The Elder Scrolls Online (2014)

This had been one of my favourite MMOs for a long time, but recent updates have caused the game to run so badly that events have been cancelled, and key features of the game no longer work as they should.

On top of that, the community is an unfriendly and unwelcoming place as of late. Certain guilds seem to rule the roost and the server as a whole is filled with drama, with the "loudest" players making it a very toxic place to be as an Xbox EU player.

If you go into this fresh, I would suggest taking friends or playing it as a single player game if you want a pleasant experience, as you may find it hard if you're not willing to really dig in and search for a nice guild.

Gameplay: 3 /5 Story: 3.5/5 Presentation: 3/5

Basis:

Story= plot progression, intrigue, characters, world

Gameplay= Mechanics, gameplay options (freedom), repetition, goals, difficulty

Presentation= graphics, animation, environment/character design, Art direction, Script, music

I will say my scores for the game aren't super accurate as I didn't delve too far into the game. I tried out dungeons, questing, PvP (Battleground), crafting, and joined a guild. My "main" was a Nightblade which essentially is a roguelike class that is good at sneak attacks. I played them as an archery focused class and my max level attained was level 29. I did try out other classes as well, but didn't level near high enough to have anything to say about them The game was fun for a time and then I felt like it fell back into the same rut that most MMOs, especially well-established ones with multiple expansion packs, fall into where there is just way to much content and it takes a long time to experience it all and after a while the journey just becomes lackluster.

The gameplay is faster paced than WoW, which is way a base most of my comparisons, based on the amount of movement required to avoid enemy mechanics. The fact that it is developed in such a way where you can look in the First person, as well as Third, is a cool way to switch it up. It also can greatly help your accuracy as where you aim really matters in this game more than WoW. The controls at times felt hard to control, but maybe with more time, I would have become more accustom to them. Battlegrounds were really tough to even hit people in just because with so much movement and a reasonably small target in the zone to use a lot of my abilities was pretty challenging.

The quests were at times quite fun with actual voice-acted dialogue and unique personalities. I did feel like the main quest that I started with felt more burdensome than a lot of the more quirky side quests which didn't encourage me to keep playing. I can't say much about the story mainly because the nature of MMOs is that there are many stories which can vary in quality throughout the game. Overall there was a feeling of needing to know some background on the ES universe to understand who some people were and how serious some conflicts were.

As for the presentation the game had nice graphic detail, but not much graphic style. It wasn't as colorful as the artworks depict and the majority of locations felt very dark. Out of the 6-7 different dungeons, I played they all felt like you were in some kind of cave. It didn't stand out as apparently connected to the world. Like I could say that 4 different dungeons could be some random cave in any of the zones. Even dungeons that were outside were always dark which made them feel enclosed like you were in a cave. More variety of environment would have been nice for dungeons. Each race should stand out to me, but they all feel about the same an elf runs about the same as a human as does a Kahjit. They just feel like humans with other skins plastered on.

Overall it is good as far as MMOs go, but the redundancy of tasks and a lack of visual character makes me unexcited to play it. Maybe in the future, a friend will really want to get into it with me, but for now, I am done with it. It is Skyrim with less polish, but a lot more to do.

It's fun, it has loads of stuff to do, but it's not quite there.

I don't actually want to play an Elder Scrolls MMO - I want to play Skyrim with a (singular) friend, not a bunch of asshat strangers. I don't want to have to rely on other people to help me defeat dungeons or be followed around by creeps asking me to join them every 5 seconds. That is what makes ESO hard to play.