the newbie experience is under lock and key. Too bad, since the stage we are supposed to spend the most time at (end game) is the one we know the least about.
Another misuse of entitlement. Love how that word gets thrown around all the time. Saying you don't like what the game is offering and not buying it isn't entitlement.
I think most people are more disappointed in what this game could have been than anything. When I heard Elder Scrolls Online I was not thinking lets throw a DaoC end game PvP system together and call it a day.
A 7 is pretty good for a beta... as in "a game that wasnt even released yet"
The game is actually pretty good... I like it!
Regarding combat... well I play an archer so... its fine! lol
One thing to keep in mind: I think ESO is getting a lot of bad press precisely because of SWTOR. A lot of people were burned by that game, and there was a lot of backlash against these gaming sites because of it. I think when a lot of people look at ESO, whether they have played beta or not, they are thinking, "Uh oh, here we go. Another SWTOR."
The similarities are pretty telling:
1) Huge, beloved IP with legions of faithful fans who will compare the game directly to the IP rather than to other MMOs.
2) A developer creating the game that has had no prior experience making an actual MMO.
3) Both games featured a conscious decision to turn away from an open world and/or sandbox model of a predecessor of the IP (SWG for SWTOR and the Elder Scrolls series for TESO) for a more traditional themepark design.
Gotta admit, the similarities are eerie. And I think that the gaming sites are seeing these same similarities, and have made a conscious effort to be more critical since so many feel they "let us down" by their over-the-top praise for a SWTOR game that, quite frankly, disappointed a lot of people.
Not to say that there aren't very valid concerns for TESO, because there are. But I do think it suffers from not only being compared to its own IP, but also to the SWTOR fiasco.
And exactly those annimations have improved drastically over the last months... Sure they still are somewhat typical for Elder scrolls... but i guess you will be used to that in a few hours..
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Technically OP you can't even do that under the NDA as by supporting X preview you are lending credence to it based on your own impressions of play and implying it is a justified. By definition that's providing open feedback on your play experience but I won't tell on you if you treat me kindly and provide the occasional cookie. So many of these threads degenerate into beta player expressions of frustration in that we simply can't comment and most of us have way more play time and experience to back our views than any press reviewer was allowed. The lifting of the press embargo for previews really was just an attempt to hype the game for sales and not inform the potential buyers of the realities of play. It is what it is and we are left quibbling behind various no comment disclaimers over iffy details provided by the paid if less experienced media hounds...
That really sucks.
no friend its not entitlement is the feeling of you are owed something and thats exactly what people here are doing worse than any other game. They didnt get skyrim online or a game they do not like. So instead of just voicing their opinions about the game to improve it they would rather come on this site and others and cry like babies about how the game isnt what they like and how its fake generic etc etc. That is entitlement if I have ever seen it. Its one thing to come and say the game sucks and move on , its another to cry about it in thread after thread. I do not like some of their decisions either and there is a good chance I wont play it more than a month or two but Im not going to come to neutral forums and cry a bloody river about every little thing they can nitpick at.
I literally feel sorry for devs nowadays they release any info at all about their game giving it praise and a million angry voices rise up to knock it all down. Even in my indie titles like 7 days to die there is literally a rush of steam crybabies there always slamming the devs or any design decision they make. I know I have better things to do all day besides post negative things about each and every new game releasing but some here it seems like do not obviously.
My one complaint about these previews/reviews is a glaring hole in them.
They like to say it feels like a single player game but its an MMO. MMO's haven't required people to group with other players to level up since like EQ1. Leveling in every MMO currently is solo quest based. Whats the difference here? The MMO aspect comes into play when you do dungeons, AvA. I'd have to second guess the bias or experience of the previewer if they bring this aspect up at all.
Honest opinions is now 'entitlement."
Just a thought but maybe not being overhyped is a good thing.
I mean considering alot of the AAA MMO's that have come out over the past few years were overhyped to the max then left players majorly underwhelmed when they got to actually play em, perhaps this will be the opposite.
That's a bullshit excuse and you know it. C'mon man.
When you, as a dev, use a ridiculously popular IP as the basis for an MMO, that comes with a certain level of expectation. If you're not willing to remain loyal to that vision, then you better expect backlash. Right or wrong, fair or foul, it has expectations.
The concepts of TES does not fit into the generic MMO themepark formula with RvR tossed in. Trying to squeeze it into one changes everything about it and fans see that. The fact that people can't see why so many are upset really has me shaking my head.
I mostly agree, but a slight correction to the above, TOR's predecessor was KotOR and not SWG. Or - as an another similarity - maybe it was SWG for some of the mmo folks, as ESO was praised by the DAoC fanatics, but from the dev side both are built to lure in the massive fanbase of the singleplayer games.
A second correction, TOR wasn't backlashed this massively, not even after a few months since launch. Some KotOR fans said it's a bit weak compared to the previous 2 games, some mmo fans complained about the endgame and pvp, but as I remember the biggest issue was that it's a good / great game as a singleplayer, KotOR-esque rpg, but why should we pay $15 / month for a singleplayer game?
(And when EA decided to go f2p, only then started the massive bashing, because of the weak initial f2p model. Luckily they've changed that during the months)
This is actually the best comment on this game I've seen so far. It's spot on. TES fans will be disappointed because it's not enough like other TES games, and MMO players will go "meh" because it's more or less same ol', same ol'.
Wow. I'm really liking this post more and more
Please, seriously.. who are you to say that? Some random kid on a random forum... give your thought of the game, but don't drop comments like that when you know nothing!
One thing is clear, those who hate the game shout louder than those who love it, like me.
I don't care about going out on every forum shouting about how much I love it...
Dont know why I even read post by random kids like you, but I just wanted to shout a littleCan hardly blame people for expecting Skyrim online, when for quite a while that's exactly what it was being hyped up to be. It's exactly what fans of the game were insisting it was going to be, and if anyone said they doubted it, they were immediately called trolls or haters.
But then that's always the way it happens.
It always plays out the same way.
Raving fans insist "The game is going to be "blah blah blah!", and call anyone who doubts or challenges them "trolls" or "haters". The game eventually gets into players' hands who realize it isn't the "blah blah blah" they were told it would be over and over. When they point that out, those very same fans who hyped it up in the first place do a complete 180 on their previous claims and start saying, "Oh, people are just whining because it's not "blah blah blah". It was never supposed to be!".
It happens every time. With every new MMO to come out. SWTOR, GW2, ARR, ESO, and many more.
There's always that group of fans who continuously defend and talk up the game, even while they have to keep changing their statements to do so. And somehow, through some bizzarro twist of logic, the people who'd been called "trolls" and "haters" in the first place, are still considered to be "trolls" or "whiners". Talk about playing both sides of the coin.
Maybe if people stopped trying to hype things up and setting expectations so high ahead of a game's release....
You get used to animation after a while but after beginning yes its hard especially if you play gw2 a lot.