The Elder Scrolls Online

I just tried Wildstar some yesterday and I'm planning to log on for some more today. I didn't even know the game existed a month or two ago, but it caught my eye. You can't even compare the two games for a number of reasons. Even though Wildstar isn't the second coming of WoW and it isn't perfect, it's miles ahead when it comes to risk-taking and good game design. You can see there was actual effort put into the game. They actually give a shit.

While a few of you are pointlessly obsessed with nagging Ut to spill his beans, it's very clear this game is unfinished and in my opinion, crappy. Your witchhunt doesn't add any more luster to the game. Yes, the graphics are good, yes for the most part, the environment and art assests are nice (probably because the skyrim guys helped out some with that.) But there's nothing that this game offers that Skyrim doesn't do better.

Even if you compare both of the stress test weekends, the W* devs had a much more organized approach and the stress test actually made sense. It didn't feel like the stress test was a gestureless formality or an excuse to buy time. The W* guys were encouraging the testers to flood the servers doing very specific things at very specific times. Adding friends to friends list, sending messages, telling them to log in and log constantly in a short time span, etc etc. And during the whole time all of the content was available and not taken down.

The reason I'm making this comparison to ESO is because, in ESO when a major questline breaks or a poor player is stuck in a jail cell for no reason, they just sit there being naive sending in bug reports and petitions thinking they will get help. Meanwhile the only real solution is to type /stuck and hope the entire server gets reset. The game's release is right around the corner and very basic mainstream questlines are still broken on occasion. It's not fair to any player, casual or not. Oh yeah, and when major features are down and not working, the dev's response to that is to just take down the feature for nearly the entire weekend, using it as an excuse to "stress test three zones." It's all horseshit.

This game is nothing more than a console port money grab. Hell, from what I've heard from a number of people, it even plays better on the console with less bugs. I'm giving Kudos to my buddies enjoying it on consoles while I'm going to laugh my ass off at whoever buys the PC box.

Gecko_sl said:

I try hard to be casual, and I fail. My MMO OCD to win and get shinies takes over....I gotta get in and get that pre nerf guise of the deceiver or manastone, you know....

I have zero issues casually playing single player or coop games, but for some reasons MMOs affect me in that way. Maybe this one will be different.

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I am the same way. Im trying to be casual but MMO's just bring the neckbeard outa me.

Hope everyone got there pre-orders. It's pagan party time!

april 4th, 5 day headstart afaik

wowhead for teso is up, can look at crafting zone maps drops etc
Esohead - Elder Scrolls Online Database

More even than I thought it would be (only 2k votes)
Straw Poll

Blackwulf_sl said:

Just found this - lots of info:ESO: Isarii's Comprehensive Review

Course, I'm sure anyone with anything positive is just a shill...

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Crafting portion in the article, I did do some crafting but limited due to time playing. I like the idea of finding recipes but with the tier'ed system the author has mentioned, has me very worried!

His review stated nothing but a cock-block worse than POP keys. It may look great on paper but I fear will be poor in execution. Sure you will get the overly OCD crafters like myself digging deep into crafting only to find you are fighting with farmer guilds that will pump out high grade stuff on the cheap negating the pain and effort it takes to create the items or worse farm the areas under their control for the best mats. He stated that gathering for these mats will not have any teir skills for gathering and that the mats will have no quality stats or that the recipes can be altered by research.

So in the end this is the same boring crafting system all MMOs have with the gathers making the bulk of the profits and the crafters fighting for a small if any profit on crafted items. Only thing going for it is that the items created can be better than anything else in the game found/hunts/quested!



Gathering should require preparation skills:
1. To get the item
2. How many of such item
3. Quality of the item when harvesting.
4. Quality of gathering multiple items.
5. Preparation of the item for use.

All of these should have a % of failure, failure can be downgrades to lower quality to complete loss of the item(s). In other words, get greedy and you could lose it all.
A progress bar would work, you dont have to let it complete till the end but you need to wait for it to hit a lvl where it dings you, stating you have collected X item of X lvl. Knowing this you can opt to stop and get that item or let it continue to try for a better item or multiples of that item.

I have always hated the standard gathering process bar making you wait in the illusion you are gathering that item. It should actually do something than be a Microsoft progress bar. Think of fishing, in many games when you have to wait for the bobber, but in this case you can change the quality or quantity by just stopping or continues that progress bar!


*Looks on items need to be dropped recipes or researchable and research upgradable.


*Tutoring needs to be added to allow mastering of recipe items.
-PC gets rare drop recipe, they can use it as is or research it.
-Research requires time and another action with either a PC or NPC to complete. PC that helps vs NPC, the PC will get a portion of that recipe learnt.
(Meaning if they help other players on that certain particular recipe, over time they will have scribed that base recipe for themselves.)

If the rare drop owner doesnt want to use a PC and opts for an NPC so noone learns that rare drop recipe...it will take them 3x (or %) longer to master it, but it has a chance to limit who owns that recipe.

Thats for starters:
-I am sad that items sold to NPCs arent resold/offered to PCs (EQ).
-Quality on mats arent being used (RIP SWG)
-I havent seen anything with tinkering/engineering in the game. This would be a great way to offer Dwemer science in the form of tinkering/magic. I am a bit fuzzy on the TES lore.

-I didnt see faster travel on roads vs off roads (Horizons), mules (Horizons) or crafting missions for NPCs (DAOC).

-Also for PVP/PVE, lootable armor/items should be an option to use as offerings to Gods/factions/mat collection. I have not seen anyone talk about this. Guessing its not in the game either.

-Housing (SWG/Horizons)?
-Shops/Bazaar (SWG/EQ)? Auctions are crap.

And don't forget to pick resto staff for 2nd weapon, everyone is a healer !

Dr Neir_sl said:

Crafting portion in the article, I did do some crafting but limited due to time playing. I like the idea of finding recipes but with the tier'ed system the author has mentioned, has me very worried!

His review stated nothing but a cock-block worse than POP keys...<snip>

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I honestly couldn't understand a lot of your post, sorry. I will say that the crafting system, from what I've seen, which is, granted, only the very early levels of it, pretty robust. There are stores to sell your shit on (guild stores that are placed in capturable keeps in Cyrodiil.) I'm not a huge crafting fan, but I could see myself getting in to this. Some people who are self described "crafters" in MMO say it's a really good system. Maybe wait til you give it a try before you get depressed?

Here's a little vid about it:

This is based on Draegan's post; not quoted so I don't post an epic wall of text between his post and mine.

1) The part about the patcher is spot-on, and there are reports of other problems popping up now and then.

2) I played an archer exclusively, and found that tab targeting always works properly enough to hit the intended target. Third person is so awkward with an archer that if you don't use tab targeting, then you must use first person. The drawback is that tab targeting turns your arrows into heat seekers. I don't know if you can turn your back to a target and still hit it, but I did turn 45 degrees away and hit, to test.

3) First person actually is an afterthought. It wasn't going to be in the game at all, but so many people demanded it that it got slapped on. It's useful in large scale battles where so much is going on that third person has tons of distractions, and it's useful in soloing unless you're sneaky. For sneaking, you'll need to change back and forth between views to watch your surroundings but still have a good feel for who is about to look directly at you.

4) The number of broken quests seemed about normal for a late beta by the last session, but the problem is that the alliances are sequestered until level 50. So, you can't leave your starter area with broken quests and travel to a different one like in early EQ, and some starter areas have it much worse than others when it comes to this. I have seen a few quests get fixed between sessions, so if people used /bug, then fixes will come. Group quests in dungeons can have bugs that last across patches. The weirdest one I saw continued to show the first step of the quest not only after it was already completed but after the dungeon itself was and the quest was turned in. This is very likely going to lead to exploits where non-repeatable quests are concerned.

5) This is very subjective. Stealth in particular fit right in with an Elder Scrolls feel to me, and customizing builds is done properly for the ES tradition in a MMO. But you're not a Nerevarine or Dovakhiin in this; just another poor sap who had their soul stolen. Spell crafting is out altogether, unfortunately. Alchemy is done well, and crafting is decent if it doesn't get too confusing and you spare a few skill points to make materials easier to see. Walking around hunting for barely-visible logs isn't fun before that skill point.

6) Itemization fluctuates wildly across content, but Cyrodiil is the best for it hands down. If you spend enough time taking and defending keeps, then you'll start to get annoyed by the emailed rewards. Dungeons in Cyrodiil have decent drops at a fair rate. Outside of Cyrodiil, there is a constant nagging feeling that you just won't find your upgrade though. I went into Cyrodiil at level 15, and at that time half of my equipment was still level 11. When the last session ended, I was level 23 and equipped to match right down to my rings and necklace.

Unless adventure zones pick up the slack, PvP will be a must even for those who just want to be well-equipped for PvE. I get that they want to get people into Cyrodiil, but between ninety day campaigns and the practical requirement that time is spent there to gear up, people are going to get tired of it quick. The campaign length they can change easily, but itemization in the first three zones (counting the Coldharbour tutorial zone) is a problem that will take time. Crafters will be practically mandatory to keep pure PvE guilds equipped. I have ordered this game and I do enjoy it, but since we're covering flaws, here are a few not mentioned yet.

7) The guild roster displays account names instead of character names. Not very secure.

8) This past session, I didn't do the faction dungeons again, but the session before that they were a headache. Based on when people are invited to a group, who enters first, when, who is in the dungeon, and whether anybody uses the "travel to group member" feature, the group can see several different bugs. I did see one in an open dungeon where the group ends up having no leader. If the former leader leaves the group, it gets assigned to somebody else and they can be invited again.

9) Avoid pickup raids in Cyrodiil if you can get into a PvP guild. They're a headache. The PvP is not so much designed to be zerg v zerg as people just simply do that no matter what they should be doing at the time. There are actually an impressive number of tactics and strategies that are viable, but good luck getting a pickup raid to follow the simplest instructions to use them.

10) Archers think melee are overpowered, and melee think archers are overpowered. Neither is, but sorcerers are. Melee can one to two hit most archers, and there are gap closers to facilitate that. When archers get Snipe, they can one to two hit melee. Balance. Sorcerers can mess up everyone's day from the word "go" -- especially the ones in heavy armor.

As for the positive stuff, there are plenty of articles out there that can explain why I'm playing more eloquently than I can.

I am going to point out a couple of problems I have with the game but first wanted to dispel the misinformation that the 17+ content is unfinished. The posters still bleating that out have some personal issues to deal with. The 17+ content is fully finished. Just like any other any MMO close to launch, there are still some bugs to quash but the content is there. The comparison to AoC/Tortage are flat out not applicable in my opinion.

I have a few major complaints with the game.

The Quickslot radial UI for using potions is flat out the worst UI feature ever designed for a MMO. On the boards the general consensus is the design is 100% geared towards the console players. I can see how it would be simple and intuitive for a console gamer but as a PC MMO player am I used to everything being assigned a hotkey slot. As it stands right now I don't even bother keeping magicka or stamina potions in my inventory because I never use them since its such a PITA to switch off of my healing potion during the middle of a fight.

If I were actually a developer at Zenimax as Utnayan believes I would have bitchslapped whoever came up with this horrible UI design.

The next major issue I have is with the limited number of abilities you can put on your action bar. Once you get weapon swap at level 15, you can have 10 skills and 2 ultimate skills slotted. By the time you get to level 50 and end game you will easily upwards of 50 skills to choose from. Whenever the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood get added, that is 10 more skills added to the list. Limiting players to just 12 skills at one time IMO limits flexibility. Unfortunately there are a lot of hardcore ESO players in the beta who are adamant that 12 slotted skills is all you need.

Last major complaint I have is with the inventory system. You will come across so many crafting materials as you level up that your bag will fill up in minutes. I quickly just gave up trying to harvest any runes or provisioning materials because of that. Bag and bank space upgrades cost several thousand gold to upgrade. As it stands right now, the inventory system is completely annoying.

Blackwulf_sl said:

I honestly couldn't understand a lot of your post, sorry. I will say that the crafting system, from what I've seen, which is, granted, only the very early levels of it, pretty robust. There are stores to sell your shit on (guild stores that are placed in capturable keeps in Cyrodiil.) I'm not a huge crafting fan, but I could see myself getting in to this. Some people who are self described "crafters" in MMO say it's a really good system. Maybe wait til you give it a try before you get depressed?

Here's a little vid about it:

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Thank you for the Video. It isnt till I get in, play for a little while and see how the markets go before I see the major problems with the system. Cant see that in beta really. Like the over influx of cheap items, all being the same stats in a flood on the auction houses. I am interested at best but cynic in me is cautious on new games with crafting in mind. One of the major areas most all games fail at.

While most look at fighting, PVP and raiding. I focus on crafting, markets and general exploration. I enjoy the mini-game factor with profits, to put it in a nutshell.

I do like the Styles and Traits they showed. There was a section for research but for Traits, I do like that. The breaking of items is very nice. I will guess that its only available at a station and you cant break items in the field. That is nice, will see once I can get in and do more with it. Maybe someone at the office there has a brain!

Lots of fun things popping up here and there. Check out the amount of players on screen in this vid:

Yeah good to see no culling issues and doesn't look like any lag issues but man is it painful to watch them swing.

asfastasican_sl said:

I just tried Wildstar some yesterday and I'm planning to log on for some more today. I didn't even know the game existed a month or two ago, but it caught my eye. You can't even compare the two games for a number of reasons. Even though Wildstar isn't the second coming of WoW and it isn't perfect, it's miles ahead when it comes to risk-taking and good game design. You can see there was actual effort put into the game. They actually give a shit.

While a few of you are pointlessly obsessed with nagging Ut to spill his beans, it's very clear this game is unfinished and in my opinion, crappy. Your witchhunt doesn't add any more luster to the game. Yes, the graphics are good, yes for the most part, the environment and art assests are nice (probably because the skyrim guys helped out some with that.) But there's nothing that this game offers that Skyrim doesn't do better.

Even if you compare both of the stress test weekends, the W* devs had a much more organized approach and the stress test actually made sense. It didn't feel like the stress test was a gestureless formality or an excuse to buy time. The W* guys were encouraging the testers to flood the servers doing very specific things at very specific times. Adding friends to friends list, sending messages, telling them to log in and log constantly in a short time span, etc etc. And during the whole time all of the content was available and not taken down.

The reason I'm making this comparison to ESO is because, in ESO when a major questline breaks or a poor player is stuck in a jail cell for no reason, they just sit there being naive sending in bug reports and petitions thinking they will get help. Meanwhile the only real solution is to type /stuck and hope the entire server gets reset. The game's release is right around the corner and very basic mainstream questlines are still broken on occasion. It's not fair to any player, casual or not. Oh yeah, and when major features are down and not working, the dev's response to that is to just take down the feature for nearly the entire weekend, using it as an excuse to "stress test three zones." It's all horseshit.

This game is nothing more than a console port money grab. Hell, from what I've heard from a number of people, it even plays better on the console with less bugs. I'm giving Kudos to my buddies enjoying it on consoles while I'm going to laugh my ass off at whoever buys the PC box.

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Before November of last year I was looking forward to Wildstar very much and TESO wasn't even on my "maybe" list, which is the complete opposite of how I feel now. I have beta access to Wildstar, I have for several weeks, and I'll probably have it until the game does open beta while others get their access revoked because I have a character in the 30s and they might not even though I'll probably never log into it again... 'cause Carbine is full of great ideas.

The stress test for TESO was probably chaotic to those who got access via Curse because they weren't allowed access to the beta forum (though they could report bugs and provide feedback via commands like everyone else) which was a shame because no matter what was happening there were updates on the forum about it... minus one particularly funny thing. When they wanted everyone to put load onto the starting areas on Saturday they disabled Cyrodiil. When that was over on Saturday they re-opened Cyrodiil. When Cyrodiil campaigns were full it got locked, as per the built-in mechanic. It wasn't down for "nearly the entire weekend," despite many people admittedly not being able to gain access.

Also, I personally believe TESO's combat mechanics are better than both single-player ES games and Wildstar.

Anomander Rake_sl said:

So when is this bitch getting released? I thought it said April, but that video that NotSure posted said "ESOBetaClose". Is beta over and now people wait until April?

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There should be at least one more testing weekend. I'm guessing after the first week of March.

Utnayan_sl said:

I tested this and repeated it over and over again, and any of you others can do the same. Now, I tested this with a bow and arrow. I would guess it is the same thing as a caster but never tested.

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My playtime consisted of casting nearly all of the time. I experienced nothing like what you described, even when I did a stint as a bow-wielding Khajiit Nightblade.


As far as my gripes go...
- Animations. The curse of the Elder Scrolls series.
- Not being able to actually aim heals. Watching someone die right in front of me in Cyrodiil, while they're right under my reticule, because my "smart heals" decided someonebehindme was a better target, is one of the most frustrating things I've ever encountered in a video game.
- Console UI. Skyrim's UI was shit, TESO's UI is shit. Thank the gods for mods and add-ons... though we'll obviously have much more restriction as far as add-ons go.

Fubarbox_sl said:

I have not looked at the NDA drop stuff, so hopefully its across the board. I have been in the closed beta for a few months and I honestly do not think I will pick up the game. Some, if not most of my reasons will seem trivial, but we all need to decide what we want to do somehow. That said, I think the game is good, but it depends what you are looking for. For me, it was not what I was looking for. So, here are a few of my problems with the game, all of which are mentioned on the private forums by other testers and seem to have gone unanswered:

1. I hate quickslots. This feature is great for a single player game, but in an MMO it just felt cumbersome, especially for PvP. I would prefer 3 more slots or even the ability to keybind individual quickslots.
2. Not being able to darken the area behind your text window and keep your text window always up. Unfortunately, this is a deal breaker for me. My eyes have a focus issue and not being able to darken chat makes it hard for me to read.
3. Phasing is a drag. Too often friends were on a different step in a quest and unable to help me. My mobs would just be invisible to them and or we would be able to be near each other and not see each other. This made grouping pretty annoying.
4. Casters seemed very powerful when compared to melee
5. too much voice acting. Sometimes I would spend what felt like 5 minutes+ just going through the dialog options for a single quest (some interesting and some so boring I wanted to pull my hair out). Sometimes you have heard enough and decide to just skip through them, only to realize that certain choices might change what you are supposed to do and you and your group members now have completely different objectives.
6. Even though I love Skyrim, I felt this mmos combat felt awkward and I never really got used to it
7. Animations still need work....jumping and swimming /sigh ...so bad
8. The the game is pretty much 90% soloable (exceptions wvw and dungeons mostly) unless you cannot play your character
9. WvW makes the same mistakes as GW2 with porting, no collision detection, and no real accomplishments (things are flipped too fast). Sadly the sieges in ESO were even faster than GW2 and taking a keep was ridiculously simple/fast. Felt GW2 had a lot more interaction in this area.
10. Do not like the need for 50+ and 50++ system to stay competitive with shards or the fact that you are playing in other factions lands but seeing no one but people who originally started in your faction.
11. Dislike that factions can have all the same races now, but still cannot chat in game.

In the end I felt that just playing Skyrim (I don't need to pay $15 to see people I have no use in interacting with) and GW2 WvW gives me just as good of an experience as Eso, without a sub. Its a good game and I hope it does well, but not a game for me. Even if liked, I cannot see someone getting more than a few months of enjoyment out of this game, but if you do awesome. That said, for the box price (even though I hate the pre order deal and it makes me worry about the cash shop) its a really good deal for the content you get.

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#2 Seems minor but it absolutely irritates the shit out of me too. Being able to blacken the background on chat and make it never fade should always be an option , I can't stand it without it.

#5 Has no one learned from SWTOR ? Voice acting matters for shit in an mmo , and is a hindrance in most cases , the only voices I want to hear are ambient NPC's dialogue while wandering the streets of a town or something, can't stand forced yacking in quests.

Cinge_sl said:

Yeah good to see no culling issues and doesn't look like any lag issues but man is it painful to watch them swing.

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I'm guessing the animations are as is , as not something that can be overhauled in less than a month. So now to watch videos and make a decision if worth it or not with the animations in current state.

Are people really that upset about voiced quest NPCS? Why are you even listening to them? Spamming 1 on your keyboard bypasses every single quest dialog within seconds, just like every MMO.