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[Column] General: Cage Match: Skyrim vs. Elder Scrolls Online
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Once upon a 2002, there was a little single-player RPG called The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, which sucked up so much of my gaming time you’d think it could have moonlighted as an MMO. Fast forward to 2006 and then 2011, and you’ve got the fourth and fifth installments of The Elder Scrolls series in Oblivion and Skyrim, both vying for my attention almost as strongly as their predecessor.
Read more of Som Pourfarzaneh's Cage Match: Skyrim vs Elder Scrolls Online.
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Comments
In ESO, I can block while dual wielding. That's enough for ESO to trump Skyrim for me.
Once spellcrafting hits and the two guilds drop in, it will have most of the hallmark staples that TES followers know and adore.
I'm willing to give ZOS time for purchasable housing as I usually don't like that kind of mechanic anyhow (difficult to pull off in an MMO without breaking immersion). Only used houses in the previous TES title to store my dragon scale and books.
I aboslutely love ESO, moreso than Skyrim.
The simple fact that I can destroy structures via PvP, play with others, and honestly.. I don't MIND the class system because of how they implemented it. When you pick a class, you clearly have the potential to perform better than the others in one style of gameplay, but you are absolutely not guaranteed to do so - It's more flexible than that.
I also find the VO work more enjoyable in ESO. Some of the dialog has me outright laughing it's so funny.
And the best part? ESO isn't done yet, as was stated in the article. It's still growing and will continue to do so. Plus.. I don't have to manage any mods to get a great experience. With Skyrim, some mods are virtually essential to make the game stand out, but you never know when there will be compatibility issues or if it can corrupt your save file. WIth ESO, I get consistency, and since the mods are largely UI related only, you can outright avoid them if you want to.
Both are absolutely great games.. I just personally prefer ESO.
Nice article!
I guess I am a different type of gamer.
I want my single player games to be linear and with a story. I want my MMOs to be open world and full of exploration and adventure.
I can't get into Skyrim because I find it boring and empty. I love ESO because it is open and full of other people with great storylines in the quests.
I decided against getting Far Cry 4 because it is a single player game that is open world. Instead I like single player games like Spec Ops: The Line, Tomb Raider, Mass Effect, Alan Wake, Dishonered and etc. Open world single player games feel too empty.
Overall I prefer MMOs but more and more of them are trying to be like single player games ... like SWTOR.
"I don't give a sh*t what other people say. I play what I like and I'll pay to do it too!" - SerialMMOist
That'll be the next cage match KOTOR vs SWTOR.
Regarding graphics, vanilla Skyrim was very average IMO and ESO beats it. Skyrims aesthetics only go beyond ESO because of the high res texture/lighting mods and ENBs.
I would say that Skyrim (or any of the Elder Scrolls single player games) offer more as far as exploration and finding things to do.
I happily pay my sub for ESO but in truth I play far less of it than I do Skyrim (over 1,100 hours and counting) and Morrowind (which is currently on my hardrive, I'm making my way through it with the graphic upgrade).
In the single player games you can discover a mine, cave, dungeon, camp, etc and actually explore it, find mini-stories, encounters, etc. Some are small and some are large. You can spend quite some time slowly making your way through. In Elder Scrolls Online, at least from the caves/dungeons I've been in, you essentially make your way in a circle, impeded by some mobs.
Heck I recall, in Oblivion, entering an Ayleid ruin and realizing that I had to figure out how to get to a place, I'd find secret doors that led to other areas, and would meticulously make my way through finding points of interest, battles, etc.
I just don't get that with Elder Scrolls Online.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Just when I thought this website's articles could not have any worse random ones (There are good writers here). You then kick it up a notch, and go full out wearing pants on your head retarded lol. Comparing a single player RPG to a MMO? LMAO
I hate to be so negative. Check out my post history. No trolling, rarely a insult (if any). But the fact you got paid for this article? DMKano would be a better columnist. I really mean that too, that isn't a snide remark. Any regular poster here would be better than you and should paid before you Som. They clearly give more to this site.
The writing is fine Som. The idea? Is a water balloon with monkey shit tossed in the air and then swinging at it with a baseball bat. Try again kid.
Tune in next week, where it's Pong vs Call of Duty. Which is the best online multiplayer game?
-EDIT Former community manager at Neverwinter.... That explains it. I'm done with this site. The posters are great (even the trolls). The freelance writers are horrible. First it was the Everquest guy who compared it to rift. Now this... Happy posting everyone.
no
I would say Morrowind is the superior game because of the sense of actual discovery one can make. I have more amazing stories in morrowind than Oblivion and Skyrim combined.
Like the time I had a vampire character and realized I was out in the wilderness and the sun was rising,. I started flying and desperately looking for some place to get me out of the sun, my health starting going down just as I saw a cave below.
darted for the cave and got inside with only a little health to spare. Rested up and realized I was in a cave with vampires from an opposing clan.
Or the time when I first started the game and I was in Seyda Neen doing what needed to be done there when I realized there were a set of small islands off the coast. I went to check them out only to discover that one of the farther islands was atop a submerged ruin. I ended up discovering a set of Dragonbone armor. Though i think I had to fight something for it.
Where I would say that Skyrim shines over Morrowind is that the secondary characters are more fleshed out. The problem with morrowind is that there are the same paragraphs of local text for every npc not associated with some quest.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I bought into the hype and i almost never do,i bought a PS3 just for that game.It was cool at first ,you know like every game a fresh new face,but after only the first day of playing ,i already felt i was going to quit playing.
Imo Skyrim was grossly over rated,i never got far and decided it would get filed,collecting dust and i have never had even an urge to try it again.BTW my PS3 has not been touched since either,as i normally don't like console games period and Skyrim did nothing to change my mind.
I have no doubt what so ever ,that is how these developers make more money than they should,example Destiny falls under the same criteria.These games get super hyped in the media,so much so that bored gamer's are willing to buy these on a whim and many times end up disappointed as i was.
If i had to rate one over the other,hands down i would pick TESO but not a game i like either.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Skyrim win because it have DRAGONS !!!
That joke aside , i like the freedom of Skyrim , and of course , the mods . Without the mods , i can't chew Skyrim.
My friend joke that "True elder scrolls: Skyrim" release when they give us the creation kit.
IMO , ESO wasn't TESs , just another MMORPG that use TESs IP . It don't have what TESs always offer.
Next Cage match:
Peanut Butter vs. Orange Juice!
Stay tuned!
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
+1
All Time Favorites: EQ1, WoW, EvE, GW1
Playing Now: WoW, ESO, GW2
I love Skyrim for it's adaptability because of community modding. It makes the game very adaptive and thanks to the Skyrim community the ability to add new quests never end. Love the eye candy so if Morrowind did a reboot with updated graphics I would go back too it. ESO is nice but poorly managed in my opinion.
Skyrim - just make it an MMO
ESO - just perfect tweeking, balance, and fixing what's already there. Instead of covering it over with major updates and going crazy with the nerf bat. Add player created content. Or just make it F2P.
Morrowind - update graphics reboot and make into an MMO.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I bet there was a similar thread maybe a year ago, I remember the ">" signs and everyone posting their order
Found it http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/6199966#6199966 (btw. Som, could you please put some good word with the staff, it'd be awesome to have a decent search option on the site for previous posts...)
Well, seems no change in my order:
"My quality line would be Morrowind > Daggerfall > Oblivion and Arena > (some pause) Skyrim > a very long pause (at least by the looks of the current state), and at the bottom, ESO
"
I've bought a box on a sale, and haven't even opened yet. To be honest, even if the two other fresh threads of today are right and it will go f2p/b2p, there's a good chance I won't open the box either
Why would you even put Skyrim into a comparison that contains a category for multi players?
Let's see how ESO stacks up against, say, Minecraft for it's offline playability.
Very simply because Skyrim is a large "open world" game. MMO's are supposed to be OPEN world games, and even if they aren't, the assumption is that an mmo based on the world of "Elder Scrolls" would adopt a variety of things that the elder scrolls games are famous for.
It's not all that hard to see why they are being compared.
I'll even add that the whole reason I got interested in mmo's was because of Morrowind.
I kept hearing about how mmo's were supposed to be these worlds for players to run around in, have adventures, play with/against other players, etc.
Since Morrowind was very much like how I imagined, at the time, a world would be only with players I thought "why not"!
And boy was I disappointed and wrong. Though mine was a sort of "soft" disappointment as Lineage 2 did have dungeons and dungeons that one could explore. They weren't as robust as an elder scrolls dungeon but they did have some size to them.
MMO's after that were a bigger disappointment.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo