A well researched and well written review imo. Way better than most of the reviews I have read.
- I do not agree that it's well researched..I Think it's a desperate attemt to seriously miscredit a rather good game.
Lol at all the desperate fanboys trying to validate "their" game with sad hyperbole and attacks on the reviewers credability. For example, when the reviewer highlights all the bad copy/paste "dungeons" they all rush to trash him and make excuses like "They are not even dungeons they are delves"....when the fricking GAME even labels them as public dungeons lol.
-Its very simple, the "dungeons or delves" he describes in such great detail is the worst part of ESO no arguing about that, but to simply make a blinds Eye to what ESO has to offer in terms of all the diffrent types of dungeons is really sad, and he does that by simply NOT talking about them or just mentioning them very briefly.
And the "fricking game" doesn't label these "delves" as public dungeons, if you are talking about the tutorial messege you get when entering "some of it's dungeons" that would be the messege for entering Bad Mans Hollow or Obsidian Scar as THEY ARE THE REAL "PUBLIC DUNGEONS, they are unique and require atleast a few players.
A few posts later, amidst many more attacks on the reviewers credability we have sensationalist words like deceit and deception being bandied around....omg guys this is not war time Europe, its a review about a computer game. The problem is the review is honest, frank and accurate which just doesn't make good reading for some...
-It's not honest to leave out greater parts of the game and highlight in VERY great detail(several pages) the parts he didn't like
Hence it's too emotional, whereas all of the utter garbage spouted by gushing fanboys has never once been dismissed as born out of emotion and therefore untrustworthy....you know a game sucks when even the hardcore defenders have only hypocrisy left with which to assert the games positive points.
I think ESO will be lucky to retain 30% of the initial population, with still no word on sales/numbers it does not look good in the long run. Even in the microcosm of my own personal life every singel person I know who bought the game has since stopped playing and cancelled. Every. Single. One.
-The game is totally packed with players all over, and I am a member of 5 Guilds and they all burst with activity.
In my view that looks totally awesome , ESO has a Bright future.
Every friend i know is still playing ESO and they really love the game.
The game really is just shallow and boring, it suffers from a huge identity crisis, not knowing whether it wants to be a single player ES experience or a mmorpg experience. That lack of vision, along with some very poor design decisions results in a decidedly average single player experience with a decidedly average mmorpg bolted (or forced) on to the product.
At this point I think a total re-vamp ala FF IS the only way to rescue the game and see it live up to it's initial promise. I think after the last few years, gamers have finally had enough of paying for "decidedly average" and maybe ESO was just unlucky with its release timing, that it caught the backlash from a larger shift in attitudes accross the gaming community.
-Try harder ..Sure ESO is not flawless, but to me this is one of the better MMOs' in a VERY long time, and I can see myself playing for years, that has not happened since EQ2.
Total revamp..lol ...You have to be joking, infact Im sure you are
We actually have characters that play together to get around the phasing. And to be honest, i'm not a fan of what phasing does to tell a story because it affects a group experience. We all know this. It happens in World of Warcraft, it happens in Lord of the Rings Online... I wouldn't call it a defect or a negative. I would call it a fact of life. You find ways to compensate or you leave the game on the shelf because it isn't your thing. It doesn't make the game bad man. In the end it is a design decision that greatly affects people on either side of the battle.
You do phasing, people say you aren't encouraging the group play. (Paul Sage and Matt Firor have both addressed this and they are working on adding a feature that you can group in the same phase together. WoW still hasn't done that.) You don't do phasing, people say their characters aren't involved in the story, that the world is stagnant and you're wading through a picture in time. Either way, someone is going to hate you for it. I said it in my last post. I don't envy the choices they had to make. Again, we still love the game, and we have toons on the same progression so that it isn't an issue for us.
Shallow, generic, bland, meh, flavorless, vapid, uninspiring, monotonous, ho hum, pedestrian, plodding, mundane, trite, empty, devoid. I’m terribly reminded of the seminal 80s flick “The Neverending Story”, where hero Bastian fights to save Fantasia from “The Nothing”, an elemental force of the absence of content that ate through pages of interesting story and engaging plot. The Elder Scrolls Online is the game you’d get if The Nothing had won and decided to release an MMO based on a best-selling gaming franchise.
Seriously, that's the best quote for TESO ever! Better than Angry Joe's "They 'dun fucked it up!" Just a truth statement about a game that should never have been made [as an MMO].
I've been reviewing the "Active" and "Current" topics for awhile now. None of them are about the dungeons in ESO. As you said, not even this one. Certainly people may have mentioned it, just like they've mentioned it about other Elder Scrolls games, but compared to nearly everything else the game offers, it's just not that important a thing.
How much time are people spending in the copy/paste dungeons?
How much time did the developer expect people to spend in the copy/paste dungeons?
How much of the game's content directs people to the copy/paste dungeons?
If ZOS expected people to pop through the dungeons quickly, spending very little time there, then the dungeons serve the purpose for which they were intended.
Here's a link to one of the "Dungeons" forums on the Elder Scrolls Online website.
People don't seem to be making a big deal about the copy/paste dungeons. If it was that important, don't you think the topics would reference it on the first page of the "Dungeons" forums? They don't.
For something that people are supposedly complaining about all the time, it's awfully hard to find recorded evidence for. Not compared to everything else people want to complain about anyway. It's just not a big deal. Tempest in a teacup, mountains out of molehills, etc.
Here are 5 in the last 3 weeks of this site - the site that you were saying didn't have any threads on the topic:
Their official forums tend to delete a lot of posts. Particularly negative ones. Why do you think the infographic from Tom's Hardware is nowhere to be found?
You keep holding onto this idea that if ZOS intended for them to be short/copied/poor then they have accomplished what they had intended and therefor no one should be able to criticize them for what they accomplished. That's just a load of bull. They are not immune to criticism because they accomplished something they intended. It's a huge fallacy and the premise of your argument.
Two of them were actually about the copy/paste design. The others are about the dungeons being public. The copy/paste threads didn't last very long and haven't generated as many posts as this thread. It just wasn't a big deal until someone attached the name "tomshardware.com" to it. Compare this to threads based around just about anything else about ESO and these threads are insignificant.
Did I say people shouldn't criticize them? No, I don't think I did. Did I say people should like them or love them? No, I don't think I did. What I said, and I'm paraphrasing here, is that people are jumping on a bandwagon, trying to make a big issue out of something that isn't a big issue. In short, not enough people care about this for it to matter.
But yes, if the developers never intended for people to spend a lot of time in the dungeons, and people don't spend a lot of time in the dungeons, even if a very small minority of people are upset by it, the dungeons have done exactly what they were intended to do. Give people 5% of their total content for the game. For people to act like this is a surprise, or somehow against the purpose of the Elder Scrolls games or even against the purpose of ESO itself is just a little to disengenious to be believable. Bandwagon. Jumping On. What people are doing.
What is still interesting is that the questions haven't been answered. Mayhaps because the people responding haven't played the game?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I've been reviewing the "Active" and "Current" topics for awhile now. None of them are about the dungeons in ESO. As you said, not even this one. Certainly people may have mentioned it, just like they've mentioned it about other Elder Scrolls games, but compared to nearly everything else the game offers, it's just not that important a thing.
How much time are people spending in the copy/paste dungeons?
How much time did the developer expect people to spend in the copy/paste dungeons?
How much of the game's content directs people to the copy/paste dungeons?
If ZOS expected people to pop through the dungeons quickly, spending very little time there, then the dungeons serve the purpose for which they were intended.
Here's a link to one of the "Dungeons" forums on the Elder Scrolls Online website.
People don't seem to be making a big deal about the copy/paste dungeons. If it was that important, don't you think the topics would reference it on the first page of the "Dungeons" forums? They don't.
For something that people are supposedly complaining about all the time, it's awfully hard to find recorded evidence for. Not compared to everything else people want to complain about anyway. It's just not a big deal. Tempest in a teacup, mountains out of molehills, etc.
Here are 5 in the last 3 weeks of this site - the site that you were saying didn't have any threads on the topic:
Their official forums tend to delete a lot of posts. Particularly negative ones. Why do you think the infographic from Tom's Hardware is nowhere to be found?
You keep holding onto this idea that if ZOS intended for them to be short/copied/poor then they have accomplished what they had intended and therefor no one should be able to criticize them for what they accomplished. That's just a load of bull. They are not immune to criticism because they accomplished something they intended. It's a huge fallacy and the premise of your argument.
Two of them were actually about the copy/paste design. The others are about the dungeons being public. The copy/paste threads didn't last very long and haven't generated as many posts as this thread. It just wasn't a big deal until someone attached the name "tomshardware.com" to it. Compare this to threads based around just about anything else about ESO and these threads are insignificant.
Did I say people shouldn't criticize them? No, I don't think I did. Did I say people should like them or love them? No, I don't think I did. What I said, and I'm paraphrasing here, is that people are jumping on a bandwagon, trying to make a big issue out of something that isn't a big issue. In short, not enough people care about this for it to matter.
But yes, if the developers never intended for people to spend a lot of time in the dungeons, and people don't spend a lot of time in the dungeons, even if a very small minority of people are upset by it, the dungeons have done exactly what they were intended to do. Give people 5% of their total content for the game. For people to act like this is a surprise, or somehow against the purpose of the Elder Scrolls games or even against the purpose of ESO itself is just a little to disengenious to be believable. Bandwagon. Jumping On. What people are doing.
What is still interesting is that the questions haven't been answered. Mayhaps because the people responding haven't played the game?
Meh, your argument has changed so much with this last post. Now you are just attempting to diminish peoples opinions by saying not enough people care. I mean, yeah, earlier threads were not 200+ posts long. But this one IS 200+ posts long. The idea that not enough people care because you say so doesn't hold any water. Not only that, but specific posts all over many of these threads, particularly the ones that link reviews, have been bitching about the problem for weeks.
Your opinion that everyone is bandwagoning is supported with zero evidence. Actually, I've linked plenty of evidence and this thread is plenty of evidence to support the opposite of what you are saying. People do actually care about this issue. All the Tom's Hardware article did was put it into perspective for people and offer a concise way to describe the issue.
What is still interesting is that the questions haven't been answered. Mayhaps because the people responding haven't played the game?
I already answered your question. The dungeons are there for loot/bosses/shards. Some quests lead you to them. They are there for the same reason all dungeons are in all MMORPGs. They are a piece of content for meant for the players to enjoy. People aren't answering the question because it is so obvious to everyone.
Your idea that they are "meant" to give people 5% of their content is not only completely pulled from ass, but it's also completely irrelevant as was explained earlier.
Do players really even consider these Open World Dungeons?
Apparently ESO fans do. /shrug
An open world dungeon is nothing more than a non-instanced dungeon. They can be big or small, unique or cookie-cutter, good or shitty, but if it ain't instanced it's an open world dungeon by definition.
Correct, but as someone stated earlier, WoW has hundreads of these then. Skyrim, thousands. I see them as , open world caves.
Exactly.
SWTOR has them, even SWG had them. Its like since they didnt' include raids, they took something they were implementing (which most MMOs also have), gave it a unique name, and tried to pass it off as an ESO "feature".
I have been waiting until I put some actual time into ESO before commenting on it...iv been playing a couple of weeks now, and I have to say...for me personally...its one of the most boring games I have ever played...and I don't mean MMOs, I mean games in general. The PVP is good, but I wouldnt place it that far ahead of GW2. I have been dissapointed with MMOs in the past, namely AoC and launch SWTOR more recently...but this is the first to ever get me deeply regretting the purchase. I honestly feel taken advantage of with this game, however crazy that sounds.
Originally posted by BetaBlocka Another review from a mainstream, well respected website rolls in with a poor review...
Let me guess...Toms Hardware cannot be counted as a credible review source amirite?
Totally correct.
For some reason, detailed arguments about why something is bad, is just people hating on something, but saying something is good without any real reason or argument to support it, is perfectly fine.
It's quite telling that the most people can bring against his review is either hyperbole (it's propaganda!) or arguing semantics. (It's a DELVE not a dungeon, idiot!)
If the game could stand on its own merits against his review it would, and you'd see cogent arguments and counter-points.
Instead you see hyperbole, semantics, and "WELL I LIKE IT SO SHUT UP!" type responses.
It's quite telling that the most people can bring against his review is either hyperbole (it's propaganda!) or arguing semantics. (It's a DELVE not a dungeon, idiot!)
If the game could stand on its own merits against his review it would, and you'd see cogent arguments and counter-points.
Instead you see hyperbole, semantics, and "WELL I LIKE IT SO SHUT UP!" type responses.
It's quite telling that the most people can bring against his review is either hyperbole (it's propaganda!) or arguing semantics. (It's a DELVE not a dungeon, idiot!)
If the game could stand on its own merits against his review it would, and you'd see cogent arguments and counter-points.
Instead you see hyperbole, semantics, and "WELL I LIKE IT SO SHUT UP!" type responses.
I think the proof is in the pudding.
First of all..Semantics or not. The DUNGEONS in question are ONLY a small part of ESO dungeons, and naming them DELVES is a good way to separate them from the rest. First argument that stands on it's own merit.
Secondly, To ONLY talk about the dislikes and/or only going into great detail about ESO's bad things is to cover up the good things, second argument that stands on it's own merit.
Havent seen any ."Well I like it so shut up" responses at all in this thread.
It's quite telling that the most people can bring against his review is either hyperbole (it's propaganda!) or arguing semantics. (It's a DELVE not a dungeon, idiot!)
If the game could stand on its own merits against his review it would, and you'd see cogent arguments and counter-points.
Instead you see hyperbole, semantics, and "WELL I LIKE IT SO SHUT UP!" type responses.
I think the proof is in the pudding.
First of all..Semantics or not. The DUNGEONS in question are ONLY a small part of ESO dungeons, and naming them DELVES is a good way to separate them from the rest. First argument that stands on it's own merit.
Secondly, To ONLY talk about the dislikes and/or only going into great detail about ESO's bad things is to cover up the good things, second argument that stands on it's own merit.
Havent seen any ."Well I like it so shut up" responses at all in this thread.
I Think proof is in you..:) Troll
It isnt reviewers fault that list of bad things is so long and list of good things so short. What do you suggest, he should just start to make things up or sugar coat it to infinity just to make game look better, or, like this site did, just brush away most of bad things and pretend they dont exist?
It's quite telling that the most people can bring against his review is either hyperbole (it's propaganda!) or arguing semantics. (It's a DELVE not a dungeon, idiot!)
If the game could stand on its own merits against his review it would, and you'd see cogent arguments and counter-points.
Instead you see hyperbole, semantics, and "WELL I LIKE IT SO SHUT UP!" type responses.
I think the proof is in the pudding.
First of all..Semantics or not. The DUNGEONS in question are ONLY a small part of ESO dungeons, and naming them DELVES is a good way to separate them from the rest. First argument that stands on it's own merit.
Secondly, To ONLY talk about the dislikes and/or only going into great detail about ESO's bad things is to cover up the good things, second argument that stands on it's own merit.
Havent seen any ."Well I like it so shut up" responses at all in this thread.
I Think proof is in you..:) Troll
It's just a poor, poor game. The bugs are the least of the games problem, they can and will be fixed. Even leaving aside the dungeons the game has so many problems. Grouping is horrendous, the mega server was a huge mistake, the questing was dull, the graphics were mediocre and at times really poor. But the biggest problem is that for a fantasy world, it is incredibly dull, lifeless and soulless. Even final fantasy ARR for all it's flaws (and there are many) has more soul and character in one of its zone than ESO has in it's entire game.
I don't know what type of game ZeniMax were trying to create, but it reminds of my experience of Fable 2 or 3, where you can just jump into your friends game but "not really" be in the game. It simply doesn't feel like a MMO until you do the PvP, which is one of the things, along with the music, that actually works well in the game. But the rest of it feels like a game built by commitee.
In the beginning I was waiting for the price to drop to purchase this game but after Angry Joe's visual representation of all the terrible things that were wrong,my own beta experience and reading this review which I reread today I think I will pass. The grouping issue was well documented by Angry Joe and I do not think anyone can deny that bug. The voice over after playing SWTOR which I found very good were very meh in ESO.The quests in SWTOR in my opinion were done much better and the class stories miles ahead of this game.
For me this review represents a fan going in who purchased the game in good faith and was horribly let down. At each point as his optimism faded I bet that sinking feeling that he was not going to get his money's worth or forget that just experience an Elder Scroll game must have hurt quite a bit. His review is scathing and in some ways vicious but not untrue. He is very good in expressing himself and therefore the images he conjures up and those of you who actually experienced the faults he talks about come across very well. They take on a life of its own and begin to loom as the game's biggest faults. There are unfortunately many things he could pick on and therefore his review is peppered with terrible impressions which I have no doubt reading his review he experienced. He did praise the crafting and vistas.
Some of you have criticized him for focusing on the bad and not spending any time on the good but quite honestly these things he highlighted do make up a bulk of what I myself encountered during beta and quite possibly many others on buying this game. While you may berate him for not being kinder I do not think he was spouting untruths and I cannot see why he should pull any punches when this game has a high price tag and subscription. You reap what you sow, If they wanted a better review they should not have released the game in the state they did.
In the beginning I was waiting for the price to drop to purchase this game but after Angry Joe's visual representation of all the terrible things that were wrong,my own beta experience and reading this review which I reread today I think I will pass. The grouping issue was well documented by Angry Joe and I do not think anyone can deny that bug. The voice over after playing SWTOR which I found very good were very meh in ESO.The quests in SWTOR in my opinion were done much better and the class stories miles ahead of this game.
For me this review represents a fan going in who purchased the game in good faith and was horribly let down. At each point as his optimism faded I bet that sinking feeling that he was not going to get his money's worth or forget that just experience an Elder Scroll game must have hurt quite a bit. His review is scathing and in some ways vicious but not untrue. He is very good in expressing himself and therefore the images he conjures up and those of you who actually experienced the faults he talks about come across very well. They take on a life of its own and begin to loom as the game's biggest faults. There are unfortunately many things he could pick on and therefore his review is peppered with terrible impressions which I have no doubt reading his review he experienced. He did praise the crafting and vistas.
Some of you have criticized him for focusing on the bad and not spending any time on the good but quite honestly these things he highlighted do make up a bulk of what I myself encountered during beta and quite possibly many others on buying this game. While you may berate him for not being kinder I do not think he was spouting untruths and I cannot see why he should pull any punches when this game has a high price tag and subscription. You reap what you sow, If they wanted a better review they should not have released the game in the state they did.
Cheyane, I'd recommend checking back in with the game in a few months. There should be some sort of progress made by then. The game has enough to make it good, it's just a bit too rough right now for release.
I will admit to being sucked in... but then it's just over and over having to forgive things that are issues. I could understand forgiving a bug here or there.. but roadblock after roadblock affecting my gameplay is just ridiculous.
There should be ZERO reason the main quests from 1-30 weren't bug free. NONE. Those were tested, over and over, ad nauseam.
I've been reviewing the "Active" and "Current" topics for awhile now. None of them are about the dungeons in ESO. As you said, not even this one. Certainly people may have mentioned it, just like they've mentioned it about other Elder Scrolls games, but compared to nearly everything else the game offers, it's just not that important a thing.
How much time are people spending in the copy/paste dungeons?
How much time did the developer expect people to spend in the copy/paste dungeons?
How much of the game's content directs people to the copy/paste dungeons?
If ZOS expected people to pop through the dungeons quickly, spending very little time there, then the dungeons serve the purpose for which they were intended.
Here's a link to one of the "Dungeons" forums on the Elder Scrolls Online website.
People don't seem to be making a big deal about the copy/paste dungeons. If it was that important, don't you think the topics would reference it on the first page of the "Dungeons" forums? They don't.
For something that people are supposedly complaining about all the time, it's awfully hard to find recorded evidence for. Not compared to everything else people want to complain about anyway. It's just not a big deal. Tempest in a teacup, mountains out of molehills, etc.
Here are 5 in the last 3 weeks of this site - the site that you were saying didn't have any threads on the topic:
Their official forums tend to delete a lot of posts. Particularly negative ones. Why do you think the infographic from Tom's Hardware is nowhere to be found?
You keep holding onto this idea that if ZOS intended for them to be short/copied/poor then they have accomplished what they had intended and therefor no one should be able to criticize them for what they accomplished. That's just a load of bull. They are not immune to criticism because they accomplished something they intended. It's a huge fallacy and the premise of your argument.
Two of them were actually about the copy/paste design. The others are about the dungeons being public. The copy/paste threads didn't last very long and haven't generated as many posts as this thread. It just wasn't a big deal until someone attached the name "tomshardware.com" to it. Compare this to threads based around just about anything else about ESO and these threads are insignificant.
Did I say people shouldn't criticize them? No, I don't think I did. Did I say people should like them or love them? No, I don't think I did. What I said, and I'm paraphrasing here, is that people are jumping on a bandwagon, trying to make a big issue out of something that isn't a big issue. In short, not enough people care about this for it to matter.
But yes, if the developers never intended for people to spend a lot of time in the dungeons, and people don't spend a lot of time in the dungeons, even if a very small minority of people are upset by it, the dungeons have done exactly what they were intended to do. Give people 5% of their total content for the game. For people to act like this is a surprise, or somehow against the purpose of the Elder Scrolls games or even against the purpose of ESO itself is just a little to disengenious to be believable. Bandwagon. Jumping On. What people are doing.
What is still interesting is that the questions haven't been answered. Mayhaps because the people responding haven't played the game?
Meh, your argument has changed so much with this last post. Now you are just attempting to diminish peoples opinions by saying not enough people care. I mean, yeah, earlier threads were not 200+ posts long. But this one IS 200+ posts long. The idea that not enough people care because you say so doesn't hold any water. Not only that, but specific posts all over many of these threads, particularly the ones that link reviews, have been bitching about the problem for weeks.
Your opinion that everyone is bandwagoning is supported with zero evidence. Actually, I've linked plenty of evidence and this thread is plenty of evidence to support the opposite of what you are saying. People do actually care about this issue. All the Tom's Hardware article did was put it into perspective for people and offer a concise way to describe the issue.
What is still interesting is that the questions haven't been answered. Mayhaps because the people responding haven't played the game?
I already answered your question. The dungeons are there for loot/bosses/shards. Some quests lead you to them. They are there for the same reason all dungeons are in all MMORPGs. They are a piece of content for meant for the players to enjoy. People aren't answering the question because it is so obvious to everyone.
Your idea that they are "meant" to give people 5% of their content is not only completely pulled from ass, but it's also completely irrelevant as was explained earlier.
Two thirds of your evidence was people complaining about something other than the size and complexity of the dungeons. This is the biggest thread on that topic, and this thread isn't even about that. It's about the tomshardware review. In other words, this wasn't a big issue until the name, "tomshardware" was attached to it. It's also largely the same people posting over and over again.
If the dungeons do what the developer intended them to do, then they are serving the purpose. If people only spend a tiny bit of their time in the dungeons, then it should be no surprise that they are simple. They are a side show. There's the entire rest of the game to look at too.
This just isn't a big deal. The vast majority of the players and the developers aren't going to care or spend any time or effort changing this. You will always find a few people willing to complain about anything in a game, interestingly it seems to be people who don't play the game. By all means, focus on something that is only supposed to take up a teeny, tiny percentage of a player's time in the game and go on about how it's a huge problem. You could also complain that killing squirrels in WoW doesn't give you any XP. Players aren't supposed to be spending a lot of time doing that, but that's no excuse for Blizzard to skimp on the development budget in making that part of the game more fulfilling.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
The whole review is full of sarcasm, polarizing exaggerations and misses to point out certain issues of the game in an overall picture.
Best example is the part about dungeons. Yes, 70 out of 104 dungeons are altered copies. Does it matter that much? No, because these 70 dungeons are solo public dungeons whose purpose is to let players quickly delve in, kill a boss, grab a skyshard and then proceed questing. Toms Hardware also does not point out that each zone comes with a unique handcrafted looking public group dungeon and another instanced group dungeon.
Also, there is no info about the amount of content they reviewed. Actually, in chapter 2 they stated that they played roundabout 20 levels. That's roundabout 15% of the whole game when counting in Veteran Ranks.
Toms Hardware should really focus more on what they are good at - reviewing hardware. When it comes to their excursion to reviewing games, in this case ESO, they fail hard to deliver a review based upon objective journalism and profoundly reviewing the game.
I hope these highly subjective The Princess and the Pea reviews soon come to an end, no matter what game is being reviewed.
Tom's review is just written with poor thought. Who cares what he thinks anyways. Almost every point made can be made about every other MMO out there. The whole review is, '<insert_your_perceived_mechanic> doesn't work right, <insert_game> is bad!" really? What MMO is better? what MMO has a better quest system or better graphics? I just don't get all the hate (they're really just trying to be hipsters in disguise). 99% of the other games on this site are much worse. You can't please everyone, 1/2 will hate this and half will hate that. Is it perfect? no. Does it have some nasty bugs? oh yes. Does that make it a bad game? no. Like EVERY other MMO out there, in 6 months, people will forget the most of the bugs and the population will be many times more.
Of course, this is all just my opinion too. I'm just getting tired of all the non-productive and meaningless bashing. sheesh.
In the beginning I was waiting for the price to drop to purchase this game but after Angry Joe's visual representation of all the terrible things that were wrong,my own beta experience and reading this review which I reread today I think I will pass. The grouping issue was well documented by Angry Joe and I do not think anyone can deny that bug. The voice over after playing SWTOR which I found very good were very meh in ESO.The quests in SWTOR in my opinion were done much better and the class stories miles ahead of this game.
For me this review represents a fan going in who purchased the game in good faith and was horribly let down. At each point as his optimism faded I bet that sinking feeling that he was not going to get his money's worth or forget that just experience an Elder Scroll game must have hurt quite a bit. His review is scathing and in some ways vicious but not untrue. He is very good in expressing himself and therefore the images he conjures up and those of you who actually experienced the faults he talks about come across very well. They take on a life of its own and begin to loom as the game's biggest faults. There are unfortunately many things he could pick on and therefore his review is peppered with terrible impressions which I have no doubt reading his review he experienced. He did praise the crafting and vistas.
Some of you have criticized him for focusing on the bad and not spending any time on the good but quite honestly these things he highlighted do make up a bulk of what I myself encountered during beta and quite possibly many others on buying this game. While you may berate him for not being kinder I do not think he was spouting untruths and I cannot see why he should pull any punches when this game has a high price tag and subscription. You reap what you sow, If they wanted a better review they should not have released the game in the state they did.
This mirrors my intentions almost exactly, I almost pre-ordered. I decided not to when I saw a thread here saying end game crafting was pointless. Anyway, Regardless, I held off and decided to wait until after launch. Boy am I glad I did.
At this point it's already going to be another TSW. Basically, many players that would love it will never even try it. Game jumpers like me that think it is decent will not play long enough to keep it afloat. The players that hate it will complain until they get bored. In the end it will settle with a smaller population and the company will decide whether or not to go F2P, Shutdown, or drag out the sub as long as they can.
Though I don't agree with many of his opinions they are opinions. I don't expect anyone's opinions to match my own. I do wish that if someone is going to write a review they would present the good and bad, not just "this is how it is and it is bad". This doesn't work for a genre where everyone's tastes are so different. As someone else said, you can use almost any complaint(and compliment) for any mmo depending on how you word it. I'll use Swtor since I'm bored.
Swtor: Positive Spin
"Swtor is a great game because it has fully voiceacted dialogue and having the quest givers actually tell you what you are doing and why you are doing it gives an amazing sense of purpose. Every quest makes you feel like you are moving deeper and deeper into the beloved Star Wars universe. The combat is top notch and can be compared with great games like World of Warcraft. The planets are well done and bring back fond memories of the movies as we get to visit and explore familiar locations like Hoth and Tatooine."
Swtor: Negative Spin
"Swtor is a generic, quest-hub based Wow-clone. They wasted an unbelievable amount of money on voiceacting that most players spacebar through. Maybe if they spent more time making the quests unique and less time trying to hide how completely generic they are the game would have been more successful. The combat is the same generic tab-target, borefest that we've been enduring for years in World of Warcraft. The planets are generally smaller than the average Wow zones and sometimes consist of a linear series of corridors. It's a joke to even refer to them as 'planets'."
I predict that every new MMO that launches will be utterly torn apart on these forums.
The only really "good" MMO's will be the ones that were popular more than 10 years ago, but have since faded into obscurity and/or have been shut down.
I predict that every new MMO that launches will be utterly torn apart on these forums.
The only really "good" MMO's will be the ones that were popular more than 10 years ago, but have since faded into obscurity and/or have been shut down.
If they keep making linear quest grinders, I'm sure you'll be correct. It is strange that the most subscribed to games today came out 10 years ago.
I predict that every new MMO that launches will be utterly torn apart on these forums.
The only really "good" MMO's will be the ones that were popular more than 10 years ago, but have since faded into obscurity and/or have been shut down.
If they keep making linear quest grinders, I'm sure you'll be correct. It is strange that the most subscribed to games today came out 10 years ago.
As long as Wow never changes and Blizzard continues to release the familiar content people like then there really is no need for companies to even make new games. All they have to do is make World of Starcraft with a slightly less cartoony skin than Wow and they will grab the sci-fi mmo market as well.
I predict that every new MMO that launches will be utterly torn apart on these forums.
The only really "good" MMO's will be the ones that were popular more than 10 years ago, but have since faded into obscurity and/or have been shut down.
If they keep making linear quest grinders, I'm sure you'll be correct. It is strange that the most subscribed to games today came out 10 years ago.
Well, it's certainly beginning to look like MMORPG development start with one concept, then to transition to a second:
Comments
@Greypawn ;
We actually have characters that play together to get around the phasing. And to be honest, i'm not a fan of what phasing does to tell a story because it affects a group experience. We all know this. It happens in World of Warcraft, it happens in Lord of the Rings Online... I wouldn't call it a defect or a negative. I would call it a fact of life. You find ways to compensate or you leave the game on the shelf because it isn't your thing. It doesn't make the game bad man. In the end it is a design decision that greatly affects people on either side of the battle.
You do phasing, people say you aren't encouraging the group play. (Paul Sage and Matt Firor have both addressed this and they are working on adding a feature that you can group in the same phase together. WoW still hasn't done that.) You don't do phasing, people say their characters aren't involved in the story, that the world is stagnant and you're wading through a picture in time. Either way, someone is going to hate you for it. I said it in my last post. I don't envy the choices they had to make. Again, we still love the game, and we have toons on the same progression so that it isn't an issue for us.
Shallow, generic, bland, meh, flavorless, vapid, uninspiring, monotonous, ho hum, pedestrian, plodding, mundane, trite, empty, devoid. I’m terribly reminded of the seminal 80s flick “The Neverending Story”, where hero Bastian fights to save Fantasia from “The Nothing”, an elemental force of the absence of content that ate through pages of interesting story and engaging plot. The Elder Scrolls Online is the game you’d get if The Nothing had won and decided to release an MMO based on a best-selling gaming franchise.
Seriously, that's the best quote for TESO ever! Better than Angry Joe's "They 'dun fucked it up!" Just a truth statement about a game that should never have been made [as an MMO].
Two of them were actually about the copy/paste design. The others are about the dungeons being public. The copy/paste threads didn't last very long and haven't generated as many posts as this thread. It just wasn't a big deal until someone attached the name "tomshardware.com" to it. Compare this to threads based around just about anything else about ESO and these threads are insignificant.
Did I say people shouldn't criticize them? No, I don't think I did. Did I say people should like them or love them? No, I don't think I did. What I said, and I'm paraphrasing here, is that people are jumping on a bandwagon, trying to make a big issue out of something that isn't a big issue. In short, not enough people care about this for it to matter.
But yes, if the developers never intended for people to spend a lot of time in the dungeons, and people don't spend a lot of time in the dungeons, even if a very small minority of people are upset by it, the dungeons have done exactly what they were intended to do. Give people 5% of their total content for the game. For people to act like this is a surprise, or somehow against the purpose of the Elder Scrolls games or even against the purpose of ESO itself is just a little to disengenious to be believable. Bandwagon. Jumping On. What people are doing.
What is still interesting is that the questions haven't been answered. Mayhaps because the people responding haven't played the game?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Meh, your argument has changed so much with this last post. Now you are just attempting to diminish peoples opinions by saying not enough people care. I mean, yeah, earlier threads were not 200+ posts long. But this one IS 200+ posts long. The idea that not enough people care because you say so doesn't hold any water. Not only that, but specific posts all over many of these threads, particularly the ones that link reviews, have been bitching about the problem for weeks.
Your opinion that everyone is bandwagoning is supported with zero evidence. Actually, I've linked plenty of evidence and this thread is plenty of evidence to support the opposite of what you are saying. People do actually care about this issue. All the Tom's Hardware article did was put it into perspective for people and offer a concise way to describe the issue.
What is still interesting is that the questions haven't been answered. Mayhaps because the people responding haven't played the game?
I already answered your question. The dungeons are there for loot/bosses/shards. Some quests lead you to them. They are there for the same reason all dungeons are in all MMORPGs. They are a piece of content for meant for the players to enjoy. People aren't answering the question because it is so obvious to everyone.
Your idea that they are "meant" to give people 5% of their content is not only completely pulled from ass, but it's also completely irrelevant as was explained earlier.
Exactly.
SWTOR has them, even SWG had them. Its like since they didnt' include raids, they took something they were implementing (which most MMOs also have), gave it a unique name, and tried to pass it off as an ESO "feature".
I have been waiting until I put some actual time into ESO before commenting on it...iv been playing a couple of weeks now, and I have to say...for me personally...its one of the most boring games I have ever played...and I don't mean MMOs, I mean games in general. The PVP is good, but I wouldnt place it that far ahead of GW2. I have been dissapointed with MMOs in the past, namely AoC and launch SWTOR more recently...but this is the first to ever get me deeply regretting the purchase. I honestly feel taken advantage of with this game, however crazy that sounds.
Depends who you ask....
Hang on, where's my subjective button?
This looks like a job for....The Riviera Kid!
It's quite telling that the most people can bring against his review is either hyperbole (it's propaganda!) or arguing semantics. (It's a DELVE not a dungeon, idiot!)
If the game could stand on its own merits against his review it would, and you'd see cogent arguments and counter-points.
Instead you see hyperbole, semantics, and "WELL I LIKE IT SO SHUT UP!" type responses.
I think the proof is in the pudding.
You forgot Ad Hom
First of all..Semantics or not. The DUNGEONS in question are ONLY a small part of ESO dungeons, and naming them DELVES is a good way to separate them from the rest. First argument that stands on it's own merit.
Secondly, To ONLY talk about the dislikes and/or only going into great detail about ESO's bad things is to cover up the good things, second argument that stands on it's own merit.
Havent seen any ."Well I like it so shut up" responses at all in this thread.
I Think proof is in you..:) Troll
It isnt reviewers fault that list of bad things is so long and list of good things so short. What do you suggest, he should just start to make things up or sugar coat it to infinity just to make game look better, or, like this site did, just brush away most of bad things and pretend they dont exist?
Dont shoot the messenger.
It's just a poor, poor game. The bugs are the least of the games problem, they can and will be fixed. Even leaving aside the dungeons the game has so many problems. Grouping is horrendous, the mega server was a huge mistake, the questing was dull, the graphics were mediocre and at times really poor. But the biggest problem is that for a fantasy world, it is incredibly dull, lifeless and soulless. Even final fantasy ARR for all it's flaws (and there are many) has more soul and character in one of its zone than ESO has in it's entire game.
I don't know what type of game ZeniMax were trying to create, but it reminds of my experience of Fable 2 or 3, where you can just jump into your friends game but "not really" be in the game. It simply doesn't feel like a MMO until you do the PvP, which is one of the things, along with the music, that actually works well in the game. But the rest of it feels like a game built by commitee.
In the beginning I was waiting for the price to drop to purchase this game but after Angry Joe's visual representation of all the terrible things that were wrong,my own beta experience and reading this review which I reread today I think I will pass. The grouping issue was well documented by Angry Joe and I do not think anyone can deny that bug. The voice over after playing SWTOR which I found very good were very meh in ESO.The quests in SWTOR in my opinion were done much better and the class stories miles ahead of this game.
For me this review represents a fan going in who purchased the game in good faith and was horribly let down. At each point as his optimism faded I bet that sinking feeling that he was not going to get his money's worth or forget that just experience an Elder Scroll game must have hurt quite a bit. His review is scathing and in some ways vicious but not untrue. He is very good in expressing himself and therefore the images he conjures up and those of you who actually experienced the faults he talks about come across very well. They take on a life of its own and begin to loom as the game's biggest faults. There are unfortunately many things he could pick on and therefore his review is peppered with terrible impressions which I have no doubt reading his review he experienced. He did praise the crafting and vistas.
Some of you have criticized him for focusing on the bad and not spending any time on the good but quite honestly these things he highlighted do make up a bulk of what I myself encountered during beta and quite possibly many others on buying this game. While you may berate him for not being kinder I do not think he was spouting untruths and I cannot see why he should pull any punches when this game has a high price tag and subscription. You reap what you sow, If they wanted a better review they should not have released the game in the state they did.
^^This.
Honestly, the allure of another MMO got me.
Cheyane, I'd recommend checking back in with the game in a few months. There should be some sort of progress made by then. The game has enough to make it good, it's just a bit too rough right now for release.
I will admit to being sucked in... but then it's just over and over having to forgive things that are issues. I could understand forgiving a bug here or there.. but roadblock after roadblock affecting my gameplay is just ridiculous.
There should be ZERO reason the main quests from 1-30 weren't bug free. NONE. Those were tested, over and over, ad nauseam.
Two thirds of your evidence was people complaining about something other than the size and complexity of the dungeons. This is the biggest thread on that topic, and this thread isn't even about that. It's about the tomshardware review. In other words, this wasn't a big issue until the name, "tomshardware" was attached to it. It's also largely the same people posting over and over again.
If the dungeons do what the developer intended them to do, then they are serving the purpose. If people only spend a tiny bit of their time in the dungeons, then it should be no surprise that they are simple. They are a side show. There's the entire rest of the game to look at too.
This just isn't a big deal. The vast majority of the players and the developers aren't going to care or spend any time or effort changing this. You will always find a few people willing to complain about anything in a game, interestingly it seems to be people who don't play the game. By all means, focus on something that is only supposed to take up a teeny, tiny percentage of a player's time in the game and go on about how it's a huge problem. You could also complain that killing squirrels in WoW doesn't give you any XP. Players aren't supposed to be spending a lot of time doing that, but that's no excuse for Blizzard to skimp on the development budget in making that part of the game more fulfilling.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
The whole review is full of sarcasm, polarizing exaggerations and misses to point out certain issues of the game in an overall picture.
Best example is the part about dungeons. Yes, 70 out of 104 dungeons are altered copies. Does it matter that much? No, because these 70 dungeons are solo public dungeons whose purpose is to let players quickly delve in, kill a boss, grab a skyshard and then proceed questing. Toms Hardware also does not point out that each zone comes with a unique handcrafted looking public group dungeon and another instanced group dungeon.
Also, there is no info about the amount of content they reviewed. Actually, in chapter 2 they stated that they played roundabout 20 levels. That's roundabout 15% of the whole game when counting in Veteran Ranks.
Toms Hardware should really focus more on what they are good at - reviewing hardware. When it comes to their excursion to reviewing games, in this case ESO, they fail hard to deliver a review based upon objective journalism and profoundly reviewing the game.
I hope these highly subjective The Princess and the Pea reviews soon come to an end, no matter what game is being reviewed.
Tom's review is just written with poor thought. Who cares what he thinks anyways. Almost every point made can be made about every other MMO out there. The whole review is, '<insert_your_perceived_mechanic> doesn't work right, <insert_game> is bad!" really? What MMO is better? what MMO has a better quest system or better graphics? I just don't get all the hate (they're really just trying to be hipsters in disguise). 99% of the other games on this site are much worse. You can't please everyone, 1/2 will hate this and half will hate that. Is it perfect? no. Does it have some nasty bugs? oh yes. Does that make it a bad game? no. Like EVERY other MMO out there, in 6 months, people will forget the most of the bugs and the population will be many times more.
Of course, this is all just my opinion too. I'm just getting tired of all the non-productive and meaningless bashing. sheesh.
This mirrors my intentions almost exactly, I almost pre-ordered. I decided not to when I saw a thread here saying end game crafting was pointless. Anyway, Regardless, I held off and decided to wait until after launch. Boy am I glad I did.
At this point it's already going to be another TSW. Basically, many players that would love it will never even try it. Game jumpers like me that think it is decent will not play long enough to keep it afloat. The players that hate it will complain until they get bored. In the end it will settle with a smaller population and the company will decide whether or not to go F2P, Shutdown, or drag out the sub as long as they can.
Though I don't agree with many of his opinions they are opinions. I don't expect anyone's opinions to match my own. I do wish that if someone is going to write a review they would present the good and bad, not just "this is how it is and it is bad". This doesn't work for a genre where everyone's tastes are so different. As someone else said, you can use almost any complaint(and compliment) for any mmo depending on how you word it. I'll use Swtor since I'm bored.
Swtor: Positive Spin
"Swtor is a great game because it has fully voiceacted dialogue and having the quest givers actually tell you what you are doing and why you are doing it gives an amazing sense of purpose. Every quest makes you feel like you are moving deeper and deeper into the beloved Star Wars universe. The combat is top notch and can be compared with great games like World of Warcraft. The planets are well done and bring back fond memories of the movies as we get to visit and explore familiar locations like Hoth and Tatooine."
Swtor: Negative Spin
"Swtor is a generic, quest-hub based Wow-clone. They wasted an unbelievable amount of money on voiceacting that most players spacebar through. Maybe if they spent more time making the quests unique and less time trying to hide how completely generic they are the game would have been more successful. The combat is the same generic tab-target, borefest that we've been enduring for years in World of Warcraft. The planets are generally smaller than the average Wow zones and sometimes consist of a linear series of corridors. It's a joke to even refer to them as 'planets'."
I predict that every new MMO that launches will be utterly torn apart on these forums.
The only really "good" MMO's will be the ones that were popular more than 10 years ago, but have since faded into obscurity and/or have been shut down.
If they keep making linear quest grinders, I'm sure you'll be correct. It is strange that the most subscribed to games today came out 10 years ago.
This amuses me.
As long as Wow never changes and Blizzard continues to release the familiar content people like then there really is no need for companies to even make new games. All they have to do is make World of Starcraft with a slightly less cartoony skin than Wow and they will grab the sci-fi mmo market as well.
Well, it's certainly beginning to look like MMORPG development start with one concept, then to transition to a second:
1. Cash Grab
2. Cash Shop