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Elder Scrolls Online - What’s Your ESO Story? - MMORPG.com
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Elder Scrolls Online - What’s Your ESO Story? - MMORPG.com
Going to take a different tack with this week’s ESO column. We’re all just waiting for the launch of the Morrowind Chapter in June, wildly guessing what it’s going to be like and where the rest of 2017 will take us. But there’s one thing that I think might be fun to do while we wait – if you’re an ESO player, what’s your story with the game? No, this isn’t an RP exercise, but rather a poll to see how you got started in Tamriel and what keeps you playing month after month.
Comments
Since I still actively play Morrowind and Skyrim (with quite some time in Oblivion) I wanted to have my character in a game that was constantly expanding, the whole "living world" if you will.
Sadly, initial design decisions with the factions were a disappointment.
I was a bit disappointed in the combat. Especially for me that a bit of latency tends to make everything a chore.
Having said that, I can use my "character" who has a whole backstory explaining his involvement with each incarnation of the game, explanations for the longevity, etc.
I've given up on the "mmo" portion of the game, don't care anymore and just play it as a single player game with a very "live and vibrant" world due to actual players inhabiting it.
Still, I can only play so much of Elder Scrolls Online before I shut it down and load up the single player games and play many more hours in them.
ugh, I should also note that some of the armor designs in Elder Scrolls Online are just horrid.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
On the other hand, I just seriously got back into LOTRO after 10 years and loving it. Not sure why now but never before. Maybe in 10 years ESO will warm up for me lol.
Same here, I keep trying to play it since I bought it in 2014 only to get bored after a few hours of play. I'm level 44 atm, I'll never hit the veteran ranks at this rate lol. I agree though, I can't quite put my finger on why the game is kind of meh.
Originally posted by Arskaaa
"when players learned tacticks in dungeon/raids, its bread".
Most of the Titan Alliance had left the game around 1-3 months post launch, so I co-led an AD pvp guild called Loud Damage where I became the 5th first ever emperor in a "main campaign" where it was much harder than in the less populated and competitive campaigns. After a 2-3 month break playing AA, I returned to ESO and joined DiE where after just a month they wanted me leading groups and made me an officer. At this point we realized AD was too strong and the other factions needed more hardcore pvp guilds, so we rerolled to the Ebonheart Pact.
From here there was a guild split where half of the guild, DiE, went back to AD and the other half, Havoc, formed our own guild to stay on EP. It was shortly after this that EP enjoyed a 1-1.5 year period of dominance where Havoc at times would have 3 guild emperors at a time in three different campaigns. I was one of the 3 pvp raid leaders. Many people claim we were the best pvp guild ESO ever had on NA, but without a doubt we were one of the top few.
Fast forward 6 months and the game had suffered from huge pvp population loss, continuously unfixed bugs, little to no pvp content, the only pvp expansion had left out the pvp part and been turned into a pve expansion, and the lag had remained unfixed. Havoc decided to leave ESO, prompting me to combine the two best remaining NA EP pvp guilds, Havoc and Nexus forming Haxus. At this point the game's pvp size, both in guilds in total players, had shrunk considerably and the future was quite bleak.
I kept with the game helping to lead Haxus in a democratic council leadership for 6 months before enough was enough and I left to play BDO's launch. After 4 months ending in disappointment and crazy amounts of grinding I returned to ESO. Since then I've remained an on and off hardcore ESO pvper, except I don't take the game and it's tiny pvp community seriously anymore. I'm awaiting Morrowind and the Warden which I will play for several months before quitting ESO for good.
21 year MMO veteran
PvP Raid Leader
Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
There is a blandness isn't there? I was trying to put my finger on it last night. There's something about the landscape that just doesn't work.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I continued on crappy looking land full of hellish creatures. I killed a few.
Almost got out. Got bored alt+f4
All this with a f...ing collector's edition. Never got back since then.
Would alt+f4 again.
Festivus in May... woohoo!
I've been a fan of TES since I played Arena way back when it first released in 1994. I've liked all of the installments - some more than others obviously - so a TES MMO was a no brainer for me. That it was being made in DAoC like, 3 faction PVP way was a huge plus since DAoC had my absolute favorite type of PVP: persistent, group-based and separate from PvE.
The warts ESO had at release - and there were many - were just not enough to sour me to it. So I persevered through broken quests, an awful Veteran Rank system, cookie cutter delves, etc., and enjoyed playing it a lot and becoming proficient at all different kinds of classes and builds. I've always liked their hybrid class /classless ability system. I've also played it for both the PVP and PVE going back and forth in PVP or PVE binges that often last 3 months or more.
3 years later there is still no MMO I'd rather be playing. I've left it for a month or 2 at a time (Archeage and BDO) but I've always gone back. It feels like home to me.
The bad?
Peter Hines and other spin doctors that are always trying to characterize additions and changes as something other than what they truly are. Yes, all developers over-hype but ZOS is particularly offensive with the way they do it for both major and petty things. Their latest? Several obvious nerfs in the latest build being characterized as buffs in the patch notes
I also dislike crown crates in general and think that their inclusion cheapens the game (although obviously, not their wallet,) I dislike the mostly non-functional way they implemented housing and don't get me started on the whole "It's a chapter!" business... It's a DLC... you'll see.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
What does this mean? I just don't understand the comment.
He's just saying that games get cheaper the longer you wait to buy them... I think
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Played the Beta, bought the imperial Edition, leveled a Templar to 50 started the Veteran grind, became bored and left. Clicked on this thread, cuz a I recently reloaded the game, started a new toon and... well am bored already. Coupled with the gawd-awful auction house mess just can't get into it.
The horrible rng system, gamble boxes, shallow content releases, easy mode pve and a constant nerf/buff cycle to keep the gear grind going just simply drove everyone I played with to quit.
I still think it's a really good very casual mmo. Not for anyone who likes a challenge or for most long term players.
The business model is designed for short term players with each dlc.
Years later WoW started its path being destroyed by Blizzard and during one of the "Afker meets afker idling in frustration in WoW" a person suggested me to try out ESO again. The person said ESO had improved greatly, I should give it a try.
Seeing Blizz just continued to burry WoW and refusing to be innovative, I eventually figured, sure why not try ESO again.
And what a world that opened up with ESO, the freedom, the friendly community, the creative content, its beauty and no goldseller spam in the zones.
Was enough reason for me to give WoW the middlefinger for awhile and bascially spit at Blizzard for being so incredibly narrow minded compared to Zeni.
ESO is all about giving players freedom and quality and a lot of open choices. Needless to say Blizz does this to its players less and less. To the point of turning their game into a colorful version of just a random online gambling site.
WoW is sadly still my home though, which I regret deeply. Id have much rather preferred that ESO had been the game I had picked up over a decade ago.
I have no words that really covers how I feel about ESO, it really is a masterpiece and if Zeni keeps holding their players in high regard being generous with content and beauty, I feel that ESO will likely be the only game Id forever consider the best game ever made.
ESO does not have a fastfood complex, its instead the Michelin restaurant in comparison to other MMOs. When you dine in ESO, you do so in a chill atmosphere where you really get to appreciate the journey, allowing you time to notice the details. ESO is a game with substance, imo anyway. And while ESO is not really designed to be played for 20 hours a day, the 1 hour I do make time for on most days is a perfect hour in a perfect MMORPG.
I am really really grateful to be able to experience this game and I pray it keeps its integrity during its existence.
There are things Id probably have liked to see in ESO, but Id be worried that by changing ESO, it stops actually being ESO, so I overall I want it to stay the way it is and continue the path its on, not changing itself into another WoW.
But I wonder... would it really be all terrible to bring dwarfs into ESO some day? Or other kinds of chubby/sturdy kinds of halflings?
I know the lore deny dwarfs existence, but they would be such a wonderful race to see on my travels in Tamriel.
Then my friend got bored and returned to WoW to join some other IRL friends of ours, but I stayed for almost 10 months. Hit 50 on my templar and started a few Veteran Ranks. Then, I became bored with playing by myself.
My entire MMO career I have been fortunate enough to be able to play with a fairly large group of IRL friends and have our own guild throughout the years across multiple MMOs. So, since they were all in WoW I eventually went back as well. Then moved on to FFXIV fairly quickly. Stayed in FFXIV for a long time, but just recently came back to ESO and it was like reuniting with a long lost love.
I find it to be the closest thing to my dream MMO that I can find. I love how everything is voice acted, which I feel has been a no-brainer, no excuse not to have it, type of feature since 2014. One Tamriel and just all the updates they have put into the game has improved things 100-fold. Love questing in first person view. So immersive, just wish I had an Occulus Rift to really get immersed.
I'll come back to level the Warden to 50 and that will probably be it for awhile. Wish there were more skills available on the skills bar.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Class balance is a joke just like in any MMO, but couple that with animation canceling on abilities in an action combat game and the experience is just flat out terrible. The whole point of action combat is to determine your opponent's attack so you can respond with a block or dodge or something, but this is rendered moot in ESO when your opponent cancels the animation of their attack so you can't even see the damn thing coming. This is one of those fundamental engineering flaws of the game that Zenimax ignores because they don't want to admit their incompetence.
But for all the game's flaws, and there are so many that I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of them, the world is immersive and there's plenty of stuff to do if you're a PvE'er. Just stay away from PvP if you're competitive at all. The broken ass combat will make you want to rip your hair out. I might end up going back for Morrowind, just because the Warden looks interesting. I'm a big Nord guy so I'll probably make a Nord Warden, or a Norden if you will. Ice magic and a giant bear. It's a Viking Metal song waiting to happen.
So yeah, that's my ESO story. Bittersweet. More bitter than sweet, but the sweet is pretty sweet, which just makes the bitter that much more bitter. So much promise, so much potential, squandered, semi-salvaged, and limping along. Half playable, half not. Worth a few bucks here and there but no long-term investment. It's a shame.
I feel a lot of freedom to go where I want, when I want, and do whatever I want.
Plus it's just so pretty.
I returned also to ffxiv but compared to ESO it's clumsier. You hit with your weapon and wait many seconds for the impact. Huh. With some weapons like books you fall asleep before the impact is done. Characters are good looking but too similar. And you are forced to do the tubes and dungeons. FFXIV 1.x was much more free and it was more social. Now there is more content but I don't like the "kill 3 rats and run 3 miles" content. Eso is better and I'm more free to plan how I play it.
The VR might bring some salt into gaming if it wdnt notnot (f the English lang) be so expensive. I think I could kill few years even rats with the glasses on.
In my case Skyrim SE with its new mods draws me in near future to the real Tamriel. Hopefully not forever.