On January 14 2014 06:55 TheFish7 wrote: So what did you guys really expect? Of course you can't pick up every item, people would just start hoarding things. Player killing would be fun for about 5 seconds before some no-life starts ganking entire cities. Ever played Everquest? There was NPC killing in that game but it just created problems. Of course the combat is clunky, there are thousands playing on each server so lag is a huge problem, not to mention that combat hasn't ever been that fantastic in any elder scrolls game - if you just copy+pasted Oblivion combat it would be so insanely broken there could be no end-game, which is a cardinal sin in the MMO space. Graphics are always a step down in an MMO that's nothing new.
I do agree with some things tho: Having to do meaningless quests (complete with the "!" overhead that has plagued MMOs, casuals need their hand held) to level and not being able to explore freely beyond a few minor things is disappointing. Pigeon-holing players into the exp grind sucks also. The story was more interesting in the real Elder Scrolls games because the player truly was the main focus of the story, which can't be the case in an MMO. The controls are shittily designed for consoles, which sucks.
Bottom line it's an MMO first and an Elder Scrolls game second. If you don't like MMOs you're not gonna like this one.
Tera, BnS, BDO (from early CBT test for now), they're all mmos and have a fun combat systems. TESO's combat is not fun. And being an mmo is a poor excuse for that. So I'll agree with someone who posted that they just had to make a great combat first, then bother with everything else.
Not sure what did you mean by the bottom line as well. I like MMOs, playing them since early 2000s. I like the TES series as well, put thousands of hours to those games. And yet, I don't like TESO, not even one bit. Wouldn't play it even for free, since I prefer to spend my limited free time on something fun/good.
the real problem with TES and any mmo in the last 7-8 years is that they're all using the same tired formula and offer nothing new or exciting. you can tweak graphics, tweak quests and lore but at the end of the day, the mmo formula is boring, unimaginative and underwhelming. If you've played any triple A mmo since WoW vanilla, you've essentially played them all.
It's going to take a monumental paradigm shift in MMO game design to get new players or old mmo players to comeback to the genre. if you just want to pander to the relatively small community that still love mmos just the way they are, you're never going to have a huge blockbuster game title.
On January 14 2014 03:35 CYFAWS wrote: -Classes. So i guess you start as a super epic powerful DRAGON KNIGHT WOOO, who can fight his way through a plane of oblivion, but i have no gear and no skills, since im level one. It doesn't make sense. It's an rpg, it has to make sense.
I don't think you've played oblivion, ha.
In retrospect, I still think it's an alright game. Sunday was definitely more fun than Saturday for me. Questing seemed a lot smoother outside the starter island and once the lag and server problems died down combat was a lot better too. still a lot of swinging at the air but I guess that's fixable. At 10+ it becomes quite important to start managing your stamina and mana because as tanking DK I just ran out of energy in like 4 spells, which is good. Only ran 1 instance but it was done pretty well, I thought. Abundance of healing and aoe mobs made it slightly more difficult than usual. I think the way skills are set up really encourages questing because most major quests give you a skill point at the end, which adds up if you collect skyshards (I found like 8/16 or something), so I got to put some stuff in armor and racial passives, which is useful.
I liked how you got to make decisions in your quests, and that persuade/intimidate were options. Crafting is alright once I got the hang of it, makes a lot of sense and imo much better than wow's typical "6 ingots for an axe" setup.
I can't really think of anything that's downright terrible and game-breaking at the moment. I'd like more actionslots, but then again TES never had more than 8 iirc so 6 is fair, and it makes you think about your spell choices too (do I want the party buff or should I pick up a defensive spell, etc.), and you get a potion slot which is nifty.
In this (and most other) threads the main complaints are "it's not like morrowind" and "it's too much like wow", both of which are valid, I guess (first one more so than the second). I said this before but TESO is not meant to be TES:6, so if you're expecting that I'd suggest you save your cash. Of course you can't kill random NPCs and loot everything you see, duh. On the other hand I don't think it's quite the carbon copy of wow some people make it out to be. There are some redeeming qualities though - I particularly think graphics and crafting make it stand out. I think that the combat is what will make or break this game though. If, come release, combat is as mediocre/borderline poor as it is now, I don't see many people paying for a sub. Personally, I'll need to play a few more betas or maybe a f2p demo before I commit to actually paying for this game.
On January 14 2014 07:25 crms wrote: the real problem with TES and any mmo in the last 7-8 years is that they're all using the same tired formula and offer nothing new or exciting. you can tweak graphics, tweak quests and lore but at the end of the day, the mmo formula is boring, unimaginative and underwhelming. If you've played any triple A mmo since WoW vanilla, you've essentially played them all.
It's going to take a monumental paradigm shift in MMO game design to get new players or old mmo players to comeback to the genre. if you just want to pander to the relatively small community that still love mmos just the way they are, you're never going to have a huge blockbuster game title.
Each time i try out the next big MMO "this time it is the WoW Killer" , i have exactly this feeling, the current concept is just not working, at least not if the developers plan to create a new Everquest oder World of Warcraft.(Something that can last longer than 3 months before it goes F2P) One thing i notice in new MMOs is the meaninglessness (is that a word?) of quests, all new games be it Rift, Aion, Star Wars, FF:14, The Elder Scrolls ect. have those ! or Arrows on the NPCs head, all you have is to click accept, follow another arrow to the quest area and then back. (You do not even need other people, beside a dungeon run every few levels, where you have a dungeon finder giving you a bunch of faceless strangers, you can just play it like a solo game.) So most people skip reading those hundreds of quests and then have zero involvement in the Story and following that the game itself. And yes doing that is optional and a decision each player makes for himself, but everyone who played a MMO in the last year knows thats how 90% of the people play games nowadays. If you try to talk with them about a funny or interessting quest all you get is "oh i just killed the dude and moved on" So people never have to look around or group up and spend time with others on that and that makes quitting those new games way easier. As an example: i still have contact with guildmates i met in Everquest back in ~2000/2001 people i helped for hours with their cleric epics or farming Vex Thal keys. No matter how boring stuff could be, it still led to meeting people and getting to know them. I can't say i had any similiar experience in the last years, maybe a few cases from raiding hardcore at WoW release, but zero in the newer "easier" games.
To make it short : Less quests but more difficult so you really have to work for it instead of just mindlessly grinding 5000 2 minute quests. Make people meet and do stuff outside of 15 minutes lfr runs with a bunch of faceless stranger. At least for me that would be more important in a new game and that could keep people playing instead of hopping from one new game to the next..
On January 14 2014 09:15 Yrr wrote: Lol the survey about the weekend was somewhat poorly structured. Additionally they asked about my oppinion on LFG but didnt tell me what it stands for
the survey is a joke pretty much. useless questions and from the way the questions were asked I doubt that any major changes are coming to this game. All this survey was was them trying to gauge how many percent of the beta testers will stay and play the game
On January 14 2014 09:15 Yrr wrote: Lol the survey about the weekend was somewhat poorly structured. Additionally they asked about my oppinion on LFG but didnt tell me what it stands for
BEEP BEEP MMO-NOOB DETECTED!
Sorry I couldn't resist.
Like blade55555 said, it means Looking For Group. You basically use that channel to find PUG, or pick up groups, this way.
On January 14 2014 07:25 crms wrote: the real problem with TES and any mmo in the last 7-8 years is that they're all using the same tired formula and offer nothing new or exciting. you can tweak graphics, tweak quests and lore but at the end of the day, the mmo formula is boring, unimaginative and underwhelming. If you've played any triple A mmo since WoW vanilla, you've essentially played them all.
It's going to take a monumental paradigm shift in MMO game design to get new players or old mmo players to comeback to the genre. if you just want to pander to the relatively small community that still love mmos just the way they are, you're never going to have a huge blockbuster game title.
Each time i try out the next big MMO "this time it is the WoW Killer" , i have exactly this feeling, the current concept is just not working, at least not if the developers plan to create a new Everquest oder World of Warcraft.(Something that can last longer than 3 months before it goes F2P) One thing i notice in new MMOs is the meaninglessness (is that a word?) of quests, all new games be it Rift, Aion, Star Wars, FF:14, The Elder Scrolls ect. have those ! or Arrows on the NPCs head, all you have is to click accept, follow another arrow to the quest area and then back. (You do not even need other people, beside a dungeon run every few levels, where you have a dungeon finder giving you a bunch of faceless strangers, you can just play it like a solo game.) So most people skip reading those hundreds of quests and then have zero involvement in the Story and following that the game itself. And yes doing that is optional and a decision each player makes for himself, but everyone who played a MMO in the last year knows thats how 90% of the people play games nowadays. If you try to talk with them about a funny or interessting quest all you get is "oh i just killed the dude and moved on" So people never have to look around or group up and spend time with others on that and that makes quitting those new games way easier. As an example: i still have contact with guildmates i met in Everquest back in ~2000/2001 people i helped for hours with their cleric epics or farming Vex Thal keys. No matter how boring stuff could be, it still led to meeting people and getting to know them. I can't say i had any similiar experience in the last years, maybe a few cases from raiding hardcore at WoW release, but zero in the newer "easier" games.
To make it short : Less quests but more difficult so you really have to work for it instead of just mindlessly grinding 5000 2 minute quests. Make people meet and do stuff outside of 15 minutes lfr runs with a bunch of faceless stranger. At least for me that would be more important in a new game and that could keep people playing instead of hopping from one new game to the next..
I actually thought GW2 did a decent job... That was probably the less bore I had with questing in MMOs for a while. It could have been better though... quests were too faceroll and always the same kind but the idea of making it dynamic and rewarding just doing everything around... I liked that. Didn't feel like I had to follow a forced boring path of 1000 quests. I was just playing around jumping from one event to the next. And playing a second character was an alright feel since it felt pretty different whereas, say WoW, I usually cannot go through a second character due to how loathsome I find quests. I think that game developed an idea to expand upon.
Finished the beta and I dont think the game is as bad as alot of players tell. I acutally liked it better than the last two 2 MMO Betas I attended (Aion and SWTOR) and I might actually play this one but probably not at launch. Of course Iam a bit disappointed because theres alot of potential in an Elder Scrolls MMO and they screwed up alot of things but well Ive made alot of bad experiences with other MMOs so I didnt really expect it to be the next WoW or anything close to it.
Biggest disappointment was the world. For an Elder Scrolls game I expected an open world with lots of stuff to explore but It cant beat WoW in that regard. The biggest weakness is that it is not actually an open world. You always need to finish the main quest until you can visit the next area. In WoW I was able to go where I wanted anytime. I also dont have the choice where to go next. In WoW I had some choices: Do some quests in Duskwood or Redrigde? Go to Stranglehorn or Arathi Highlands? I feel very guided in ESO.
The graphics are good for an mmo, however I feel like alot of the areas lack a certain charm. The cities basically look all the same. Again, in WoW it was different. Most of the time there are no real cities, but all of the settlements felt unique and I didnt forget places like goldshire, sentinell hill, gadgetzan etc.
I think they did a good job on the presentations of the quests and dialogues. I also liked the crafting system. The combat is different from other MMOs, but not necessarily better.
Biggest disappointment was the world. For an Elder Scrolls game I expected an open world with lots of stuff to explore but It cant beat WoW in that regard. The biggest weakness is that it is not actually an open world.
You were playing on an unfinished build that was being used to test specific things, like how the server will stand up against swarms of nerds. Not sure if you explored too much, but if you ran too far into neighbouring zones, the world kind of abruptly cuts off because the bulk of the game is not included in this build.
There is a lot of nay saying going on in this thread, and I understand if you guys don't want to get your hopes up because of IP ruining MMO's but please save your reviews for open beta at least...
On January 14 2014 07:25 crms wrote: the real problem with TES and any mmo in the last 7-8 years is that they're all using the same tired formula and offer nothing new or exciting. you can tweak graphics, tweak quests and lore but at the end of the day, the mmo formula is boring, unimaginative and underwhelming. If you've played any triple A mmo since WoW vanilla, you've essentially played them all.
It's going to take a monumental paradigm shift in MMO game design to get new players or old mmo players to comeback to the genre. if you just want to pander to the relatively small community that still love mmos just the way they are, you're never going to have a huge blockbuster game title.
I disagree. Most MMOs try to be innovative, some go really far. It just proves that it's not possible, because they all suck. What MMOs need to do is copy what WoW does right (the things which make WoW the best MMO still to this day), copy it properly, then fix the things which are not fun in WoW.
In my experience, there are really really few MMO RPGs worth playing more than an hour or two. The two that come to mind is WoW (obviously) and Rift. What makes Rift better than 90% of MMOs? Because it's actually quite similar to WoW in many ways. It's the one MMO that copied wow and did a good job of it. Did it add anything innovative? Sure, the rift system. Which sucked ass, like all new additions in new MMOs do. GW2 tried to make the rift system into the whole quest system. Which sucked ass. Star Wars tried to make the quests into a singleplayer campaign. Which sucked ass. ESO tries to make TES FPS combat work in an MMO, which sucks ass.
Whenever companies try to innovate in the MMO genre, they fail, yet they are called "wow carbon copies" because they have quest systems. Which makes no sense, if they WERE carbon copies, they would at least be worth playing, probably.
On January 14 2014 07:25 crms wrote: the real problem with TES and any mmo in the last 7-8 years is that they're all using the same tired formula and offer nothing new or exciting. you can tweak graphics, tweak quests and lore but at the end of the day, the mmo formula is boring, unimaginative and underwhelming. If you've played any triple A mmo since WoW vanilla, you've essentially played them all.
It's going to take a monumental paradigm shift in MMO game design to get new players or old mmo players to comeback to the genre. if you just want to pander to the relatively small community that still love mmos just the way they are, you're never going to have a huge blockbuster game title.
I disagree. Most MMOs try to be innovative, some go really far. It just proves that it's not possible, because they all suck. What MMOs need to do is copy what WoW does right (the things which make WoW the best MMO still to this day), copy it properly, then fix the things which are not fun in WoW.
In my experience, there are really really few MMO RPGs worth playing more than an hour or two. The two that come to mind is WoW (obviously) and Rift. What makes Rift better than 90% of MMOs? Because it's actually quite similar to WoW in many ways. It's the one MMO that copied wow and did a good job of it. Did it add anything innovative? Sure, the rift system. Which sucked ass, like all new additions in new MMOs do. GW2 tried to make the rift system into the whole quest system. Which sucked ass. Star Wars tried to make the quests into a singleplayer campaign. Which sucked ass. ESO tries to make TES FPS combat work in an MMO, which sucks ass.
Whenever companies try to innovate in the MMO genre, they fail, yet they are called "wow carbon copies" because they have quest systems. Which makes no sense, if they WERE carbon copies, they would at least be worth playing, probably.
Well I see it different. I have no joy of playing WoW. I gave that game 6 chances. 6. No other game got that many chances. And each time I got bored to hell pretty fast. And what all the new MMOs do well is: Trying to innovate but actually capture the same feel of boredom in tasks and mechanics. Look at gw2: It doesn't matter if a quest is "go kill 10 boars" with a quest npc or "go kill 10 boars" that just pops up. Dynamic Events also lack quest texts completely which could make up for interesting quests. In this case they failed by copying wow quests into their own system instead of adding events seperetely where they fit and also do quests with really interesting stories. But someone said it: The devs no that the majority of players just klicks quests by now (because they are horrible) and so anet said "ok guys, no one wants to read so we delete that option for everyone". I think a system with good quests/quest lines (like gw1 did for example) + dynamic events would be awesome. And take away quest markers (that would be bold in todays degraded gamer community).
On January 14 2014 07:25 crms wrote: the real problem with TES and any mmo in the last 7-8 years is that they're all using the same tired formula and offer nothing new or exciting. you can tweak graphics, tweak quests and lore but at the end of the day, the mmo formula is boring, unimaginative and underwhelming. If you've played any triple A mmo since WoW vanilla, you've essentially played them all.
It's going to take a monumental paradigm shift in MMO game design to get new players or old mmo players to comeback to the genre. if you just want to pander to the relatively small community that still love mmos just the way they are, you're never going to have a huge blockbuster game title.
I disagree. Most MMOs try to be innovative, some go really far. It just proves that it's not possible, because they all suck. What MMOs need to do is copy what WoW does right (the things which make WoW the best MMO still to this day), copy it properly, then fix the things which are not fun in WoW.
so......making a game not challenging anymore. making it super casual. and then fix everything?!?!?! World of Warcraft was the best MMO when burning crusade came out. then blizz started to dismantle every challenging thing about out. making it more and more casual and boring with every new addon. i mean the PvP always sucked, sucks and will suck in WoW. but while buring crusade the PvE WAS THE BEST. how many times did you wipe mount hyal? or BT? or sunwell? god those insatnces on the highest level where so god damn challenging and fun
On January 14 2014 07:25 crms wrote: the real problem with TES and any mmo in the last 7-8 years is that they're all using the same tired formula and offer nothing new or exciting. you can tweak graphics, tweak quests and lore but at the end of the day, the mmo formula is boring, unimaginative and underwhelming. If you've played any triple A mmo since WoW vanilla, you've essentially played them all.
It's going to take a monumental paradigm shift in MMO game design to get new players or old mmo players to comeback to the genre. if you just want to pander to the relatively small community that still love mmos just the way they are, you're never going to have a huge blockbuster game title.
I disagree. Most MMOs try to be innovative, some go really far. It just proves that it's not possible, because they all suck. What MMOs need to do is copy what WoW does right (the things which make WoW the best MMO still to this day), copy it properly, then fix the things which are not fun in WoW.
so......making a game not challenging anymore. making it super casual. and then fix everything?!?!?! World of Warcraft was the best MMO when burning crusade came out. then blizz started to dismantle every challenging thing about out. making it more and more casual and boring with every new addon. i mean the PvP always sucked, sucks and will suck in WoW. but while buring crusade the PvE WAS THE BEST. how many times did you wipe mount hyal? or BT? or sunwell? god those insatnces on the highest level where so god damn challenging and fun
It's not that simple. First of all, they made a big push to put challenge in the game at cataclysm launch. Unfortunately, casualville got mad and they had to nerf it all heavily, which is why there's literally zero challenge in pandaria outside of real raids (and even then, it seems quite simple compared to raids at cata launch).
The challenge is obviously one of the parts which need to be fixed, which is not an issue. If you had one WoW for casuals and one WoW for hardcores, that would be perfect. Which would happen if companies copied the core mechanics of Wow straight up instead of beating around the bush, trying to be innovative and failing. The core concept of tank, healer, dps works. Tab-targetting works, it IS possible to differentiate classes and specs a lot in it. Dungeons work, heroics work, raids work, flex raids is a great idea (LFR less so).
You can't really blame Wow mechanics for the fact that the game is not challenging anymore, you have to blame the massive amount of crybabies who couldn't beat cataclysm heroics at launch and thus couldn't bask in their undeserved epics.
I received the key and it said something that beta lasts until 12th January, so I guess I can't play it anymore and it's better not to bother downloading the ~50 Gb ?
On January 14 2014 21:18 HeartOfTheSwarm wrote: I received the key and it said something that beta lasts until 12th January, so I guess I can't play it anymore and it's better not to bother downloading the ~50 Gb ?
Yeh, the stress test has ended. There will be more in the future, presumably able to play on the same beta key.
Do you think they will open more content for next stress tests? I finished almost everything during those 2 days including the only dungeon. So I am not sure if i can uninstall or just wait. I will definitely not pay any subscription for this game when it comes out so i just want to see as much as possible. Also I have holidays right now.
EPT
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