My wife and I are both Elder Scrolls fans, and even before the quarantine my wife alternated between wanting to replay Morrowind, Oblivion, or Skyrim. Cut to about a month ago when I thought a fun surprise would be to mod Oblivion until she didn't recognize it. In the course of 2 days I installed over 150 mods and the game actually started without a gate to the actual realm of Oblivion opening in my house. But...Oblivion will always be Oblivion. The game crashed on average every 20 minutes or less for completely random reasons, and the end product just wasn't as interesting as we thought.
So...wait a minute - wasn't there that Elder Scrolls MMO?
In my faded memory, I only remembered bad things about ESO. Probably because the way I hear it, when the game launched it deserved it. So I was hesitant going in, and I didn't know anything about the game whatsoever. After 200 hours now between the two of us, I can say I'm still lost about a lot, but what I am certain of is that this game is an excellent choice to fill the gap until the next main title. Apparently at some point the game evolved into a sort of "just do whatever, whenever" model. This means everything scales to your level, including gear, and the "Alliance" that your chosen race was locked into for the sake of PvP doesn't seem to matter anymore for PvE. You can just travel wherever and do the quests. From what I read things like the main story quest used to be level-gated, but now you can just do whatever you want when you want to.
And there is a LOT to do. hwarang actually just made a thread about this over here. While a lot of quests are of course going to be your MMO stereotypes, I feel like your average Skyrim filler quest wasn't much better. The standout quests in ESO - the ones that span entire zones or the various Elder Scrolls guilds, are just as interesting as standouts in the main titles. Its all voiceacted, there are plenty of familiar names and faces, and a lot of it is actually interesting. I actually laughed at some quests too, which can go so far as toying with things like the camera angle in conversations. Going in after the game has been out for so long is unsurprisingly confusing as far as figuring out the overall story, yet thanks to the community with threads like this we were able to figure out how to start from square 1 like players did years ago. The only problem is main characters from the original story are the go-tos for DLC and expansion content so its minorly spoiler-y. Hard to worry about saving someone when someone told you to go talk to their double standing in the Fighters Guild to start the latest expansion content.
As far as gameplay, I'm impressed at how close they got to the main titles with the combat. Not only that, but despite everything being brought down to your level, the fights can often be actually dangerous. It was quite a surprise coming from my attempt to try Star Wars: The Old Republic after years where everything is hilariously simple. If you don't have a healing skill on your ability bar then you will need to use potions or play very carefully. I'm not sure if I ever bothered blocking or dodging most of the time in Skyrim, but doing so here can set enemies off balance and there are many skills you need to run away from. And wouldn't you know it? - The game doesn't crash and everything so far has just worked. I know.
So - the negatives. This is a F2P MMO. That of course means you need to pay for a subscription. Without a subscription you do not get a crafting inventory and given this is an Elder Scrolls game you will max out your inventory nearly instantly and continuously without it. You also do not get most of the DLC story content without the subscription which is separated into confusingly named packs sold ala carte much like The Sims 4 is. The cash shop will be in your face all the time. Every log-in, every log-out, and lots in-between. From what I can tell you can just enjoy questing without much grind, but if you plan to stick around for this game long-term there sure as hell is some grind. Crafting research is in real time and even the shortest time at the start will take an entire day. Same goes for upgrading your mount. I already explained the story confusion for new players, but adding to this is the fact that if you have purchased an expansion then you have a brand new prologue tutorial for every new character, leaping you ahead in the story without any idea of what is happening.
Overall - we are enjoying it a lot more than expected and I will say again that since ES 6 is a looooong time coming I can recommend this to tie you over. We bought the game including all the latest expansions during a Steam sale recently so adding a subscription on that wasn't much of an issue. Might go on sale again soon for you.
So...wait a minute - wasn't there that Elder Scrolls MMO?
In my faded memory, I only remembered bad things about ESO. Probably because the way I hear it, when the game launched it deserved it. So I was hesitant going in, and I didn't know anything about the game whatsoever. After 200 hours now between the two of us, I can say I'm still lost about a lot, but what I am certain of is that this game is an excellent choice to fill the gap until the next main title. Apparently at some point the game evolved into a sort of "just do whatever, whenever" model. This means everything scales to your level, including gear, and the "Alliance" that your chosen race was locked into for the sake of PvP doesn't seem to matter anymore for PvE. You can just travel wherever and do the quests. From what I read things like the main story quest used to be level-gated, but now you can just do whatever you want when you want to.
And there is a LOT to do. hwarang actually just made a thread about this over here. While a lot of quests are of course going to be your MMO stereotypes, I feel like your average Skyrim filler quest wasn't much better. The standout quests in ESO - the ones that span entire zones or the various Elder Scrolls guilds, are just as interesting as standouts in the main titles. Its all voiceacted, there are plenty of familiar names and faces, and a lot of it is actually interesting. I actually laughed at some quests too, which can go so far as toying with things like the camera angle in conversations. Going in after the game has been out for so long is unsurprisingly confusing as far as figuring out the overall story, yet thanks to the community with threads like this we were able to figure out how to start from square 1 like players did years ago. The only problem is main characters from the original story are the go-tos for DLC and expansion content so its minorly spoiler-y. Hard to worry about saving someone when someone told you to go talk to their double standing in the Fighters Guild to start the latest expansion content.
As far as gameplay, I'm impressed at how close they got to the main titles with the combat. Not only that, but despite everything being brought down to your level, the fights can often be actually dangerous. It was quite a surprise coming from my attempt to try Star Wars: The Old Republic after years where everything is hilariously simple. If you don't have a healing skill on your ability bar then you will need to use potions or play very carefully. I'm not sure if I ever bothered blocking or dodging most of the time in Skyrim, but doing so here can set enemies off balance and there are many skills you need to run away from. And wouldn't you know it? - The game doesn't crash and everything so far has just worked. I know.
So - the negatives. This is a F2P MMO. That of course means you need to pay for a subscription. Without a subscription you do not get a crafting inventory and given this is an Elder Scrolls game you will max out your inventory nearly instantly and continuously without it. You also do not get most of the DLC story content without the subscription which is separated into confusingly named packs sold ala carte much like The Sims 4 is. The cash shop will be in your face all the time. Every log-in, every log-out, and lots in-between. From what I can tell you can just enjoy questing without much grind, but if you plan to stick around for this game long-term there sure as hell is some grind. Crafting research is in real time and even the shortest time at the start will take an entire day. Same goes for upgrading your mount. I already explained the story confusion for new players, but adding to this is the fact that if you have purchased an expansion then you have a brand new prologue tutorial for every new character, leaping you ahead in the story without any idea of what is happening.
Overall - we are enjoying it a lot more than expected and I will say again that since ES 6 is a looooong time coming I can recommend this to tie you over. We bought the game including all the latest expansions during a Steam sale recently so adding a subscription on that wasn't much of an issue. Might go on sale again soon for you.
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