Elder Scrolls Online

[Gelmir]

I managed to get into the beta for ESO. I have just finished downloading and installing it and look forward to give it a try later tonight.

Has anyone else gotten into the Beta and if so, what's your thoughts so far ?

Yeah yea, NDA and all that, not asking to post screenshots or spoilers, I just want opinions as I'll be forming my own shortly.

 

[Justin001]

I also got into the Beta but it seems like they have Beta events. I finished downloading it yesterday I think and when I tried to get into the game it said something along the lines of the servers not being available. In the email I got it was an even that ran from Friday to Monday this past weekend so I'm not sure if it will work for you? But from what I've read on SA gamer, people aren't very impressed saying that it's too much of a monthly sub and the game just feels flat. I would be keen to try it still just to see for myself. But Wildstar on the other hand... that looks like an impressive MMO!

 

[Gelmir]

Yup, 20Gb download and I couldn't access it either last night. Servers not available.
Will wait for the next event ...

 

[fabrulana]

Enjoyed it so far, although only having played through the starter town. Decided on pre-ordering and at least playing for a month when released...

 

[mulletman87]

I have also started playing it and have found it really fun. However, one frustrating thing for me was that arrows do not stick into surfaces/NPCs/etc.. They kinda just disappear into nothing which killed the immersion for me. Its a small thing however, I am sure they will do some client-side rendering of the arrows in the near future. Maybe I should just roll another toon so that the whole archery thing doesn't bother me lol.

 

[DiSSaRRaY]

I also got the beta key, but only realised yesterday

Big download, here I come! Hopefully it won't be a pain in the butt to play.

What's the latency like?

 

[Gelmir]

You can only play when there is an event on, so not the whole time. I downloaded the fill 20+Gb only to miss the event by a few hours.
Haven't been able to log in to see what it looks like yet.

 

[Fr34k11]

Hi all is there someone that is willing to give me the friend invite, I pre-ordered already but forgot to sign up for Beta so didn't get a key. From what I read most people got 2 keys so please please please give me one. (or two if you feel generousness myself and a friend would like to play )

 

[radrichard]

Me too plz. Love this series

Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk

 

[CRE4MPIE]

in all honesty ... i downloaded the client the last beta - was only able to play 5 mins due to insane queues and zones being unavailable ...

I'll patch up and check it out - if anything , it just made me wanna play skyrim again xD

 

[EmileS]

I don't like the whole pay to play structure they are following... They know all of us spent a gazilion hours on Skyrim and now they want to milk us for it!

 

[Courage]

I don't like the whole pay to play structure they are following... They know all of us spent a gazilion hours on Skyrim and now they want to milk us for it!

Yes, because they should run a charity or load the game with ads or hand out a nerfed free version that is hardly worth playing.

Yes, they make games but they've got to make money as well. And the only way to make money with a MMO is: pay-to-play, ads or pay-to-win in-game content

Sent from my Motorola Moto G with Google Android 4.4.2 KitKat

 

[EmileS]

Yes, because they should run a charity or load the game with ads or hand out a nerfed free version that is hardly worth playing.

Yes, they make games but they've got to make money as well. And the only way to make money with a MMO is: pay-to-play, ads or pay-to-win in-game content

Sent from my Motorola Moto G with Google Android 4.4.2 KitKat

I was just asking for a pay once and get the game... No reason to shout at me

 

[Courage]

I was just asking for a pay once and get the game... No reason to shout at me

I'm not shouting at you, just trying to educate you

The servers don't run for free, they require power, need to be maintained and content developers need to be paid to develop new content. The initial game sales won't cover that.

Sent from my Motorola Moto G with Google Android 4.4.2 KitKat

 

[EmileS]

I'm not shouting at you, just trying to educate you

The servers don't run for free, they require power, need to be maintained and content developers need to be paid to develop new content. The initial game sales won't cover that.

Sent from my Motorola Moto G with Google Android 4.4.2 KitKat

So, if I understand the current model correctly, you pay like $50 or $60 for the game, and then a monthly fee (same as WOW). What's the monthly fee gonna be?

 

[crackOlicious]

I don't put enough hours into gaming to warrant a sizable monthly fee. If it's like 50 bucks then sure but I wouldn't spend more than that.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

[DubDubZA]

IIRC subs will run around $15/mo

 

[Suberman]

Yeah I tried it a bit, gameplay seemed a bit flat but my connection was unstable so that might have ruined it for me. Am going to try again this weekend (event from fri - sun).
If anyone still wants a key, send me a PM.

 

[ian_stagib]

How can you guys moan about a subscription based game? Also, the way to make money isn't with pay to win stuff. There are quite a few games that are free to play and make money out of selling vanity items. In fact you'll find a meme about this topic it's become so silly. "moan about $15 subscription, pays $50 on vanity items"

 

[ian_stagib]

Oh, and examples of games that are doing well that are truly free to play but have in game sales (although all in game items can be obtained through playing) is:

Plants vs zombies 2
Smite

 

[Fr34k11]

Oh, and examples of games that are doing well that are truly free to play but have in game sales (although all in game items can be obtained through playing) is:

Plants vs zombies 2
Smite

Additionally... Hearthstone is also one of these

PS. I got a key, still looking for one for a friend

 

[EmileS]

This game sucks! After a tedious download, played for about 3 hours, and it didn't impress me at all!

The graphics is nowhere near Skyrim! But, that's understandable from an MMO like ESO. I wasn't impressed, although only in Beta, with the gameplay or graphics. Surely they should add more creatures on the map and populate the world even more with the final release. Whilst playing I got the urge to play more and more Skyrim, and not this crap! The game will probably be better when it is released and then a few updates thereafter, but I'm not going to spend R600 and then R150 for every month thereafter. It's not worth it AT ALL! If they didn't have their claim to fame with Skyrim, then this game would've been a mayor fail (could still be). That's the only thing drawing people to the game, is that they think it's going to be like Skyrim, but it's not close!

Although it is fun running around with other peeps and helping them out when creatures are overwhelming them, it still feels dull. They should try and make a mod for Multiplayer for Skyrim rather, that would be awesome! They still have a lot to learn from other MMOs and ATM there is nothing unique about the game to set it apart from other MMOs, not even the graphics. They still have a boat load to do until launch!

The only thing I liked is the character creation. They really did put a lot of effort into the character creation, with loads of options and customization. That, and NPC voices is the only things that impressed me.

Another thing: The Imperial race and armor is only unlocked when you buy the more expensive package... I'm sorry but that falls under the pay-to-win structure you see in F2P games! Totally unacceptable for a game you pay a lot for and then a monthly subscription for! You want all those things and an equal playfield!

IMO this game is going to fail hard if they don't change the game's structure (with that I mean all the payment stuff and what you get for that).

Well, that's my 2 cents of disappointment.

 

[Justin001]

Yeah I have to agree, the gameplay just seems flat and dull and nothing new or exciting. I think I played like an hour and just got bored right off the bat. I still think Guild wars 2 is an amazing MMO and developers should take points from that when making a MMO. I will definitely not be buying this and paying a monthly sub for a boring generic MMO... No thanks! I hope Wildstar is good though, I'm looking forward to that.

 

[Gelmir]

Right, so I also had a chance to play the Beta for about 2 hours last night, and my impressions are different to the two above me.

Firstly, calling the game crap really isn't giving others a fair assessment of the game. It's still in beta and a lot can change, so perhaps try and be more objective about your feedback.

Secondly, don't compare EOL to Skyrim because it's two different game platforms for different audiences.

Now, my opinion of the game.

Character creation:
I thought this bit was very well done. You can really spend an hour alone just setting up your toon. Plenty of options available although I would have liked stuff like picking the colour of your body markings as an example.

Intro to the game
Story line is interesting and you get the feeling that you're playing an Elder Scrolls game.
Lots of voice acting which can slow the experience down, but maybe I was just in a hurry to get into the game. You can always read the text and ignore the talking I guess.

Game play
It definitely makes me want to play Skyrim again. Personally I love the Elder scrolls franchise and depending on the storyline in ESO could make a nice addition to the franchise.
Getting used to playing as a lvl 1 or two is a bit frustrating. The interface is a bit better than Skyrim, but I've only played a little bit so maybe it gets better once you're used to it more ?

Graphics
For a MMO I think the graphics are plenty good. Sure there are prettier things out there (Aion) but the bit I played was lag free even though there were quite a few people running around the same area. This could possibly degrade with more people on the server but it runs very nicely on my system which is far from a powerhouse and bearing in mind it's a MMO, it needs to cater for a larger audience and not just for CUD addicts with monster PCs. (hence my point about comparing it to Skyrim) Compare it to WOW, which is still played by millions of people and I think it looks bloody great.

Questing seems to be along the lines of any mmo, again not sure what the main storyline is, or even if there is one.

Conclusion

I like what I've seen so far. I like the ES games, have played most of them and this interests me.
Will I pay R600 to buy it and another R170 to play monthly ? Not sure yet. I haven't seen enough to make that call yet.
Admittedly I don't game as much as I used to and my time is limited so even if I like the game I might not be able to invest the time it will require as a mmo.

With regards to the game feeling flat ... unless the other guys played to level 10 or something, I don't know about that. I'm only level 2 and love running around, exploring, opening any container I can find, trying to one-shot mudcrabs and waiting to see whats behind the next hill.
I haven't been in a party yet, haven't done group quests yet, haven't explored the talent trees yet and haven't gotten into the crafting yet so I can't call it flat or exciting.

All I do know is I like what I see so far. This might be for fans of the franchise more than new-comers but let's wait a bit and get some more opinions.

 

[Zohan]

The game looks excellent to me. Seeing as I come over from WOW it is refreshing to say I don't think I will have to buy game time for WOW again.

The PVP in TEOS looks excellent, it seems like it take allot more skill in Cyrodill than you need to have in WOW. I would still like to see something like Arena's in EOS. The dungeons looks almost the same to me as WOW but I like the fact the the healers look to be more involved in the actual battle. Healing in WOW got pretty boring for me in dungeons but seeing youtube videos on healing in EOS makes me even want to try it.

Once release I will be playing :

Alliance : Aldiri Dominion
Race : Nord/Imperial
Class : Dragon knight
Role : DPS two hander/tank

 

[SilvRav]

Right, so I also had a chance to play the Beta for about 2 hours last night, and my impressions are different to the two above me.

Firstly, calling the game crap really isn't giving others a fair assessment of the game. It's still in beta and a lot can change, so perhaps try and be more objective about your feedback.

Secondly, don't compare EOL to Skyrim because it's two different game platforms for different audiences.

Now, my opinion of the game.

Character creation:
I thought this bit was very well done. You can really spend an hour alone just setting up your toon. Plenty of options available although I would have liked stuff like picking the colour of your body markings as an example.

Intro to the game
Story line is interesting and you get the feeling that you're playing an Elder Scrolls game.
Lots of voice acting which can slow the experience down, but maybe I was just in a hurry to get into the game. You can always read the text and ignore the talking I guess.

Game play
It definitely makes me want to play Skyrim again. Personally I love the Elder scrolls franchise and depending on the storyline in ESO could make a nice addition to the franchise.
Getting used to playing as a lvl 1 or two is a bit frustrating. The interface is a bit better than Skyrim, but I've only played a little bit so maybe it gets better once you're used to it more ?

Graphics
For a MMO I think the graphics are plenty good. Sure there are prettier things out there (Aion) but the bit I played was lag free even though there were quite a few people running around the same area. This could possibly degrade with more people on the server but it runs very nicely on my system which is far from a powerhouse and bearing in mind it's a MMO, it needs to cater for a larger audience and not just for CUD addicts with monster PCs. (hence my point about comparing it to Skyrim) Compare it to WOW, which is still played by millions of people and I think it looks bloody great.

Questing seems to be along the lines of any mmo, again not sure what the main storyline is, or even if there is one.

Conclusion

I like what I've seen so far. I like the ES games, have played most of them and this interests me.
Will I pay R600 to buy it and another R170 to play monthly ? Not sure yet. I haven't seen enough to make that call yet.
Admittedly I don't game as much as I used to and my time is limited so even if I like the game I might not be able to invest the time it will require as a mmo.

With regards to the game feeling flat ... unless the other guys played to level 10 or something, I don't know about that. I'm only level 2 and love running around, exploring, opening any container I can find, trying to one-shot mudcrabs and waiting to see whats behind the next hill.
I haven't been in a party yet, haven't done group quests yet, haven't explored the talent trees yet and haven't gotten into the crafting yet so I can't call it flat or exciting.

All I do know is I like what I see so far. This might be for fans of the franchise more than new-comers but let's wait a bit and get some more opinions.

This....MMO's are unfortunately becoming a younger generations game as once you start living, getting married, work, children, etc, time for games are very limited, and if I first have to create a character, take takes me an hour, and have a massive world to explore etc. it will become very frustrating very quickly when you finally reach lv10 with other people on lv80.

 

[EmileS]

This weekend seems to be another Beta date to test. Busy downloading the new patches to be ready for the weekend. I'm going to play the game as much as possible and as analytic as possible, to see if it really is worth it.

Some of us could play it together, it is a MMO after all. Anyone keen? Will use TS.

 

[Gelmir]

GREAT ! I'm working the whole weekend so I'll probably only have some time to play on Sunday night ... meh

 

[Zohan]

WIll be joining from late Saturday afternoon But also don't know if I want to play I can almost start playing the full game and don't want to start leveling all over again

 

[EmileS]

WIll be joining from late Saturday afternoon But also don't know if I want to play I can almost start playing the full game and don't want to start leveling all over again

I'm going to play to see if it is worth it to buy the game or not. Not too worried about starting over again, will be faster when I do it over again.

Anyone like to start and play from the beginning with me (and anyone else joining), so we can level together and complete quests together? We'll need to setup a time and TS channel.