By the time this review comes out, The Elder Scrolls Online should have been out for a while so I hope that it isn't to late to the party. More importantly, hopefully its not to late to save people the trouble of buying a subpar game that keeps charges you sixty dollars upfront and then drains you on a monthly basis of fifteen dollars. You could pay more of course if you are stupid and want to get their "special" package and all the vanity features that come with it.
The Elder Scrolls Online is the first game in The Elder Scrolls franchise to venture away from the traditional massive single player role playing game genre and turn itself into a massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) instead. This is an evolution in the series a ton of fans have been demanding and I honestly don't think they are going to be happy with this particular wish being fulfilled. I personally feel this drop in quality was mostly due to the fact that Bethesda Softworks wasn't involved in the games development. The studio that actually developed the game was ZeniMax Online and was only published by Bethesda Softworks, it should be noted that they do both belong to the ZeniMax Media conglomerate. This isn't something I noticed until I came to write this review and looked up some basic information about the game's development, and it made a lot of sense that the game just lacked the quality the other previous Elder Scrolls games did.
I participated in the Elder Scrolls Beta for almost three months I think, I'm having a bit of a difficult time remembering exactly how long since the servers were down most of the time. I do want everyone to make a massive note that this entire review is based off my experience in the beta that completely put me off ever considering actually buying this game. Just make sure to also note that I was playing the Beta all the way up to the launch of the game meaning I essentially saw it in its final ready to launch state or at least what ZeniMax deemed as being a 'ready to launch' state.
Yes, I have noticed that I have yet to start discussing the actual game in detail, so lets dive right into that. Visually the game did a good job representing the Elder Scrolls universe and the various elements within it and it did a fairly decent job projecting an image of grandeur which is essentially a requirement now in any MMORPG if you want to hold players attention and make them feel they should keep playing the since cool shit just keep showing up. The bad thing was the fact the world always had so many people running around in it that it broke any chance of actually being immersed in the game. I mean how am I supposed to be scared of a tomb with like twenty elves and khajiits running around in there with me. This issue isn't just restricted to the visuals though. There was literally even a point in one of my playthroughs where there were around twenty people camping a spot in a village where an enemy was supposed to spawn in order to complete a quest, any sense of drama was totally lost as everyone stood around talking and dancing before this "boss" monster spawn only to be smote in a few seconds.
The mechanics of the game have other issues exclusive to themselves though. They are essentially an awkward blend between the mechanics in a standard MMORPG and the previous Elder Scrolls games. What this means is that there are certain abilities in the game that will hit you regardless of whether you dodge or not while there are others that will miss and there isn't an easy way to actually tell where an ability falls in this division until you actually get into a combat situation. Other than that though the rest of the mechanics in the game are essentially a cookie cutter version of your standard MMORPG game mechanics with there being nothing that sets it apart from other games in its genre. One major side effect of this that I hated in the game was that if you are a normal human being with a life you are going to get pigeon holed into playing a single role to actually participate in any kind of group activity like raids and PvP (People versus People) combat and that going to mean either playing a role you don't like since its in high demand or playing a role you want and get stuck waiting around for someone else who plays a role your group needs. This last one isn't exclusive to the Elder Scrolls Online, its a problem in all MMORPGs but that doesn't make it suck any less.
Its not all bad though when it comes to the mechanics. There were some attempts to maintain a few key elements from the Elder Scrolls series. Abilities and skills develop as you use them, meaning that despite certain races having bonuses in a few thing you can craft your character for the most part into whatever you want him to be, it does conflict with the nature of the game though as I stated above. The same can be said in both regards for the classes as well with the options allowing you to make them into what you want. I do see this dying off eventually as people make guide on how "perfect" characters and everyone is forced to follow in order to avoid getting flamed and ostracized.
The main issue with the Elder Scrolls Online though isn't one thing specifically. Its the fact that the entire game is just so god damn mediocre. Nothing is done well, I'm not saying its bad, I just want to make sure that you know that the game is just ok in all its aspects. The game is for the most part a cookie cutter example of what a MMORPG is as opposed to an Elder Scrolls game. Its that blank example you find in text books, case studies or manuals to depict a "standard" version of anything. I can only see people who are equal parts fanatical about Elder Scrolls and MMORPGs actually liking this game, and even then it might be hard since there are better game for each of those categories for you to actually play. I probably wouldn't be this angry at other games if they turned out to be average, its just that the standard of the Elder Scrolls franchise is far superior to the totally bland and mediocre game that is the Elder Scrolls Online.
I participated in the Elder Scrolls Beta for almost three months I think, I'm having a bit of a difficult time remembering exactly how long since the servers were down most of the time. I do want everyone to make a massive note that this entire review is based off my experience in the beta that completely put me off ever considering actually buying this game. Just make sure to also note that I was playing the Beta all the way up to the launch of the game meaning I essentially saw it in its final ready to launch state or at least what ZeniMax deemed as being a 'ready to launch' state.
Yes, I have noticed that I have yet to start discussing the actual game in detail, so lets dive right into that. Visually the game did a good job representing the Elder Scrolls universe and the various elements within it and it did a fairly decent job projecting an image of grandeur which is essentially a requirement now in any MMORPG if you want to hold players attention and make them feel they should keep playing the since cool shit just keep showing up. The bad thing was the fact the world always had so many people running around in it that it broke any chance of actually being immersed in the game. I mean how am I supposed to be scared of a tomb with like twenty elves and khajiits running around in there with me. This issue isn't just restricted to the visuals though. There was literally even a point in one of my playthroughs where there were around twenty people camping a spot in a village where an enemy was supposed to spawn in order to complete a quest, any sense of drama was totally lost as everyone stood around talking and dancing before this "boss" monster spawn only to be smote in a few seconds.
The mechanics of the game have other issues exclusive to themselves though. They are essentially an awkward blend between the mechanics in a standard MMORPG and the previous Elder Scrolls games. What this means is that there are certain abilities in the game that will hit you regardless of whether you dodge or not while there are others that will miss and there isn't an easy way to actually tell where an ability falls in this division until you actually get into a combat situation. Other than that though the rest of the mechanics in the game are essentially a cookie cutter version of your standard MMORPG game mechanics with there being nothing that sets it apart from other games in its genre. One major side effect of this that I hated in the game was that if you are a normal human being with a life you are going to get pigeon holed into playing a single role to actually participate in any kind of group activity like raids and PvP (People versus People) combat and that going to mean either playing a role you don't like since its in high demand or playing a role you want and get stuck waiting around for someone else who plays a role your group needs. This last one isn't exclusive to the Elder Scrolls Online, its a problem in all MMORPGs but that doesn't make it suck any less.
Its not all bad though when it comes to the mechanics. There were some attempts to maintain a few key elements from the Elder Scrolls series. Abilities and skills develop as you use them, meaning that despite certain races having bonuses in a few thing you can craft your character for the most part into whatever you want him to be, it does conflict with the nature of the game though as I stated above. The same can be said in both regards for the classes as well with the options allowing you to make them into what you want. I do see this dying off eventually as people make guide on how "perfect" characters and everyone is forced to follow in order to avoid getting flamed and ostracized.
The main issue with the Elder Scrolls Online though isn't one thing specifically. Its the fact that the entire game is just so god damn mediocre. Nothing is done well, I'm not saying its bad, I just want to make sure that you know that the game is just ok in all its aspects. The game is for the most part a cookie cutter example of what a MMORPG is as opposed to an Elder Scrolls game. Its that blank example you find in text books, case studies or manuals to depict a "standard" version of anything. I can only see people who are equal parts fanatical about Elder Scrolls and MMORPGs actually liking this game, and even then it might be hard since there are better game for each of those categories for you to actually play. I probably wouldn't be this angry at other games if they turned out to be average, its just that the standard of the Elder Scrolls franchise is far superior to the totally bland and mediocre game that is the Elder Scrolls Online.
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