Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
How are the quests/stories?
djariel1
Member Posts: 96
Right now I'm debating weather to get the MoP xpac + resub (25$) or just buy TESO (60$) for the summer. I'll only be playing for a couple of months so I don't care ab out longevity here, basically just how much fun I'll be having questing, exploring, and doing dungeons.
How are the quests and dungeons in ESO? Are the environments varied and interesting? Will it keep me entertained for a month? As a fan of TES will this disappoint me?
How the hell do you pronounce Gotye?
Comments
If you are setting a time limit of two months, it is difficult to see how you would get bored in any quality MMO. You should be fine, but I would go for the cheap option if you only intend to stay that length of time.
It will only disappoint if you think a solo game will seamlessly port into a multiplayer game. TESO is not Skyrim online with other players. Casting my mind back I think a guy made a mod which allowed two players to play Skyrim together online, it had issues and there were only two players.
Plus you just can't make a MMO in the same format as a solo game, and I doubt you ever will be able to square that circle.
I would say the story is on par with FFXIV but not nearly as good as SWTOR.
imo: You're much better off buying a real single player game rather than an mmo built around delivering a sub-par single player experience.
Long story:
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Quests are good but at least in the AD faction kind of start to fall apart. I am in my late 30's and have been encountering quests that have reoccurring NPC and dialog choices that can over the course of the conversation sound like you have both known each other for a long time and others that make you feel like this is the first time you met this NPC. Really kind of frustrating, and I sware that at least once the look and sounds of some of these NPC's have changed mid quest. Also, speaking only from the AD side the lore delivery in the quests is kind of chunky.
On the bright side you can probably spend all summer questing and reading lore books and never really run thin on content.
<div><span style="width:120px; height:120px;float:left;overflow: hidden;"><a href="http://www.zowned.com/Opef"><img src="http://www.zowned.com/file/pic/user/Opef_120.jpg"; style="border: 0pt none ; margin: 10px 10px 10px 10px; width: 120px; height: 120px;"></a></span></div>
There are a number of recurring characters in each faction. It is another one of those design principles borrowed from solo rpg's, so we engage with the game more because of this. Like all the other design principles MMOs borrowed from solo games I view them as rather condescending.
These npcs do change appearance sometimes, I have only noticed them messing up on knowing you/not knowing you twice. I certainly prefer this technique to that old chestnut, making you the hero of the game. But is it needed? No.
Questing was boring for me. It got repetitive after the first half of the first major zone. The story was decent, but only if you take the time to read everything. Otherwise, the quests are all very generic, kill x mobs or gather x things quests.
Don't skip quests or you'll fall behind on leveling. You may have to grind some mobs anyways, but fewer if you complete every quest.
Leveling felt too tedious and not very rewarding.
If you skip the story you won't like the story; and if you ignore the story, any quests will end up being stripped down to their mechanical roots and they won't be very interesting. (Other than "go somewhere", "get this", "defeat that", "touch this or that", "talk to X", what else will you be doing in any computer game?) Every time you're asked to do something in an ESO quest it's advancing the story in some logical way; that alone makes it worth reading and listening.
The quest stories are on a par with other Elder Scrolls games - that is to say, some are superbly done; some are serviceable; and so on. There are hundreds of hours of them. If you like a story-driven game you'll get your moneys worth.
It's just...there are so many of them. This could be a good thing for many people, but I'm an old grinder at heart and found myself starting to dislike knowing there was yet more stories everywhere I turned. When I realized the VR ranks were going to make me go through endless stories, (at a greater difficult level) I walked away.
If good story content is important, this is your game.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I'm currently at Veteran Rank 7 and on my journey through the last faction. I still have 3 zones to explore until I head to Craglorn, the new zone. So far, I very much enjoyed the game. The story and quests are well fleshed out and if you actually read (or listen; all voiced over) the quests, you sometimes will have unbelievable "what the f****!" moments due to the twist in some story lines.
So, if you have the time to actually play and enjoy the game instead of rushing it, you will be finde with ESO.
The quests and story are among the best ever in an MMO...perhaps THE best.
But don't forget that they were designed as 1-50 content and are best experienced that way. If you stick with just one character and do the other 2 faction story lines as VR content, the 50+ difficulty level where every fight with trash mobs takes much more time and effort, the story suffers and becomes secondary to your efforts to make your build that got you there still work... and not all builds will work.
My suggestion is that you level 3 characters - one for each faction - and only do VR content after you've already experienced that area 1-50... much more enjoyable that way.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
that sounds like a nightmare!!
Not if you enjoy quests and story in an MMO - not everyone does, I know.
The content was designed with each faction a separate 1-50 experience. The post 50 VR decision came later and, as I said, the jacked-up difficulty of VR content detracts fro the quests / story... shrug
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Like that is not the case in every MMO.
Top Quest MMOs:
SWTOR for class quests.
TSW for making you think.
Lotro for making you believe you are part of the story.
TESO comes in the second tier, first in its tier where I would put Rift, GW2 and so on.
It is not up to the quality of "The Secret World" that has the most memorable NPCs and well paced stories of any MMO I have ever played. I did not enjoy the combat system all that much but the stories and varied quests could just keep me entertained into the small hours of the night.
ESO has quests that for the most part you will feel you have seen or played before. Despite their large amount of celebrity voice actors the NPC conversations are still scripted rather blandly.
That said, if you only are going to game for two months, you can pick up any game but don't pay 60$ for ESO. You can get it much cheaper in most game stores and online stores.
Enjoy the summer!