For this month’s MMO Co-Opportunities, several of the staff will be imparting their impressions of the upcoming MMO based in the world of Tamriel: The Elder Scrolls Online. Just how impressed were we with this hotly anticipated MMO?
Our impressions are based off of beta weekends that ZeniMax has been running for the game, which means that many of our experiences could be subject to change, or may have been incomplete. Elder Scrolls Online (henceforth ESO) is an interesting MMO to preview, since those interested in the game are likely from one of two different camps: MMO fans and Elder Scrolls fans (though there are certainly interested parties that are fans of both). Our staff comes from various points on these two scales. If you'd rather watch a video of our impressions instead of reading, head to the bottom of page 3 of this editorial.
TALLY: I’ve played a lot of MMOs, and while I’ve dabbled in Elder Scrolls games before (Morrowind was one of the first PC games I really became immersed in), I’m by no means obsessed with the franchise. At PAX East 2013, I heard about all the new and innovative things that ESO boasted about. I had a few friends who played it, and they came back raving about how great it was going to be. I didn’t have a chance to play it myself back then, but I wasn’t too broken up about it - I knew I’d get a chance in the future.
Fast forward to a couple of months back. I was accepted into the beta, so I downloaded the game and logged in for the beta weekend. I made a Dunmer Sorcerer, and was quite impressed with the physical character customization on character creation. It’s very robust. As soon as I loaded into the game, however, the game felt weird from a controlling perspective. Third person had my character running around very stiffly, and first person felt much too limiting for an MMO (I want to be able to see as much around me as possible). Concerning the skill system, I saw a lot of potential there (while each class has a small set of class-specific skill lines and abilities, most skill lines are open for all classes); however, in the end I was disappointed that instead of feeling like I could build my character to be unique, instead I felt like everyone was very similar because of this largely shared skill pool.
I must say that ZeniMax successfully made ESO feel like an Elder Scrolls game; the world felt huge and it felt like the same world that Skyrim or Oblivion takes place. That being said, however, I came away feeling like I might be better served by just playing one of the single-player Elder Scrolls games. While adventuring with friends is certainly great, I wish that ESO had instead been a LAN or co-op Elder Scrolls game, not a full-blown MMO. I’m not just saying this because of subscriptions and all that sort of MMO baggage - I actually felt like ESO was at times hindered by being an MMO. Instead of the stories of quests progressing smoothly, my party members and I had to prompt cutscenes to progress. Random players running around in the world made the setting feel much less immersive. Tasks often felt trivial and not important from a story perspective. All in all, while I feel that ESO will certainly appeal to some people, it wasn’t really my type of thing.
NICK: For me it’s sort of the opposite of Tally. While I’ve played my share of MMOs, for the most part I’m a casual player in that realm. On the other hand Elder Scrolls titles I’ve enjoyed and played through all the way back since Daggerfall. Since Morrowind the Elder Scrolls Series really brought that open world feel to players, making it almost a “single player MMO.” Many thought this would naturally translate into a multiplayer version. And while I feel ESO has a lot of the look and lore of a typical Elder Scrolls game, it just doesn’t quite have the same flavor as the series.
Graphically ESO should impress, but it’s not a huge step up over Skyrim. The biggest change, in my opinion, is the character models themselves feel a bit more stylized. Like any typical Elder Scrolls title you start as a prisoner and are slowly introduced to the game’s controls. As Tally said, something is off about the third and first person perspectives. In first person movement feels muddy while in 3rd the character looks almost disconnected from the world.
Bethesda has retained, for the most part, the Elder Scrolls progression system. You level up your character’s traits by simply performing actions with those traits. Unfortunately I don’t think the interface tells the whole story here as to exactly what’s going on, and after 8 hours or so with the beta, I still wasn’t comfortable figuring out my character progression. If I had to equate the skill system to another Elder Scrolls title, it would be the recent Skyrim, which allowed you to put multiple points in an ability to strengthen it. The interface in general is a bit obfuscated, and in my opinion is one of the game’s weakest points.
Ironically what I think is the biggest problem for ESO, might not be a problem for the game at all. I think it feels a bit too much like an MMO and not enough like an Elder Scrolls game. The quests themselves feel very cliche, and while the full voice acting is definitely nice, the simple goals boil down to running from person to person and talking. In one quest you literally have to talk to people in the same room to complete it. The other problem with these quests is the lack of freedom on them. Sure some will give you a choice in either the dialog to go one way or the other, or perhaps give a wise-crack answer via intimidation - but a lot of the experimentation of Elder Scrolls games is gone here.
I miss simple things like the ability to steal anything within the game world, attempt to pick pocket or kill random townsfolk. The AI seems to exist in a very small box, only reacting a very small distance around your character where as a typical game doing something could yield reaction across the entire town. To put it simply, the lifeblood of an Elder Scrolls title simply doesn’t exist here from what we’ve seen.
Finally to tough on the cooperative aspects of the game. There are promised four player instanced dungeons with specific quests and bonuses for completing them. In about eight hours of play, I have yet to find one. That said the game is also inherently co-op, just by completing actions with other players either in your party or out, all players get credit for the quests. So if you need to kill a certain wizard to gain an item, and another player is attacking the wizard too, you can join in on the battle and you’ll both get that item.
All in all it’s hard not to be disappointed with the game in its current state. As a premium MMO I fear there’s a large uphill battle for Elder Scrolls Online. I’ve heard the later game content is much more interesting, but the early game stuff is quite boring. And that’s something I’ve never said in the series.
MIKE: I've been eyeing Elder Scrolls Online for some time, since I was privy to a closed-door presentation at E3 2012. Since then, it’s evolved into something more closely resembling an Elder Scrolls game than the generic Hero Engine MMO it seemed to be. The problem, as Nick mentioned above, is that it has begun to set unrealistic expectations for itself. Where games in the Elder Scrolls franchise offer unprecedented player freedom, the structure of an MMO means artificially gating content behind zones, quest progression and your character’s own level. The zones also seem relatively empty, because they have to be large enough to accommodate a sizable player count.
These things are a necessity when you stick with the structure of a traditional MMO, but I had hopes that ESO would do a little more to break the mold. There are other bizarre decisions, such as the obfuscation of most of your actual stats, and the (at this time) lack of tutorials regarding how your skills evolve. I feel like the game is torn between its two identities - it presents itself as an Elder Scrolls game, but is missing a lot of what defines those. It also wants to be an MMO, but it hides a lot of the things that high-level MMO players want to see.
There are also a lot of things to like. First, this might be the first Elder Scrolls game with character models that don’t obviously look like they were crapped out by a character generator, and the lightly stylized visuals appealed to me personally. I also enjoyed the combat - it does a good job of splitting the difference of traditional Elder Scrolls combat and hotbar-based MMO combat. Certain abilities also prompt teammates or nearby players to combine attacks of their own to create more powerful combo attacks. Full voice acting on everything may affect the ability of the developers to rapidly create new content, but it goes a long way for pulling players into the world.
Hopefully everything I’ve heard about the mid to late game content holds true, and a lot of the issues with the early zones disappear. Unfortunately, it seems like I’ll need to wait for the retail release to find out.
Well, there you have it - those are our impressions of ESO in its current beta form. Additionally, we put together a video with Nick talking about his impressions of the game if you'd like to see our impressions demonstrated with accompanying visuals.
So what do you guys think of Elder Scrolls Online? Any impressions of your own you'd like to share?