Elder Scrolls Online - Alpha Review

Oooooh! Im excited!

» Edited on: 2012-12-29 08:34:51

Ahhh...another game I'm going to be totally addicted to. I hope it doesn't come out until after March when my last two grad classes are over! Thanks for posting this. :)

One giant mega server. Taking MMO fans and Elder Scroll fans, that's potentially 5+ MILLION players on ONE server. I know not everyone's into PVP, but take the current cap on WvW in GW2 being 52(servers) x 2000 (per server) = 104,000 players in one RVR zone. Yet only 200 people can be on screen at once? Since the area is so freaking huge I can't say for sure if a rendering issue will still be an issue, but it may still be an issue.

Does anybody know what business model they plan on using?

I am so excited for this.

Sounds interesting. To be honest, when I first heard about this, I thought "meh", because I was underwhelmed with Morrowind. My computer is too crappy to handle Skyrim, so I can't say too much on that version of Elder Scrolls. I definitely look forward to more information about it. And a big plus for using a Jesse Cox video for it.

I was there the same week this guy was there. RvR in Elder Scrolls is broken into Campaigns that you can enlist for. Each of these Campaigns has a limit to players and you will be able to gain bonuses that come with that campaign. The engine is built for 400 on screen though their only advertising 200 on screen. They don't want to make promises they can't keep. The cool thing about the mega server is that it can spawn off zones as needed. If a million people want to play WvW then the dynamic shard system spawns up more campaigns to join in. If Gaiscioch hosts and event in a particular zone and a bazillion people flood to a single zone, the server automatically spawns more instances of that zone to handle the people that exceed the max pop for the zone. Now the cooler part is that it will put your guild members on the same version of the zone, it will add your friends to the same version of the zone, and will try to keep your ignore list off of the zone your in. You wont be playing in 1 WvW map with 200,000 people. You will likely see them limit it to 2000 people per campaign at a time. The map size though is the same size as the world of Oblivion. Walk from end to end on that map and thats how large your battlefields going to be.

Thats pretty cool that the server matches you to other people with similar play styles. Do you know if one is committed to a certain type of play style upon player creation or can this be changed upon logging in each time.

When I first saw advertisements, I kinda thought the same thing as he said in the video, oh it's another typical mmo. I stopped thinking about it lol. I really like his review of it though and if it looks like the series did, I am prepared to be awed. The combat sounds very interesting too, I can just imagine going into a raid with a certain strategy in mind only to find the monsters have a brain and know how to adapt to you, talk about fun!I will be adding it to my list of things to watch. So many great games and so little time. I am already trying to juggle guild wars 2 and rift. Is there any word on the business model they are adopting for this game?

This sounds nice. I can't wait to see where it heads once we get closer to launch, looking forward to it.

@RustedCrown it's dynamic. You have a Social Tab. Inside that tab you select what you want to do and it pairs you up with others wanting to do that too. If you mark Roleplay it will pair you with roleplayers. If you mark crafting it will pair you with other crafters.

Anet better make hay now. Seems ESO is aiming for early 2013 release according to wikipedia. Looks amazing and if they can deliver on the promises it will be no problem for me to ditch GW2. Unless Anet pulls off some kind of wvw revoltion they are in big trouble when this hits. Do not get me wrong,GW2 is still quite great, just uh, not as great as it should be.

» Edited on: 2012-12-29 14:55:01

» Edited on: 2012-12-29 14:56:36

This is going to be great, I've enjoyed all the Elder Scrolls games. Just hope it doesn't come out too soon...GW2 is lots of fun and I dont feel like changing yet haha.

@Fog, wait I can be paired with other crafters? ooh so much potential in this. But seriously to match by interest is an awesome feature and I hope they are able to pull it off.

I'm really interested in dealing with the "smart mobs" personally. I like that they're trying to break the monotony of PvE. Mind you, I'm a mega PvE player, but even I will admit it tends to get monotonous and predictable. I hope that this model breaks through that and keeps me on my toes. Jesse seems really excited about it, which makes me really excited. I'm not sure I like the idea of a mega server, but if it's done the way that they're hoping, I think I will like it well enough. Something about it doesn't sit well with me, but I'm a paranoid person. I want this game to do well. I'd be very sad for them if it fell flat.

@Jessica He mentions that there was not a crafting system and wasn't sure if they were going to implement it. Following the history of Elder Scrolls, there should be a crafting system of some sort eventually. At least I hope so.

So I guess I should try Skyrim?

It controls a lot like the PC version of Skyrim. Regarding Release date it will be very late 2013. But the good news is that Alliance system is already in game :D. I saw the chat channel in the list of channels. You can also create your own and Password them! :)

Yeh, chat channels like we could do in Warhammer along with Alliance. Thumbs up to that being there already. Miss having private group channels to accomodate the 30+ guilds we had in the Tuatha. Of course, the whole dynamic system of this being more like a cloud of servers and such is a cool concept for MMOs as well. Really want to see how that works. Let alone it just looks like a cool game with a story line a lot of people have grown to know over the years.

I have never played ES games. guess i should start now :)

Just ordered Skyrim off amazon for $30.99US for PC.

Oblivion is a game you want to play for historical value if you plan to do much WvW in Elder Scrolls Online. That map is the RvR Lake. The "Ruins" you explore in Oblivion will be alive and well. It's because of the events in the Elder Scrolls Online that they are now Ruins. :)

I have played oblivion and some of skyrim myself, but never finished skyrim. I may have to check the rest of it out just for funsies:) They have always been really nicely done games and stunning landscapes. The first time I faced a dragon by myself, I got a little scared I can admit it, to do that with people I love to game with will be a blast!(can you imagine a smart dragon? *sharpens blades*) I am very excited now after I have seen some different screenshots. Some of the ones that were floating around a while back made the game look very basic. The new ones look much better and I hope the engine holds up under all the people that will want to play.It is a dream come true though because I remember going over to my friends houses and being like "I wish we could play elder scrolls together". I am a huge elder scrolls fan and lover of mmo's which makes this news even more awesome.

Hmmm. After watching that I have a lot more questions about the combat... imagine running dungeons or raids with mobs that adjust and change their strategy based on what you're doing! Never will be the exact same fight twice, possibly. Having something fresh and new every fight will be really interesting. I'm really psyched they're not making combat and PvE more of the same. One can only press any combination of keys 1 to 5 for so long before it gets boring! Looking forward to seeing a lot more from this game.

Damnit. I want to be home to watch this :P I too am curious on the business model for the game, hoping it follows ANet's model and runs with it.. I don't want another sub game and at least with another non-sub game, I know I can still play GW2 :P 2013 is upgrade Marrra's PC then to make sure she can run ESO as well as the other two machines at home ;) (re: Upgrade her PC to avoid wife agro >.> :P)

I will admit I was pretty cold to ESO until I watched this, now I am wanting more infos! Off to their website for an unhealthy dose of their lore (haven't played since Morrowind and can barely remember anything about it).

I've never played any of the ES series, I'm just not into single player games. So from my point of view, this is just another MMO based on an existing IP, by a developer that has never tackled a massively multi-player game. So the typical faire of pre-launch hype just isn't going to cut it with me, they need to show something really groundbreaking-ly impressive to suck a non-ES fan like myself into buying this at release, versus just waiting for the bugs to be fixed and delayed content to added.

Will this be a sandbox or themepark MMO? If the developer of the ultimate sandbox RPG does not make a sandbox MMO then IMO its unlikely we will ever see a sandbox MMO any time in the near future.

Sek. A developer that never made an mmo which is filled with some of the biggest names in the industry isnt necessarily a rookie crew. This team has 9 of the team that built daoc. They have folks from trion there. The have blizzard folk. Theyve got several from eve online. To call them a rpokie team is a bit of a large assumption. Nobody on that team is a first time programmer. As far as I know they are very selective on who theyve recruited.

Also, for those that havent played any ES or havent yet played Skyrim I would suggest either playing Skyrim or downloading the demo to get a feel. Great single player series amd Skyrim will give you a feel for how ESO will play.

There's a demo for Skyrim? Where could I get this? Skyrim has interested me, but there is no way that I will pay $60 (on steam right not for $40) for it and find out that my suspicions are true: that my computer can't play it even on horrible settings.

I am a elder scroll fan but I am alittle disappointed in the way they are going with this. I am old school I guess and I very much miss that type of MMO. It seems everyone is dumbing down everything soo much that it causes people to get bored even faster. The fact they have 5 abilties and 1 elite makes me alittle sad. One of the best things I liked about MMO in the past was having multiple skills and actually having to think and decide what the best ability to use at that time. I was very excited about this game but if its basically going to be a gw2 clone with elder scrolls concepts Ill probably pass on it. I like GW2 but I dont need to play a clone with a different skin. I have been keeping an eye on quite a few games lately and its becoming quite depressing seeing the way things are going . It seems they are more interested in instant gratification then making a game that people will actually have to put some time into to gain something. Those games tend to retain there player bases longer then the ones that dumb down everything so far that u can complete it all in a month or 2.

What I meant is that its a development team that has never built an MMO together, under the same development roof, assuming the project management team is also experienced in MMO project development. There have been many disappointing releases (even some canceled releases) that have had teams comprised of experienced developers. Am I being cautiously skeptical? You bet. History is on my side. Guild Wars 2 returned some of my faith that it can be done.

» Edited on: 2013-01-02 06:58:11

One of my hopes for these games that follow a bit of the GW2 flavor is that they bring back the names of your enemies rather than seeing "defender" or whatever generic name.. hate that

@Oreofox There was a xbox360 demo that i played a while back. Never have looked for a PC version. @Sekkerhund You are correct, history favors skepticism. Maybe not just with companies that have not officially produced an MMO, but all companies that are producing new ones as the track record of the genre itself is riddled with failures.

But Sekkerhund, NO MMO is ever developed by the same team. The industry is so volitle that people change companies every year. What I can tell you is that the network architect of Eve brought his crew of engineers with him and the Lead Producer of RvR in DAOC brought 9 of his developers with him. So these teams ARE comprised of people who have worked together in the past. They just have a different name. Think ION Storm, Deus Ex came out and people said they were a rookie developer. But that same team also built System Shock 2, Thief, Thief 2, and Thief 3 before they made Deus Ex. While ION Storm was never heard of before they were formerly known as Looking Glass Studios. Don't be fooled into thinking that success comes from the same brand name. Look at Star Wars, Mythic helped with that, Bioware helped with that, but was that the same team that brought you DAOC or Baulders Gate? Nope. The original dev team for DAOC is at Trion, ArenaNet, Zenimax Online, and at City State Entertainment for the most part. The crew from Baulders Gate has moved on as well. The great thing about that market is the friends you make today in Company A will be your doors into company b, c, d, e, f, and g later. In fact the reason Zenimax made contact with me in the first place is because the lady who runs community and the lead guy from DAOC's RvR team knew me and wanted us to be a part of it. The game industry is not a industry where you stay at 1 company for long. To get ahead you change companies often.

Actually, I like that feature of the game, it was my favorite feature of DAOC. In mass scale PVP, there is no need to know your enemy's name, or be able to chat with them. I could care less about Tim the Defender's opinion's and feelings, just that he re-spawns before I do and doesn't accomplish his objectives.

I very much dislike it. Each to his own and judging from GW2's success so far, would seem alot agree with you. I just dont.

@Fog I think you misunderstand what I'm trying to say and unless you've worked on a large scale project, I don't think you can. I'm drawing on two pools of experience: over 20 years of playing MMOs as my primary hobby and field of study, and my 4 years of working at Microsoft and MSN. Granted, there is a lot of "behind the scenes" details that I do not know, since I haven't worked on a MMO project, but there is a also a lot that I do understand. I know that you've been out there and met these folks, and I'm sure that they're a great bunch and more than qualified to build the project. However, the MMO industry suffers from an "eyes bigger than stomach" syndrome. They attempt to overachieve their launch goals, due to various pressures of the industry, they hype the heck out of the market, then come Launch time... they deliver a less than underwhelming product. >_> Dave Bowman, the lead producer of Horizons MMO, kept a producer's blog during Horizon's development, for the Beta team. In it, he stated the generic business model for MMO design that almost all producers use. To paraphrase, he basically said that when designing a MMO, they set their launch goals to be just enough content and bug fixes to keep the average player occupied for roughly 30 days after release. The post-launch team, then starts working on adding in the content that was left out of release, fixing bugs in the queue, and then starts planning for more content additions to try and keep subscribers. Well, Horizons failed horribly at launch, so you can take that "bit of wisdom" with a grain of salt. But that's generally how MMO's used to plan for release. With "World of Warcraft envy", and now the F2P bandwagon, the Launch planning has changed. Now games are over-reaching, trying to push out 8 years worth of content in 2 years (or less) of development. Even worse, they market the promise of these things, so the gaming community is expecting unicorns and rainbows at release. Until GW2, I would have been 100% pessimistic about whether or not a developer can deliver what I see Elder Scrolls Online, promising. But ArenaNet not only walked the talk, they walked the walk. I may not agree with their post-release nerfing of open world content, but I can understand their need to have tight control over their game's economy, due to the Gem to Gold/Gold to Gem store. Of no small amount of interest to me, I did note that you mention that the EVE network architect and his team are working for Zenimax Online. That is huge news, and explains their ambitious server design. I remember reading his notes, several years ago, regarding the new memory module design that he was putting together for the EVE servers, that allowed them to become legendary, in the concurrent player records that they were setting after the upgrades. I don't think they ever came close to finding a ceiling, so that's ... impressed me and removes some of my skepticism. ;) But back to topic, I know that a lot of the developers are shuffling around from shop to shop, and that just because its a new studio, doesn't mean they're all rookies. Trion Worlds was a new studio, but iirc, they original dev team was comprised of DAOC, WAR and WoW developers. IMO, they rocked RIFT's release, it was one of the best I can remember and the game, along with the monthly content update plan, turned the then-known concepts for post-release sustainability on its ear and definitely set a precedence that is being mirrored in other games, due to its success. The same for ArenaNet, a mix of vet developers, but with lofty, lofty goals, most of which seemed impossible to promise and they managed to deliver in spades. So maybe I am being overly cynical about ESO, but history has taught me to be wary of development hype. I'll have to get my eyes on it, before I can really say a whole lot more, one way or the other.

So anyone know when beta sign ups start? Anyone know where I put my Oblivion cds?

Sek, their team is filled with vets, their budget is over 300 million, they have over 150 people working on the game, and its been in development since 2007. This is hardly a rush project. It just boggles me that ive recommended 4 games in the lifetime of Gaiscioch. DAOC, WAR, RIFT, and gw2. All of which have been a huge success in their target audiance. Yet still people dot trust me. I get knee deep in any game we play. Not gamer deep, business deep. Did I push Gaiscioch into Tera? Did I push people into Conan? Did I push people into darkfall? How bout star wars. No because when I examined them there were flaws in their plan. The one time I listened to people opinion we ended up in aion and it died in 3 months. Never even officially got off the ground. I know what a company needs to make a successful product as thats what I do for a living and ive been doing that for almost 20 years as my job. Ive turned failing products into multimillion dollar revenue streams. I would put money on elder scrolls success. Ive met their team, ive been hands on with their product, ive seen their plan their financial backing and their leadership. Theyve got all the pieces in place. If this product fails feel free to rub it in my face but so far weve never branched into a game for less that a 2 year span.

Looks very promising!!!

Well, in all fairness, Ben, sure I've chatted at you a couple of times over the past years, but I've really only been intimately involved with yourself and Gaiscioch for... what, 2 months now? So give me some time to realize the awesomeness of social gaming community godliness that is Benjamin "Foghladha" Foley and his extended Gaiscioch Family. ;) (BTW, that's my quota of suck-up for the year, blown in one shot. I'm all out until 2014.) :D

:P Thats it Sekkerhund, I sentence you to a year of awesomeness training :P I wont let you down my friend. There's very good reason we get involved in potential games at the business level. I don't like putting my word on something I don't whole heartily believe will live up to what they promise. A man's integrity is his value. If he holds none he can not be trusted. My integrity is what I hold dearest. The only thing I hate in this world is when I let someone down. You'll see that about me.

I would very much like to be part of the Aplha or Beta testing team for raiding. This game sounds like it has something to offer the family. Thank you Seacoral

Very cool video. I am cautiously looking forward to this now!

I guess I missed beta key give-aways :{ Stupid house re-modeling projects making me all inactive in the guild and stuff. Again.. I am willing to sign a NDA, or my better half away. JK Cuddly Any chance to wrangle one from a guildy?

OMGOSH!!! Im sooo excited!!!

BUYING THIS.

Slightly bummed there's no crafting. Either way, I have my mind set on becoming the financial overlord of the eso universe.

» Edited on: 2013-01-09 20:58:32

I think crafting will come a bit later Denji. And I have no doubt you will probably get banned for being too good at trader wars in ESO too ;)

this time around im new to guild, so I didnt share with guild until after i got rich. With eso, im already here. So I will pre-research the game, then post exactly the things i will be doing before, at release, and in the first month of the game to make it obnoxiously rich. That way anyone can copy me and get the same results. G$CH FTW.

I have seen a rogue screen shot from a video that showed some crafting infos...wouldnt be too sure it wont be a launch item

@Jibbitsjr: ESO is currently in alpha, no beta keys yet, so don't worry, you have not missed anything!

I'm may be the biggest fan of DAOC on the planet that doesn't play anymore. There was a psychology to the RvR aspect of that game that brought out player's emotions that I haven't seen duplicated in any other MMO... nor anything even close. The guys I ran around with in DAOC always felt that Matt Friror was the brains behind that psychology. I saw some glimpses of the DAOC mindset in what little media I've been able to find on ESO and I'm extremely excited about what this game may be simply because it's produced by Matt Friror.

Looks very ambitious. Will be keeping a close eye on development. I like the idea of minimalist UI and abilities, so you can concentrate on playing the game.

yep it sounds good esp the smart mobs , that`s something that has eluded me the last 13 years of playing MMO`s . Wayyyy back in Ever Quest 1999-2003 when it was at it`s height the npc mobs seemed way smarter then most npcs in mmos released 10 years later . Like npcs would walk around casting buffs on nearby same faction mobs , they would heal them if low on hit points, if a mob was low on hit points it`d run and get help , if the help was a healer mob it`s heal and buff the guy you were fighting, it`s dispel your buffs, root your group members etc. cast stuns to interrupt you casting a heal spell. if the mob you were fighting was a caster it would use a gate spell to teleport when low on hp , it would nuke you with it`s best spells, dispel your buffs, even charm your group members and have them attack you as a pet , or fear you etc. but playing most games that have come out since 2003 , npc AI seems very low as if npcs and games in general are dumbed down . Should be fun to play a game again where the npcs have a higher then 80 IQ that`s one thing i miss in games today , games get kinda dull when even the pve is easy mode and npcs are stupid .

This is one of the VERY few games in recent years for which I'm getting more and more excited with every bit of info I hear...

Perfect? No, no game ever is..

MUCH of what I've been looking for for a VERY long time?

Most definitely!

Can't wait to get it to the Beta!  Will spend every bit of my vacation at work to play as much as possible :)

It's the best MMO to date.