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[General Article] Elder Scrolls Online: The Console Version Review in Progress
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
It’s been a long but insanely productive year for Zenimax Online Studios. Elder Scrolls Online came out, held its own, but was a rather contentious title for such a widely adored franchise. Fast forward several months and ESO is now buy to play, rebranded as “Tamriel Unlimited”, and quite frankly, it’s one of the best theme park MMORPGs on the market. And now it’s also on the PS4 and XBOX ONE. So, how does it play?
Read more of Bill Murphy's Elder Scrolls Online: The Console Version Review in Progress #1.
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The UI on the console has cumbersome inventory, but tight everything else.
Comments
I'm not an IT Specialist, Game Developer, or Clairvoyant in real life, but like others on here, I play one on the internet.
This, and then asked most of the PC players to pay again to play it on Consoles. The game on PC is terrible, especially if you want to use a gamepad to play it. Nothing feels right about it.
But I'm not paying another $60 to play it on consoles, even though I've put in < 10 hours on the PC version and it's probably "much better" and there's still "much to see."
I just cannot justify that cost, when there are great games like Witcher 3 that just came out.
There Is Always Hope!
Wait so clarify which name is displayed when you play the game? Is it the PSN "Online ID" that you sign into your console with?
There are a few games that get it right for both PC and Console. FFXIV and Neverwinter as good examples (ignoring other aspects of the games - we're just talking control options here).
Other games have just dumbed down the PC interface to compensate, sometimes to the real detriment of the game.
This is one of those.
One example - The simply awful potions wheel: click -then click - then click - all to just select and choose a simple potion. Sure add-ons will help - but it still feels woefully cumbersome, and nowhere near as good as other games.
The PC UI continually lets you know that you are playing a game not fundamentally designed to work with a keyboard - it has been crudely bastardized to accomodate the traditional mouse/leyboard set up.
As a long standing MMO player, I am biased toward the keyboard - but I can acknowledge when a game gets it right for both input options.
I mentioned Neverwinter - (sure it's a Cryptic cash sink) - but we are just focusing on the UI here, and I would say it's one of the best PC/Console UI formats of the action mmo genre.
ESO to me is at the opposite end, one of the worst examples of an extremely poor UI - crudely cannibalized as a seeming afterthought for the mouse/keyboard set up.
Of course aspects of the PC game work very well - but this is in spite of the UI, definitely not aided by it.
i am also loving eso on console much more so then pc
and this being the third run through it
my only gripes are character names and lack of text chat
which even the text chat i can live with out but its not fair to hearing impaired
im not digging the voice comms
this ui / controls were ment for console always was , the simplicity of it is what works best
Yes, you see player's PSN tag and not their actual character names. Pretty stupid.
THE CONSOLE VERSION
Why PC players paid a subscription for a year...to fund development of a console version that has no subscription.
Why would anyone play with a controller on a PC? No matter how bad the interface, mouse/keyboard is just so much better. I dare anyone to pvp with controller against someone with a mouse/keyaboard, good luck.
I touched on add-ons improving the pc UI earlier on.
But this got me thinking - was it really the right move to have a bare bones UI and rely/hope the community would fill in the gaps.
I appreciate they where trying to recreate the minimalist Skyrim feel - nothing wrong with that - but I think they went about it the wrong way.
There are two approaches:
A) have a bare bones UI and rely on add-ons to fill in
or
They went for A - but this raises an issue: - Continued author support.
Sure, at the start everyone has the shiny feel and the motivation to create and maintain add-ons is high.
But what happens after a while? - and we've all seen it - "load out of date add-ons".
(Ok, add-ons have been in WoW for years - But ESO doesn't get anywhere near that population, not by a long way. It's a different scenario.)
People take a break, or stop playing altogether, moving onto something else - and the add-ons are left behind. A good samaritan may pick up their favourite to keep it going, but if not it's just resigned to history - no updates - no support.
I don't know how the ftp conversion is going to impact the player run add-ons. Authors may get re-motivated, or decide the ftp move is not for them. Only time will tell.
I would have much preferred a full UI approach from the ESO game devs - with optional deselection on more or less everything to satisfy the minimalist players.
That way would have ensured that all elements of a full UI would remain up to date - not left to the uncontrolled whims of whether an author decides to continue with the game or moves onto something else.
Clearly you, sir, have been spending to much time on ESO's forums... After Console(TM)