ESO (Elder Scrolls Online)

[Sneakytiger]

or elder scrolls online

i'm looking foward to this, cause of its previous games history, hoping it will live up to it.

[Sneakytiger]

played it at eurogamer and what i played was very immersive just like skyrim and smooth with very little ui to get in the way.

[Luminance]

Will dMw addopt "ESO" in any way?
(either half or full)

In other words, will there be a server & faction with high amounts of dMw players?
If not, me, Marduk and Lunares will just sit on a random server.
As with wow, I've always enjoyed playing with dMw players around more, even though 2 years before in vanilla, I've had found an excellent "casual hardcore" guild, in the end it was more superficial (i.e. even though they were all Dutch, showing up on an offline meeting seemed impossible...).

[Ranualf]

Servers
I understand there will be only 2 servers up at the start- the EU and the USA, as the game uses "mega servers"
Will they open up more mega servers? This is a open question- i guess it will depend upon player subs..

We were playing on the EU server but information regarding this was a bit clearer, they used the local server(in France i think), and used this to transfer the EU players to a portion of the US mega server
Which would explain the crap ping, and laag issues both in the open world and in Cyrodiil (PVP zone) or as they call it Alliance v Alliance (AvA)

Factions
There are three factions- http://elderscrollsonline.com/en-uk/game-guide/alliances/aldmeri-dominion, and there is a central pvp zone, Cyrodil.

Alliance war (PVP)
The pvp zone Cyrodiil is massive, and if you had to leg it across the map, it would easily take you 30+ mins to do it- providing you didn't get killed by either of your enemies or the monsters living in the area, as its a 3 way battle zone.

Simply put, its a capture the flag/ keep /stronghold type system, get to the keep, kill anything that has a red bar, stand on the flag, wait and capture, during this time, feel free to /dance..

What makes it interesting is that you earn pvp currency, go back to you base and buy siege weapons.
There are several types, Batista, trebucket, battering ram, catapults(big ones), oil pots, with more planned. Each has the option of using different ammunition-throwing rotten meat with a trebucket is always soo fun..of course the more dangerous the ammunition, the higher the cost, personally i prefer fire, as there`s nothing so satisfying as seeing your enemies on fire, running about screaming!

Why do pvp?
There are other benefits of killing the other factions, and taking their property- you get in-game PVE  bonuses, so it makes sense to go off and kill, more territory= bigger, better bonuses.
So this quite smart, as opposed to WoW, where pvp and pve are two distinct areas of the game, this just merges it, personally i found this rather fun.
Although don't be expecting to jump into the alliance war(AvA) and suddenly have the entire map, with it being a 3 way system, it makes for a strategic nightmare, push too hard, expose your flank, the other faction pushes into your weak spot...

One game session when one of our keeps got attacked, we discovered that we faced 2 factions attacking us, after a few mins, they discovered each other, and...
Well they decided that each other looked far tastier than a stone keep being defended by raving maniacs.. and started killing each other!
We helped them both kill each other as best we could, it would be shame not to help out!
However there was that moment of"OH %%^$!, there`s 2 factions laying siege!".. had they combined, they keep would have easily fallen, and ripe for the taking- thus a huge fight would of taken place!
They claim there`s room on Cyrodil for 2000 players to kill each other, on screen, although the most I saw was about 400-500 in a huge 3 way attack.
Latency was not really a issue, unlike WoW, where you get 200+ players in the same area, your fps takes a nose dive, different infrastructure hardware i guess.

Downside its HUGE, and having no mount makes it a pain in the ass to be killed and run 20 miles to the battlefront.. ofc, this is a prime time to be ganked by your enemies, who are doing recon...yes it happened :/

Characters
As it stands, i played 4 characters, with each reaching level 15+, with my Nightblade -melee, being the highest at level 27 so here are some of my thoughts
The game story is quite strong, although how this will open up at end game, i do not know, although several players stated that after you have "completed" the main story line, you get to do the other factions quests(at level 50+) to gain veteran status. Just what this is, is currently unknown.

Armour
ESO claim that you can wear any armour type, and use any weapon, thus breaking the golden 3 rule- Tank, healer, dps
While this is technically correct, do not be fooled into the thinking, oh hell yea, mage, heavy armour, 2hd axe...i will be a god!
The armour your character wears will give different bonuses, depending upon type, see http://tamrielfoundry.com/2013/10/skill-overview-armor/

1st char Khajiit (cat man humanoid) mage
I used light armour, but still had mana issues early on( 3 spells and your OOM), although to be honest, if you "play smart"(sneak attack), you can deck most thing this way, or off them with a few light attacks, as your skills and spells are far more powerful than simply light/ heavy attacks- there are some idiosyncrasies to this statement, but i`ll get to it later on.

2nd char Nord Templar- 2hd weapon EP faction
Used heavy armour + 2hd axe, sword
Quite efficient at killing most mobs, but 3+ mobs and your looking to die fairly fast
Again, abilities and skills were very powerful, but suffered from regen issues, how this works at higher levels remains to be seen, but stats seem to to be loaded into the stamina pool, with little if any in life/mana

3rd char High elf dragon knight, tank spec- AD faction
Heavy armour, sword/ shield
Initially i used a 2hd weapon for running about, until i found a half decent 1hd axe, and used a shield
To be honest, using sword+board was much easier for killing every mob, as the skills just dropped the mobs with a lot of ease
Some mana issues, but having reached level 20, it seemed to even out- learning what to use, when, and not "spam kill" with skills, made life fairly simple
Overall, questing, exploring and killing everything is sight- easy- very powerful, with the ability to soak up a fair bit of damage
tanking is a lot different from wow (aoe roflpawn), your skill choices are tough, you need to make a decision to either tank, or not to.. the dungeons were quite unforgiving!

4th char - Darkelf nightblade, melee, EP faction
Medium armour,  duel wield
Right from the get go, this char was a killing machine!
I could easily take on 3 mobs and come out at least half alive, this became a bit easier with a few siphoning skills, that gave me back life, and other skills that gave me life when used to kill a mob.
Initially mana and stamina were a issue, but the learning curve is pretty easy, and i adjusted my play style to suit, higher level skills helped this a lot.
By this time i had figured out that crafting and upgrading your weapons/ amour gave you a huge advantage, and i was running about with 2 blue weapons- a pure beast for killing!

Most notable is that ALL characters can sneak, and pulling off 1 shot sneak kills takes a bit of patience and practice, but one you adjust to acting like a rogue you can kill more efficiently, but the night blade had huge bonus damage (with++ damage skills)to sneak attacks, and i`d typically take off 90-95% of a mobs life with a sneak attack vs 50-60% with other characters.

DPS wise, the Nightblade is stunning for single target, their aoe is not too bad either, but i took skills for survivability & utility and neglected the aoe ones to late on.. not much of an issues, but for dungeons, you will need some aoe.

Healing

My mate played a Argonian(lizard man) mage-(AD) healer spec
Used light armour, resto/destruction staff
I will state right here, healing is a real pain in the ass, and has a steep learning curve!
He was very frustrated at the very limited direct heals, with there being more aoe and hots..

His main frustration was the lack of graphical tells(graphic level setting?), that informed players that they were in a aoe heal, and that the aoe heal is quite small, with about a 20 yard radius..
We went into the 1st dungeon at level 15 (i think its 14-17 instance) Fungal grotto.
1st thing we noticed, the tank lacked any aoe threat, and the party were often killing mobs around the healer (healing aggro FTW), with the pulls being quite large, if you went too far ahead (ninja pull), i did do a few of these, but that was because the ranged mobs were shooting/ casting us to death.. its a fine balance of life or death!

After a few pulls we got used to each other play style, and formed a close party formation, with the healer being central- protect the healer, basically, this tactic worked very well and our party hack our way through several packs to the boss, we dispatched the first 3 with ease. the 4th had several adds, so after some tactical planning we chopped them up, got killed, with the boss left on 5%!
After gathering, we easily killed the boss as a solo mob.
Last boss was thing, that summoned loads of mudcrabs (thus aoe needed, i had none), so the mage, and ranged nightblade soaked a lot of them up, with me and the tank focusing on the boss, it went down on the 2nd attempt, after learning its "tells".

Overall, healing IS stressfull, with there being masses of complaints on the forums
The learning curve is steep, and don't be fooled into taking some dps talents, no DO NOT, you need every point stacked into mana, resto staff+ healing skills to be an effective party healer.

The forums are saying take 1 pure healer, 1 support healer with dps skills, tank, dps and your party will be better prepared. This is very worrying, as you have to either over gear and level as a healer, or your party is going to have a very hard time.
Be prepared for a lot of nerd rage- useless $%£^ing healer! We did several runs, and did all 3 dungeons what were available to us, our overall performance was ok, but some pulls just wiped the floor with us...ranged mobs killed the healer fast!

Keep it simple, play smart, do small pulls- a lot of WoW players were on the server, and all agreed healing was a pain, multi mobs pulls often equaled death...so keep it simple, personally i reflect this to be much like vanilla wow, lvl 60 cap. Elite mobs and big pulls will chew your ass and kick you when your down.. you have been warned!

Graphics are nice, however there is a huge difference between mix/max settings! I was playing on ultra, typically running at 95-100 fps in the open world, 80 fps in instances, and about 55-60 fps in town, so know you machine, and adjust accordingly for best fit.
The town styles were very similar (having not played a ES game before), but they looked good, more so with the day/night cycles.
Nighttime fights looked awesome, with spell effects leaving burning trails across the sky, and on the bodies of your enemies.

Overall rating of the game
Its got a large fan base, and they are gibbering with delight for its release, me personally, i`ve only had a short go on my mates rig for Skyrim yup it looked great, but didn't appeal to me, and as such ESO was fresh and new for me, having little background knowledge of its history.

The story lines seems well thought out, and pretty deep
All quest givers are voiced over, which is cool, if you want to listen to them drone on... but i did find myself listening to them, sometimes

Gameplay wise, the combat is pretty simple, with skills and abilities being very powerful, BUT..

The skill trees, you will be putting 60+ skill points into them, and you only have 5 ability slots + an ultimate.. this seems a huge waste of so many skills/abilities, pick 5 of them. i disliked this, and it was frustrating :/

If you could a 10 slot ui bar, then this would lessen it, but the game is being launched cross platform on the pc, xbox1 and ps4..
As such the pc UI is very poor. having played a wide range of games that utilize a full keyboard, but is does make for a very clean UI, but its rudeamentary at best, with just a blue, red and white bars for information- give statistical information!

This is eased some what at level 15 when you unlock a weapon swap skill, thus allowing a extra bar, and you can swap in combat, but its a lacking for playability, and feels clunky.
The music score is impressive, and i can actually listen to it when playing.. unlike WoW, which has been turned off for 9 years!

The chat system was clunky, and overly long winded, i guess 9 years of Wow, using a one click system has me wanting something very similar.. but its was just clunky, having to stop what your doing to type, unlike WoW, where you can do both... a very poor chat system, and poor utilization of modern technology.

Biggest disappointment is the price, its £50 for the absolute basic game from their own website, rising to an eye watering £90 for CE..!!.
They have also placed a class (the Imperial) behind this pay wall, and as such are aiming to skin the players for this, as a marketing student i understand the principles of this, as a customer, i deplore this tactic- as it is simply a monetary rip off.

The price is very off putting, pay £40-90 for the game and £10 a month there after..they have clearly decided that this will be a premium price product, but will it live up to the expectations once players reach level cap?

Direct comparisons to SWTOR are being bounced about, 3-4 months in, will you still be playing it? Only time will tell.

But the biggest questing is- Will you be buying it? Hmm i simply don't know, it is a fun game, although end game content, is a big unknown, and the price.. its very off putting if i decide to stump up my hard cash, and 3 months down the line i decide to ditch the game, its going to be a costly choice.
So the jury`s out on this question, this customer is still sat on the fence..

As for the rest of the DMW community, go out and read plenty of reviews..they seem to either love it, or hate it.. and this makes the choice that much harder to state y/n on buying it.

[smilodon]

That was a mighty revues! Thanks for the work. I've played the beta for a few hours and read plenty of revues and having wasted a small fortune over the years on bland formulaic MMO's I think I'll pass. Skyrim was a delight because it was vast and solitary and free roaming. I could be who I wished and do what I wished. No zones, no endless quest chains, none of the problems that come with all MMO's, grinding  leveling and being held in the right zone till I was strong enough to move to the next zone. Skyrim as a solo adventure is genius, as a multi player it's sadly uninspiring and broken by design. :-(

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

[Penfold]

I have a beta key if anyone would like to use it?

[Chaosphere]

Ooo Pen I would love it, if no one has already asked

[Ranualf]

After being given the go ahead by she who controls the money, i have decided to buy this, i`ll report back once we are up and running- yes yes i got the CE ....
Ofc there was a caveat with the free money, i had to buy her a copy of it too..hmm, i dont know if this is a good thing, or if i have been tricked...:tumbleweed:

[Switchback]

Lol.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk and technology

[Luminance]

I think I'll be playing as a healer, I like challenges, and since I won't be playing as much as I could with WoW in the good years, I might just get invited more

And thank you Amberleigh, very informative.

[Ranualf]

Well lumi, be prepared to run about with a mate, as you`ll have a hard time killing stuff past level 10, long drawn out fights.. think of a level 90 disc priest on the timeless isle... kinda like that..

However, they "may have" fixed the healing.. one can only wait and see
Like i said in my lengthy report, its mainly AOE and Hots for healing, with a very limited set of direct heals..and then there`s the 5 slot ui bar- not so bad past level 15 (weapon swap) but, still only a total of 10 slots.. For a mmorpg, that's kinda poor :/ Again, catering for the xbox1 and the PS4..while the pc players have to suck air in between our teeth.. ffssssssssssss

Lets hope they have smooth launch- remember the days of outage for WoW.. so, so long ago!

Again, i`ll report back once its up and running- i`m NOT a Elder Scroll fan, and haven't played their games, so this will be pretty unbiased.. hopefully

[Twyst]

Just dropping in to say I've pre-ordered this game and was checking here to see if there was any interest. I'm guessing not much

[Ranualf]

they added some stuff in about level 50+ Veteran status

http://elderscrollsonline.com/en/news/post/2014/03/26/esos-veteran-content

[Ranualf]

New update

Sadley, as we had predicted, the game is still suffering from a few bugs, nothing important, just key quest lines, that open up a vast array of options once completed (Blaze + rage).. hmm, they had "fixed this".  
But apparently going live broke something.. sounds a lot like blizz

On a more important note
If you buy the collectors edition (i did) you have free reign on race and faction, as in you can play any race, on any faction!

This is a major win, and is worth the extra £20...we think..hmm yea..probably

[Twyst]

you can play any race, on any faction!

I can do that with the standard digital edition as well, although that could have been a pre-order perk.