Elder Scrolls Online Livestream!!!!!!

[TheMail]

So excited!!!!!  http://www.twitch.tv/bethesda

[rashdanml]

I'm curious to see what they've done with gameplay features and to see how well it runs on my computer.

 

Where's that beta invite, Zenimax? :(

[silencerbob]

Can't imagine it's a sub based game, and if it's free to play, where will the $$$ come from to keep the servers up / bring regular updates?

[jetbuster]

it doesn't seem all too bad but I was expecting more...

I think thats a pretty good representation of what is ready for the limelight, if that was all the game was(and obviously its not) and it was B2P(GW2 Style) i'd get it today. Cube world has less and from level 1-20 it was the most fun i'd had in an action style combat game since oblivion

[rashdanml]

Can't imagine it's a sub based game, and if it's free to play, where will the $$$ come from to keep the servers up / bring regular updates?

I'm expecting Buy to Play, like Guild Wars 2, with a cosmetic cash shop. It seems to be the best balance of payment models that works well. Subscription for new MMOs simply won't work, as all games launched that way have since gone F2P (SWTOR, Aion, Tera, Rift, to name just a small number). 

[TechFan@ic]

I'm a massive Elder Scrolls fan, I've played Morrowind, Oblivion & Skyrim, & I loved all of them.
I've also played an MMO or two in my day.

Overall I'm disappointed with what was shown, there are a few things that I really disliked & somethings that I hoped would be better.
The animations of the characters, running, standing & even attacking looked very generic & not very realistic, I'm 100% certain that it's not because this is an MMO and that they didn't "need to simplify the animations to accommodate a great number of characters on the screen", because I've played several MMOs with fantastic animations, one in particular had spectacular animations was Aion Online.

Not having to aim precisely with the bow to hit your target doesn't annoy me too much because enemies can move really quickly and internet latency is unforgiving.

Another thing that I thought was very generic and is almost anti Elder Scrolls was the sparkling & glowing on books that's supposed to help you locate them I believe that they should've implemented that differently, Far Cry 3 does this sort of thing very well using sounds surrounding collectible items, Skyrim used the humming noise & the fog of the nirnroot both of these approaches did not negatively affect your immersion in the game & fit the style of the game perfectly well, the sparkles on the other hand are just too generic and cartoony.

Another similar issue I have is with the red line surrounding enemies that you lock on, it's very immersion breaking and quite unimaginatively implemented.
Recognizing the enemy that you are locked on is definitely necessary, but the way this mechanism was implemented was very poor.

Character models looked very generic as well, the NPC he met at the beginning was holding a book in her hand, the book wasn't a separate entity however, it was actually part of her character model, I thought we were past this sort of thing, we're already in 2013, you can easily animate objects in the hands of characters without having them be part of the character model itself.

The voice acting wasn't very good either, far too generic for my taste, you rarely hear a British accent in any Elder Scrolls Game, yet the NPC spoke in the sort of British accent that you hear in every cheap MMORPG game you come across.

There was no point in the whole live-stream that you'd pause and say,  yes I recognize this gameplay feature, it looks a lot like elder scrolls.
I've actually showed some footage of this to a whole bunch of my elder scrolls fans friends that do not follow ESO news & I asked them to guess what game this was, only one out of 8 said this looks like Elder Scrolls & when I asked him why he'd guessed that, he said it was because the campus looked like the one from Skyrim which is extremely sad.

I was seriously considering buying & playing this game, but after watching the gameplay video, I've decided this game is far too much MMO and far too less Elder Scrolls for my taste.

[KingOFCruel]

I was very disapointed, the combat just seems ugly and clunky in general, i was hoping for a hi-res skyrim type world or something.

[Ineko]

100% meh.

 

Wasn't the worst MMO I've seen, but it wasn't anything worth my money either.

[YellowDragon]

I think it looks great, a little rough around the edges, however it still is a closed beta, which is basically a glorified alpha. As for graphics, its an MMO you are not going to the the graphics of Skyrim its just too intensive for a server hosted game to synchronize that much data. I think it looks better then the majority of mmos out there, this is an entirely new spin on elder scrolls and people will wither love it or hate it.  I wouldn't make judgments on combat too early as you never know exactly how a game plays just by watching. Thats kinda why there is always an NDA for closed betas as everything can change in the blink of an eye, especially things like animations, fluidity or UI.   

[KingOFCruel]

Looked really bad, to the point where it doesn't resemble skyrim at all.

[rashdanml]

a hi-res skyrim type world or something.

It's an MMO; Skyrim isn't. MMOs need to keep low end hardware in mind, but a good high end rig will be able to experience a lot better. 

 

I'm waiting for a beta invite to judge myself. Personally, I want to see how far they've incorporate Skyrim's gameplay feature in an MMO setting. GW2 started the trend by re-imagining most of the traditional MMO formula, ESO may just as well build up on it. 

[KingOFCruel]

It's an MMO; Skyrim isn't. MMOs need to keep low end hardware in mind, but a good high end rig will be able to experience a lot better. 

 

I'm waiting for a beta invite to judge myself. Personally, I want to see how far they've incorporate Skyrim's gameplay feature in an MMO setting. GW2 started the trend by re-imagining most of the traditional MMO formula, ESO may just as well build up on it. 

I understand that it's an mmo, and certain bottlenecks are associated with it but the combat system could atleast be better.