Elder Scrolls Online - The Road Ahead #2

You might want to read some of "Angry Joe's other reviews; he seems to love the PVP in another video proclaiming it as the "best ever" and how much he loves it.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
1,397
Location
USA-Michigan
Although I've had limited experience with the pvp at this point, it was deffinitely fun…also the freedom in terms of character builds is one of the best.

And seriously, this game has some of the best quest lines I've seen.

Here are some Examples of quests you find that I have never run into in other MMOs I've played.

During the Mage's Guild quest line you are dealing with the Mad Daedric prince Sheogorath, toward the end of the quest line you are presented with this choice after the Mad God has turned one of the mage who helped you totally insane.

Do you ask the mad god to return the mage their sanity and get nothing but the mage's guild gratitude?

Or do you gain power (2 additional skill points) and let the mage remain mad to chase after butterflies with Uncle Sheo? Blatantly abandonning her in return for power.


In one quest in Coldharbour you run into a Daedra who runs a game where the goal is to torment or destroy the souls of those who failed Molag Bal on Nirn (When they were alive)…

The Daedras also captured members of the Mage's Guild who came with you to Coldharbour and are using them as sort of pawns to make those who failed Molag Bal fight against each other. So you are made to play the game and are led toward picking out who gets the right to live or to die depending on your choices.

Depending how you play things out you are presented with different options. Do you bring back to life one of those very powerful evils who now despise Molag Bal and will assist your army in their fight against him and sacrifice the mages? Do you save one or more mages?

Although if you have trained the right skills another option opens up to you and you maybe be able to get both the mages and the powerful "evil".


Anyway, those are just two examples, but in many other case your decision will affect the outcome of events. You get to pick(or influence) the decisions of people you come across in many quests, do you go for power or for good conscience?

I haven't run into many MMOs were your skills could influence a quest outcome or where you actually had multiple ending for the quests you do.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
563
Location
Quebec
Oh and one more thing, while I'm sure the game can't be modded like Skyrim and the likes due to the fact its a MMO....There's a ton of great Mods out there already.

Better UI, graphics improvement, better inventory management, map markers etc..
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
563
Location
Quebec
What is the impact of your choices outside of that specific quest/event though?
 
Joined
Jan 28, 2010
Messages
286
Location
Australia
What is the impact of your choices outside of that specific quest/event though?

The game makes heavy use of phasing, which means it can do a bit more than the traditional MMO in terms of making the outcomes of quests unique to individual players.

So, if you choose to let some NPC live, for instance, he'll be visible and you'll be able to interact with him after you complete the quest - where another player wouldn't see him/her. Stuff like that.

But it's still an MMO - and people who're not used to the genre have to understand the limitations involved with creating a world that's fun and reasonably balanced for everyone playing.

You can't allow any individual player to change the entire world for everyone, for obvious reasons.

What I, personally, don't understand is how people who don't like social games think of TESO as a game that should have been a singleplayer game. Why not think of it as an alternative that CAN be enjoyed in singleplayer. It's not like it takes away from other singleplayer games. It's made by a new developer that was created, specifically, for MMOs. There's absolutely nothing to indicate it will have any negative influence on the TES singleplayer franchise.

It doesn't prevent you from enjoying other games at all. It's just there if you want it - and if you don't, what's the problem?

Constructive criticism is one thing, and it's for sure the game has severe flaws - but I'm seeing more irrational and emotionally driven bile against this game than pretty much any other MMO in memory, except perhaps the king itself - WoW.

WoW used to be the prime object of hatred for a LOT of people - but it seems that has died down in the last couple of years.

In some ways, it's really entertaining to observe these strange circular trends. If you look for it, you'll sometimes see a person passionately hating a game one day - and strangely loving it the next.

I sometimes wonder if long-term memory is an exclusive aspect of human capacity.
 
Like the musceteer said, you can't have choices with world changing consequences in an MMO. Still I find many of the decisions I have to make interesting and satisfying. Some of them even emotionally involving.

One more thing: since it's an MMO, I can't save before making my choice (and I try not to look for hints on the net). I try to make my choices according to what my character would do. A very simple example this (admittedly not the most interesting one) is where

I have to choose between destroying something daedrish because it's dangerous or keep it, because it's valuable (according to a khajiit bystander). My altmer who is a decent lawful person of course destroys it. My khajiit otoh behaves like a .. khajiit.

An example of more involving dilemmas:

I was asked to help a group of mercenary wannabes hired by a noble to catch harpies for important scientific studies. To find out why they were so agressive. Turned out that the harpies - by all means monsters were suffering when I snared them. In general, things like that make me drop quests in a game (I'm usually not good at playing bad). So I started having doubts. Eventually it turned out that there indeed was something fishy going on. So I had the option to stop cooperating with the noble. Which unfortunately would lead to the mercenaries not being paid, and the group disolved. And they seemed like good guys.

I admit that this most likely is taking things much too seriously and somewhat softish. But that's one of the things I really like in RPGs, and it adds to the feeling of being there, which for me is one of the most important thing in games like this.

I realize there are severe issues with the multiplayer aspects of the game, such as organizing groups and more, which definitely is bad in an MMO. Several other important flaws, as well. But none of them have affected me, the way I play the game.

pibbur who thinks it's proper to mention here that he's one of the few who actually finished the MM-game-which-should-not-be-mentioned (MM9), which probably says something about him being easy-to-please (in addition to eager-to-please)
 
Last edited:
I guess the angle I was heading towards was that the outcome of events aren't too important for me in an MMORPG. The world is still a static place. The people in these minor incidences don't matter in the grand scheme of things.

It sounds like faction grinding has more of an impact, by lobbying a specific group to your cause.

However, if you have the ability to roleplay in an MMORPG, then it might work out quite well. I find it too difficult myself.
 
Joined
Jan 28, 2010
Messages
286
Location
Australia
I guess the angle I was heading towards was that the outcome of events aren't too important for me in an MMORPG. The world is still a static place. The people in these minor incidences don't matter in the grand scheme of things
You're right about that.
...
However, if you have the ability to roleplay in an MMORPG, then it might work out quite well. I find it too difficult myself.

Yeah, I guess it's a personal thing. As I said: I'm easy to please.

pibbur who is also good at disregarding flaws. Probably because he's not without flaws himself. He still regrets the events back in '73.
 
It will have in some instances an impact on the world to a certain extent. Though mostly in a graphic and story telling way... (Some things change around cities and towns as you help them chase bandits, extinguish fires etc).

But yeah, there isn't any choice you make that will suddenly make it gameover for everyone else while you win :p.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
563
Location
Quebec
I guess the angle I was heading towards was that the outcome of events aren't too important for me in an MMORPG. The world is still a static place. The people in these minor incidences don't matter in the grand scheme of things.

Archeage tries to provide a dynamic world left to the players to shape deeply.
 
Joined
Mar 29, 2011
Messages
6,265
In the related threads, one points at the creator not expecting as many death threats after facebook deal.
 
Joined
Mar 29, 2011
Messages
6,265
The biggest obstacle I have for mmos is the high number of people who from my characters point of view are either mute, crazy or serial killer. Society like that is not something I want to put lots of limited quality time.
 
Joined
Dec 28, 2006
Messages
3,160
Location
Europa Universalis
The biggest obstacle I have for mmos is the amount of people who from my characters point of view are either mute, crazy, serial killer or combination of them. World like that is not something I want to put lots of limited quality time.

Unlike the real world, where people have to resist these impulses to function in relative peace? ;)
 
The combination of the three makes for the most fun lifestyle, in my opinion :D
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
8,821
Back
Top Bottom