Hello readers! This week I have done a write-up on my Elder Scrolls Online experiences. This is basically a general review of the game as it was in Beta form, not the finished game, but nearly. I have played roughly 12-15 hours in this game between the three weekend Beta events. Not a ton of time to be honest, but as someone who isn't a huge MMO fan, I had a hard time playing for large spurts. This game has a lot to offer to players of all kinds though. You have the choice to dive right into the main story line or ignore it completely and engage side quests or just plain explore. The map is quite large and there is always something to see, fight, or collect.
Upon entering the game you are instantly tossed into character creation. As in any Elder Scrolls game you have a lot of options when it comes to sculpting your character. Whether you like to play a giant hammer wielding Nord, an arrow raining Wood Elf, or a sneaky Khajiit you have the control to make him/her any way you see fit. The classes seemed a little scarce, being only four, but the way your character develops is highly based on your play style. There are nine races to choose from including: Argonian, Dunmer, Nord, Altmer, Bosmer, Jhajiit, Breton, Orc, Redguard, and Imperial if you get the Imperial Edition. Throwing the Imperial behind the extra pay wall is not cool.
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| My character: Anuril Shadowbane. |
I chose to play as a Wood Elf, or Bosmer as the cool kids like to say. My chosen class was Nightblade, which assigns a unique "skill tree" path, but no unique weapons or armors. You can upgrade on skills/spells as well as on your weapons of choice. I tried not to spend too much time with the character creation since I don't plan to play this game again. Mostly because I don't plan to buy this game and pay $15/month subscription fees. I'm not a very big fan of subscription style games.
When you finish your character you are thrown into a dungeon like prison. There are a few tutorial pointers about basic things that you probably should know by now. There isn't much to see in here, but when you approach the door a ghost greets you. I'm instantly in love with the voice acting. You will find that every quest has full voice acted characters that are just plain good. The music too. It's very similar to other ES games in that you aren't annoyed by the same song playing for three hours straight. This ghost goes on to tell you what all the commotion is about. Gist of the story is that Molag Bal has come to make all of Tamriel his own and you're the one that has to defeat him and save the world.
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| Thanks developers. I had no idea how to move... |
When you escape your prison you are greeted by a large woman who is leading the escape from this prison. There are NPCs and other players running in one direction. You are told that there is a prison break and everyone is trying to get free. So following them I find an armory full of weapons. You then get to choose whatever style you want. Of course you can change later in the game, but this is just for the intro. I chose a bow, as a Wood Elf would, and headed off to follow the horde.
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| Pick your poison! |
After fighting some undead through the tunnels you eventually enter a large open area with a few assorted undead and atronach. I spent a bit of time in this area trying to get a grasp of how the combat worked. As far as bow combat goes, there is a semi-auto aim method. As long as you are firing in the direction of the enemy you will hit. While it's not consistent with other ES games I felt that it worked well for the MMO style. You also don't have an arrow amount, but your weapons and armor will degrade slowly.
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| Fighting an Atronach with my bow. |
I found out very quickly that dying isn't exactly a travesty. You can respawn in the exact spot you died if you have a soul gem. If not you are transported back to the beginning of the area. It's not that big of deal except your armor takes a good hit on its' degrade meter. The degrade meter has a number. So if you just died your armor would go from 17/17 to 16/17. Nice clean simple system.
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| We're going in that thing. |
After a bit of wandering down a river you end up at a large open area with a giant cylinder in the middle. You are prompted to activate a few stones and then suddenly you're thrown into a boss battle. A mage is there to help you fight, who heals you as you take any damage. The fight is way too easy, even for an intro battle. I felt a little let down here, but I'm picky.
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| This fight is too easy... |
After you defeat the Anchor Guardian you are teleported through the giant spiral and you end up in a random location in the world. I thought that this was a cool concept. While the beginning area isn't huge, there isn't a giant conglomeration of people hanging out in the entry area. Again I'm not a huge MMO guy, but the game make it feel much more like an action RPG than a multiplayer game.
When I emerge from my teleportation I find my self in a town full of Khajiit. I'm instantly amazed at the lighting effects and how amazing the outside world looks. Keep in mind that I'm running this game completely max settings at 2560x1440 so your results may not match mine unless you're using similar hardware.
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| I'm alive! |
After chatting it up with a few NPCs I'm reminded at how hysterical the Khajiits are in the other ES games. They think that they are all so witty that it turns anything that they say into utter hysteria! The shop systems are fairly basic. You can mark any item in your inventory as junk and then easily sell all to a vendor. This was a great decision by the developers to include that feature.
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| Nice, clean menus. Me likey. |
I did feel slightly overwhelmed by the number of items in the game at first. You will collect tons of loot and have no idea what they can be used for. I quickly started to grasp that many of the items can be used for crafting items or weapons. After killing a few rats and collecting their guts I found that I can use them as bait for fishing. After fishing I can cook my catch on any open fire. It's the little things in games that get me excited!
I like to explore and see the area before I dive into any quests so that's just what I did. I ventured around killing monsters and collecting things as I saw fit. There is a fairly good variety to the land. From farmland, forested Elven areas, and beached harbors there is plenty to see. After spending some time with the land and getting the combat down, I found a few quests to do. I think my biggest issue with game of this nature are the constant fetch quests. Talk to this guy over in this area then report back to me. Okay now go get this book from his desk. Okay so he's not the guy, what next?
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| Character models are exceptionally good. |
I honestly felt that the fighting was hollow in the sense that I didn't feel as though I was actually engaging something. I mean the arrow disappears as soon as it is loosed. Is it too much to see the arrow in flight? I was expecting arrows to protrude from the enemies too. There is a lot of blood from successful hits, which is something that you'd come to expect from Bethesda by now, but overall I just didn't think the combat was intense enough to consider it an action adventure title. Even melee weapons felt weak, even though you are able to move around unlike other MMOs where you are rooted in place. You also can run through enemies without feeling their contact. Being used to Skyrim and Oblivion I may be expecting too much from a multiplayer setting, but these are just my feelings. Take them with a grain of salt.
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| Shields are life savers. |
I played the game on this character up to level 8. I didn't play nearly as much as I would have liked, but such is life. Overall the game didn't have any game breaking issues. I didn't have network problems. I was never kicked from a server due to unstable servers. I was able to play a bit with my girlfriend on a 4/1 mb/s without a hitch. It was very easy to jump to wherever your friend was, even if they are on another server, through the friend interface.
As for performance. I was averaging around 34 FPS on my system at 2560x1440 with every possible setting maxed out or enabled. The game is not optimized for crossfire so I was only getting usage from a single 7950 instead of two, but slightly overclocked to 950/1500 I was able to achieve playable FPS. The more populated areas obviously brought the frame into the mid 20s, but it was playable. I would think that a 760 would play this game on ultra at 1920x1080 no problem.
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| Those rays! |
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| At dusk with a standing stone. |
The game is gorgeous for a MMO. The visuals destroy the likes of World of Warcraft and Guild Wars. Those games have been out for a while now, but I really liked the enhanced visuals similar to Skyrim in a dumbed down way. I'm guessing that the modding community will be adding texture mods to this game in the future if Bethesda allows it.
There were a few minor issues that I noticed from time to time. Occasionally there would be a double of a NPC or you would be unable to complete a quest because thirty people were using something like a lever in a dungeon. You would have to wait or get lucky before you could continue. I would have liked to be able to have seamless playability without interference from other players.
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| Shes not supposed to have two heads. Whoops! |
Sunday afternoon I exited the game probably never to play again, unless there is another beta event. I enjoyed the time I had with it, but there just wasn't enough to get me to pay a monthly fee to play a game. I would love to see a free to play system where if you you played enough and earned enough in-game currency you could pay for a premium membership without having to shell out real life money.
Exploration, interesting NPCs, vast environments, and pretty visuals are the games strong suits. While the lackluster combat really dragged down the MMO. Take Skyrim and turn it into a cheap multiplayer game with way more items and you have this game. You can tell that the developers were trying to incorporate everything that they could in regards to ES lore into this game, but they fell short when it came to turning the classic MMO formula into a massively multiplayer action adventure title. And to top it off there is a $15 a month membership fee. Sorry Bethesda, but I'll have to skip this title.
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| Bye Anuril! |
Pros
- Voice acting/Music
- High volume of items and places to explore
- Great visuals and detailed character models
- Interesting NPCs
- Menus are organised and easy to navigate
Cons
- Clunky, weak, and unpolished combat
- Annoying fetch quests
- Items/race hidden behind a pay wall
- $15 monthly subscription (Nail in the coffin)
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