I got into ESO beta back in November, and we have gone thru a ton of changes since then. I have gone in with different mindsets as the beta weekends came and went, and found my experiences to be both enjoyable and frustrating at different times.
However, after the different experiences I had both good and bad, I was left with a good feeling that I wanted to share with you all. The game was so much fun by the end, that last night at 9pm PST, my wife and I BOTH were bummed that it ended!
I feel that ESO is a good game, but that if you "play it wrong," you'll be very disappointed. Let me explain what I mean with some analogies to games I have played a lot in the past that many of you can hopefully relate with:
WoW: If you play ESO like you play World of Warcraft, then your mindset is to get to "endgame" as fast as possible so that the "real" game can begin. PvP required max level for the most part (low-level PvP was just novelty fun for a short while), and PvE was all about Endgame heroic dungeons and larger raid dungeons for that awesome Epic gear.
You're going to miss a ton if you play ESO like that. There are masses of content waiting to be consumed in every area! And while you shouldn't plan on doing every quest (Shoot, just doing half of them is plenty!), you should plan on exploring to find cool stuff and doing what is in front of you! Stop rushing to max level. Start "living in the moment" and you will have much more fun. Also, it is quite frustrating to level at ESO's pace when you are used to WoW's super-speed leveling. Also, if you play like you're playing WoW, you're going to miss all the skyshards and skill points that come from quests! If you want to be ownage in PvP, then you want to get a lot of passive skills, so hunt for those skyshards and do the main quests! At level 15, I had about 30 skillpoints to use. When I was in "WoW mode" I had the same amount of skillpoints as my level. The game was a very different experience with more skillpoints!
GW2: If you play ESO like Guild Wars 2, then you're probably a WvW / AvA player. You're used to zerging down keeps or going against that grain and looking for small-group PvP around smaller objectives. I loved doing this in GW2. But the problem is that GW2's PvP maps were WAAAAAY smaller than Cyrodiil (like literally 1/3 the size when you combine all of them), and many PvP objectives in GW2 could be flipped with 4-5 good players. I would sometimes even conquer smaller objectives like supply camps solo! If you try to take a small objective next to a keep (like a farm), you're going to get killed in 3 hits by guards! I found myself hunting for that small group PvP and avoiding the "skill-less n00b zergs" with my wife (we r both good at PvP), and found myself exploring for like 30 minutes before we'd find a fight. We didn't exactly know where to go, after all...
So we found a repeatable quest hub (a town in Cyrodiil -- there are 5 towns in all), and found that many enemies were questing there! The ganking began, and was hilarious. There was also some pain, because when we'd die, there was a 5-minute run back to the town! ARG! But this made it all the more fun. PvP deaths actually having CONSEQUENCES? Shoot dude, in GW2, I'd just wait for some level 1 n00b to run in and get killed and stomped by my team and I'd rally from downed state. If you aren't familiar with GW2, what that means is that after you die, you get a second life-bar that slowly ticks down. Enemies can attack you or stomp you out so that you finally "die," but if an enemy gets killed first, you'll "rally" and basically resurrect with half HP! So fights went on for a long time and I hardly ever had to run back. Consequences in PvP for dieing are good... and I enjoyed this difference about ESO's version of WvW. Lastly about PvP, the zerging is totally not zerging. This most recent beta weekend, there was little to no lag in Cyrodiil, so I finally got to experience large-scale PvP warfare, and I must admit that I was thoroughly impressed. Not only is it "not zerging," but a small group of 2-4 players can turn the tide of battle by flanking the enemy from the side or behind. There is a lot of strategy involved aside from "meeting in the middle and casting ranged spells cuz I'm too afraid to charge in and die in 2 seconds." I was very frustrated by my earlier experiences in PvP b/c of the lag, but I am happy to say that is pretty much gone, and what little lag there is only comes at rare occasions and is very manageable when it does.
While GW2 encouraged exploration, the exploration rewards were largely "Hey you get to see a cool spot" or "Hey you found a jumping puzzle." While I really enjoyed both of those things, they didn't truly offer me a reason to just go hunting around a cool spot on the map. Most of the time, I would just go explore those points of interest for the experience bonus it gave me. I wouldn't actually go there for the hope of finding a fun dungeon, a rare-spawn boss, or whatever. I'd just check a website for the location of a jumping puzzle if I was feeling like it.
In ESO, there is no way in heck that you're going to find all of the information for even one zone online. There is simply too much. And if you do find a place that has all of the info on the 10 public dungeons, 50 points of interest, 200+ quests, etc. you're not going to bother reading unless you're studying Elder Scrolls as a major in college. That is like reading a giant text book... lol. So, my recommendation is to just go explore. This is where the most fun I've had in any MMO since early days of WoW (Like the first 6 months of WoW in 2004) came from: I was offered a completely new and different experience other than any I have ever played before. Questing actually was really fun because it impacted the world around me so much! The questgiver NPC would give me the quest, I'd complete it, and the NPC would appear in a different place (like they walked there after me) to give me the next part of the quest. I was so immersed that I was sad to see it end. And the thing is that almost EVERY quest immerses you like this! Most quests are chains that affect the world around you, and even influence what others say! I freed a town from pirate control, and some guard NPC across the map that was called to that place from the town was surprised to find their home was overrun by Pirates (and relieved to know I took care of it). I'd write more here, but it's already getting long so I'll move on.
Elder Scrolls V: If you play ESO like Skyrim, you're going to expect the entire world to be interactable, and you're also going to expect that your character and story should live at the center of it. You're probably going to be ****ed that you found another player killing the Spider Queen at the end of the public dungeon, because it breaks immersion. "I got this quest to go kill the spider queen... I see a spider queen corpse already, and the NEW spider queen just spawned... wtf?" Well, you have to accept that this is not multi-player Skyrim. If you play it like Skyrim, you're going to find a slightly-watered down version of Skyrim. And if you're like many people, after investing 200+ hours into that awesome game, why would you invest 200+ more into a watered-down version?
Well to start, you must consider that Skyrim ends. You can do every quest, complete every objective, beat the story, murder every citizen, steal everyone's wallet, and burn everything in fire. In ESO, you can't. It doesn't end. 200+ hours? Ha! How about 200+ DAYS of playtime? Literally, it will take you 2 years to fully master a crafting discipline. There is so much MORE for you, Skyrim fanatic, than a really awesome single-player experience that you can share with a friend or two. There is an ever-expanding world to explore, there is a really compelling PvP experience in Cyrodiil that you don't have to be the absolute most skilled player ever to enjoy, and you
Also, get out of first person POV! I know you enjoyed it in Skyrim, but I want you to be aware of what other enemy players are doing in PvP. You need to be able to see them start flanking from the left or right, you need to notice your team falling back, and you need to see what is going on around your character! Yes, they are implementing a slider for first person, which is awesome (Now you won't get sick playing in first person), but I recommend to play like ESO and go third person versus first person (Mainly in PvP) for the above reasons. After all, WINNING in PvP is funner than losing and playing in first person in PvP, right? lol.
Lastly here, play up to level 10! Don't stop at 5, thinking the game hasn't really opened up and isn't super compelling. It gets very compelling, but I'd say it really gets amazing around level 10. I can't put my finger on why exactly, but I think it's that you get more skill points and really start to feel "powerful" around 10. Also, the zones really open up for you and you start to experience the rewards of exploration a lot more. For me, I was level 15 and questing in a level 20+ area -- I found it was harder, but manageable. It was so fun!! Don't listen to what n00bs tell you about not being able to explore early. Just get some skillpoints under your belt and work through the first few levels. They also re-worked the starting experience since last beta, and while I didn't start a new character (I want to keep it fresh!), I have heard it is completely new and awesome (Though it's harder to find how to get to the starter islands).
FTP: If you're playing ESO like you would a Free to Play game, understand one thing. Devs in F2P games need to earn a living too - They are going to find ways for you to blow your money on stupid vanity crap. How much $$$ have we spent in League of Legends on costumes for characters? How about permanent mining/logging/harvesting tools in GW2? You name it, they are going to make an item that makes a part of the game easier for $10. Don't buy in -- FREE IS NEVER FREE (Unless you're 12 and don't have any money to spend). Let me say that $15 per month does 2 things: First, it gives developers the money they need to pay for their houses and their food and their family's clothing, and therefore turns their focus from MAKIN MO MONEY into PROVIDING THE BEST CONTENT for players. In short, it turns the focus on making money into a focus on giving the players what they want! And if you've been following the beta for any length of time, you'll have seen in patch notes and developer posts that they have done an AMAZING job at responding to player feedback and acting accordingly.
I hope you were able to relate to my post, and that my experiences resonate with you guys. If you have anything to add, please do! You'll help your fellow gamers decide to try ESO or not, to play past level 5 or not, and to "mentally commit" to the game or not.
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