The Elder Scrolls Online Review: Epic Adventure Or Epic Fail?

[Cesar Narro]

I am hoping that Bethesda goes back to what it does best and make single player games. It is disappointing that they have used so much of their resources to jump on the MMO bandwagon, surely this must have delayed something great that would have come out by now.

 

[Cesar Narro]

First off TESO was developed by Zenimax Online Studios, not Bethesda. They're both subsidiaries of Zenimax Media Inc. Todd Howard and his team did not touch TESO, nor did they have an real say in the making of it. Perhaps there was some creative input but other than that, this isn't a Bethesda game. They are currently working on TESVI/Fallout 4. Please don't be ignorant and blast Bethesda. Do a little research so you know who you're calling out.

 

[sumuser]

@sumuser & longlostuser - yes, it's obvious you're the same person (who also isn't familiar with the Tom's forum bug of double-posting your comments when you refresh after a post). Clearly someone from Zenimax trying to do damage control. Probably the same guy who created dummy users on bit-tech.net after their absolutely scathing review (scathing with British humor = priceless)

As I said in my first post, if one doesn't t like ESO, that's 100% ok fine by me. Unsub / uninstall, move on to something you do find fun. However, I can assure you I am not with Zenimax in any way, shape, or form, nor am I the same person as "longlostuster".

Just because I happen to personally like the game and wanted to make sure anyone reading the comment section had a brief rebuttal of a negative review does not make me a paid employee of Zenimax

 

[Cesar Narro]

I am hoping that Bethesda goes back to what it does best and make single player games. It is disappointing that they have used so much of their resources to jump on the MMO bandwagon, surely this must have delayed something great that would have come out by now.

It's a Zenimax game, not Bethesda. Get it right.

 

[Sakkura]

I am hoping that Bethesda goes back to what it does best and make single player games. It is disappointing that they have used so much of their resources to jump on the MMO bandwagon, surely this must have delayed something great that would have come out by now.

It's a Zenimax game, not Bethesda. Get it right.

Developed by Zenimax Online Studios, published by Bethesda, which is owned by the big Zenimax.

 

[ingtar33]

you know i'm not much of an MMO fan... most of them really struggle to hold my attention for more then a day or two... the last (and only) one i put any real time into was city of heroes; which i played happily for years. I dropped WoW like a hot turd in less then an hour (and never missed it), have played dozens of mmos since the end of city of heroes and yet to find one that sucked me in. The closest to holding my attention is an andriod game called avabel i'm starting to lose interest in.

So you could say i was very interested in ESO in the beta, and put a good deal of time into it. Unfortunately i had the same problems the reviewers here had. I actually didn't make it off the newb island, mostly cause i saw all the comments on forums about how the contect actually got worse. I was hoping that this would be fixed in the live release... guess that didn't happen.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Alright, sorry to be 'that guy', but on page 7 you want to use the word "hawking", not "hocking" (2 instances of this). You hawk your wares, you don't hock your wares.

 

[Cesar Narro]

I am hoping that Bethesda goes back to what it does best and make single player games. It is disappointing that they have used so much of their resources to jump on the MMO bandwagon, surely this must have delayed something great that would have come out by now.

If you read my previous comment you would have seen where explained zenimax online and bethesda are subsidiaries of Zenimax media in. Zenimax Online developed ESO. Bethesda's name is just on their bc they "published" it. That has nothing to do with development. Do some research. Don't be a troll.

 

[Achoo22]

Maybe it's just cynicism, but I find it much easier to trust the reviews of a person who occasionally rebuffs a much-hyped product. Good review.

 

[sumuser]

I'll just add one more thing:

jpishgar review genuinely made me laugh NOT because I'm being sarcastic, but because he does touch on some valid points (i too know the madness of my group mate disappearing because of phasing, or the joy of doing a public dungeon with 15 bots camping a boss fight). But what I'm trying to say, briefly, is that this is a massive MMO. You cannot expect a 450 hrs vanilla game with custom textures in every corner and crevice, 100s of unique and innovated dungeons, minimal exploiting/spamming, refined and polished grouping and guild store interfaces, ALL WITH the immersion of a single player game like Skyrim.

I'm not computer programmer but this project blows my mind. And as an "older" gamer I understand that a project of this scale is never going to hit release without a lot of the common aliments that is afflicting it right now. And if one chooses, one can, as per my suggestion, pick it up 6 - 12 months after release when many of these things will be better addressed (like grouping and phasing.. maybe even something as "novel" as being able to do a specific item search in the guild store instead of only being able to sort by price *sigh*).


However, finally, no game is for everyone. and I RESPECT each and every person's right to not like it and to post their honest reviews about it. But lets stop being childish and "thumb's downing" every post and poster that says, "I like the game and I don't agree with the review".


Personally, I'm going to continue playing the game as long as its fun... and to me, its fun as all hell.

Happy Gaming folks!

 

[jpishgar]

Why are the things you're calling dungeons not actually dungeons at all? Those are public delves. This is some darksydephil level raging at that apple not being an orange like you expected.

As an aside, you can call them "delves", "dungeons", "public group dungeonventure mobile avatar subterranean environment experiences" and it doesn't change the fact that they are frippen dungeons copy/pasted with a wantonness rivaled only by the lyrics of the Black Eyed Peas. The fact of the matter remains that these constitute the bulk of your underground adventures. Not to be confused with the 4-5 "group dungeons" or whatever the nomenclature may be to separate these miserable experiences from the others with a crowbar.

Alright, sorry to be 'that guy', but on page 7 you want to use the word "hawking", not "hocking" (2 instances of this). You hawk your wares, you don't hock your wares.

You are technically correct, though in this regard and in context, the practice is more akin to "hock" as relates to pawning something than "hawk" is to selling something vigorously. Historically, the word has descended from the germanic "hocken", which is to emphatically sell something, as on the street from a vendor. I'll take the critique as intended and amend future iterations of usage, but I'll defend the practice in this article as being closer to "hocking" one's jewels, despite being accompanied with "wares".

Maybe it's just cynicism, but I find it much easier to trust the reviews of a person who occasionally rebuffs a much-hyped product. Good review.

Thanks! I don't review often, but when I do, I try to make it pertinent and as you said, rebuffing the hype.

 

[designasaurus]

Fun review to read, except for one nitpick:

Dear author, "droll" is not the same as "dull". Since in every case you used "droll", it only made sense if subsituted with "dull", I can only assume you've got some confusion as to what means what. Please click on the helpful link below to prevent further nitpicking.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/droll

 

[jpishgar]

Thanks! Though I was mildly, dryly amused at first. Maybe bemused. Nonplussed? And to your "I do not think that word means what you think it means.", I say... http://imgur.com/RHkgRyH

 

[Pgamer77]

After reading some of these post I have come to a conclusion.
A review lets say, because allot of you played TESO for a bit and are now experts and can give reviews and conclusion about this game because you played till level 20.

ha

You my fellow gamers are F2P players... and for this I am glad to see you are all leaving this game or already left.... GL to you

 

[agentksr]

It's overly apparent that Toms Hardware writes reviews based on who pays them the most money. The fact that they state you can't do quests together is proof that they didn't even do their research.

 

[jpishgar]

agentksr, no one paid me. This was a review I did as a work of love, not reimbursement. I'm Tom's Community Manager, and I don't make my living writing reviews. Additionally, I could check with sales and marketing guys, but I'm pretty sure we don't have any MMOs who are advertising on our site. We might be somewhere in the network, but I don't interact with those folks. The Chief Editors didn't ask me for this review, and I wasn't prompted to write it for any other reason than I saw a bunch of my friends on Facebook say they were about to buy the game.

If you have a valid criticism of the review, I'm open ears. As for not doing quests together while grouped, apart from the handful of group dungeons, can you name one which requires two or more people to complete a quest objective? Or even one where two or more people can complete a quest objective cooperatively?

 

[ingtar33]

agentksr, no one paid me. This was a review I did as a work of love, not reimbursement. I'm Tom's Community Manager, and I don't make my living writing reviews. Additionally, I could check with sales and marketing guys, but I'm pretty sure we don't have any MMOs who are advertising on our site. We might be somewhere in the network, but I don't interact with those folks. The Chief Editors didn't ask me for this review, and I wasn't prompted to write it for any other reason than I saw a bunch of my friends on Facebook say they were about to buy the game.

If you have a valid criticism of the review, I'm open ears. As for not doing quests together while grouped, apart from the handful of group dungeons, can you name one which requires two or more people to complete a quest objective? Or even one where two or more people can complete a quest objective cooperatively?

there is 1 rage spammer who made 2 or 3 accounts commenting in this thread. Whether he's just paid by bethesda, or simply a rabid fanboy, i'd probably just ignore him. The review you gave matched up with my own experience almost perfectly, and if you look at the plethora of poor reviews for ESO (i mean you'd be hard pressed to find a good one), i'd say your experience is about in line with most peoples.

To say this is an overpriced disappointment is an understatement.

 

[Shaksta]

I just dont know why every single mmorpg out there HAS to do the same generic gameplay. The same quests "go there, meet this person" "kill x amount of y" "use this item on that NPC" Its so boring. And every single mmorpg out there is the same. Yes EVERY single one. I thought TESO might've changed this because looking at oblivion and skyrim, the quests have so much depth in them. But after reading this it seems its just like every single other mmorpg out there. To be honest, i'm sick of it. The only MMO i've ever played which had quests and storylines worth paying any attention to was Runescape. That game is so much more than every other MMORPG out there in terms of quests, and story. The combat and gameplay were so simple, and that let devs work on the actual meat of game. The only thing it lacked in its prime was graphics in my opinion. Now even that game is trying to adapt to the same generic MMORPG style with its keyboard mashing gameplay. I swear either the MMORPG community never ever learns, or it seems the whole world seems to like these kind of boring games. I wish I could get a message like this to someone who could actually do something about it.

 

[sumuser]

It's overly apparent that Toms Hardware writes reviews based on who pays them the most money. The fact that they state you can't do quests together is proof that they didn't even do their research.

I don't think it was a dishonest review myself.

It IS true that questing together right now is super frustrating. If you complete various quests before your friend does, you are unable to re-do that quest with your friend. One of you remain invisible unable to assist the other in any way. The same thing happens in other quests that allow you to make unique decisions that affect the game world. People who made different decisions will be invisible and unable to assist since they now exist in a different "instance" on ESO megeservers.

There ARE a lot of things that need to be refined and polish... some are super silly like, as mentioned before, not being able to search for specific items in the guild store, having instead to look through 100s of items (depending on the guild size). I say super silly not to dismiss the validity of the criticism but how silly it is Zenimax didn't do that before beta ended.

But again, the main point is not that the game is perfect as is. See the flaw of the review was the game was reviewed like any other single player game would be. And if this was a single player game I would be every bit as furious as every other nay sayer here. But the main draw to me with ESO was that this game was a work in progress. A game that would continually be polished and additional content added in return for $15 a month.

To me, that is the key to what the REAL review is going to be on this game. Not what a massive MMO is within a month of release (sorry jpishgar, if you really are a MMO vet you should know better) but where it is going. There is so much content and so many mechanics that when you add in HUNDREDS of thousands of players with different personalities and styles, there is no way around the old fashion, "release it as polished as one reasonable and economically can, and then mold it from there".

This will be my last post here. My only motivation here is I love the ES series and I really want to see an honest subscription method succeed instead of the scam that is F2P. In the end it will be up to Zenimax to succeed or fail, but from where I sit (30 yrs of gaming experience) there is a lot going for this game that just isn't fairly portrayed in this review.

 

[-Fran-]

I got bored after less than one month (the free one) and they even charged me the 2nd month to activate the first. Most of my friends also got bored pretty darn fast. My last research will take almost 30 friggin' days to complete (way to be cheap about making me "stay here", Zenimax).

I have the same exact impressions as Mr Pishgar in regards to pretty much everything. Specially the nerve (and game, I'd say) breaking bugs from the Beta carried over to the final.

I won't go back to the game after this "free" month. I'm having a blast with Payday 2 (specially after the brutal Ghost overhaul; now it is stupid fun and nerve wrecking) and this feels a 100 times more MMO than the "online single player with other people around you" that ESO is.

Cheers!

 

[Marcus52]

I never thought ESO was going to be good, or at least not for me. I just don't think you can get what makes Skyrim and Elder Scrolls before Skyrim into an MMOG - at least not the way they are made today. It could be done, but when your focus is on easy quests for newcomers and ultra-casuals, "balance" so players don't cry about how their favorite class isn't good for PvP or doesn't top the damage meters in raids, a micro-transaction friendly environment, and simplifications of crafting, skills, etc etc etc - well, there's no room left for the heart of Elder Scrolls.

 

[Greg Martin]

why are people downvoting honest positive comments about the game? I didn't like it either but none of them are being fanboys. I didn't think the game was THAT bad but it could have been a lot better. Whatever the opposite of a fanboy is its just as annoying. You guys are being childish.

 

[csbeer]

Unfair review. While valid points are brought up, the tone of this article comes across as, well, one person's 8 page opinion (on a well known website nonetheless). I could pick apart some points, e.g. why is the Imperial package "all-but-required"? There's a whole lot more to anchors than one this ADD reviewer experienced (they can drop a blue item if done correctly, they level up Fighter's guild xp, and are actually a good alternative for leveling). But I get the feeling if I took the criticism of this review further, it would just be 2 people shouting opinions and I could just reread the review if I wanted another dose of subjective blather. The whole point of a review is to at least appear objective, Tom's needs to give this author a basic primer on how to put together a write-up that doesn't sound like its coming from Reddit.

Oh, and to sum up my opinion of ESO in one word, underrated. There's much more to this game. Yes, it needs work, but there's a simple, subtle elegance to its combat, just to make one point. And there's many other valid, positive, points to be made.

 

[f688xt6]

This article pretty much says the same things I gave as feedback to the developers during the beta. It simply isn't fun. Once the newness of it wears off after the tutorial, its dull and uninspiring. I almost wish they went with a Minecraft style multiplayer. Own your own server, and let whoever you want play on it... Hell, do that with Skyrim and Oblivion. Then you have something.

 

[vertexx]

why are people downvoting honest positive comments about the game? I didn't like it either but none of them are being fanboys. I didn't think the game was THAT bad but it could have been a lot better. Whatever the opposite of a fanboy is its just as annoying. You guys are being childish.

There are a couple on here that are very clearly doing damage control - it's really quite easy to tell by the language - same type of read you get when you read a fake Amazon review - once you can spot one, you can spot most. Those are the ones getting the most down-votes.

Also, the clear consensus of people reading this article is that they agree with the author. Most of the people trying to support the game aren't providing any truly personal testimonial as to why they actually like the game. Most of the supporting comments read just like the ESO website. That's why they're getting the down-votes.

I just spent a couple hours reviewing youtube videos of ESO playthrus, because I was one who really wanted to buy ESO but wasn't willing to spend the $$ until the jury was out on whether or not it is worth it. So, those videos really just confirm what the author says here. But I will tell you, some of those authors love the game. So, I'll say to anyone trying to rebut this article that the best way to do that is to provide some specific testimonial as to why you like the game.

Unfair review. While valid points are brought up, the tone of this article comes across as, well, one person's 8 page opinion (on a well known website nonetheless). I could pick apart some points, e.g. why is the Imperial package "all-but-required"? There's a whole lot more to anchors than one this ADD reviewer experienced (they can drop a blue item if done correctly, they level up Fighter's guild xp, and are actually a good alternative for leveling). But I get the feeling if I took the criticism of this review further, it would just be 2 people shouting opinions and I could just reread the review if I wanted another dose of subjective blather. The whole point of a review is to at least appear objective, Tom's needs to give this author a basic primer on how to put together a write-up that doesn't sound like its coming from Reddit.

It's pretty apparent that the author struck a chord that resonates with the vast majority of the readers of the article. So, the frank and opinionated language is, quite frankly, appreciated. The same went for a similar scathing article on bit-tech.net. And there are many others drawing the same conclusion.

Look, many of the readers of this forum wanted ESO to be great. I'm one of them. Perhaps you're right, perhaps it is underrated; perhaps they will fill in the content. Perhaps they will add some original design so maybe your 4th trip through the same dungeon it will morph into something that is actually interesting to explore. Unfortunately, I don't get how they fix this whole parallel play thing - that is something that's pretty fundamental to the design and approach to the whole thing.

But if they do figure that out; If they make it worth all the $$ they're charging for it, then I will have no problem forking that cash over to play. But as of right now, there are a ton of new mods on the Skyrim nexus since my last play-thru, and I'm having a heck of a time playing that again. And just the thought of going from a Requiem based Skyrim play-thru with all of the Realism mods to ESO, with everything that I can see about how dumbed-down that game is.... No thanks for now, but I'll keep watching, hoping they fix it.