D
DArtagnan
Guest
http://tamrielfoundry.com/2014/02/eso-isariis-comprehensive-review/
Seems to mirror my own thoughts about the game, pretty much.
Seems to mirror my own thoughts about the game, pretty much.
Well this happens with every game that people say they hate. We secretly play them, and wont admit it. Though in my case I'm not buying the game.Seriously, though, yeah - the game is looking better every time I play, and though I'm trying not to be petty - I'm getting the feeling that quite a few people will quietly be converted in the coming months.
Obviously, no one will admit to having been wrong, but that's human nature for you
Well this happens with every game that people say they hate. We secretly play them, and wont admit it. Though in my case I'm not buying the game.
So hello my name is Kevin and I have played Dragon Age 2. I can hear the outcry already. Feels good to get that off my chest.
Well good to hear it gets better, my experience during the beta was pretty poor. I still have no plans on shelling out a monthly fee for it but, based on that review, I don't think the people saying it will be F2P in 6 months will be right.
I'll trade you my life without a wife and kids - and you can play all you want. Is she hot, btw?
Obviously, no one will admit to having been wrong, but that's human nature for you
There's a difference between playing and enjoying, though
I think we all played DA2 - but I can't say I enjoyed it much.
I did NOT buy or play DA2, because I trusted the reviews of my fellow Watchers.
In fact it is one of the very few western CRPGs I don't own.
Seriously, though, yeah - the game is looking better every time I play, and though I'm trying not to be petty - I'm getting the feeling that quite a few people will quietly be converted in the coming months.
The opposite happened to me, but I'm in the long term beta and sort of "burned myself out" at this point by restarting too many time. The more I play the more some of the little quirks get annoying as well.
Saying that I love the new crafting system (yes new, in last summer beta it was different), the combat and general "art" of the game.
That's why I stay away from long term beta testing
You burn yourself out at a stage where most things aren't complete - and you end up with the worst of both worlds.
ESO haven't changed much since last July (first time I got into the beta weekends, long term testing started later). They opened more content, fixed some bugs, polished some stuff, tweaked the balance and crafting was overhauled but the core didn't change.
I burned myself out because I kept restarting characters for various reasons (none of them were character wipe by the way, I re-roll a lot by nature). The starting zones get old fast and I tend to go a bit "that was more fun in Skyrim" once in a while and it's not even my favorite Elder Scroll game.
While the open world zone are very good design wise (environment/art), the open dungeons are not: way too short, way too circular, no sense of discovery in them. There is one dungeon I though was going to be large, but it ended up to be another run in a circle thing. The combat is fun, mostly, there are a few things that annoy me in how it is handled though: too much focus on spells, lack of ranged weapons that use stamina (bow + silver bolt is all there is). Zone design is too linear for me as well, because of the story arcs. I'm starting to think that having overarching storylines for zones isn't a good idea.
Then again, I more or less ignored the main story and just went off looking for landmarks and the associated quests that you find. It was pretty obvious to me that they designed the open world content around these landmarks - and I don't think I've found a single landmark without SOME kind of unique content associated with it.
However, that said, you can't leave zones until you're level appropriate or you pass a point in the story - I take it - which is to be expected.
Landmarks are like mini-quest hubs (or open-world bosses/anchors and dungeons). Most of them are connected to the zone main story too. The linearity is more prevalent on replay of the same zone, because their isn't that much "level-appropriate" landmarks in reality. I really suggest people avoid alts in ESO, the game isn't alt friendly from my point-of-view (can master almost all the skill lines, access to all zones with the veteran ranks, bank is shared by all so it reduce space a lot, etc).
Saying that, I find ESO quests interesting in general and much better presented and implemented than what I've seen in other MMOs, downside is that they make the game feel more solo-oriented.
You don't have to be level appropriate or pass a story point to leave a zone (you need to be added in a group with someone who already move beyond the zone for the starting area though). You will probably be underlevel which has its own problem. The only quest line that is level depend is the main one with the Prophet which isn't zone related anyhow and all instanced as far as I know.
The solo public dungeons are the circular variety, some are used by the mage guild quest line. The group public dungeons have quests with bosses that require a group (or to be over leveled a lot), you can leave them at anytime and complete them later, they aren't that long though. I haven't done instanced dungeon yet, so I can't comment.
Really? That sounds great. I would have expected them to gate the larger areas through quests.