ESOFollow

It's been new characters for every beta weekend, nothing has carried over.

they may or may not have started using your sign up forum name i think as your log in name. I may or may not have went all through a password change and what not till i seen that in an email somewhere lol.

Taking the system offline and bringing it back up is part of what they're testing this round.

I downloaded the patch early this week, so when I got home from work last night, I was able to jump right in...but I was so tired, I barely made it past level 3. And now I am back at the office...

May not get to play much this time around

Deep enough to be well aware of how massive of a retcon to the period this entire game is set in, but not deep enough to particularly care. Mostly because ES history was never my interest. I love Tamriel in the present of the game I'm playing. As long as the retcons don't invalidate that play experience (like if they bring dragons into this game), then I'm okay. I can accept changes to content established by in-game books... to a degree.

That said, this is not an elder scrolls game.

I could go into that, but I suspect no one wants to read it. Suffice it to say, having 86 urns and 16 chests to open in one room is not the same thing, AT ALL, as an interactive world.

It's not fun, and it feels like a chore in a way that stripping the same number of items from a room felt when they were scattered all over the shelves, the tables, the floor, hanging from the ceiling, sitting on the bedside table, hanging on the walls, sitting on shelves (or hidden behind bars), etc.

It's also not an action RPG or a shooter, and it would be a much better game if it stopped pretending it was.

The design choices that specifically exist for PVP balance (5 ability slots and a ton of abilities with CC twists, plus little burst) make the game far, far less fun for PVE content. And while I haven't done mp pve, the videos of it look a LOT like GW2 pve content, which I abhorred (for the same reasons - a game with a ton of CC requires extreme chaos in encounters to balance it, and that sucks).

Graphically, it looks so dated.

The big diversity of abilities would be really interesting, if the abilities themselves were more interesting for PVE, and if I could slot more of them. But it actually makes my experience WORSE, now, that I have so many skills I can't use because I have better abilities, which I might then double-down on and upgrade, compounding the problem. Which gives me headaches when I finally skill up enough to unlock something that actually MIGHT be better, because I feel like I've "wasted" those upgrade points (since only skill matters for unlocking later skills, not points spent in the tree except maybe original unlocks).

Honestly, even ignoring the ES issues I have with the game, I just don't think it's a good one. Looking at it now, I'd rank it behind GW2, RIFT, TOR, and WoW.

That was me last time. I didn't even get out of the tutorial area, because I was hating the controls.

This time I played in third person, and it's WAY better (you can really tell that the game was design around 3rd person. You know, since they didn't add first person until people raged about its omission late late in development, after that came to light).

I still don't like the controls, but at least I could tolerate them enough to see if they grew on me/check out the rest of the game.

I did the things-i-don't-like post, so I'll note what I did like:

1. Crafting SEEMS great. I didn't actually do any (mostly because I wanted to smith pants and for the life of me couldn't figure out how to turn ore into ingots). But the system that lets you control item level, add effects, etc. through the modular item system is nice. Sort of like a better version of what GW2 did - cutting out the useless space-hogging middle items. That said, I have no clue whether or not itemization in the game makes it worthwhile in the end, but there are games I can think of I'd LOVE to see that system implemented into.

Enchanting is classic ES-style in effect, it seems, which is great. You add a weapon enchant, it depletes, you refill it with soul gems. Or you enchant armor and it doesn't deplete. Again, know too little about stats in ES to comment on how interesting the system gets as part of the meta game, but it seemed simple enough. That said, I don't know how the craft itself works. Does it use the runes I was gathering? IDK.

Either way, comprehensive crafting systems = BIG thumbs up in my book.

I know I noted that I hated the materials as inventory hogs thing, and I do. But that's an issue I have with the inventory menu design and the way they've handled resource arrangement and gathering in the world, not an issue with the quantity of mats itself.

3. Voice acting. Jennifer Hale in the first two minutes of gameplay = A+. Favorite voice actor, period. Raphael Sbarge is second, Gideon Emery third. I'm going to ASSUME Gideon did work for ES (since he's in everything else, Skyrim included). Don't think Raphael Sbarge is in it, though.

But it seemed, in general, to be on par with Skyrim. Not that Skyrim's was particularly amazing, but they did a really solid job in fleshing out a big world. I think that's praiseworthy enough, even if the accents were all over the place.

It's a solid arrangement, from what I've seen. Nothing like the atrocious GW2 or FFXIV VAing.

4. I noted this, but I do find the skill trees interesting. I DON'T like that you have a massive pool of skills, but can only slot 6 or 7 at a time. I think that's an issue. But the skill system itself is solid. I like having evolution choices for upgrades, everything being viable in a build, etc.

But I also noted that weapon skills, in general, seemed to be weaker than class skills. I hope this is temporary, but my Dragon Knight quickly tossed all the weapon skills off his bars. Because he had other skills that did the same thing, but better. And with such an economy of space, that meant buh-bye. Like a base attack + DoT. the DK skill did more damage for both, no CD, same mana. I assume they stacked with each other, sure, but with every ability fighting for its place I REALLY don't need a weak v2 of an ability on my bar.

I'm guessing it's not really temporary, though. Because they're the shared skill trees, making balance complicated. Each weapon is probably going to have a gem, and the rest will be meh. Possible exception for the Restoration Staff, because healing isn't a universal skill.

5. GLORIOUS PASSIVES. I'm such a sucker for passive abilities, and ESO has them up the wazoo. Ones that activate all the time. Ones that are conditional on having an ability equipped, or scale on number of equipped abilities from that tree (SQUEE), or have the right weapon on. Racial passives. World skill passives.

6. "Add book to journal" feature is really nice for lore buffs. But I think it only adds books you find as items. As in, if you find it on a bookshelf it doesn't add it. I didn't confirm that, but I only got a message for items I used.

7. Ummm... did I mention Jennifer Hale was in it for a sec?

That makes me wish I had actually played more last time.

I got to level 6 as well. They have a long way to go if they're truly planning on an April of 2014 release.

Yeah, it was shadows more than anything I thing. I couldn't see faces at all - on any of the npcs or players. Also I think I got overly freaked out as i kept trying and failing to adjust the lighting - usually making it worse and then got hypersensitive to the shadows and decided I didn't want to play anymore. The weekend was nearly over at that point anyways.

I've looked at screen shots from others since - they're all so bright and cheery looking.

Why would you preorder this game? Did you play the betas?

The beta weekends?

Only one.

Except for the dark screen, which I'm pretty sure is my issue and not the games, it was ok. Better than lots of other junk out there as far as MMO's go.

So I'm guessing that the answer to my question is 'no' then?

A bunch of my old Warhammer guildies are going to be playing. They're a fun bunch so I'll probably give it a go.