I had misgivings about the locked in starter areas. I was worried that it was going to have locked in areas all over the world, and to me that isn't ES.
I was happy to discover that after the 3rd Starter area, yes there are 3 :cold harbor/ island / tip of the main map, the game opened up to the entire map to my PvE area, I didn't PvP but I assume that you wander to the middle of the World map and that's where the PvP is.
I don't mind the starter areas because I use that time to collect Picks/Chests/Ore, I didn't leave the 2nd starter area (island) until lvl6 and which time I had 80+ picks / 400+ Ingots and the chests had become all (simple), not to mention the vast amount of Stat items to tear apart for Research/Raws.
I understand the starter areas are to get you into the story and give you a loose set of goals if you wish, BUT, I hope that in live if I wish to skip the first two starter areas and begin at the tip of the main map we could -- minus getting all the goodies, because face it after the first trip through all other toons are gonna get twinked.
I really enjoyed BETA and took it for what is was with BUGS and ALL.. filling out /bug reports and still having fun.
I have bought the Physical I.E. (Imperial Edition) and I look forward to the Servers Opening.
Originally posted by Alalala Can someone make the case for $225 for the first year, in a market with many, comparable F2P fantasy MMOs?
That depends entirely on how much time you spend enjoying the game. If you pay for the whole year's subscription then only play for a week, it's not a very good value. If you average ten hours a week for the whole year, it's an extremely good value. To me, it isn't about what other products charge or don't charge. It's about whether you enjoy the amount of playing you put in over the course of the year more than you would have enjoyed keeping the money.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
I tried the beta several months ago and did not make it past level 2 when I logged out and uninstalled. It was so boring and lacluster - I assumed this was what the whole game experience would be like. A friend got a key for this past beta so I gave in and installed it again. I am so glad I did. This game has an old school feel to it, and the immersion is incredible in my opinion. Once out of the 3 starter areas, the game became the most addictive and fun game I have played since Shadowbane, SWG and DAOC. I haven't pulled a 16 hour gaming fest in years. There is so much content and the PvP is amazing. The world seems endless as well. We both pre-ordered after this past weekend. For me, I have high hopes for TESO.
I have been in 3 beta's. The first was a little disappointing i could tell it was ES but there was no crafting and the rails were too much. The second beta added crafting and i am a craftaholic so i was happy to dig into it but still disappointed with the game and saw this sticker price and said maybe for 30 but not for 60. Then i went into the last beta and had a BLAST in the PvP. A true spiritual successor to DAOC, and proceeded to buy the imperial edition so i can play cat on the daggerfall covenant at launch.
Not happy with them breaking race lock as a DAOC/MMO fan, wish they would have enabled it for everyone as an ESO fan, hate the greedy cash grab nature of it by locking it behind a preorder wall and locking a race behind a paywall, but i wont boycott because i need my DAOC style PVP fix.
Zenimax is crazy when they think this product has the quality to carry a hefty box price, sub and microtransactions. The animations are total garbage in every regard, but there is more to it.
The combat is neither fish nor flesh. I don't know what they tried to get done with the targeting, but they missed it. This semi targetlock just doesn't work out too well. Dodging is just a gimmick to get out of red cones etc., otherwise you are still getting hit by melee attacks or projectiles following you.
I loved my hunter in Skyrim, too bad that in ESO archery is a joke and again the animations do not help. But then, whats the point of using a bow anyway when to hit someone you have to get so close that you could instead pick the opponent's eye out with a fork?
Sorcery lacks diversity altogether, but this subject is so huge that it needs an entire topic on its own.
I like that one can mix classes with weapons and get interesting "off the beaten path" builds. Like on one weekend i played a Siphon/Shadow Nightblade with a Resto staff and i liked it. I doubt that class diversity is there to stay though...once meters get released and people start to whine about certain builds in PvP, like every other company before Zenimax will give in to it.
Music is ultrasome³ and with the good graphics and world-design, to people who like to smell the flowers and watch the sunset this game can bring a level of immersion that no other title in recent years even remotely touches.
It will give Rift a run for it's money once it goes F2P.
Originally posted by Alalala Can someone make the case for $225 for the first year, in a market with many, comparable F2P fantasy MMOs?
First of all people are not forced to pay for it. They can just not play the game. So people are willing to pay for it. That's enough of a justification to charge the standard price.
Now perhaps your question is, why are people willing to pay for it while there are free alternatives? Isn't the answer to that question obvious? The alternatives aren't good enough. People want this product and will pay for it as long as they feel they get quality in return.
$225 for the first year? Well I expect to take a break when The Witcher 3 comes out, add to that Dragon Age 3, Mass Effect 4, Wildstar open beta, to just name a few.
MMOs are great, but holidays to other AAA games are inevitable?
Then again, if you do play for a whole year, then it'll have to be AMAZING for you do so? So don't knock the concept as its best case scenario for an MMO that players have enough fun to stick around for a solid 12 months.
I am in the Psyjic Order of the beta which is the beta that we can play past lvl 17 and the game doesnt change past 17 in terms of broken quest and bugs.
I watched a friend play in the 1-17 stress test event and it was surprising that bugs were still there and still hasnt been fixed.
I am also in the Psyjic Order but have to say I am enjoying my time in beta and will be purchasing this game. yes there are bugs still, but it is BETA. I was having fun with different builds and seeing what was viable in PVP. I have to admit when i was first invited into the stress tests I didn't give it a chance because I was wanting it to be like Skyrim. But after playing it beyond level 17 that didn't matter to me anymore, I was just having fun.
All I know is, if I didn't have the patience to get through the horrible and extremely linear and boring tutorial zone, I would never have seen the larger and more "slightly" immersive world beyond it. They really need to get rid of that area or make it more engaging, something! Oh, and they also need to show incentives for leveling up as I saw no real reason to play the game, PVE wise. I think for now, I'm only aiming for PVP because that at least has a draw to it, the rest of the game though, just isn't showing me what it needs to keep me interested. Like mounts, guilds, etc. It takes far too long to get to the point where you start to see that stuff. Hope they address this.
I agree with some posters, that game sux, but... I'd rather they shut it down or move lauch date to fix all s**t that doesn't work. I'd pay for quality product and sub, no way I will install any F2P shit again ever, even they want to pay me to play their game.
It's going back to the great basics of what had been lost to us and making some improvements along the way. It does such a great job of blending theme park and sandbox elements into a seamless hybrid without all the world jarring elements that a sandbox game can bring.
It's easy to make the mistake of dismissing how this opens up later on. Some fail to realize that not all people jumping into this are MMO vets and need to have that walk-through tutorial. So, just pull up your proverbial big boy pants and you'll be fine.
Also, it's simply amazing to me that paying for something makes it less fun but then have it free and weeeee, you're having a blast, hehe. Like having a monetary psyche magically makes that much more fun. Absurdity ensues.
Animations are bad (not one animation uses motion capture), quests are bad (kill 3 of these bad guys, collect 3 of that, rescue 3 of these people, the magic number 3 is EVERYWHERE), the character creation model isn't even the same one that appears in-game (detail is less and custom slider values do not match up to both), the framerate is atrociously low in the open areas, terrible writing, and so much more.
This is no Elder Scrolls game. Just because they use the names and races from Elder Scrolls does not make this game an Elder Scrolls universe.
Very disappointed with this game after the beta experience.
ive been a fan of TES morrowind, oblivion, and skyrim so i had my doubts before going into the game.. but making it to lvl 15 i had a blast..was very addictive..sucked i had to go to sleep lol...i have only been in 2 beta weekends but i can say from what i have played that it is very true to the TES series.
Played this last beta weekend for the first time. Played about 35 hours and loved it. I totally agree the starting area is a low point right now. Even though I have to say I enjoyed the Aldmeri Dominion starting area more than the Daggerfall Covenant starting area. In the Daggerfall faction, just when you get off that first island they send you to...another island. Not horrible, but kinda repetitive. Once you get to what is essentially the starting city for each faction though the game really opens up. It's about that time you are high enough in level as well to get some really cool abilities and skills to use rather than just basic attacks. I will say leveling wasn't super quick, which I personally like, but some people may not. I played my Breton for about 25 hours and got him to level 13, that's of course spending a few hours just running around learning to play the game and I did a lot of exploring. I also actually talked to most of the npcs instead of just flying through the dialogue.
I will say while not as open as Skyrim, compared to most mmo's the questing was really interesting in the beta. You would often find quests just from wandering around, and they usually had a decent story to them. Some of my favorite quests were the ones that had choices on how you wanted to end them. I could give the crown found in a lost tomb to the annoying lady that wanted me to go find it for her, or give her a cursed crown a ghost in the dungeon had so that when she touched it, she would be stuck in the dungeon and he would be freed to walk the earth again. It all sort of backfired and I won't spoil it for you but it was funny. Just being given the option to have more than one ending was nice. Also, exploring encourages you to find these runes on the ground which I'm even sure what they are for, crafting maybe, and also the sky shards. Quest markers are used but not in all quests. It was almost a shock when I actually had to solve some riddles and search out some items, it almost felt a little old school...almost.
I didn't craft much, but it did look interesting. I think I remember reading this latest build is a lot different than some of the previous ones when it came to crafting so not sure how much it will change again the next beta but from the sounds of it crafting will have an important role in playing and in the game economy.
I can't comment much beyond the beginning of the game, but what I played I really enjoyed. It feels more polished than what I expected. The game isn't top of the line in graphics, but it is very good looking and runs extremely smooth even in heavy populated areas. You can adjust the settings a lot and when pushed to the max the game does look good. I'm running 8 gigs of ram, a rather slow hdd, a mid teir cpu, and a $100 graphics card so nothing top of the line about my computer and I was getting 25-30 frames on ultra settings. 40-50 on high settings.
I did run into a couple quest bugs, but they were not game breaking and a lot of the more involved quests actually went off with no issue. The bugs should be fixed by launch, I've heard a lot of the older bugs have already been taken care of. If not, that would be a reason to complain. Load times were long, but it was a stress test beta and I expected as much. The biggest issue I was not happy about was that grouping seemed really bugged. I would try to group with a friend of mine, but we would somehow end up in different phases where all I could see was the group arrow where he should be, but we couldn't actually fight together. Some of the basic quests are actually kind of hard with just one person so grouping needs fixed asap.
I've already purchased the game and am really looking forward to playing. It's not a sandbox or themepark, it's not a standard elder scrolls or standard mmo. It's a nice blend off all of those elements. I stayed on the beta server until the minute they shut it down and was genuinely disappointed that the beta weekend was over. I had a lot of fun and can't wait until the game launches.
Originally posted by Lipstickpaddy Pre-ordered the Imperial edition when the beta ended and have now lost my appetite to play anyother game!!! All I want is to jump back into ESO!!!
Roll on March 30th. (5 day early access)
Pretty much the same for me. I've mainly been playing Skyrim. Jump on War Thunder for my pvp fix. Pop into GW2 to do stuff with guildies, but mainly they are coming to ESO, as well, so we talk about that in chat sometimes.
Originally posted by NomadMorlock I had every intention on passing on this game. After the beta test, I decided to buy the collector's edition. I haven't been this immersed in an MMO in years. I'm still pondering all the possible combinations of class, race, weapon, armor, world, pvp skills.. just wow.
I have no problem spending $15 a month to see this continue to evolve.
Same.
Also agree. I went to beta without much expectations but hell... I absolutely love how you get sucked into the world without even knowing it! "Immersion" is in fact the key word, also pre-ordered
Well, all I can say is: congratz to the team responsible for developing Elder Scrolls On-Line! Before the beta, I confess that my attention was elsewhere... but now I have no doubt where I will invest my time and money on. See you all in Tamriel
If you're a huge fan of the Elder Scrolls and you're not into a good MMO right now, then buy it. Personally it's good, but nothing special. It honestly comes across slightly above mundane at best. Hope they make a go of it, but I'm going to pass.
I hate how it phases out party members who may not have the quest or have already completed it. The game will outright exclude them. So much for me and my close friends helping each other out, adventuring together.
Originally posted by Stellus I hate how it phases out party members who may not have the quest or have already completed it. The game will outright exclude them. So much for me and my close friends helping each other out, adventuring together.
Yeah one of the most annoying things to me was not having party members with me at random times even though we were on the same exact quest, same exact step.
The quests were litterally littered with bugs. I know people, it's beta, but I've been in the last 4 beta weekends and the same exact quests continue to be a sticking point every single time. I'm starting to wonder if these quests are even able to be fixed. You shouldn't have to constantly exit the client and relog hoping you end up in a different phase so the NPC's will do their job.
I did enjoy the combat style, although it seems if you just circumstrafe the mob you can beat just about anything no matter how tough it is.
Overall I'd say it is an average/above average MMO if they manage to get these issues fixed.
Just to question the philosophy. Army of Socrates.
Originally posted by Ogrebear Game defiantly opens up as you go along. I had no problems with quests, or NPC's, though I occasionally had to reload the GU.
Well then you must have been ridiculously lucky on not played long. Many many quests were so consistently broken people would regularly ask in Global "Is quest 01 working yet?", "Is NPC 01 still frozen in that spot?". You could not go more than 2 mins without someone asking in global about a quest that was broken, frozen, not activating, etc.
Just to question the philosophy. Army of Socrates.
I played the beta and hated the animations. They are really ugly and the melee combat felt messy. The tutorial was kind of lame too. I was not impressed and was expecting way more from bethesda.... :-(
Comments
I had misgivings about the locked in starter areas. I was worried that it was going to have locked in areas all over the world, and to me that isn't ES.
I was happy to discover that after the 3rd Starter area, yes there are 3 : cold harbor / island / tip of the main map, the game opened up to the entire map to my PvE area, I didn't PvP but I assume that you wander to the middle of the World map and that's where the PvP is.
I don't mind the starter areas because I use that time to collect Picks/Chests/Ore, I didn't leave the 2nd starter area (island) until lvl6 and which time I had 80+ picks / 400+ Ingots and the chests had become all (simple), not to mention the vast amount of Stat items to tear apart for Research/Raws.
I understand the starter areas are to get you into the story and give you a loose set of goals if you wish, BUT, I hope that in live if I wish to skip the first two starter areas and begin at the tip of the main map we could -- minus getting all the goodies, because face it after the first trip through all other toons are gonna get twinked.
I really enjoyed BETA and took it for what is was with BUGS and ALL.. filling out /bug reports and still having fun.
I have bought the Physical I.E. (Imperial Edition) and I look forward to the Servers Opening.
That depends entirely on how much time you spend enjoying the game. If you pay for the whole year's subscription then only play for a week, it's not a very good value. If you average ten hours a week for the whole year, it's an extremely good value. To me, it isn't about what other products charge or don't charge. It's about whether you enjoy the amount of playing you put in over the course of the year more than you would have enjoyed keeping the money.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
I tried the beta several months ago and did not make it past level 2 when I logged out and uninstalled. It was so boring and lacluster - I assumed this was what the whole game experience would be like. A friend got a key for this past beta so I gave in and installed it again. I am so glad I did. This game has an old school feel to it, and the immersion is incredible in my opinion. Once out of the 3 starter areas, the game became the most addictive and fun game I have played since Shadowbane, SWG and DAOC. I haven't pulled a 16 hour gaming fest in years. There is so much content and the PvP is amazing. The world seems endless as well. We both pre-ordered after this past weekend. For me, I have high hopes for TESO.
* edit spelling
I have been in 3 beta's. The first was a little disappointing i could tell it was ES but there was no crafting and the rails were too much. The second beta added crafting and i am a craftaholic so i was happy to dig into it but still disappointed with the game and saw this sticker price and said maybe for 30 but not for 60. Then i went into the last beta and had a BLAST in the PvP. A true spiritual successor to DAOC, and proceeded to buy the imperial edition so i can play cat on the daggerfall covenant at launch.
Not happy with them breaking race lock as a DAOC/MMO fan, wish they would have enabled it for everyone as an ESO fan, hate the greedy cash grab nature of it by locking it behind a preorder wall and locking a race behind a paywall, but i wont boycott because i need my DAOC style PVP fix.
Zenimax is crazy when they think this product has the quality to carry a hefty box price, sub and microtransactions. The animations are total garbage in every regard, but there is more to it.
The combat is neither fish nor flesh. I don't know what they tried to get done with the targeting, but they missed it. This semi targetlock just doesn't work out too well. Dodging is just a gimmick to get out of red cones etc., otherwise you are still getting hit by melee attacks or projectiles following you.
I loved my hunter in Skyrim, too bad that in ESO archery is a joke and again the animations do not help. But then, whats the point of using a bow anyway when to hit someone you have to get so close that you could instead pick the opponent's eye out with a fork?
Sorcery lacks diversity altogether, but this subject is so huge that it needs an entire topic on its own.
I like that one can mix classes with weapons and get interesting "off the beaten path" builds. Like on one weekend i played a Siphon/Shadow Nightblade with a Resto staff and i liked it. I doubt that class diversity is there to stay though...once meters get released and people start to whine about certain builds in PvP, like every other company before Zenimax will give in to it.
Music is ultrasome³ and with the good graphics and world-design, to people who like to smell the flowers and watch the sunset this game can bring a level of immersion that no other title in recent years even remotely touches.
It will give Rift a run for it's money once it goes F2P.
First of all people are not forced to pay for it. They can just not play the game. So people are willing to pay for it. That's enough of a justification to charge the standard price.
Now perhaps your question is, why are people willing to pay for it while there are free alternatives? Isn't the answer to that question obvious? The alternatives aren't good enough. People want this product and will pay for it as long as they feel they get quality in return.
$225 for the first year? Well I expect to take a break when The Witcher 3 comes out, add to that Dragon Age 3, Mass Effect 4, Wildstar open beta, to just name a few.
MMOs are great, but holidays to other AAA games are inevitable?
Then again, if you do play for a whole year, then it'll have to be AMAZING for you do so? So don't knock the concept as its best case scenario for an MMO that players have enough fun to stick around for a solid 12 months.
I am also in the Psyjic Order but have to say I am enjoying my time in beta and will be purchasing this game. yes there are bugs still, but it is BETA. I was having fun with different builds and seeing what was viable in PVP. I have to admit when i was first invited into the stress tests I didn't give it a chance because I was wanting it to be like Skyrim. But after playing it beyond level 17 that didn't matter to me anymore, I was just having fun.
Same thing I did.
Shame, because I really like the Elder Scrolls lore, but this game is just a cheap Skyrim with a multiplayer mod splashed on it.
New players can get a welcome package and old/returning players can also get a welcome back package and 7 days free subscription time! Just click here to use my referral invitation
Finally. So....
All I know is, if I didn't have the patience to get through the horrible and extremely linear and boring tutorial zone, I would never have seen the larger and more "slightly" immersive world beyond it. They really need to get rid of that area or make it more engaging, something! Oh, and they also need to show incentives for leveling up as I saw no real reason to play the game, PVE wise. I think for now, I'm only aiming for PVP because that at least has a draw to it, the rest of the game though, just isn't showing me what it needs to keep me interested. Like mounts, guilds, etc. It takes far too long to get to the point where you start to see that stuff. Hope they address this.
It's going back to the great basics of what had been lost to us and making some improvements along the way. It does such a great job of blending theme park and sandbox elements into a seamless hybrid without all the world jarring elements that a sandbox game can bring.
It's easy to make the mistake of dismissing how this opens up later on. Some fail to realize that not all people jumping into this are MMO vets and need to have that walk-through tutorial. So, just pull up your proverbial big boy pants and you'll be fine.
Also, it's simply amazing to me that paying for something makes it less fun but then have it free and weeeee, you're having a blast, hehe. Like having a monetary psyche magically makes that much more fun. Absurdity ensues.
Animations are bad (not one animation uses motion capture), quests are bad (kill 3 of these bad guys, collect 3 of that, rescue 3 of these people, the magic number 3 is EVERYWHERE), the character creation model isn't even the same one that appears in-game (detail is less and custom slider values do not match up to both), the framerate is atrociously low in the open areas, terrible writing, and so much more.
This is no Elder Scrolls game. Just because they use the names and races from Elder Scrolls does not make this game an Elder Scrolls universe.
Very disappointed with this game after the beta experience.
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Played this last beta weekend for the first time. Played about 35 hours and loved it. I totally agree the starting area is a low point right now. Even though I have to say I enjoyed the Aldmeri Dominion starting area more than the Daggerfall Covenant starting area. In the Daggerfall faction, just when you get off that first island they send you to...another island. Not horrible, but kinda repetitive. Once you get to what is essentially the starting city for each faction though the game really opens up. It's about that time you are high enough in level as well to get some really cool abilities and skills to use rather than just basic attacks. I will say leveling wasn't super quick, which I personally like, but some people may not. I played my Breton for about 25 hours and got him to level 13, that's of course spending a few hours just running around learning to play the game and I did a lot of exploring. I also actually talked to most of the npcs instead of just flying through the dialogue.
I will say while not as open as Skyrim, compared to most mmo's the questing was really interesting in the beta. You would often find quests just from wandering around, and they usually had a decent story to them. Some of my favorite quests were the ones that had choices on how you wanted to end them. I could give the crown found in a lost tomb to the annoying lady that wanted me to go find it for her, or give her a cursed crown a ghost in the dungeon had so that when she touched it, she would be stuck in the dungeon and he would be freed to walk the earth again. It all sort of backfired and I won't spoil it for you but it was funny. Just being given the option to have more than one ending was nice. Also, exploring encourages you to find these runes on the ground which I'm even sure what they are for, crafting maybe, and also the sky shards. Quest markers are used but not in all quests. It was almost a shock when I actually had to solve some riddles and search out some items, it almost felt a little old school...almost.
I didn't craft much, but it did look interesting. I think I remember reading this latest build is a lot different than some of the previous ones when it came to crafting so not sure how much it will change again the next beta but from the sounds of it crafting will have an important role in playing and in the game economy.
I can't comment much beyond the beginning of the game, but what I played I really enjoyed. It feels more polished than what I expected. The game isn't top of the line in graphics, but it is very good looking and runs extremely smooth even in heavy populated areas. You can adjust the settings a lot and when pushed to the max the game does look good. I'm running 8 gigs of ram, a rather slow hdd, a mid teir cpu, and a $100 graphics card so nothing top of the line about my computer and I was getting 25-30 frames on ultra settings. 40-50 on high settings.
I did run into a couple quest bugs, but they were not game breaking and a lot of the more involved quests actually went off with no issue. The bugs should be fixed by launch, I've heard a lot of the older bugs have already been taken care of. If not, that would be a reason to complain. Load times were long, but it was a stress test beta and I expected as much. The biggest issue I was not happy about was that grouping seemed really bugged. I would try to group with a friend of mine, but we would somehow end up in different phases where all I could see was the group arrow where he should be, but we couldn't actually fight together. Some of the basic quests are actually kind of hard with just one person so grouping needs fixed asap.
I've already purchased the game and am really looking forward to playing. It's not a sandbox or themepark, it's not a standard elder scrolls or standard mmo. It's a nice blend off all of those elements. I stayed on the beta server until the minute they shut it down and was genuinely disappointed that the beta weekend was over. I had a lot of fun and can't wait until the game launches.
Not all who wander are lost...
Pretty much the same for me. I've mainly been playing Skyrim. Jump on War Thunder for my pvp fix. Pop into GW2 to do stuff with guildies, but mainly they are coming to ESO, as well, so we talk about that in chat sometimes.
Also agree. I went to beta without much expectations but hell... I absolutely love how you get sucked into the world without even knowing it! "Immersion" is in fact the key word, also pre-ordered
Yeah one of the most annoying things to me was not having party members with me at random times even though we were on the same exact quest, same exact step.
The quests were litterally littered with bugs. I know people, it's beta, but I've been in the last 4 beta weekends and the same exact quests continue to be a sticking point every single time. I'm starting to wonder if these quests are even able to be fixed. You shouldn't have to constantly exit the client and relog hoping you end up in a different phase so the NPC's will do their job.
I did enjoy the combat style, although it seems if you just circumstrafe the mob you can beat just about anything no matter how tough it is.
Overall I'd say it is an average/above average MMO if they manage to get these issues fixed.
Just to question the philosophy. Army of Socrates.
Well then you must have been ridiculously lucky on not played long. Many many quests were so consistently broken people would regularly ask in Global "Is quest 01 working yet?", "Is NPC 01 still frozen in that spot?". You could not go more than 2 mins without someone asking in global about a quest that was broken, frozen, not activating, etc.
Just to question the philosophy. Army of Socrates.