Sorry ESO, it's not you

 With some downtime from New World I've been out trying some other games.  Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) was one I dabbled with and I shared some thoughts here.  The game didn't hook me though and so here are some thoughts as I walk away from my fledgling Templar.

 The foremost driving factor was the combat.  It just isn't acceptable for my tastes when I've played games like New World where combat is far smoother.  It is annoying having to overthink your combat.  Canceling animations, weaving light attacks in, etc.  These are just not things I care to take on.  It doesn't help as well that the bulk of content doesn't require knowing how to do those things so the only way you learn about them is reading about them online and watching videos on how to do it.

 Second I just didn't like the disconnected world.  It felt like Starfield.  Run a little and load screen.  Run a little further; load the next room.  Sure there are bigger zones but I never got a sense of "world".

 Next I didn't dig the UI and as much as I love UI mods being supported I just didn't have the energy (or time) to dig into what was all available.  I've waffled on UI mods over the years.  Back after World of Warcraft I couldn't envision not having UI mods in an MMORPG but more recently playing New World where I spend very little time looking at the UI I enjoy how a minimal UI keeps me in the world.  Staying focused on the world, and not a UI, has become my new preference.

 Last of all I don't think ESO looks all that good.  I don't consider myself a graphics snob but ESO is dated compared to newer games.  I did not get to newer content in ESO so I am sure it gets better visually with the newer content.

 I do want to note that it was exciting to think about the large amount of content ESO offers; both PvP or PvE.  I really was hopeful it would hook me as it would have given me a good amount of stuff to chew on.  Alas it was not to be and I realize it's me, not ESO, that is really the cause of the mismatch.

Day 3,651: Elder Scrolls Online

 With the downtime in New World until the "big announcement" in June I decided to do some game exploration.  At first it was in my Steam backlog but it wasn't long before that MMO itch crept up on me.  At first it was just wanting to be in an open world so the though was survival/crafter but then the desire for multiplayer and if multiplayer why not massive multiplayer.  So  I made the plunge into Elder Scrolls Online (ESO).

 On day one of my adventure I created my character.  I was immediately annoyed by the fact that "heartlessgamer" as a name is already taken so I had to settle with "heartlessgamerr".  I have a sneaking suspicion when I played at launch that I did so under another account and may have self inflicted this (my current ESO account shows my beta access from 10 years ago but not my release purchase).  I guess this technically means this is really day 3,651 of my ESO adventure.

 Moving past the name I rolled up a Redguard Templar.  I am not one to spend too much time tweaking my appearance but found myself moving a good bit of the sliders available to get an old(er) looking bad ass ready to take on the world.

 I clicked create and set off into the tutorial.

 The quests and characters are all voiced which was nice but it wasn't long into the tutorial where it became click through material the same as most MMO quest and NPC fluff.  I have heard there is some great material from John Cleese in the game so that may change my mind on clicking through this.  The click through also may be related to my experience post-tutorial which I'll talk about in a bit.

 The world navigation involved a lot of segmented world slices separated by doors and minor loading pieces.  This was annoying but I assumed was part of the tutorial.  I expected a more open world experience out of the gate.  Unfortunately the segmented approach followed in to the main game so was off putting to not have a more seamless open world.

 With that said I am a bit lost in the main world.  I have lots of quests but find it hard to figure out what to do and not until late in my first day did I figure out how to see main vs side quests in the UI.  Wandering the world is pretty generic.  Enemies are very easy to defeat and there is no indication of difficulty anywhere that I can find.  My research says that PvE is easy and with "One Tamriel" there is level scaling, but seems like there should still be some challenge to expect.

 I've also gotten a bunch of "oh you should buy X" from players I've run into.  X being some content pack for the game that you have to buy and there is a lot of possible Xs to buy.  The store is a bit overwhelming in ESO.  I am sure it will make more sense as I progress but if a $19.99 box price (even though I got it for free) doesn't give me enough of a good starting experience then I am not likely buying X.

 Lastly I want to touch on combat.  It is the same "floaty" combat that I remember from playing in beta and launch.  I hate to say it but New World combat has spoiled me so it is very, very hard for me to go to older MMOs that have much less fluid combat.  This isn't to say New World's is perfect but it feels so much better than ESO.  Maybe it gets better later on in ESO?  Maybe PvP is better?

 I will keep trudging along in ESO for a bit here, but do have vacation and trips coming up so it may be forgotten depending on New World's big announcement in June.  But if the announcement for New World is just "thing coming later this year" then maybe I'll make it further in ESO.

Monday Screenshots: Into Elder Scrolls Online

 I finished out the tutorial in Elder Scrolls Online and "heartlessgamerr" (grr!!!) is off into the main world.

Returning to Elder Scrolls Online 10 years later

 True story: I was going to the Steam store to look at Valheim when Steam decided to recommend Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) to me.  Being the type that is easily distracted I clicked into ESO instead of Valheim.  I had thought ESO was "free" to get started with but when I got to the page I realized it had a $19.99 starting price tag.  That reminded me that I had received a copy of ESO for free in the Epic game store so I hit download.

 Before I could get started I had to get my account in order with Zenimax which reminded me just over 10 years ago I was playing in the beta for ESO!  How time flies!

 

 When I had played the beta and then launch I bounced off the game quickly.  So quickly that it didn't even make a blog post (that I can find anyways).  My recollection of my experience was that combat felt floaty and like you were ice skating; the rest of the game didn't stick with me at the time.  I also assume at the time I wasn't as open to moving away from tab target combat as I would be now.  My memory also tells me there were technical issues but its been a bit!  

 Also not game related but my oldest son was young at this time and when we were learning what it meant to be parents of a child on the autism spectrum so my blogging had really hit a minimum at this point and it was hard to invest significant time in any specific game let alone the dedication most MMOs of that time required.

 So am I going to actually play ESO again? Maybe.  Timing seems right as New World is at a stand still until the June announcement and I doubt the announcement dovetails with anything new to play (we have 40+ days left in Season 5).  I've already been playing other games unless my playing partner is online in New World.

 However, I am gone on vacation for a week and then a lengthy trip to Northern Tier for scouts so I'll be mostly offline myself for the rest of May and June/July.  But I think I'm going to get started... if I can get past analysis paralysis of "what character to start and play".

 

Steam Sale Success for The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion

The game of the year edition of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion went on sale this weekend via Steam for $8.50.  It's a steal of a deal and I couldn't resist picking up a copy for myself.  

There is always a question of how successful these fire sales on Steam are.  To provide some anecdotal evidence to their success, I present the previous 7-days of game-play tracking via Raptr for Oblivion.

As can be seen, there is a pretty good spike following the start of the sale this weekend.

While hours played are not easily equated to sales, and factoring in the sales price, it is tough to determine what revenue this generates for the game developer.  However, a cursory glance tells us there are plenty of players playing the game and that has to warm the heart of any developer!

Elder Scrolls Online Confirmed (Not Really)

Elder Scrolls Online has been confirmed.

Bethesda's very own Pete Hines has confirmed that yes, an MMORPG installment of the wildly popular Elder Scrolls series is on the way. In the announcement, Hines also stated that the company had already put $300 million into the project

Of course this announcement was followed by the proclamation that World of Warcraft now has a contender to deal with. I guess Knights of the Old Republic Online and Warhammer Online don't count? I'm actually quite amazed by this rhetoric.

Am I the only person that has played the Elder Scrolls series of games and said to myself: "This is a lot of fun, but wouldn't work in an MMORPG."? The Elder Scroll games are great single-player fun, but outside of the character system I can't think of one thing that would translate to an MMORPG at all.

Part of the magic behind the Elder Scroll titles has been the ability to be the hero of the world, not one of many heroes which is the case with MMORPGs.
I think there are just a few too many people waiting on the "next big thing".

By the way, I'm just kidding. The confirmation was never true and has been officially denied.

Update: It seems that the original story which Jim sourced in this article jumped to more than a few conclusions. We just got off of the phone with Bethesda's Manager of PR and Marketing Erin Losi, who wanted to clarify a few things.

For one, Bethesda has not announced or confirmed that an Elder Scrolls MMO is in the works.

Oh well, who would of guessed that Destructoid would jump to conclusions and post a catchy title to spam around the Internet? Certainly not me.