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[Editorial] Elder Scrolls Online: Review in Progress Part 1
BillMurphy
Former Managing EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 4,565
The Elder Scrolls Online is easily the most anticipated and biggest MMO launch since Star Wars: The Old Republic. Indeed, many people probably wrote ESO off as another SWTOR in terms of hype and let down, but so far... I believe those people are mistaken. There are a lot of wonderful design choices in ESO, some not so great ones, and plenty of bugs to grind an axe on. But in my nearly 20 hours played since head start, one thing’s prevailed: I’m having a lot of fun, and the rabbit hole keeps going deeper.
Read the rest of Bill Murphy's Elder Scrolls Online: Review in Progress Part One.
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Why are Argonians always killing themselves for nature? Hippies.
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
Comments
ESO is a respectable mmo- Quality and Lore Driven. which sometime hurts when you cant progress in story..but its getting fix rather quickly!
Exploring the world has turned me off ,Even though we've been told to do so(exploring)- but because its an open world to other players- it seems everything to search for is empty drawers, baskets, rooms,nodes etc..so just leads me to just do my stories with 'ok' rewards.
but one def feels wrapped up in the elder scrolls franchise!- those who say not. iam not sure they even played tbh.
judge for yourselve. ESO for me , will be a keeper!
Nice review. I agree pretty much with everything you wrote.
For myself, I haven't had any of the issues that others seem to be having with the game's performance, other than having to log-out and log back in twice to get 2 quests to move to the next stage.
I was slightly irritated that they brought down the servers during EU prime time last night, but I suppose it was necessary to do their final pre-official launch patches.
Overall, I am really enjoying the game so far and only wish I could settle on a build (too many things to try)...lol.
what i really enjoy abt the game- no real cookie cutter builds in the game! which makes the dungeon 'trinity' more bearable..
Bil, you've said this kind of stuff about most everything you lay your hands on..
Smite didn't become the most popular MOBA, GW2 isn't a masterpiece, etc., etc.,
LOL, the user rating is already 9 out of 10. It's incredible now things never change.
Bill, thanks for the ongoing review, but we all know you'll give it 8-9 out of 10
. But atleast you're having fun. That's what matters.
Looks pretty, seems to have nice features.
Still fantasy. I simply cant play any more fantasy.
No way! See, had no clue about that. Thanks!
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
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Kind of the typical MMORPG.com soft touch review of a major advertiser.
There are some major issues not even touched in your review: memory fragmentation over time killing game play in major towns and PvP areas; imbalanced classes making certain builds absolutely impractical; and freezes/crashes.
Entering a town or Cyrodil hot spot after just logging in, the game runs smoothly. Wait an hour... the game drags. It is not network lag or graphical hitching, it is the computer trying to find free memory. Performance degradation can be tracked over time.
Try playing a pure melee build (no ranged skills) for tanking (such as a DragonKnight) against some of the bosses (like Doria at the end of the first fighters' guild quest chain). Lotsa luck... Ranged capabilities blow melee capabilities out of the water in PvE and PvP. That was noted during Beta, but has not been fixed at all.
I've had a lot of disconnects since early release (though none since the patch) and nine crashes, to include two hard crashes. I've had a lot of game freezes. If you wait a while, the game usually unfreezes, but often you are dead when you get control of your character again. Since the patch, I haven't experienced that, so maybe it's fixed.
Having been in large real time software projects at every level from dirtbag junior engineer up through executive director before I retired, I am not very forgiving of the sort of stuff I've seen in the game. You don't market and sell a game first and then subsequently fix the issues. That leads to lost customers. That's only acceptable if you're only interested in short-term revenue.
You have to discover them first...
There's a very good reason I do not read reviews for mainstream/AAA MMOs:
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/367/view/reviews/load/178
Looks glowing doesn't it? Now they may have changed but with one of the more catastrophic issues found and fixed not being mentioned in the list found in this review (and the patcher issue continues, multiple people had to download over a dozen gigs last night due to a patch) I am of the opinion that this "review" has either been paid for or is the result of someone incapable of maintaining the modicum of objectivity required to review something.
It is well known that B.Murphy loves games, all of them.
I don't believe he, or MMORPG.com are shills, just lovers of games.
ummm I played a DK at the end of the fighters guild quest as a pure melee, and i've had zero trouble with it....
I've also had zero trouble tanking any of the dungeons so far (level 35)
As for Ranged abilities blowing melee out of the Water...
You've not found some of the overpowered melee abilities i've found so far...
I'll give you a hint, 1 handed/shield has some of the highest DPS in the game if you know how to build your character around it.
Bill,
I just hit level 14 last night. The gold picks up considerably. I've jumped 2.5k since level 12. Also, I think it's helped that I've stopped deconstructing for woodworking and clothing. I'm only going to focus on blacksmithing until my combat build is complete. This means I've been able to vendor all of that gear.
I'm told the gold continues to pick up after 15 as well. One of my guildmates is level 20 and made over 18k gold on day three just from quests and selling items to vendors.
All games have their problems at launch. The one problem I see with many of the posters, they want everything right away. Think it through, if you get it all at launch what is the point of playing beyond a month or so? That was the good point of old MMO's it took a while for things like trade skills and levels to advance.
The people whining about not being uber in a few days need to chill.
Then they should quit because if you actually care for gaming you critique not praise because there are enough sites out there that have two settings: paid or your game sucks and finding a source of objective information is pretty hard.
I'm just a little tired of MMO's launching with a sub based model to recoup production costs then going f2p when the realization that new sub based games are no longer a viable payment model. I'm not defending WoW at all that game is not worth a sub either but runs strictly on brand loyalty and player invested time on characters.
Never thought I'd say it but I won't drop the cash in sub based games like Teso, Wildstar anymore. My most recent games that I dropped money into for a box and sub based games include, Rift Tera, SWTOR all went f2p and enjoyed them all except for SWTOR. I will high five you all in game in about 6+ months when Teso is f2p.
As far as Bill's article on the game it's pretty spot on, my review of the game was a bit shorter. I give it a 6 or 7 out of 10 or in one word, meh. I've got my flame suit on so fire away but mark my words it will happen sadly. Not meant to be a huge Debbie Downer and do wish the players of this game many enjoyable hours but shame on developers thinking the sub payment model is still viable long term these days. Look at Titan it went back to the drawing board since they knew it would fail under that payment model.
Bugs? I really need to leave Cyrodiil more, see what you guys are talking about.
Seriously, did you really think that post through? Try playing any of these "AAA" f2p games for free. It ends up being a frustrating experience. If you like a game support it. You will get far more enjoyment out of it. I avoid any f2p game I cannot sub to. If they don't have a sub they milk you through the item shop for far more than a sub cost. If I find a game I like I sub to it, that eliminates so many hassles of f2p restrictions. $15 a month is a truly minor cost when it comes to playing a game you enjoy.