The Elder Scrolls Online

[Hotfoot]

There's no NDA anymore, and I played last weekend.

Don't buy this game.

That may be a bit harsh, as is is a Beta and I was suffering from numerous game-stopping bugs, crashes, and so forth, but this game is launching in four months, and the state it's in now, I have a difficult time imagining wanting to play this game. I want to use harsher language, I want to tear it apart, but at the same time, I can't muster up the desire to do so.

The combat is slow and irritating and obscenely easy. People criticize Elder Scrolls combat in the singleplayer games, and I can see where they are coming from, but this is so bad I can't defend it. It's like they took Elder Scrolls combat, slowed it down, added supremely obvious attack tells for the enemies, and then threw in super-potion health regeneration after being out of combat for what felt like five seconds. Every so often I used a power, but I really didn't need to for most of it.

Exploration is moderately useful, but the areas you're exploring, at least early on, are tiny. It feels like the Elder Scrolls as constructed by Neverwinter Nights. Loading screens are everywhere. Maybe that gets better when you make it to Cyrodill proper, but early on, it's just doors upon doors upon doors. And sometimes a gate.

Crafting. Supposedly it worked the weekend I was using it, but I couldn't figure it out beyond making alchemy and food. I had over a thousand hunks of iron in my inventory and bank and I still couldn't get the damn thing working. Oh, and the inventory is depressingly bad as it manages to stay faithful to the Elder Scrolls UI, except this inventory is slot limited and not weight limited, so if you get 19 different versions of a health potion, you've eaten up nearly half of your inventory space. Oh, and your bank has less inventory space than you do. Brilliant.

The story is, well, there. You're a soul sent to Oblivion by Mannimarco in a terrible ritual to Molag Bal. You escape with the help of a magic man and I just don't bother questioning this at this point. I pick up a shitty weapon and two-shot (or one shot) a bunch of flame atronachs and escape from hell. Or something. Good job on creating a narrative that explains the several hundred thousand other assholes running around guys. That one really worked for me.

Races and sides are important, but only if you don't pre-order or get the super-deluxe Imperial Edition. Each alliance has three races, but if you pre-order, you can use any race in any alliance, except the Imperials. The Imperials are for people who shelled out for the super-deluxe Imperial Edition, which lets you make an Imperial character for any faction. So give them money and the restriction goes away. Hooray. Supposedly there is a system that lets you switch your faction at max level, but that's hardly useful. See, when I play these games, I want to play with friends, and that doesn't track if you have three separate factions where none of them can play together, until you hit max level.

I've seen other reviews of this game, and everyone has their own opinion on it, but I just can't see getting excited about this game. It's not a good game. Five years ago, this might have been an acceptable if flawed game, but when it's coming out against things like Everquest Next and Wildstar, competing against existing titles like World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Neverwinter, Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, Star Trek Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, EVE Online, Champions Online, DC Universe Online, Everquest, and Everquest 2, ALL OF WHICH ARE BETTER GAMES, I just don't see how they are going to keep the gates open for very long, much less capture all of our hearts for $15 a month (plus game and expansions), especially when many of the games I have just listed can cost absolutely nothing to play.

[Lys]

The best I've heard anyone say about Elder Scrolls Online is a big, resounding, "meh". It's a bad sign when the closest thing you have to enthusiasm is indifference. I have to wonder why did they even bother making an MMO? Their single player games are incredibly popular and make money hand over first. They would have likely done better artistically and commercially if they'd just focused on producing Elder Scrolls 6.

[General Havoc]

I don't believe that Bethesda made this one. They simply gave the license to someone to give it a shot.

[rhoenix]

I don't believe that Bethesda made this one. They simply gave the license to someone to give it a shot.

No, here's where it gets worse - since you're half-right, and it's the half that makes it worse.

According to sources I've read (one source: gamasutra article), Bethesda is heavily involved with the process, but Zenimax Online is the one actually turning the process into a realized project.

This is Zenimax Online's first project. Though both Zenimax Online and Bethesda are owned by the parent company Zenimax, Zenimax Online is a new company, with Elder Scrolls Online as it's first and flagship project.

So... yeah. Worse than what you were thinking - it's beginning to sound like Zenimax is trying to emulate some of the worst traits of EA.

[Hotfoot]

The reason they tried to make an MMO is simple, they print money. $15 a month from even 100,000 subscribers is still $18,000,000 a year, most of which is pure profit. Keep that thing running for five years and you've got steady income that you can devote to other projects.

And that's a low end projection. The suits responsible for this probably saw Skyrim sell 20 million units and figured that half of the people who bought that game would magically turn into $1,800,000,000 a year.

But they don't want to spend a lot of money. Keep in mind that The Old Republic cost at least $200,000,000 to make, possible up to twice that, took tons of talented people off of other projects, and it is stalling out at less than a million subscribers, and it's an actually pretty fun game.

Meanwhile, this game has been in development for supposedly SEVEN YEARS now. That's practically the kiss of death for a game, even an MMO.

[rhoenix]

The reason they tried to make an MMO is simple, they print money. $15 a month from even 100,000 subscribers is still $18,000,000 a year, most of which is pure profit. Keep that thing running for five years and you've got steady income that you can devote to other projects.

And that's a low end projection. The suits responsible for this probably saw Skyrim sell 20 million units and figured that half of the people who bought that game would magically turn into $1,800,000,000 a year.

But they don't want to spend a lot of money. Keep in mind that The Old Republic cost at least $200,000,000 to make, possible up to twice that, took tons of talented people off of other projects, and it is stalling out at less than a million subscribers, and it's an actually pretty fun game.

Meanwhile, this game has been in development for supposedly SEVEN YEARS now. That's practically the kiss of death for a game, even an MMO.

For it to be in development for seven years, and then come out of that looking lackluster and boring? Oh yeah.

[Hotfoot]

Any time a game takes more than four years to create, it's more than likely going to be bad with each year past four.