The Elder Scrolls Online Review
By: Steven Wallace
Follow me on Twitter: @Lethrface
The gaming industry is filled with
MMOs that seem to all follow the same cookie-cutter concepts. Many
of the MMORPGs on the market are a standard tab-target affair and
each one seems to try to be the next WoW killer while fearing to
stray too far away from what makes the game the success that it is.
For the last few years, I have been waiting for an game to come out
that will give me the fun combat of a console game and the complexity
and online fun of an MMORPG. I have tried games like TERA, Guild
Wars 2 and even Neverwinter, but none of them were exactly what I was
looking for. Upon hearing about The Elder Scrolls online, I was
concerned but I had hope and luckily, it came out as what I had
wanted and more.
First, let's discuss what this game is not. The Elder Scrolls Online is not an MMORPG that will force you into group quests. Any of the events in the game that happen in the open world that “require” a group are completely optional, though there is a great sense of fulfillment when you destroy your first Dark Anchor, either solo or in a group. You can go through this game by yourself and enjoy it just as you would any of the other The Elder Scrolls games. Another thing about this game is there isn't a huge emphasis on endgame raiding as most cookie-cutter MMOs are. Currently, the large-scale group content lies in the open world events and the Player vs. Player content. This may change in the future and there are many things being planned for the future, such as the introduction of the Thieves guild and the Dark Brotherhood, which are not currently present in the game.
With that information aside, let's talk about the things that make this game really shine. As I had previously mentioned, when there was an official announcement that Bethesda/Zenimax were working on The Elder Scrolls Online, I was concerned that it wouldn't feel like any of the other games of the series. Luckily, the game blends MMORPG elements with the standard Elder Scrolls gameplay that people have come to expect. There are no auto-attacks and waiting for cooldowns on an actionbar. You are in full control of your character. You will find yourself swinging your swords and raising your shield to block attacks and at the same time, you will have an actionbar that you will use for your spells. On this actionbar, you will have one button for a consumable item (and if you hold that button down, you have access to the items you have added to the quickslot menu through your inventory so you can swap the items for what you need at that moment), five spells and one more for an Ultimate ability. I could speak at length about the combat system and get into the nitty-gritty of it all but I wont for now.
Moving on, one of the major departures from the series is the inventory. Zenimax chose this time around to not use a weight system. No more will you be walking around and picking up every item that you come across until your bags are loaded down so much that you are walking at a snails-pace across the world without the luxury of a fast-travel. Instead, your characters will start out with a set 60 inventory slots for you to loot with and as you earn money, you can purchase more space. You are also offered bank-space where you can store your excess goods, which is also upgradable and starts at 60 spaces, but I must note that the bank is account-wide so these bank spaces are shared among your characters. This will be a good thing in the fact you can share items among characters easily but on the other hand, you will have to be careful of what you keep because it will hurt if you are a packrat like myself. Your horse will provide you with a way to upgrade your inventory as well, some of them having a higher max-capacity than others and these inventory spaces will just simply be added to your inventory.
The questing in Elder Scrolls will feel very familiar to those familiar with the series. There is no major quest hubs but rather you will find quests all over the world and a lot of them will require you to actively explore. The game will not hold your hand the entire way and will also require you to pay attention to what the NPCs say. I had previously written up an article about my first 24 hours in the game and had mentioned that the game suffers at the beginning because it doesn't tell you where you should go first to get started if you are a new player and I was wrong simply because I hadn't paid attention. I assumed that I had heard the same dialog before and would not need to go through it again, however upon creating another character, I found the exact person to speak with to get me started on my journey simply because I listened to what I was being told. Sorry, typical MMO players; You will have to pay attention to quest dialog, but that is all a part of the fun of the Elder Scrolls games. If you aren't a fan of the story, this may not be a game for you. One of the draws to the dialog in the game is that it is fully voice-acted. Every NPC you interact with in the game will speak to you and you will be given choices to respond with as with the other games of the series. After speaking with the NPCs, you will locate your quest objectives with the stylized arrows that Skyrim had, guiding you in and out doors or other locations as well as arrows on your worldmap, which will show the quest objectives for your current active quest with a white arrow and black arrows representing your other current quests in your journal.
Of course, what would questing be in an Elder Scrolls game without a fast-travel option? Fast-travel is present in this game but it makes use of way-shrines to get where you want to go. The use of way-shrines to get from place to place is free but you have the option to fast-travel from anywhere in the world to the way-shrine of your choice at the cost of some gold. You will start at a minimum gold-cost to go from one place to another but if you travel away from the shrine you arrived at and decide to fast-travel again without the aid of a way-shrine, you will be presented with the option to travel again at a higher cost unless you wait a while for the cost to go back down or travel to the nearest way-shrine to fast-travel. Needless to say, by foot or horseback will be the preferred method for travel across Tamriel in most cases, if only to get to the nearest way-shrine.
First, let's discuss what this game is not. The Elder Scrolls Online is not an MMORPG that will force you into group quests. Any of the events in the game that happen in the open world that “require” a group are completely optional, though there is a great sense of fulfillment when you destroy your first Dark Anchor, either solo or in a group. You can go through this game by yourself and enjoy it just as you would any of the other The Elder Scrolls games. Another thing about this game is there isn't a huge emphasis on endgame raiding as most cookie-cutter MMOs are. Currently, the large-scale group content lies in the open world events and the Player vs. Player content. This may change in the future and there are many things being planned for the future, such as the introduction of the Thieves guild and the Dark Brotherhood, which are not currently present in the game.
With that information aside, let's talk about the things that make this game really shine. As I had previously mentioned, when there was an official announcement that Bethesda/Zenimax were working on The Elder Scrolls Online, I was concerned that it wouldn't feel like any of the other games of the series. Luckily, the game blends MMORPG elements with the standard Elder Scrolls gameplay that people have come to expect. There are no auto-attacks and waiting for cooldowns on an actionbar. You are in full control of your character. You will find yourself swinging your swords and raising your shield to block attacks and at the same time, you will have an actionbar that you will use for your spells. On this actionbar, you will have one button for a consumable item (and if you hold that button down, you have access to the items you have added to the quickslot menu through your inventory so you can swap the items for what you need at that moment), five spells and one more for an Ultimate ability. I could speak at length about the combat system and get into the nitty-gritty of it all but I wont for now.
Moving on, one of the major departures from the series is the inventory. Zenimax chose this time around to not use a weight system. No more will you be walking around and picking up every item that you come across until your bags are loaded down so much that you are walking at a snails-pace across the world without the luxury of a fast-travel. Instead, your characters will start out with a set 60 inventory slots for you to loot with and as you earn money, you can purchase more space. You are also offered bank-space where you can store your excess goods, which is also upgradable and starts at 60 spaces, but I must note that the bank is account-wide so these bank spaces are shared among your characters. This will be a good thing in the fact you can share items among characters easily but on the other hand, you will have to be careful of what you keep because it will hurt if you are a packrat like myself. Your horse will provide you with a way to upgrade your inventory as well, some of them having a higher max-capacity than others and these inventory spaces will just simply be added to your inventory.
The questing in Elder Scrolls will feel very familiar to those familiar with the series. There is no major quest hubs but rather you will find quests all over the world and a lot of them will require you to actively explore. The game will not hold your hand the entire way and will also require you to pay attention to what the NPCs say. I had previously written up an article about my first 24 hours in the game and had mentioned that the game suffers at the beginning because it doesn't tell you where you should go first to get started if you are a new player and I was wrong simply because I hadn't paid attention. I assumed that I had heard the same dialog before and would not need to go through it again, however upon creating another character, I found the exact person to speak with to get me started on my journey simply because I listened to what I was being told. Sorry, typical MMO players; You will have to pay attention to quest dialog, but that is all a part of the fun of the Elder Scrolls games. If you aren't a fan of the story, this may not be a game for you. One of the draws to the dialog in the game is that it is fully voice-acted. Every NPC you interact with in the game will speak to you and you will be given choices to respond with as with the other games of the series. After speaking with the NPCs, you will locate your quest objectives with the stylized arrows that Skyrim had, guiding you in and out doors or other locations as well as arrows on your worldmap, which will show the quest objectives for your current active quest with a white arrow and black arrows representing your other current quests in your journal.
Of course, what would questing be in an Elder Scrolls game without a fast-travel option? Fast-travel is present in this game but it makes use of way-shrines to get where you want to go. The use of way-shrines to get from place to place is free but you have the option to fast-travel from anywhere in the world to the way-shrine of your choice at the cost of some gold. You will start at a minimum gold-cost to go from one place to another but if you travel away from the shrine you arrived at and decide to fast-travel again without the aid of a way-shrine, you will be presented with the option to travel again at a higher cost unless you wait a while for the cost to go back down or travel to the nearest way-shrine to fast-travel. Needless to say, by foot or horseback will be the preferred method for travel across Tamriel in most cases, if only to get to the nearest way-shrine.
The biggest accomplishment with the
quests is that it doesn't always feel like a typical “go here and
collect this many of this item” type of thing. Many times, the
gathering quests are only a smaller portion of an overall quest and
the quest updates in steps as you hit each objective. In one quest,
the first objective of mine was to collect a flash-potion from a desk
in a barracks just upstairs from the quest-giver and upon grabbing
them, the second objective came up telling me to go outside and use
them on the bodies of some dead soldiers to find and slay 5 enemies.
After that was done, the next objective came up to go investigate a
house and it just kept going from there. It really felt like I was
tasked with something important by the end and not just getting the
ingredients for some random NPC (that I could care less about) so
they can make their famous applesauce.
One of the most exciting things in The Elder Scrolls Online for me is the Player vs. Player combat in Cyrodil. Many who know me know that when it comes to games, I am not a huge PvP fan. PvP for me has always felt like a “epeen” contest with a clear beginning and a clear ending, usually ending in a sore-winner and even more sore-losers. The PvP in games don't really draw me in and don't feel like they have any long-term affects to how the game plays outside of earning cool items that I can live without or whatever and it never really feels like a real war; It usually just feels like a team sport. In The Elder Scrolls Online, the PvP combat truly feels like a war. In Cyrodil, your Alliance is fighting for control of the land. You will be left to freely form groups with players within the zone from your faction (or go alone, though not recommended) to take over keeps and the resources surrounding it, such as farms and mines. While you are taking over keeps, you will use siege weapons to knock down walls and ram down doors and once you gain entrance, your Alliance is free to swarm the keep and take it over. After taking over the keeps, you can then either hang back to help repair the keep or move on with your fellow players to take over the other enemy-controlled territories. Your character is instantly boosted to 50 when you enter Cyrodil but you still retain your level so while you are in this zone, you will find quests and non-player enemies to deal with and each of these will aid you in leveling your character, allowing you to work toward leveling up even while PvPing. To enter Cyrodil, you must first reach level 10. Once you reach level 10, you have the option in your menu to select a home campaign. The home campaign is the campaign you will primarily play on while you have the option to guest in other campaigns should some friends of yours choose a different campaign to play on and you are free to change your home campaign at any time. The first time you wish to change your campaign is free but any subsequent changes will cost Alliance Points (the currency earned in Cyrodil for participating in activities such as taking keeps) or gold. This requirement is to prevent people from changing from a losing campaign to a winning one and promote more teamwork with your fellow players in the campaign to take objectives. You are limited to which campaigns you can choose only based on your Alliance you chose. If you created an Ebonheart Pact character and decided you would like to have a Daggerfall Covenant character, the two characters can not be on the same campaign; This is to prevent spying on the opposite faction.
Guilds in this game are account-wide, allowing you to join up to 5 and be a GM of only one. The guilds have an alliance associated with them to allow for guilds to take part in PvP and earn PvP bonuses. If you are playing on a Daggerfall Covenant character in an Ebonheart Pact associated guild, you will find you are unable to make use of their bonuses earned from keeps held by that faction. Guilds also provide you with a guild bank and the ability to sell items in a store. Guilds have what is called a Guild Store that you can place items in to sell to other guild members, much like an Auction House in most current MMO games. With the lack of a way to sell items outside of sending mail and the Guild Store, many people have chosen to create market guilds that allow many people to join and just simply make use of the Guild Store so that they may sell the items they come across or craft.
One of the most exciting things in The Elder Scrolls Online for me is the Player vs. Player combat in Cyrodil. Many who know me know that when it comes to games, I am not a huge PvP fan. PvP for me has always felt like a “epeen” contest with a clear beginning and a clear ending, usually ending in a sore-winner and even more sore-losers. The PvP in games don't really draw me in and don't feel like they have any long-term affects to how the game plays outside of earning cool items that I can live without or whatever and it never really feels like a real war; It usually just feels like a team sport. In The Elder Scrolls Online, the PvP combat truly feels like a war. In Cyrodil, your Alliance is fighting for control of the land. You will be left to freely form groups with players within the zone from your faction (or go alone, though not recommended) to take over keeps and the resources surrounding it, such as farms and mines. While you are taking over keeps, you will use siege weapons to knock down walls and ram down doors and once you gain entrance, your Alliance is free to swarm the keep and take it over. After taking over the keeps, you can then either hang back to help repair the keep or move on with your fellow players to take over the other enemy-controlled territories. Your character is instantly boosted to 50 when you enter Cyrodil but you still retain your level so while you are in this zone, you will find quests and non-player enemies to deal with and each of these will aid you in leveling your character, allowing you to work toward leveling up even while PvPing. To enter Cyrodil, you must first reach level 10. Once you reach level 10, you have the option in your menu to select a home campaign. The home campaign is the campaign you will primarily play on while you have the option to guest in other campaigns should some friends of yours choose a different campaign to play on and you are free to change your home campaign at any time. The first time you wish to change your campaign is free but any subsequent changes will cost Alliance Points (the currency earned in Cyrodil for participating in activities such as taking keeps) or gold. This requirement is to prevent people from changing from a losing campaign to a winning one and promote more teamwork with your fellow players in the campaign to take objectives. You are limited to which campaigns you can choose only based on your Alliance you chose. If you created an Ebonheart Pact character and decided you would like to have a Daggerfall Covenant character, the two characters can not be on the same campaign; This is to prevent spying on the opposite faction.
Guilds in this game are account-wide, allowing you to join up to 5 and be a GM of only one. The guilds have an alliance associated with them to allow for guilds to take part in PvP and earn PvP bonuses. If you are playing on a Daggerfall Covenant character in an Ebonheart Pact associated guild, you will find you are unable to make use of their bonuses earned from keeps held by that faction. Guilds also provide you with a guild bank and the ability to sell items in a store. Guilds have what is called a Guild Store that you can place items in to sell to other guild members, much like an Auction House in most current MMO games. With the lack of a way to sell items outside of sending mail and the Guild Store, many people have chosen to create market guilds that allow many people to join and just simply make use of the Guild Store so that they may sell the items they come across or craft.
Lastly, the crafting in this game is
phenomenal. You are provided the ability to use every profession in
the game from the get-go. Provisioning is the profession used for
cooking food and brewing drinks, woodworking is used for creating
bows, staves and shields, and then you have the standard enchanting,
alchemy, blacksmithing and clothing professions. Blacksmithing is
rather self explanatory. It is the profession that allows you to
craft the bulk of your weapons and heavy armor. Clothing stations
allow you to create cloth and medium armor, alchemy allows you to
create potions from the herbs and solvents you find in the world and
enchanting allows you to create enchants for your armor and weapons.
It is important to note that the enchants are not applied directly to
the item. You create enchants using runestones found in the world,
much like the different kinds of wood, herbs, and metals, and that
enchant can be traded among your characters or other players. That
enchant can then be used on the gear associated with the enchant's
type, which is either jewelry, weapon or armor enchants. If you have
any experience with World of Warcraft, you can compare it to putting
an enchant on an enchanting vellum and trading that enchant with
other players.
Where crafting shines the most is the complexity and that is why it gets a paragraph all on it's own. For the armor and weapon professions, you start out with a base item. You choose how much of the base material you wish to put toward it (such as iron) in order to increase the level of the item and then you choose the style. Styles are based on race. For example, a Nord can create armor that is styled after Redguard armor. In order to learn these styles, you must find or trade specific books that relate to that race called Racial Motifs. Once you have found and used these books, that style will be available to you when you visit a crafting station. When you are choosing your style, it will require a style material to craft that, which can usually be found at a vendor nearby or received through deconstructing items. Materials such as Adamantite for Altmer or Bone for Bosmer styled armors would be examples of Style Material that you would use for these items. On top of choosing the level of the item and the style, you then can choose what kind of trait the item has. Traits are learned through research. When you find a piece of gear with a trait in the world (not referring to an enchant, as any one item can have a trait and an enchant), you can take it to the crafting station associated with that item and select the option to research that trait. You may only research one trait at a time for that profession and it takes 6 hours for the research to complete and that item is destroyed in the process. Going back to the actual crafting, however, once you have selected the level, the style and the trait, you have created your item and are ready for the next step in the process, should you choose to do so. You may increase the quality of your gear with materials gained from deconstructing items or found in the world. Improving your gear increases it's stats but has a chance to fail and destroy the gear. Each of these items used to improve your gear gives you a 20% chance to improve the gear and you can use up to 5 of them to give you a 100% chance if you don't want to risk destroying it.
Where crafting shines the most is the complexity and that is why it gets a paragraph all on it's own. For the armor and weapon professions, you start out with a base item. You choose how much of the base material you wish to put toward it (such as iron) in order to increase the level of the item and then you choose the style. Styles are based on race. For example, a Nord can create armor that is styled after Redguard armor. In order to learn these styles, you must find or trade specific books that relate to that race called Racial Motifs. Once you have found and used these books, that style will be available to you when you visit a crafting station. When you are choosing your style, it will require a style material to craft that, which can usually be found at a vendor nearby or received through deconstructing items. Materials such as Adamantite for Altmer or Bone for Bosmer styled armors would be examples of Style Material that you would use for these items. On top of choosing the level of the item and the style, you then can choose what kind of trait the item has. Traits are learned through research. When you find a piece of gear with a trait in the world (not referring to an enchant, as any one item can have a trait and an enchant), you can take it to the crafting station associated with that item and select the option to research that trait. You may only research one trait at a time for that profession and it takes 6 hours for the research to complete and that item is destroyed in the process. Going back to the actual crafting, however, once you have selected the level, the style and the trait, you have created your item and are ready for the next step in the process, should you choose to do so. You may increase the quality of your gear with materials gained from deconstructing items or found in the world. Improving your gear increases it's stats but has a chance to fail and destroy the gear. Each of these items used to improve your gear gives you a 20% chance to improve the gear and you can use up to 5 of them to give you a 100% chance if you don't want to risk destroying it.
In all, this game is worth giving a
chance, if anything just to experience another time-period in the
Elder Scrolls history. It is not a free to play game so you will be
required to pay for a subscription much like many MMOs on the market,
but with a subscription, we will be seeing many content updates and
it gives us a great option for a game that doesn't follow the
standard MMORPG cookie-cutter game. The game is not without it's
flaws but it more than makes up for them in the amount of content you
can experience. From the massive-scale PvP zone, the questing and
exploration to the deep crafting system, you can keep yourself busy
and it is not difficult to find something fun to do, no matter what
kind of player you are. The game will not hold your hand and it is
highly suggested you search for guides for crafting and other aspects
of the game before you venture too far into the content, but from my
personal experience, you will always find someone who is willing to
take you aside and show you a thing or two if you ask the right
questions. Whether you are looking for a fun action-combat MMORPG or
are an Elder Scrolls fanatic, this game will surely suck you in if
you give it a chance to and that is exactly why this game has earned
a special place in my heart (and on both of my computers).
Pros:
- Deep Crafting System
- Intense massive-scale Player versus Player combat
- Fully voice-acted quests and story
- Large world to explore and many quests to find
- Combat is very action-oriented and feels smooth
Cons:
- Lack of Auction House leads to need to join a market-guild to sell without spamming zone chat to sell items.
- No player-housing (as of writing of this review)
- Shared bank-space is a gift and a curse with only 60 spaces before upgrading.
- Subscription may lead to preventing some from giving this game a chance
- Some bugs preventing quest progress, though most seem to be getting fixed frequently.
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