Took a break from Jagged Alliance 2 (yes the exploration and looting is slow and tedious) to something a bit more trivial (to play, that is).
I took the plunge, First MMO ever for me. Elder Scrolls Online. Well it was good enough to hook me for a couple of days. Not quite sure if it's worth my time though.
Positives
- HUGE world to explore, that's nicely designed. I seem to only have scratched the surface here if the whole of Tamriel is explorable as it seems on the map. Think 100x Skyrim or so (my guess)?
- Ummmm, anything else?
Negatives
- Other players. Looting containers before you can get to them. Killing your targets, imagining they are helping. Swarming around quest NPCs, dungeons, totally ruining the immersion. Crowded around workstations, banks, merchants. Jumping around frantically. Walking aorund half naked. Messaging you "isn't this great?" Wacking you with their swords. Running or galloping right through you. Featuring obnoxious atmosphere killing names.
- Super-simplified character development. Only 3 stats, but tons of skills and skill levels, and morphs. Most of them are not class restricted, but 3 lines are. 1 is race restricted.
- Really trite and shallow story and quests, and NPC dialogs. Yes, oblivion gates again. I find myself clicking through the obvious NPC dialogs as fast as possible. It makes the Witcher 3 look brilliant.
- Incredibly limited inventory and bank. Making it impossible to keep all the crafting ingredients you find as well as save good loot to sell. Lots of back and forth. Portals help, but not much. Very expensive to buy more inventory and bank space. A thousand gold for 10 more slots, Then 2000 for 10 more. Most quests only give you about 100 gold. Most ingredients sell for nothing or 1 gold if you are lucky.
- Super fast enemy respawns. Bandits appear out of nowhere the minute you turn your back on their camp.
- Combat is pretty generic. Playing as a sorcerer. Have a control spell, a shield spell, and a damage spell. Plus spamming ranged staff attacks. Double tap to dodge when needed. Works, but nothing special. Have never needed to drink potions or eat food yet. :/
All those negatives, yet I played it for 2 days. WTF? It is Elder Scrolls. It is decent exploration of new areas (Summerset Isles for me)… I'm turning into a casual…