I've played PC beta and the combat, mainly animations, were below F2P standards. Since combat is probably one of the most important things in MMORPG, as you fight mobs for XP all the time, it was the reason for me to skip the game. After seeing that it has improved, I've bought the game when it went B2P and was pretty pleased. Now I also pre-ordered my PS4 copy as well.
I think other core elements, such as classes, quests, crafting, zone design etc., are very solid. Sure, the game lacks structured PVP and if someone finds ES games boring, this game probably won't be super exciting for him/her.
But still, I think the game has improved by a large margin and as I see, there are more improvements on the way (new zones, some hints on structured PVP etc.)
Oh, another of these Bill Murphy reviews that one doesnt have to read to know it's overall dripping with sugar until it concludes to the usual light weighted cons and a free high score.
The game is still far from "value 10" or other slips this "review" contains. Even fans of the game admit that there are still major issues.
It's just that reviews should be done by someone who is actually able to spot a flaw in a product and not be shy to tell about it - not by someone who simply loves everything about every game (as long as it's coming from a top dog company *cough*) and shows just that in about every other of his "reviews". But then... $$$... we get it.
I have to agree with this. What Mr. Murphy wrote is not so much of a review as is typical PR statement of someone who spent an hour or two playing and the rest counting bills.
This might be aging me, but this bit here reminds me of Ricky Rachtman, the guy who hosted "Headbangers Ball" on MTV (about a million years ago, when they actually played music). He used to get a lot of flack, because he'd describe almost every band as "one of his favorites", or something similar.
It got to a point where he actually addressed it on the show, stating that he wasn't blowing smoke.. all those bands are, in fact, some of his favorite bands.
For some reason, this reminds me of him and that whole ordeal.
See, this is part of the issue. We're beginning to accept mediocrity (no worse than many others) as acceptable. To me, that's not acceptable and I'm not buying into it any more. I'm tired of mediocre games being pushed on me and hyped up as "OMG SO GOOOOOD" (yeah, that does include Skyrim, though Oblivion and Morrowind were far better IMHO).
The difference between ESO and, let's say, vanilla WoW, vanilla FFXI, vanilla EQ2 is that they did -not- hand hold nearly so much. Back then, there was NO quest tracker, NO tutorial telling you what button to push and when, and , with the exception of FFXI's limitations due to it being ported to the PS2, NO limits of where you could go at any level. Sure, you might die, but you could still go and SEE the world and have some adventure.
Now it's all so safe as you're led around, told where to "explore", told what buttons to push and when and OH, no no, don't go over to that zone yet, it's too scary and dangerous stay in the toddler playground. Not to mention the quests in ESO? C'mon, they are utterly, utterly forgettable (and that goes for most modern MMOs, so yes, it does it "no worse" than most others).
We all know what happened to WoW, EQ2 is a ghost town now and it dumbed things down (not nearly to the extent of WoW, however) and FFXI was also dumbed down and put on maintenance mode. But really, I'm just sick and tired of these "games" that play and feel like extended tutorials.
Drop me in the game. Let me explore. Let me figure things out for myself. Stop holding my hand. If you're going to do quest-based, make the damned quests INTERESTING instead of "generic ghost #42 wants you to bring him a beer, which is 3 feet away on that table ok thanks".
ESO does none of that. It's mediocrity being swallowed and not spit back out because "well, it's no worse than most others".
I figured you try to label me as someone that enjoys mediocrity. You and I evidently game for very different things. I couldn't care less about quest trackers or map markers. While I do like to "explore" or "sight see" I play more for the progression and the combat mechanics, the tactical feedback of combat systems, trying to find better character builds, and the ability to randomly help someone I come across.
I tend to jump from title to title seeking new gameplay mechanics. In this respect ESO has been a nice change from most of the other mmos. ESO progression and combat is different enough to satisfy my desire for different systems. I could not truthfully give the game a score of zero for the systems in games I seek to experience.
You appear to focus on a game's guidance and help systems that direct a player. If that is the only thing you focus on yeah, ESO will not be that interesting. If you want less guidance I could suggest things like Dark Souls, Minecraft, Terraria, Grimrock 2, among others.
Sure ESO has quest markers and a linear story, but I'm still enjoying the other systems of the game. You have a lot of passion but that will not override my enjoyment of ESO.
game isnt that bad , lots of ppl like it , and have been improved a lot , but i still dont find it fun enough
Precisely 10x better than dog turd is still dog turd, just 10x more of it. Premature launch, not using the skill systems of every ESO game ever, lack of content, game balance issues....
400 hours of quality content before you hit end game in a large gorgeous virtual world with hundreds of skill points to amass along with good crafting, hundreds of dungeons, good wvw (performance needs work) is hardly a dog turd, ita the best mmoRPG (emphasis on rpg) in 15 years IMO.
Even If I stopped max level, that's a whole lot if content for my money.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
I watched a friend play during beta, looking at his screen for 15 mins was enough to decide I would not play this game.
I am sure it is a decent game for a WoW clone, but when I heard the announcement, I expected a game with features like Skyrim, but in a MMO setting, not an themepark MMO with Skyrim aesthetics.
www.abydosonline.com (The MMO) www.next-gen.cc (The open source MMO Engine)
Many new improvements since update 6. Combat animations, new spell and ability effects, Justice System part 1, Champion System part 1 and much more. Update 6 saw about 40 gigs of new content and fixes for the game.
Zenimax still falls short in a few categories, like with their guild management tools, inventory management, guild store window in useless without addons, even their mail system (without addons) doesn't have a simple reply to send feature, BUT overall I am enjoying my experience in Nirn and see a constant increase in activity in the game.
Update 6 is nothing more than a game reboot. Adding the justice system really doesn't add anything new, just reboots what was already in the game.
As a matter of fact, Update 6 gave you points to get, but nothing new to earn them outside of stealing stuff and I got bored of doing that on PTS.
The simple fact it's July and the last real content was released in September when they finally were able to add the other 1/3 of a zone they couldn't added in May. If you were playing from the beginning, you'd know when Craglorn dropped, the glyphs were V10-14, not V10-12 which changed on a patch. November was Vet City of Ash.
ESO stopped making content for the PC to push out the console version. Which is why it's been 10 months since they added anything worth bragging about. They've still not added anything to PTS as of this afternoon. Which means it will be 11 months before anything gets released.
Sad players have to wait a year to get new content. They've lost me as a player, I've uninstalled. and I preordered the IE and dealt with all the bad and all they did was nerf the game. The blanacne is horrible still. It used to favor magica builds, last I played it was favoring stam.
They can't fix exploits in a timely manner and people got good gear from exploiting the trials, especially AA.
Yes yes yes we get it you are disgruntled. The console release is done, the pc dev is in full flow again, city is comming in 1.7 Plus a metric ton of fixes. Life moves on.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Comments
the last AAA MMO with an story. unless we count Star CItizen as an MMO and they really do deliver with their campaign
heard Blade & Soul has a good story so i am looking forward to it
is Bless story heavy i wonder
my top MMOs: UO,DAOC,WoW,GW2
most of my posts are just my opinions they are not facts,it is the same for you too.
ESO combat has improved a lot since launch.
I've played PC beta and the combat, mainly animations, were below F2P standards. Since combat is probably one of the most important things in MMORPG, as you fight mobs for XP all the time, it was the reason for me to skip the game. After seeing that it has improved, I've bought the game when it went B2P and was pretty pleased. Now I also pre-ordered my PS4 copy as well.
I think other core elements, such as classes, quests, crafting, zone design etc., are very solid. Sure, the game lacks structured PVP and if someone finds ES games boring, this game probably won't be super exciting for him/her.
But still, I think the game has improved by a large margin and as I see, there are more improvements on the way (new zones, some hints on structured PVP etc.)
This might be aging me, but this bit here reminds me of Ricky Rachtman, the guy who hosted "Headbangers Ball" on MTV (about a million years ago, when they actually played music). He used to get a lot of flack, because he'd describe almost every band as "one of his favorites", or something similar.
It got to a point where he actually addressed it on the show, stating that he wasn't blowing smoke.. all those bands are, in fact, some of his favorite bands.
For some reason, this reminds me of him and that whole ordeal.
I figured you try to label me as someone that enjoys mediocrity. You and I evidently game for very different things. I couldn't care less about quest trackers or map markers. While I do like to "explore" or "sight see" I play more for the progression and the combat mechanics, the tactical feedback of combat systems, trying to find better character builds, and the ability to randomly help someone I come across.
I tend to jump from title to title seeking new gameplay mechanics. In this respect ESO has been a nice change from most of the other mmos. ESO progression and combat is different enough to satisfy my desire for different systems. I could not truthfully give the game a score of zero for the systems in games I seek to experience.
You appear to focus on a game's guidance and help systems that direct a player. If that is the only thing you focus on yeah, ESO will not be that interesting. If you want less guidance I could suggest things like Dark Souls, Minecraft, Terraria, Grimrock 2, among others.
Sure ESO has quest markers and a linear story, but I'm still enjoying the other systems of the game. You have a lot of passion but that will not override my enjoyment of ESO.
Precisely 10x better than dog turd is still dog turd, just 10x more of it. Premature launch, not using the skill systems of every ESO game ever, lack of content, game balance issues....
Playing: Secret World: Legends
Waiting for: Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen
Even If I stopped max level, that's a whole lot if content for my money.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
I watched a friend play during beta, looking at his screen for 15 mins was enough to decide I would not play this game.
I am sure it is a decent game for a WoW clone, but when I heard the announcement, I expected a game with features like Skyrim, but in a MMO setting, not an themepark MMO with Skyrim aesthetics.
www.abydosonline.com (The MMO)
www.next-gen.cc (The open source MMO Engine)
The game released in April 2014 for the PC.
Update 6 is nothing more than a game reboot. Adding the justice system really doesn't add anything new, just reboots what was already in the game.
As a matter of fact, Update 6 gave you points to get, but nothing new to earn them outside of stealing stuff and I got bored of doing that on PTS.
The simple fact it's July and the last real content was released in September when they finally were able to add the other 1/3 of a zone they couldn't added in May. If you were playing from the beginning, you'd know when Craglorn dropped, the glyphs were V10-14, not V10-12 which changed on a patch. November was Vet City of Ash.
ESO stopped making content for the PC to push out the console version. Which is why it's been 10 months since they added anything worth bragging about. They've still not added anything to PTS as of this afternoon. Which means it will be 11 months before anything gets released.
Sad players have to wait a year to get new content. They've lost me as a player, I've uninstalled. and I preordered the IE and dealt with all the bad and all they did was nerf the game. The blanacne is horrible still. It used to favor magica builds, last I played it was favoring stam.
They can't fix exploits in a timely manner and people got good gear from exploiting the trials, especially AA.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D