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My Planetside 2 group are looking to move to ESO, due to the many issues in PS2 these days.
So, after tomorrow's first go, I'll be back with impressions.

In the meantime, it's not looking promising.
Skyrim was nice and did well, but if this is lowest-common-denominator, it'll fail.

I'll be trying this tonight.

Ive read mostly negative things about the game, but im going to ignore all that and give it a good try.

I want to get to level 10-15 at least this weekend before i judge.

Same. A friend got a code and sent it to me so I'll get to have some hands on time to explore the game.

because they keep sending me these and i have zero interest in the game.

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Well I was looking forward to maybe finding this game to be the opposite of what I heard, but I can't even play the game because the server keeps crashing so I got a mediocre two hours of a bad version of GW2 and instead of waiting for the servers to get fixed I'm updating my GW2 (no seriously, its a bad version of GW2 from what I can tell).

I'm enjoying the game! The freedom of speccing your character is great, and I love the first person view. Having so many options is something that WoW stopped delivering a long time ago in favor of forcing the optimum build on you, and Lord of the Rings online was always a bit more subtle.

I also thought it was really classy that you started out dead- took me back to my first MMO, Shadowbane.

I played until BT dropped my connection :(

It's a fairly standard meld of Skyrim (the only ES game I have played), and generic MMOs.
There are a lot of bugs still, but most appear to be quest-based. Some final mob fails to spawn, and the 30+ players standing there get bored and wander off to other quests.

The views are good, with 1st- and 3rd-person working well.
I played with both single and triple-screen views, and it managed both, but needed to be told the res I was running at after changing the screen size.

I had to cut some background apps to get it to stop stuttering, so a hefty CPU is recommended. This was with a quad-core 3.3 i5 Intel processor and 8GB RAM.

Crafting is well done, and intuitive, but the same Skyrim slog to get resources. Search every crate and barrel to get provision ingredients.

But, as MMOs go, this has promise. I've not read any of the plans for the game, but it's likely to be stable on release.

[Edit: I forgot to mention voice acting. There's a few big names in there, which is cool.]

I put about an hour and a half into it last night. Game looks and controls well. Voice acting had been good so far. The main reason I stopped playing last night was that me and a friend got booted, and we couldn't log back in. Eh, it's a beta after all. I'll be playing it tonight for sure, though.

One of my main gripes - I was disappointed with the amount of classes. I was hoping they would have "sub-classes" like a bard or shaman...I know it's not usual for an ES game, but I figured they'd add stuff like that to bring in more players. Also, the game doesn't feel like an MMO at all. From what I've played, I'm sure you could play it completely by yourself without too many issues.

That being said, the classes they do have have some neat skill trees; and being able to pick and choose between those trees was pretty cool. I made a fighter and a destruction mage, and both combat systems were pretty nice.

For info, the next beta weekend is coming up.
It's another stress test, says the report, so expect it to be busy.
But, it's also splitting the servers into US and EU locations. Check your ping times if you had problems last time.

If anyone has participated in a previous beta I'd really recommend that you give this one another try, because apparently the build for this beta is based on a much more recent version of the game which has had quite a few changes. They've added some smaller stuff like collision with PVE mobs, along with larger stuff like tweaking the early gameplay to have a faster leveling system. You can now also skip straight to your factions city on the mainland after completing the Cold harbor tutorial, instead of being forced to spend a few hours completing both of the starting islands. (You still have the option to go back and complete those islands though.)

Unfortunately my dying gaming PC finally gave up the fight 2 weeks ago so i can't participate in this test, although its probably for the best as i pre-ordered after my first beta experience and this saves me from burning myself out on the game.

While the game was incredibly buggy when I played it, that wasn't my main concern. Really the problem was that the game was incredibly dull, it managed to drain the wonder out of seeing a brand new daedric plane.

Anyone get into this weekends beta?
Any further updates considering launch date is very close?

They updated crafting, making refining gathered materials easier. There are lots more how-to books laying around now, too.

The vendor/bank issue is still there, and pressing '#' or similar is still needed to get out.

You get to skip the tutorial section if you're making a 2nd character.

The starter island is optional, and everyone starts in their main area. A quest-giver sending you back there if you want.

Its getting pretty close to the official ESO launch, with the 5 days 'Early access' starting in less than 20 hours for people who purchased the Imperial edition.

Overall im fairly excited for it, i know the online reception for ESO has been fairly mixed but i enjoyed the time i spent playing in the Beta enough to actually pre-order the game. It helps that i managed to get the Imperial version of the game region free from Getgamesgo for $70, which i consider to be a pretty good deal considering that most other online stores are enforcing the regional price fixing and charging us Australians the usual $120 for it.

Still most definitely torn on this one.
Such mixed reviews, which scares me a bit.

http://www.greenmangaming.com/

It's 20% off, and my Imperial pre-order worked a treat.
Not sure where they can sell it to, though.

From the beta I felt it was an enjoyable if not outstanding MMO. I personally don't think its worth the subscription fee.

 carlos13th wrote:
From the beta I felt it was an enjoyable if not outstanding MMO. I personally don't think its worth the subscription fee.

The PvP looks uninspired. 4v4s and similar? That'd get old quickly.
At least there's a fair bit or re-play in the PvE, with 3 realms, and 9/10 races.

The only PVP I ever played semi seriously was the original Guild Wars so its never been a huge draw for me.

ive been enjoying ESO a lot so far, if anyone is looking for a guild, since you can get in 5, please hit me up in game @ironicsilence

Can you give a brief rundown IS since its now live?

Just some thoughts in no real order, of note I never played skyrim so not sure how similar it is, and I avoiding the beta as I didnt want to get burnt out early

Overall its a very pretty game graphics wise. The quests actually make for a solid story thus far, and all things considering the launch has been really smooth. There has been some bumps and problems here and there but as a survivor of the diablo 3 launch this has been one of the better MMO launches I've been a part of.

The combat system is neat and also takes a bit of getting used to, its not like WOW where your toon can be jumping in circles firing off always hitting attacks. You actually have to face the bad guy and get in attack range to do any damage. Blocking is an active skill as, not like other MMOS where block just becomes a % based on skills and such

The overall crafting system is pretty solid, Its still early going so not really sure if the gear will outpace what you get from quests.

Some things I dont like
You can belong to up to 5 guilds, and guilds are at the account level and not the character level

No auction houses, a guild unlocks a guild only auction house at 50 members, this has resulted in people creating trading guilds, with max guild size at 500, this gives you some outlet to sell your stuff in an auction. Also the guild store interface is just awful, the filter options stink and there is no way to search for something by name....things that I suspect will get patched at some point

Group questing is a bit of a pain. there is no on screen notification when you share a quest, so you dont actually know if your party got the quest or is even eligible for it.

The world actually evolves around you as you complete quests....this is really cool but sucks at the same time. Basically if I go into a town that is overrun by bad guys and do all the quests to save the town, from my perspective this turns into a friendly town, the bad guys all disappear and the NPCs go back to normal life....that is really awesome...the sucky part is it might it really hard to help friends with a quest. If i've already saved the town so to speak I cant help you with a quest in that town as you will see a different instances of the area then I will. Really makes it hard to help out friends


Overall I'm really happy with the game. Its got its problems but I think most are easily fixable. And the launch has been pretty smooth all things considering

 ironicsilence wrote:
Just some thoughts in no real order, of note I never played skyrim so not sure how similar it is, and I avoiding the beta as I didnt want to get burnt out early

Overall its a very pretty game graphics wise. The quests actually make for a solid story thus far, and all things considering the launch has been really smooth. There has been some bumps and problems here and there but as a survivor of the diablo 3 launch this has been one of the better MMO launches I've been a part of.

The combat system is neat and also takes a bit of getting used to, its not like WOW where your toon can be jumping in circles firing off always hitting attacks. You actually have to face the bad guy and get in attack range to do any damage. Blocking is an active skill as, not like other MMOS where block just becomes a % based on skills and such

The overall crafting system is pretty solid, Its still early going so not really sure if the gear will outpace what you get from quests.

Some things I dont like
You can belong to up to 5 guilds, and guilds are at the account level and not the character level

No auction houses, a guild unlocks a guild only auction house at 50 members, this has resulted in people creating trading guilds, with max guild size at 500, this gives you some outlet to sell your stuff in an auction. Also the guild store interface is just awful, the filter options stink and there is no way to search for something by name....things that I suspect will get patched at some point

Group questing is a bit of a pain. there is no on screen notification when you share a quest, so you dont actually know if your party got the quest or is even eligible for it.

The world actually evolves around you as you complete quests....this is really cool but sucks at the same time. Basically if I go into a town that is overrun by bad guys and do all the quests to save the town, from my perspective this turns into a friendly town, the bad guys all disappear and the NPCs go back to normal life....that is really awesome...the sucky part is it might it really hard to help friends with a quest. If i've already saved the town so to speak I cant help you with a quest in that town as you will see a different instances of the area then I will. Really makes it hard to help out friends


Overall I'm really happy with the game. Its got its problems but I think most are easily fixable. And the launch has been pretty smooth all things considering

Indeed. My experience is similar.

Something to mention - the PvE world is designed for 1.5 players. Sometimes it's a little too tough if you're riding solo and completely trivial in a group of 2-3. This can be exciting for the soloist but can also be frustrating due to the resurrect system.

Dungeons are a thing unto themselves. They are highly entertaining. The bosses don't explain what they do, so there is an old-school learning curve where you have to apply some strategy to get around mechanics. Dungeons are the most fun I've had (although, I've been playing with friends so that no doubt contributes)

Classes are fun, and interesting enough. The holy trinity is looser - tank, healer, DPS - but still needed. Try a dungeon without a Healer and you'll get rekt m8.

Exploring is boss. I love running around, finding and harvesting everything I see. Sometime sI don;t even do quests, I just ass around and loot stuff int he world, or go and see what exactly is that random thing off in the distance. So it does retain that sort of feeling from previous ES games.

One bone I have to pick is the mechanics for classes can be described as... wonky. Maybe this is because I've played other MMO's with different systems and that has skewed how i see it but.. yeah. Wonky.

The main candidate is tanking. My housemate plays a Dragon Knight tank, and described why the system is nonsense. Essentially it boils down to a few problems;

- You need to block to reduce damage, because there is no other way to provide passive mitigation other than blocking. Blocking uses Stamina. This wouldn't be such a big issue if they had long swing timers so you could regen Stamina between hits, but as it stands most bosses strike about once every few seconds.
- There is no Threat Table. Enemies will run around willy-nilly providing they are not taunted.
- To actually get an enemy to attack you, you have to Taunt them. Taunting costs Stamina.
- After Taunting the enemy will attack you meaning that you have to block. But you don;t have Stamina to block because you had to Taunt.
- Bosses usually do PBAoE (point blank area of attack) spells which you have to dodge-roll out of. Dodge-rolling uses Stamina. You have no stamina because you have to Block and Taunt so any of these will probably hit you regardless of what you do.

He's a very experienced player, we did hardcore Raididng in WoW and he has plenty of experience under his belt, so its not user error. It's just wonky encounter design. Don't even mention AoE mobs, where all you do is throw stuff down and pray the mobs stick to you and don't go after the squishy DPS (me, in this case).

Another thing is the solo quests. Sometimes quests (like the main) will be instanced and you'll be locked away from your party members. This wouldn't be too much of a problem, but the instances areas can be really hard, especially if your character is built for group play (all mine are).
I have a Templar built only for Healing, I don't possess even a single damage spell - I had to wait to be about 4 levels higher than the quest to be able to do it, and even then it was just me spamming left click and healing myself. I encountered a similar problem with my glass-cannon Sorceror, and I had to exploit terrain advantages to get around it as I died in only a few hits.

Look, the game has issues, it does. The buggy quests is totally a thing, though most can be resolved with logging out/in again. With that said, it's the smoothest MMO launch I've ever seen, so that's worth mentioning.

That's some of my experiences. I'm at work at the moment so they are a bit scatterbrained (had to stop and start a lot) but if you need any more info I'll be happy to try and help.

Server maintenance done on the US server during german off hours is a bit of a pain. I hope once the game actually goes live the maintenance schedule will shift for the US server

The trick I have found when you want to get to a friend/party member when they are instanced differently is just use the travel to player function. I will actually bring you to their instance and vice/versa.

I´ve been enjoying it so far. The great thing about it is that it seems to focus on RPG crowd more than on an MMO crowd. I haven´t seen an MMO with such a great atmosphere since LOTRO.
There were a few bugged quests and such, but otherwise it runs very smoothly, I think I will pay the sub

So who else is playing in the Daggerfall Covenant?

Thanks guys for thre ingame reviews, sounds ok to me.
Just struggling with another MMO investment!

Noticed this was available now for pc & mac.. is it worth it? looks like they want $70.. and I'm assuming there's a monthly fee on top of that? How much is that?

Is the game worth it? or is it just WOW with Skyrim skins? Or is it not like WOW and more like an online FPS with swords?

It basically is a single-player MMO. Sounds weird, doesn't it? Most of the time, you will be going around solo, playing a much worse version of Skyrim. Coop with other players can be hard as the game uses a lot of different instances - choose to kill a certain NPC and you can't coop with anyone who chose to let him live.

The MMO part only comes in in dungeons and even then, it's only a handful of people. The dungeons are fun and good though and promote interactive, good teamplay.

All in all, though, the game is not worth its price. It comes at full price (!) and then 15$ per month on top of it. Bethesda lost the connection to the MMO market and failed to realize that people do not want paid subscriptions anymore.

In a few months, or a year, ESO will be F2P, just like pretty much every bigger post-WoW MMO.

If ESO was B2P (you only buy the game and can then play forever, like Guild Wars 2), I can only highly recommend the game to everyone. It is not, however, worth a monthly fee.