The Elder Scrolls Online (Beta)
Well, it looks like the NDA is lifted. Of course, the game isn't so fresh in my mind now, but...
When I heard about the game, I was exceedingly skeptical. The Elder Scrolls are awesome open world games, but converting that to an MMO? That seemed like a pretty big leap to me. Then I got into playing for my first beta weekend.
It worked much better than I expected. Though that weekend was rough, with disconnections and a lot of voice packs not installed (leading a default robo-voice for many NPCs), the game played reasonably well. Most of all, it actually felt a lot like Skyrim with a bunch of real people connected at once. I don't know how best to explain that, but it was about the best overall feel I could imagine for the game. Most of TES flavor is there. There's a central story of conflict against Molag Bal, but when I only got through about 10 levels, I only saw the beginning. There's also a "main" story for each faction, it appears, dealing with its conflict with the others (and/or internal conflicts). I defeated bandits, I became an agent working to root out those who would unseat a queen, I fought some daedra and undead...
Mechanically, it's reasonably familiar. It'll do first person, and it plays in third a little better than most TES games. You've got a limited set of active skills that may consume stamina or magicka and are all accessible by key-press (the default keybindings favor use of keys around WASD more than the number row - something that is efficient, but awkward when it's a change form the norm). Skills can be leveled up largely by being on your active bar while you do things. There's a pretty good range of character appearance tweaks. Overall style is fairly realistic, which is sort of nice, yet also can lead to some somewhat bland-looking characters at times. Rather than a "vote" system like in SWTOR, NPCs seemed to react pretty individually to grouped characters, which sometimes damages immersion a little bit. I didn't get into crafting much. I only saw a small part of the game, and didn't get the least bit of feel for what higher levels are like, but it all seems to work fine. Nothing felt seriously bad or highly revolutionary.
Based on what I've seen, it still isn't worth the money to me. The problem, in my book, is not that things are broken or poorly implemented, it's just that there's not enough draw. Sure, I like the setting, but that alone isn't enough to sell me on a monthly subscription. If there were a huge movement among the people I play with online, that might be enough, but I don't see that happening. Also, in today's market, I suspect the game will be "forced" to go to a subscriptionless model down the line, though I'm unclear on how they'd do that without having seem much in the way of "cash shop"-able content.
When I heard about the game, I was exceedingly skeptical. The Elder Scrolls are awesome open world games, but converting that to an MMO? That seemed like a pretty big leap to me. Then I got into playing for my first beta weekend.
It worked much better than I expected. Though that weekend was rough, with disconnections and a lot of voice packs not installed (leading a default robo-voice for many NPCs), the game played reasonably well. Most of all, it actually felt a lot like Skyrim with a bunch of real people connected at once. I don't know how best to explain that, but it was about the best overall feel I could imagine for the game. Most of TES flavor is there. There's a central story of conflict against Molag Bal, but when I only got through about 10 levels, I only saw the beginning. There's also a "main" story for each faction, it appears, dealing with its conflict with the others (and/or internal conflicts). I defeated bandits, I became an agent working to root out those who would unseat a queen, I fought some daedra and undead...
Mechanically, it's reasonably familiar. It'll do first person, and it plays in third a little better than most TES games. You've got a limited set of active skills that may consume stamina or magicka and are all accessible by key-press (the default keybindings favor use of keys around WASD more than the number row - something that is efficient, but awkward when it's a change form the norm). Skills can be leveled up largely by being on your active bar while you do things. There's a pretty good range of character appearance tweaks. Overall style is fairly realistic, which is sort of nice, yet also can lead to some somewhat bland-looking characters at times. Rather than a "vote" system like in SWTOR, NPCs seemed to react pretty individually to grouped characters, which sometimes damages immersion a little bit. I didn't get into crafting much. I only saw a small part of the game, and didn't get the least bit of feel for what higher levels are like, but it all seems to work fine. Nothing felt seriously bad or highly revolutionary.
Based on what I've seen, it still isn't worth the money to me. The problem, in my book, is not that things are broken or poorly implemented, it's just that there's not enough draw. Sure, I like the setting, but that alone isn't enough to sell me on a monthly subscription. If there were a huge movement among the people I play with online, that might be enough, but I don't see that happening. Also, in today's market, I suspect the game will be "forced" to go to a subscriptionless model down the line, though I'm unclear on how they'd do that without having seem much in the way of "cash shop"-able content.
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