official The Elder Scrolls Online

[McKay]

Do you keep your old character from previous betas? I only got to lvl 3 but I cant be bothered to do the tutorial again.

[Slugsie]

Eventually got on, just played for about an hour, and I've been totally drained of what little enthusiasm I had left. Utterly unengaged with the story and the characters. The animations are a joke. Crucial dialogue is quiet and utterly overpowered by background noises. The menu system is confusing. The skill system is confusing.

 

Suffice it to say, I'm out.

[HawkMan]

The game itself looks and plays just fine, I don't see how their skills can be confusing though, they're about as straight forward as you can make them.

 

The graphics are a bit bland though, but thta's typical for realistic graphics. The animations are actually fairly good I'd say. they're not over exaggarated like WoW, but it's a more realistic game anyway, but unlike any NCsoft game for example they actually put some work into them, and the obvious ones like Jumping, has a proper soft landing and you can't jump again untill you have done it, and there's a little bit of a "take" before jumping, but not much, since most peopel expect their player to jump when they hit the button, that part is usually dropped though, even WoW the character just insta jumps. 

 

My biggest gripe with the game is the view though, the force semi FPS offset over shoulder view. it was what ruined SWG when they implemented it there, and it's what ruins this for me. I understand it's a "semi" necessity for this kind of action MMORPG where you actually aim with the mouse, but I don't like it. I prefer a good free camera mouse/tab targetting system MMORPG. 

 

The game as a lot more ambience than other games though, with most of the NPC's around acknowledging your presence as you walk buy and saying hi and such. 

 

And I do like the very powerful character editor allowing you to actually make a unique character. 

 

Suspicius lack of people with wounded knees so far though....

[Mystic Mungis]

Do you keep your old character from previous betas? I only got to lvl 3 but I cant be bothered to do the tutorial again.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I read in the e-mail that all characters from the previous beta will be playable. 

 

Not participating this time, mainly because I've got a lot of work to do this weekend and I've been replaying Final Fantasy VIII for the billionth time so what little free time I do get I can't help but play it :P

[HawkMan]

It's a bit weird to stand and listen to the bards who sing and play lute and hear them singing but not move their lips though :p

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I read in the e-mail that all characters from the previous beta will be playable. 

 

Not participating this time, mainly because I've got a lot of work to do this weekend and I've been replaying Final Fantasy VIII for the billionth time so what little free time I do get I can't help but play it :p

 

yeah, my old characters where there from last beta. 

[spaceelf]

I don't remember bugs this annoying in any other MMO tests :huh:

 

clearly they still have work to do

 

whats this about forced third person view?  I'm playing it in first person

[HawkMan]

yeah, I said forced first person. 

 

I haven't discovered many bugs, only bugs I really found that annoyed me was having to reloadui after exciting crafting UI a lot. and a annoying one but not hugely bad one where the path durign the assasing hunt don't lead you to the abandoned house. 

 

the game is growing on me though, and after I got off mistral I decided to not play anymore as the progress will be gone and I might be getting the game. 

[spaceelf]

Over the shoulder isn't first person, it's third person.

[HawkMan]

Not really, it's still first person just with the camera offset. I

 w

ouldn't mind it so much if the camera wasn't offset so ridiculouorsly much to the side when zoomed close to the character.

 

but a free camera with proper mouse/tab targetting is better anyway. while the game pretends to play like a Firs person RPG with real targetting it doesn't actually, it doesn't matter where you actually aim as long as the target is still highlighted(i.e. targetted) the attack will hit. 

 

Age of Conan actually uses real targetting better than this game and it doesn't force you into a pretend FPS perspective of using the cemra to target. The game should just use proper targetting not linked to the camera. 

[+ir0nw0lf Subscriber²]

The UI freezing issue is probably the biggest issue I ran into.  Having to reload the UI a bajillion times was grating at my nerves.  Mostly after crafting but also after some dialogs/vendors.  They squash that issue and it'll be a bit more stable/sane.  I've always been more crafter-centric in MMOs and the crafting here isn't so bad.  No tools to worry about or tool durability is nice.  Being able to gather all resources without specific gathering skills is nice as well.  I ended up selling a lot of runes and non-metal crafting stuff.  Made a bunch of my own heavy metal armor.  Love the looks of some of the stuff.  No real instructions/tutorials on crafting however made things very confusing.  Last night I heard literally every 30 seconds "How do I smelt iron ore" or similar questions.  Durability was something I didn't realize initally.  Items like weapons with procs on them have a finite amount of charges on them and I think you have to use soul gems to recharge them.  At least I think.  The zoomed out camera angles suck it hard.  The 1st person FOV seems to bite as well. 

[HawkMan]

The more zoomed out you are the more you are behind the character, so at max zoom the camera is mostly directly behind the character, hat view I don't mind so much. I understand the need to offset the camera as you get closer to some degree, but the amount they use is ridiculous, and really annoying. when you have the camera directly behind the character there's a huge distance between the character and cursor. 

 

And I can't stand playing RPG's in first person. 

[trag3dy]

I agree with you there. In a game that features large scale rvr using first person view is just going to severely cut down on your situational awareness. I'm not sure why anyone would want to use first person view to be honest.

[Slugsie]

I personally can't stand *not* being in first person. It's disorienting for me, and I have ended up not playing certain games that I would otherwise enjoy simply because they only allow third person (Red Dead Redemption being a prime example). I respect that I'm in the minority here, but I appreciate the choice.

 

As to the animations I found appalling, three instances stick out. First was when the prophet dude (whatever he was called) took me to meet The Five, and they started talking individually I had no idea which was talking because the entire talking animation was just a slight movement of the lips, even when one of them was speaking in a grandiose manner. Then when one was being flung around by Molag, their animation looked like a bad attempt at break dancing. And finally, the one that had me laughing, was when you shoot a deer with an arrow. Every single time they just rise up on their hind legs, then flop down in a manner that would bring a tear to the eye of am-dram actor hamming up a death scene.

 

One other thing that just made the world seem ...odd, in the likes of Oblivion and Skyrim when you see something lying on a table or the floor or whatever you can at least mouse over it and get some info about it, even if actually picking it up instantly brands you a theif. In ESO it's like it isn't there, and makes the world just feel empty. I realise it's a side effect of an MMO, but it breaks the immersion for me.

[HawkMan]

Read dead redemption is not a RPG and plays differently, what you shoot is what you hit, this isn't the case with ESO, ESO plays like WoW but uses the camera/crosshairs as a way to target instead of mouse and tab targeting.

[LaP]

I just don't see myself playing a MMO with a controller.

 

I like Skyrim but it is unplayable with a mouse and keyboard unless you mod the hell out of it. And these days i feel like i'm too old to mod. I just don't have a weekend to waste modding a game because the dev doesn't care about PC gaming. I played SKyrim with a controller and it was ok but it could have been su much better with a proper UI and a mouse.

 

Unless Bethesda steps up its game and make a mouse friendly UI i'll have to skip this game. Skyrim had imo the worst UI ever created in the history of PC gaming.

[Lord Method Man]

Skyrim's UI sucked but come on it hardly takes all weekend to install SkyUI :)

[LaP]

Skyrim's UI sucked but come on it hardly takes all weekend to install SkyUI :)

 

Dunno i installed it and it did not work out of the box like Morrowind UI mod did. Then i learned i had to install some third party app to improve Skyrim scripting ability for it to work. And then i learned i had to launch the game using a special launcher instead of launching it via Steam. Then i was so frustrated with Bestheada level of failure that i decided to play the game with a controller. It's not like it is an online fps anyway. This is how bethesda wants you to play their games in the end. They spend a lot of time to be sure you do play them with a controller. Anyway personally i'm done with Bethesda on PC i wont ever buy any of their PC game again. They lost me as a customer after Skyrim.

 

[edit] It's not only about the UI tough it's about the ini modifications you have the make in all of their games too. In Skyrim the only way to turn off mouse accel, DoP and radial blur is from the ini. Only way to change the FoV is from the ini.

[firey]

Got the key from Curse yesterday.. currently over my internet cap so not going to download the client yet.. have heard mixed reviews.  Played the hell out of wow until it was dumbed down, and GW2 never kept my interest (the whole everyone can do everything thing bugged me).  

[HawkMan]

Yesterday? Wasn't this another weekend beta ?

[Argi]

Each beta weekend they send me the same beta key and each time I tried to use it it said it was not valid.  I contacted supported, got one response but nothing after that.  They really don't want me to play this game apparently.  Oh well, their loss. :P

[HawkMan]

Make sure when you copy/paste the key that you don't include the space at the end. 

[trag3dy]

NSFW language

 

[Shadrack]

According to the ESO newsfeed, the NDA was lifted yesterday.  So now we can finally start talking about our opinion of the game.

[123456789A]

Skyrim's UI sucked but come on it hardly takes all weekend to install SkyUI :)

 

Or you could use Metro UI!

 

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

^ think I'd rather stick rusty nails in my eyes :p :laugh:

 

So where's all the details people, spill!