I'll sum up my thoughts on my beta play so far. This recent beta weekend was my second beta time. (It was the first time I had my other half with me in game , which affected my enjoyment to a degree also)
I wont talk about how the beta was the last time I played, and I wont talk about how the beta may be with this latest version (which does fix many of the most common issues people have), I will talk only about the beta as it was this weekend.
Graphics -
Very much an elder scrolls feel to them. Very much an Elder Scrolls palette , ie. muted colours, lots of greys and browns. You can tell immediately that this is not an "Asian" style mmo with masses of colour and brightness. Its a dark land, with a very medieval feel to it. In terms of palette and colour and style, I found that it had quite a Daoc-esque feel to it (particularly Midgard in Daoc).
The graphics are very detailed, lots and lots of detail and a very handdrawn feel to terrain and landscapes. Everything ran very smoothly for me (not surprising as I have a powerful system), but what was surprising was that it even ran smoothly with everything on High/Ultra on my other halfs machine and that's quite a bit lower specced than mine. I would have liked to have seen some more interesting/varied armours but that's possibly down to the level I was at and/or the nature of Elder Scrolls.
Sound -
Decent enough, though the combat sounds do need enhancing to feel more "oomph" , ambient sounds were great, npcs playing music and singing songs etc. Ingame music was of the usual high quality orchestral Elder Scrolls style.
Character Development -
I found the early levelling quite slow (though this is addressed in the new patch), part of this was down to several broken quests which I couldn't cash in. You can only have a few (like 5) skills on the go at once (kind of like Guild Wars), I don't mind being restricted like that, but I think I would have preferred it to be slightly more, maybe 8 rather than 5. The skills were interesting enough but I would have liked a way to see an overview of all skills, like a skill viewer or some such, so that I could see what skills I could have later on (ie, what possibly advance skills to when I upgraded them), but that's a fairly minor point really. It was nice to have the Elder Scrolls style of character development, whereby I could pretty much wear whatever armour I wanted, use whatever weapons I wanted etc. That was reminiscent of Ultima Online in its freedom.
Quests were the usual MMO fare, and to be honest, a little bit linear in the early stages where quite often rather than having 10 different quests and picking which ones you were doing, I often found that I had 2 or 3 quests only. Leaving the "starter" island addresses that to a degree though.
There isn't a great deal of variety in loot, at least not that I saw, but then again I was a low level. Again, its kind of reminiscent of daoc in regards to its loot tables, which was also a game that didn't have a whole lot of variety in its loot. From what Ive seen, its certainly not a game for someone who loves to see lots of greens/blue/purples etc dropping about all over the place.
Gameplay -
Killing mobs gives very little xp really, so camping a la Daoc isn't really an option. Yet at the same time, I did get quite a Daoc feel about the game. I remember in Daoc running about the zones, pretty much just wandering about, doing things as and when and where I felt like it. ESO has that sort of a feel, just running off into the countryside and seeing what you can find makes it feel much more sandbox than many recent titles. (I'd LOVE to see an open PvP server where you can attack anywhere, but I know that's not a common thing in modern MMOs and quite personal tastes). The gameworld is tremendously well designed and just running about it often creates moments where you find a place and go "whoa, look at that". I love the no overhead names, gives plenty of scope for hiding and creating ambushes in pvp. I would very much like to see underwater areas added to the game though, it does feel a bit dated that whilst I can swim, I cannot go underwater.
Lore/Story -
Well its elder scrolls, so theres masses of lore and story. Lots of npcs will waffle on about things, there are loads of books and things with masses of lore in them (and Im glad they have kept the elder scrolls thing of gaining skills from reading books you discover..its satisfying to enter a wrecked house that's off the beaten track you've found on your wanderings, find a dusty old bookshelf , find a book on it and read it and gain skill in 2 handed weapons from what you've learn)
PvP -
Now this...this had its issues in beta, some lag spiking etc. However...this was something that really leapt out at me as being very daoc like. It was big, really big. Not quite as large as the frontiers in Daoc, but much larger than the WvW in GW2. You couldn't just run from one tower/keep to a nearby one in 30 secs like in GW2, instead you had to run for several minutes from one to the other (much more like the distances in between them on Daoc). That scale creates a whole different set of strategies in PvP. Other than the lag spikes from time to time, I found that considering the graphics and the high amount of detail, the PvP ran pretty well, even with a huge number of players onscreen. With some further tweaks, I could really see battles on a Daoc scale existing on this. Also, I should make mention of the castle designs on this, they are spectacular, you get a real sense of size and scale, a real feel that this IS a castle (whereas in GW2 WvW, I never really felt that the keeps were sufficiently imposing to feel like a castle).
Dungeons/Instances -
I found these to be pretty good really , again the atmospheric graphics and attention to detail made them enjoyable to look at. I also found them pretty hard compared to some MMOs. Not quite EQ hard, but certainly more challenging than many newer MMOs. Whether that's down to me being new in the game and whether with significant play time I would then find them run of the mill, I cant say.
Combat -
Partially dynamic, you don't really "lock" onto targets as such, so its a little more dynamic than some MMOs , the blocking etc is done actively and it is quite important to move around and block etc. It has the modern trend of having "red" areas showing up , letting you know that an enemy is about to do something specific, giving you opportunity to move out of the way, which I am not so keen on. I would rather that it wasn't highlighted like that and it was down to me to watch the target and tell from their animations what they were about to do rather than having a red circle or shape appearing, but that's personal tastes again.
Overall -
Overall, its got a lot of potential (now theres something we often hear about an upcoming MMO lol !!) . It does have a fair bit of old school MMO feel to it. Theres a level of freedom and sandboxy that appeals to the MMOer in me. The PvP certainly looks promising and is more on a scale akin to Daoc (whether it will end up being as good as Daoc is a different matter and quite a high bar to reach perhaps). The questing...well, its MMO questing, not much more you can say really. Love the game world itself, its detail and atmosphere, though some players will find it too "bleak" compared to some more "vibrant" MMOs. Its pricey and its got a sub, you'd hope that will mean the level of support and development will be very good , though we all know that's not always the case but that's something which only time can tell. I wasn't sold on the game at first, after my first weekend of beta I had it down as a No. After my second weekend of beta I had reversed that and turned it into a Maybe, and in the last day or two , its gone further into now being a Yes. I'm willing to give it a shot for a few months, to see how it goes when live, how the pvp develops and how well the game is supported. There is a definite nod to the old school MMOs in ESO, yet its not fully an old school MMO, time will tell if its close enough for me
). I did read some comments on the video and apparently some people are running into it due to the music that the guy streaming had on in his room, and this could be the cause of the copyright. Strange that I've not had any problems and you have though.
