Aurora 4x
Off Topic => Game/Book Reviews => Topic started by: Paul M on March 03, 2014, 09:59:37 AM
-
Well there was no work on Aurora this weekend from me as I was involved in the ESO Beta test.
Just a view on it for you all. First a few statments so you can judge the comments.
-I am a role player, not a munchkin or raider or whatever. I don't max my min-maxing. My view of technical things in games tends to be based on ease of use, and can I stand to stare at this for 300 hours. "This" being my character, my characters gear, spell effects etc. I am online to be incharacter not to discuss fruit as sex toys in some open channel, so my first act is to find out how to stop the noise from showing up.
-I am not a huge fan of the Elder Scrolls games. I played Morrowind for 30 or so hours until it bored me to tears. I have Skyrim on my Xbox and I am at lvl 26 and find it enjoyable but frustrating playing as a mage where an arrow that should do 10 pts of damage can 1 shot me or 2 shot me if my mage armour is up. Add to that the frustration of having to swap spells etc plus their short durations and so on. I don't find the system for character advancement worse than Morrowind, I'd have to say it is better as it seems to avoid a lot of stupidity and exploitation that was in Morrowind.
-I died twice. The first time was to slaugher fish while swimming and trying to make it around a point of rock. The second time was in a boss fight at the very end of the quest chain. I didn't know if I should just attack him or wait or what so the fight sort of started before I realized what was going on and I was surprised by how many hit points he had. Up till then most fights had been very short. When I got back after raising I found two other players fighting him and both were at half hits (and one was bruiser orc) so I don't feel so bad.
-I got to daggerfall but didn't have time to explore much. I got to lvl 7 I think. I walked over both Mrho'sha (or whatever the name is) and Betnihk (or Betony as a proper breton would call it) and explored them extensively though I didn't find the soul shards in Betnihk as I recall...but I wasn't really looking for them.
So first the Ok-ish things.
-the setting seems to be well set in the Lore. The races of the Daggerfal Covenent (I was playing a Breton Mage) have clearly got friction but are working together rather than hang seperately.
-the quests are voice acted and I wasn't asked to go kill 10 rats or whatever. In general compared to the Elder Scrolls games the quests are actually a cut above the single player games.
-the combat system is pretty typical of a MMO, and I found it better than the ES single player system by a large margin. You have 5 abilities that you can draw from your skill trees that you activate with 1-5 and then the option of a fast attack, a power attack, a block or a counter depending on which mouse key you use. Overall it seemed to work better than the system in Skyrim. Also there was dodges as seem to be standard so double tapping would move you out of the red zone of impending doom. The only thing I found oddly hard was turning around. I was a lot more stationary than I am in TSW but on the other hand almost nothing made it to mellee range so moving wasn't necessary. Bethseda could use this system in their next single player game and I'd be happy.
-the skill system is a mix of ES and normal MMO. Your class gives you 3 skill lines and then each skill has a linee. The lines are divided into active and passive. So my mage had "Dark Magic", "Deadric Summoning", and "Stormlord" as lines from the class. "Breton" came from my race. Then there were weapons "single weapon and shield", "duel wield", "Two handed", "Bow", "Destruction staff" and "Restoration staff." The three armour "Light", "medium", "Heavy." Then Crafting skills. In a class skill line is an ultimate ability plus the regular ones. Other skills just have different abilities. So "Dark Magic" has an ultimate ability "dispel magic" and then an attack ability and then a rooting ability and then 2 more abilities. As well there was 4 passive abilites. The abilities are unlocked as your increase your overall dark magic level. All told it was flexible and allowed for good character customization.
-leveling up gave you a point to spend on magica, health or stamina...as in Skyrim. I found it ok. I got to lvl 7 I think so I was just putting 1 into each to give ma a basis to build on later.
-leveling up gave you a point to spend on your skills. You could morph a active ability that was at lvl 4 which gave it an new twist. My lightening strike I morphed to give me back magica when someone died. Or you could buy new abilites either active or passive that were unlocked. You could for example use a destruction staff without having any destruction abilites that just slowed down your progress. My dark magic was so high because of my 5 active abilities 2 were dark magic, 1 was storm lord, 1 was soul magic, and 1 was restoration staff magic. What was annoying was the restoration staff spell I could only use when I had a restoration staff equipped. This gave you a lot of leveling choices and flexibility.
-the armour was way better than in Skyrim. The light armour gave you some protection (as opposed to 0), plus bonuses in the passive abilities that reduced spell costs, increased magic regen, increased magic resistance etc. Medium armour improved melee and stealth. Can't recall what heavy armour passives did. But this was much better than running around in clothes and mage armour in Skyrim.
The Bad:
-one quest was hard to do "Abomination of X" this was because you had to convince people they had to do it one at a time. The "abomination of hate" blocked me for hours till someone said "everyone log off" and I did and was the first one back. The quest works if you do it one at a time but more than one staff in blocks it for whatever reason. I was glad to get out of there though. Herding cats is easier than dealing with typical MMO riff and raff.
-the single player main quest. It is really pretty much a single player quest but every player is on it. So unlike in TSW were the game is built around the existance of many Gaia warriors this game seems to ignore the fact that there is the second M in MMO. It is a philosophical issue but I find it is something that they could have done better.
-virtually no one spoke in game (in Say and in Character). I saw no role playing and the names ran the full gaument from absurd to lore following. Since there is only one Mega Server, this means role playing will be always subject to interference from xxx_Überdood_xxx and friends. There also seems to be minimal support for role playing...no chat bubbles etc. There are some emotes but I'm not sure how many as I could not find out how to display them.
-no public quests showed up (the abominations would have been much better done as a public quest rather than what they did do)...but maybe I was too low level. There didn't seem much interest in anyone in grouping up though I saw a few duos and possibly a trio. Overall little incentive to encourage socialization. Roleplaying locations were also pretty scarce and nothing like tables and such for tavern get togethers did I see.
-I had a few issues with lag and getting stuck in an crafting animation or while in a store. The only solution was to log out and then back on.
-immersion was destroye every few seconds as someone would come by with weapons out running full tilt and bounding like a jack rabbit...ah well.
The Good:
-Character creation was detailed and I spent about an hour or so making my character. You can tweek most things and I saw a wide variety of characters in game. As most people tended to have the same armour you would think that all would look alike but that seemed to be less critical. Most mages looked like mages in the robes but if you could look at them they had very different bodies and faces. Overall a job well done.
-the world is gorgeous. I walked all over it, swam out to islands and generally had my "explorer" itch scrated seriously. Walking to me is the way to go if you are a crafter as it is hard to spot the resources for alchemy and the others are easy to miss.
-crafting. They have a good system. The question will be how it works into the economy. As it stands each type of armour is divided by race so you can eventually learn to make different racial types of armour. As well you can learn abilites for each group of armour types...so for light armour chests you can learn to add a bonus to them that give more armour rating. In total there were about 10 things your could learn. Plus each level in the ability gives you the ability to craft some types. So level one lets you make iron weapons, level 2 steel and so on. But each weapon or armour requires an investment of 21 gold for the special racial material so you can't sell something for less than that without loosing money. And you can't willy nilly build stuff...unless you have an additional source of money. However by the end my mage had crafted the armour, weapons, food, and potions I was using. I had decifered a good chunk of the early runes and made about a dozen glyphs. My weapons boasted 20 pts of armour negation on my dagger, +3 points of poison damage on my sword and +3 shock on my lightening staff. I had also made a fine light armour chest. I was very happy with the system, but it is clear that to get good requires a lot of effort on the players part plus at least some points invested (keen eye is almost a requirement for alchemy as spotting the plants is hard).
-the UI. No floating names, no hot bars and the world makes it very immersive to be walking about. The hot bar fading when you are out of combat was a brillant idea.
They certainly did a lot of stuff "right" and few things "wrong" but I've no idea how this will work in reality. To me it would depend on finding good people to play with, which is true in my view of any MMO. They aren't bringing anything that new to the table that I can see. The world is gorgeous but the game seems unclear if this is supposed to be a MMO or just a single player game where you see other people around you doing the same thing you are. The main story quest really would better suit a single player game, it thematically is jarring with a MMO. I went in without many postive expectations and was pleasently surprised by the game. If nothing else using the system in the next ES game would make a lot of sense to me.
-
I got to about the same point you did. Breton Nightshade. I found it very railroady. First island you have 3 quests, which each have a subquest or two. Then on to the next island. Three quests with a subquest or two. Very much wash, rinse, repeat.
My gripe is (besides the very linear aspect of things) there is no clue as to what your class skills are. When you start out, you are supposed to grab a weapon. So I grab a bow. None of the nightshade class skills are bow related. They are all melee type.
As Paul said, the world is pretty. But L33tD00D123 really puts a cramp in the immersion.
-
There were 3 main quests, I have to say that the first island was probably better done then then second...but there were side quests hidden about. I had hmmm...3-4 I think plus another 3 that I found and didn't do. The side quests in Betnihk were also there but not as plentiful...I think I hit about 4.
One thing that sort of miffed me is that they gave you disguises only at least for me the cultist one barely worked. The zombies would automatically attack you (and the point was to be able to avoid them) in Grimfield. It worked better elsewhere. But I thought it was a great idea to allow you to do these things stealthy...without killing everything in your path.
I don't know how that mega server idea will work out in the end. Some of the names were well...typical MMO fare but that jars seriously with the Elder Scrolls Wa. I have difficulty really understanding people who call their character things like "Ave some of that"...
-
It's the same in almost any MMO. If they don't enforce naming conventions, then you'll get Meatwad123. I personally think these are the ones who ceased developing around 14 mentally.
It's my understanding that everything we experienced this weekend is null & void. New players now will start in the faction/alliance home city with the option to go to the starter area.
-
-the single player main quest. It is really pretty much a single player quest but every player is on it. So unlike in TSW were the game is built around the existance of many Gaia warriors this game seems to ignore the fact that there is the second M in MMO. It is a philosophical issue but I find it is something that they could have done better.
-virtually no one spoke in game (in Say and in Character). I saw no role playing and the names ran the full gaument from absurd to lore following. Since there is only one Mega Server, this means role playing will be always subject to interference from xxx_Überdood_xxx and friends. There also seems to be minimal support for role playing...no chat bubbles etc. There are some emotes but I'm not sure how many as I could not find out how to display them.
....aaaaaaaannnd this is precisely why I'm not touching this game with a ten foot pole. I was raised on "morrowind" and massively let down by "Oblivion". "Skyrim" has definitely improved but I think I'm going keep my hands off of this just to preserve my happy childhood innocence...sorta like how I pretend they never made sequels to the first Matrix movie.
The only MMORPG I got really into was this free, graphicsless affair called "Urban Dead" where you played a survivor or a zombie, it was semi-popular almost a decade ago. There was functionally very little difference between the characters (After all, besides some gear and a little training, a firefighter and a cop are about equal when the outbreak starts) This made sense as an MMORPG. Fantasy games as MMOs never made much sense to me. When you say "fantasy" or "sword and sorcery" I see a very small number of insanely talented people crushing the world 'neath their sandal-ed feet: you know, "the nine", "conan the barbarian" and so on....it just plain doesn't make sense to be running around this world where everyone's just as good as you, and no matter how hard you try and how hard you fight, you can never break to the head of the pack, because *~ShadOWbane_Nightwish~*, Slayer of Nooblets is always one step ahead of you, and has infinitely more free time. To me, that ain't fantasy. most of the problems people have with MMORPG's arise from various ways designers try (and fail) to address that atmospheric problem.
Morrowind let me be the biggest, baddest, unstoppable-st thing around. That's fantasy. Bethesda actually fought AGAINST the MMOification of fantasy for awhile (they gave several interviews to that effect around the time of oblivion). Now they're edging into *~ShadOWbane_Nightwish~* territory.
-
Hmmm...well given I came out of the starter areas with: a bank full with crafting materials, 48 of 60 in my pack full with stuff...was level 7, had dark magic 12, Storm lord 10, (never bothered with daedric summoning), single weapon and shield 4 or 5, dual wielding 5, restoration staff 7, destruction staff 5, Light Armour 11, Medium armour 5, Breton 7, and all crafting skills between 3 and 5...uhm...not doing that is going to leave you going into the main game with a major disadvantage.
Yeah I know about what happens with no naming conventions I'm just surprised they didn't try harder. I mean in LotRO at least they check the names to make sure they make some sense...or maybe this is just because I play on an RP server. I'm with you on the 14 year old thing. To me the biggest reason though is that they are annoymous behind their user name. The result of that is to strip any vistage of civilizied behaviour away from them and for many they let their inner schoolyard bully free. It gets exceptionally bad when PvP gets involved. But I've played in AoC, WAR, LotRO, Eve, TSW and CoV so I've seen all sorts of behaviour that if I was a social scientist as opposed to a physical one I'd have loads of paper writing materials.
Theodidactus, well in The Secret World that is ok...you are an imortal Gaia warrior and even the big bad you are confronting comments on it..."I'd kill you now but the damn Bee's will just bring you back." or "Well now silent one..." which I found was pretty impressive. Also, my imortal Gaia warrior still needs sake and light to get to sleep most nights. The thought of being "alone in the dark" is freakout time. The stories are that creepy at times. I nearly jumped out of my chair once or twice.
I have enjoyed a fair few fantasy settings. LotRO does a great job of making you a part of the journey of the ring but at the same time making you feel special. You are on the sidelines doing things to help them...distracting Angmar or whatever. It works, and it makes it fun to tease the two elves I travel with about mooning over goldie-locks. It is priceless. My demonologist in AoC was interesting to play as well...people would find the character sprawled out infront of a snake checking out what Set was thinking at that moment. I was in a guild that was all about a "kinder gentler set" only my character was there solely to help friends escape when the temple came to crush them...kinder gentler set? Are you daft???? "Blood for Power!" "I'd like to invite you to the temple to participate in a quaint local religious ceremony some time." (read: rip out your beating heart or sacrifice you to a snake...my character had a clear idea who Set was and what rocked his boat.
-
I had a buttload of crafty stuff too, and Not sure where my skills were. I know if I focused in the Nightshade skills, I was almost forced into melee, rather than archery. I was level 6 I believe when I stopped. Did a little crafting, but couldn't advance cooking at all since I had zero recipes.
-
The crush for the main quest will ease off about a week after the game is live, I assume you werent in the previous open Beta? I'd gotten a couple of characters to 9 that weekend, and spent this one getting 2 more (Nightshade & Dragonknight last time, Sorceror and Templar this weekend) gotta say I was hating the Sorceror until I dumped the staff and went dual sword! and didnt really have run into any competition for quest bosses, though there are still a lot of bugs but then again its an Elder Scrolls game, and that pretty much means it has to be up to the elbows in bugs!
btw I suspect your issues with Skyrim are that it's on a console, TESO plays ALMOST identically to Skyrim on the PC (except for making the sprint button the walk button, thats seriously annoying!)
Matt
-
I had a buttload of crafty stuff too, and Not sure where my skills were. I know if I focused in the Nightshade skills, I was almost forced into melee, rather than archery. I was level 6 I believe when I stopped. Did a little crafting, but couldn't advance cooking at all since I had zero recipes.
The first recipe I found was upstairs in the inn on Stros M'htol...it was capon tinnin that was +45 to health for 35 min. Then when I was down getting the orcs warhorn I found a recipe for Stornarm Beer in a backpack and that was +2 health regen for 35 min. Then in Capt Keleen's cabin i found a third reciepe for grilled Bag-something or another that was +35 stamina for 35 min. Those were the best things I found all the two days and I was über happy to find them. These are things that would be possible to sell to other players and earn money, though realistically I could sell armour/weapons for 30-40 a piece and still do well since the price in stores was 300+. But I found damn little money over all.
Did you ever spot a soul gem merchant on Betnihk? I never saw one nor a pack merchant. I looked at the prices and just shuddered for gear. Crafting it was much better even if it wasn't green quality.
Matt:
My sorcerer used dagger and sword mainly. I used the staffs from time to time but I was never very happy with them, and less so that I could not cast a heal spell without the restoration staff equipped. I also went single dagger too. What I like about this system is that ordinarly in Skyrim I'm a bit of an "arcane trickster" so a mage that uses stealth and a dagger. Well this means I'm constantly farting around swapping out my spell equiped in my left hand and that is annoying as all sin. Here I had my melee weapons for when something caught me by surprise. Also unlike in Skyrim where I can be killed in two hits or less I seemed to have more staying power as I had armour as opposed to skyrim where it is more likely than not my mage armour isn't up and even when it is I have like 15% damage resistance which is pretty much zip. I thought the daedric summons was pointless...why do I need this stupid thing? It looks ugly and people are too lazy to desummon it when it town.
No this is the first beta I was in. I find the controller works better than the PC controls but actually what I liked mechanically was that my abilites were on the keys, my weapons were on the mouse and regardless of the fact that I had a dagger and sword I could still block. Otherwise in skyrim as a mage you have basically this huge favorite list with all of your known spells which defeats the favorites list concept. I'm a firm believer they make the ES games for people playing a melee character who swaps between sword&shield, two hander and bow with a bit of spell use on the side (out of combat mainly). Playing a mage in skyrim is vastly more annoying the playing a mage online. I only died 1 time due to combat in TESO...I've lost track of how many times I've died playing skyrim but it is legion. I routinely get hit with damage that leaves me with <20% health on a single hit...then I have to open the favorites list, find my heal, equip it on the left hand and then pray I have enough time to get it to work. I've died during the heal animation, I've died because I could not see the "charged" animation, I've died while raising my hand etc etc etc it is nearly impossible to survive when 1 hit removes 150 hit points or more and you have 190 total. That was not happening online at all. I even got attacked when I was afk getting tea and I was easily able to kill the wolf gnawing on me when I got back.
On the bugs, I'm afraid that what can be gotten away with on a single player game doesn't cut it online. A single bug in a quest chain blocks all progress. Unbalances and so have to caught and fixed. It is a horse of a different colour to the way the ES are played single player where you rely on mods and most people exploit the system to the max. With PvP that will not be tolerable at all. Not if you want to charge a subscription fee and steep one. This is where I am at my most dubious about the long term prospects of the game.
-
The first recipe I found was upstairs in the inn on Stros M'htol...it was capon tinnin that was +45 to health for 35 min. Then when I was down getting the orcs warhorn I found a recipe for Stornarm Beer in a backpack and that was +2 health regen for 35 min. Then in Capt Keleen's cabin i found a third reciepe for grilled Bag-something or another that was +35 stamina for 35 min. Those were the best things I found all the two days and I was über happy to find them. These are things that would be possible to sell to other players and earn money, though realistically I could sell armour/weapons for 30-40 a piece and still do well since the price in stores was 300+. But I found damn little money over all.
Did you ever spot a soul gem merchant on Betnihk? I never saw one nor a pack merchant. I looked at the prices and just shuddered for gear. Crafting it was much better even if it wasn't green quality.
I did reroll a khajit mage, barely got him out of Oblivion when I stopped for the night. But with him, I had him loot that area with the prison and the bigger area with the portal. From those two areas I managed probably 20-30 recipes (including duplicates). But I never had a chance to dig into them.
The first one I made, the Breton nightshade had ~1500 coins when I logged out. Not sure if that is gold or what. But yeah, the merchant prices sucked all. No soul gem or pack merchants that I saw. Though it's possible I missed them entirely too. I didn't find the blacksmith area until just before the final battle. Or just after. One of the two.
-
Paul,
My Skyrim character wears Ebon armour (uses heavy armour skill) and has a very nasty soul stealing sword in his main hand (gotta keep those soul gems topped up!) and uses his left hand for casting, often fireballs, though I have been known to self heal, I'd definately call him a mage, though he's a mage in heavy armour with a sword, though since he's also the Archmage of the guild I think I can get away with clling him a mage, so I'm not sure why you arent wearing decent armour in Skyrim?!? Though to be fair playing an Elder Scrolls game without mods is something I'd never consider doing, I have a Skyrim mod that basically lets me hot key spells and weapon/weapon shield/bow combos on a single keypress.
Gotta say bug wise TESO's pretty damn good for an Elder Scrolls game, and less buggy than the Secret World was at this stage, not far off where LotRo was when it first went live many moons ago!
Erik,
Yesterday I found somewhere selling soul Gems with my High Elf (damn facists!) templar, hadnt seen it before (can't even remember where it was, near the Two Moons temple I think) so they're definately out there! and a pack merchant, though I really can't remember where they were. though prices are definately way too high! The lack of an Auction House is interesting as well
Matt
-
When I played it, it felt like it had just enough features of Skyrim to make me want to go play Skyrim. It wasn't a bad experience, but I am not sure "reminds me of another better game" is the greatest compliment.
-
I played the weekend beta up to level 10, got some PVP in just before the servers went down. I felt ESO had major improvements over skyrim. Stamina and magicka management felt like they mattered more and felt much more consequential.
For an MMO, individual spells/powers mattered quite a bit which is nice. The combat flows pretty well. I feel it could use a lot less open world dungeons and more instancing though. Having random people wandering around dungeons damages the narrative the game tries to establish that you are special.
Impressed with the PVP system for as long as I played it. Sieges were cool. I felt maybe it was too easy to emplace and build siege gear though. It was nice that noone could be an unkillable tank, at least not from what I saw.
-
Paul,
My Skyrim character wears Ebon armour (uses heavy armour skill) and has a very nasty soul stealing sword in his main hand (gotta keep those soul gems topped up!) and uses his left hand for casting, often fireballs, though I have been known to self heal, I'd definately call him a mage, though he's a mage in heavy armour with a sword, though since he's also the Archmage of the guild I think I can get away with clling him a mage, so I'm not sure why you arent wearing decent armour in Skyrim?!? Though to be fair playing an Elder Scrolls game without mods is something I'd never consider doing, I have a Skyrim mod that basically lets me hot key spells and weapon/weapon shield/bow combos on a single keypress.
Gotta say bug wise TESO's pretty damn good for an Elder Scrolls game, and less buggy than the Secret World was at this stage, not far off where LotRo was when it first went live many moons ago!
Erik,
Yesterday I found somewhere selling soul Gems with my High Elf (damn facists!) templar, hadnt seen it before (can't even remember where it was, near the Two Moons temple I think) so they're definately out there! and a pack merchant, though I really can't remember where they were. though prices are definately way too high! The lack of an Auction House is interesting as well
Matt
Well I'm in mage robes trying to keep my stone skin up and using a dagger and trying to back stab. The game does not reward playing a mage, you use 1 spell fireball; I am swapping between summoning an anorarch, lightening, healing (me or lydia), utility spells and the game sucks at that. And Mage robes are necessary if you want to be able to regen magica fast enough to cast more than a few spells. But likely the big difference is I play on an Xbox and hence have no mods you play with mods so in principle you aren't playing Skyrim you are playing something else. Excluding the nude mods on the nexus it is clear that you can get sufficient mods to completely change game play. Take your mods out and play the game and then we can compare otherwise we are talking apples to roast beef.
On stoss M'hol there was a high elf who sold bags at 400 gold each (I bought one) and a sage that sold soul gems (I have 3 fully charged petty ones and 1 used one to recharge Jakon's machette once). I found no one in Betony that sold either bags or gems. Increased bank space was 1000 gold (for 10 slots I'd guess). I made about 1000 I'd think but spent a lot of it on the bag and crafting materials, if memory serves I have about 400 gold on hand.
I'd sum it up as if this was a beta for the next single player game I'd be recommending it but for an MMO...it is fun and nice but unlike the beta for The Secret World it hasn't grabbed me by the throat and said "subscribe."
-
Interesting feedback. Will undoubtably end up buying the darn thing to see what its like and end up dumping it like all the other MMOs I've played recently. Just don't have the time for the grind anymore.
Loved morrowind and hated oblivion until I downloaded obscurros complete oblivion overhaul mod, made the game a lot more challanging and interesting for me. Skyrim pretty but too easy.
-
The game does not reward playing a mage, you use 1 spell fireball; I am swapping between summoning an anorarch, lightening, healing (me or lydia), utility spells and the game sucks at that. And Mage robes are necessary if you want to be able to regen magica fast enough to cast more than a few spells. But likely the big difference is I play on an Xbox and hence have no mods you play with mods so in principle you aren't playing Skyrim you are playing something else.
I obviously gave the wrong impression, I MAINLY use fireball but I actually use quite a few spells, and I completed the main quest line of Skyrim with nothing but graphics mods. You have to remember that ES games are MEANT to be played with mods, thats why they've included the mod toolkit with every ES game since Daggerfall, and I'm not sure I agree that for instance adding hotkey support suddenly means I'm not playing Skyrim. Though I'm coming at things from a vastly different perspective than you, having put many many hours into every Elder Scrolls game from Arena onwards.
All in all though It's probably the MMO I've enjoyed most since LotRo (and my enjoyment of Lotro has been steadily diminishing since they took the fog out of the barrow downs in about book 9) I've also been looking forward to this since it was announced, and my experience so far has exceeded my expectations (though I am a little hesitant about the RvR PvP theyre using, last game that relied on that was Warhammer, and look what happened to that!
-
Skyrim pretty but too easy.
Unfortunately teso is significantly easier than Skyrim, I'm hoping the difficulty ramps up after the starter areas, it's also a little disconcerting in an Elder Scrolls game for as much stuff to be non-interactable!
-
The difficulty does indeed go up. Sharply in some cases. One of the complaints from beta is you got the "hold your hand" "on rails" starter zones, got to the first city zone, and then got to the main city area and stuff got much tougher, fast.
That was 8 to 10ish on the last beta. Past 10, things slowed down noticeably from a leveling perspective, and the difficult ramps up fast. I had hell killing some of the mobs at level. There were a couple that I could not kill at level, I had to come back.
Weapon management gets much easier at 15, you get to swap between two weapons sets, which helps. Mobs are grouping more, and more aggressive.
There we complaints actually, that the difficulty went from "too easy" to "freaking hard" very quickly. Lots of folks had issues finishing class quests in the Ebonheart zones, and the main storyline was VERY hard for anyone that did not have fast burst damage.
The Beta for this coming weekend looks pretty good so for, 2000+ bugfixes, I am looking forward to seeing what is no longer broken.
-
yeah a 6+gb patch implies theres been a bit of work done :)
-
Well I got into this last beta and was on the European megaserver.
I didn't play my mage but started a Nord-Templar since they asked for new character experiences. First thing was the fact that I can't really see that much different about the start where you get a sword as opposed to pick your weapon of choice. The battle before the engine was somewhat more interesting I guess but I otherwise don't think that the tutorial is better or worse. I looted a lot more from it though.
I did have a problem with my Nord and that was for no reason I understood I was surrounded by cats and elves when I left coldharbor. I went to the starting island feeling confused but the Cat I spoke with seemed to be expecting me...and I got to lvl 6 before I suddenly realized that I had accidently selected "Dominion" as alligence and "Nord" as race...I only spotted this when I created a High Elf character and found myself in the identical start. This being the case I decided to skip the starter island and plunge into the main Island quests and see what the difference was. The difference is immense. If you go to the starter islands you find stuff, you get you feet wet and you pick up gear. Starting on the main Island I was using from arrival to lvl 8 the same weapon...a lvl 1 dagger and a green lvl 4 hand axe. I had partial armour (as in no full set) and that was a mix and match affair. I got to lvl 6 then found myself doing a lvl 8 quest since the adventure path sends you out of the main city at lvl 5 but when you get where it tells you to go suddenly the level is 8. I died several times trying to do the last battle and gave up and spent a lot of time hunting down scraps of leather. Oh...I was a high elf nightblade using axe and dagger. I died a lot...probably close to 750 gold in repair bills lots. I found either things worked great...target died in 1-3 hits from the rear or else I was up the creek. In stand up fights I got clobbered, which I think is probably my fault but it is hard to sort out the combat system as things happen fairly quickly. I pretty much need to learn to block more often I suspect. Still as opposed to my mage I was dieing both with my Nord twohanded sword wielder or with my axe-dagger wielding nightblade far more often. Part of the problem is your health is pretty minimal...and that means things go from bad to worse and it is hard to figure out why. It is frustrating though when you have to get the steath hit in to survive the fight and the starting condition doesn't allow it.
So the difficulty seems turned up. With collision I found myself trapped a few times, and that is bad. The biggest issue is that it is often very hard to sort out what is killing you. No log file and so on.
What I am noticing though is a few "quality of life" issues. Pack capacity is absolutely necessary and exceptionally expensive. Also all character share the same bank. This isn't my idea of a good time. My characters are seperate individuals so why do they share a bank? But the real issue is crafting stuff...it takes a huge amount of storage space. You have Jute/cloth, scraps/rawhide, ore/iron, rought/sanded maple, then water plus a dozen types of flowers, then add in 3 kinds of runes each of which comes in several flavors. Then food requires 2 ingrediants per recipe so you have say 6 raw ingrediant piles and 3 finished ones, plus say 6 or more potions and another 4 glyphs. Add that us and you get say 30 things in your pack at a minimum. Add in fish, bait, gems for crafting, misc items and gear you pick up and I was often even with a pack capacity of 60 completely full.
Dungeons...I tried a few out. Uhm...they are a zerg fest. And I hate zergs. I died often enough in these things to realize you go into them with a party or stay away. Unless you like running around in a zerg of course.
I did a few dark anchors. Uhm another Zeg fest. Chaos and more Chaos. Not enough to say if they were fun or not. Then I was in a few of those things where a mini-engine would deposite some beasts...alone you die... But I took on these with PUGs and that was fun...but didn't lead to any interaction. In fact that is my main issue with the game...no one talking in local.
I hit another bugged reset on a quest (aide the northern priestes) and no matter how often I said "please leave the area and let it reset" in yell people didn't. I gave up and logged out and when I logged in early the next morning there was only one person there and dove in and we did it without a problem...it even reset. So I helped the next group. I hit the same thing with the guild quest "aide Alisa" she was also not reseting but that was at the end of my play time. I really have to say that they need to instance the main story more because it destroys immersion when you have a dozen people doing the same "secret" mission.
World exploring both in Skyrim (with my recreated Pack Nord...Halldor Hildirson) was interesting. But I spent most of my time with my Altmer nightblade...surrounded by cats, half naked savages er bosmer, and other les.. er less well known races pol...er populating our busy port island. We are all friends and allies...yes? At last I know where the wolves hide for hides...I was about ready to kill people who just can't seem to not kill things as they walk around and then just rush off...I was stalking that wolf for a purpose dingbat!
I also found a special crafting station but I don't know if I can get it to work...I'll have to go back next time, if there is a next time and see. I got to lvl 9.
I have to say I can't fathom how they expect to get the game to work with a subscription fee. My guess is that with 3 sets of players PC/MAC, XBox, and PS they will have around 1 m people total. I'd guess 3-5 m will try the game for between 1-3 months. I don't see them retaining more than 10-15% of the people who try. They should use the system in the next ES game though it is a lot better than the current on they have in my view.
But thinking on what the head of it said..."it is the elder scrolls" and "it is online." Well it is the elder scrolls, I have had a blast exploring the various islands and reading the books and stuff...but it is online which means about half the time the people are anoying, a quarter the time or less they are useful, and the other part of the time they are just ignorable.
I'm waiting to see what happens...which should be obvious by june or july. I've purchased SWTOR, STO, CoH/V, and AoC so buying the client doesn't faze me...but I'm dubious they will stay subscription for long. Equally so I know "Free to Play" is "Free to Pay" as that just means they nickle and dime the money out of you. Both LoTRO and NW are that way. Since PvP is supposed to be important to the game I'm a bit dubious how well FtP works...it was the reason WAR never could do that change over, as Free to Play become "Pay to Win." But they have to give people a pretty big incentive to compete for subscription money.
-
I played for a couple of hours on Saturday, got bored/frustrated and logged to play some Civ V. :)
-
Hmmm...well if it was single player game it would be the first elder scrolls game I'd be interested in buying. The single player story experience is great...unfortunately it doesn't blend in at all well with the MMO aspect. The whole emergent story thing is pretty much wiped out when someone blunders into the middle of your story and bounds around and runs off... And they have no social stuff...so it is like the world is populated by mute wierdo's. I've had someone run up when I was one step from a rune stone and nab it, or kill the wolf I was closing in on...and bound off to kill a mud crap and at this time I was desperate for leather scraps and wolves are rare...so I had been hunting wolves and imps for several hours trying to get enough leather to make my armour. I guess that is "emergant story" but it is a bit different then the kind people mean when talking about skyrim.
I really don't know how this is going to work for them. I can see people buying the game playing for a month or two to experience the story and then stopping. They claim 5 m beta but well TSW and SWTOR had big betas and then retention was in both cases "less then expected." Basically by June we should see the writing on the wall is my view.
-
"the elder scrolls" has ALWAYS been about the single player experience. It just doesn't make sense to me. "the elder scrolls: The MMORPG" just feels like "Aurora: the first-person shooter"...like it's a medium that pretty much directly contradicts the message.
-
SWTOR should have been Kotor 3, 4, 5, & 6 in my opinion. I play it, but if you are grouped for anything other than Heroics/FP/WZ/etc., it is way to simple. And I see ESO following this path. There will be good single player stories, but everyone is the "Chosen one" or whatever. It truly seems pointless to be multiplayer.
I think of games in the last 10 years, Lotro probably had the best way to handle the story. You are not the chosen one. He's off headed to Mordor. You're just a regular person helping keep things safe at home. Sort of. :)
-
Personally I can't think of any MMO that has a lot of people using local, it's pretty limiting, and especially Beta crowds, they usually have the help channels the busiest as people try and figure out stuff.
Right from the first announcement I've been predicting f2p in 6 months though.
Matt
-
And I see ESO following this path. There will be good single player stories, but everyone is the "Chosen one" or whatever. It truly seems pointless to be multiplayer.
This goes back to what I said earlier but I've always been a little confused as to why "fantasy" became the default genre of most MMORPG's. The format seems decidedly "unfantastic". MMORPG culture always seems to be decidedly more martial or corporate (with guilds and raids and such) so like, it always made more sense for me (as a big time RPer) to get really into sci-fi or zombie survival mmorpg's than fantasy ones. When I RP fantasy I like imagining that being a wizard is something special, like, you're not gonna see another one tear across the screen once every 10 minutes.
-
Or the inevitable Leggalamb, Legolass, Leggomyass, Aragorrn, Arragorn, Gandalph, Gandyalp, etc, ad nauseum.
-
~*Shad0wbane_Nitewish*~
-
Matt, I'm a roleplayer. I log on to play my character, I am in character all the time and so the only thing that matters to me is local or group when we have to discuss things like "which quest next." What is really annoying is that there are no chat bubbles. In LotRO it is absurd I get this text out of nowhere and I have no idea who said it, ah well, roleplayers don't count.
As for names...I will never forget in AoC I ran into a group of raiders* and one of them introduced himself as "Aragorn, son of Arathorn" --now the game expressly tells you that this is not allowed. After a bit of talking to these imbiciles I suggested I'd like to invite them all to a participate in a quaint local religious ceremony some time and turned around and walked away. It should be noted I was playing a set worshiping stygian demonologist and what I meant was: I'd love to either rip their hearts out or feed them to a snake. In ESO I ran into someone called "(something) Septim" and had the same sort of whimsy.
*I have very little good to say about raids, or the people who participate in them. I will say that of the 3 people involved in the incident one was genuinely trying so I'd have spared him from the alter the other two..."blood for power!" But my other interactions with the unprintable obscenities over the years have convinced me I want nothing to do with them.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/03/the-elder-scrolls-online-beta-leaves-us-skeptical/ (http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/03/the-elder-scrolls-online-beta-leaves-us-skeptical/)
Here is an article that basically says the same things we have been saying. I don't completely agree with everything but that is shading more or less. I don't have an objection to the starter islands, since even Skyrim has starter areas, and if you wander away from them you die awefully fast to ice wolves or ice cats or whatever. I felt I could explore unfettered ... I did the main quest at my own pace and walked over the entire island poking into things I found.
On the chosen one story line...I'm mystified. In TSW you are basically one of many antibodies Gaia created with the Bees, in LotRO you are just an ordinary person in middle earth helping the ring bearers on the sidelines, in WAR you were just a member of the horde (should be obvious which side I was playing), SWTOR well that was harder to say but "chosen one" didn't quite seem to fit...especially because if you had a mixed group you got to experience each others storylines...but clearly you got some starpower. CoV...well you were just a supervillian amoung many...so super but otherwise not special. STO...uhm well err...again no feeling of chosen-ness. But ESO's story is really a single player game story. And it doesn't sit at all well with the whole concept of a MMO...I'd love to play it in a single player game. The quests are signficantly better than the ones I've seen in the elder scroll games. Well until you get to the quest and find out that the NPC is borked and that the respawn is being blocked by people who can't really seem to grasp "You have to move outside the quest area and give the NPC a chance to properly respawn." A concept that isn't that difficult to grasp I'd think.
-
SWtOR does have some of that "chosen one" mentality. All the bounty hunters are winners of the Great Hunt. All of the Jedi consulars are looking for a cure for the disease. And so forth. It's Star Wars, but it is no SWG. Sadly...
I have noticed that a lot of games don't enforce the naming policy, unless it is blatantly offensive. Which on a RP server just sucks.
One thing I did notice there was not a lot of instancing. If I enter tomb X to get the whatchamajiggers, I really don't want to compete with 30 others for them. I had to zone, so make it an instance. That right there would probably clear up a lot of the issues with quests for TESO.
-
The problem with rules is that the anoymous horde hates them...and they pay a subscription so they feel they can behave like a chimpanzie on crack and its ok, since "hey I pay a sub!"
But both AoC and LotRO have naming conventions, I've seen people work around the ones in LotRO but at least in these cases it takes a bit of cleaverness. I can't fathom why anyone would outright rip off a game/movie/book character name in its entirety. I've used say the first name of a character in a book that I really liked or felt was influencial to this particular characters concept but normally I take a few hours and do some research into the name and then work my own name out. Case in point: Halldor Hildirson came from "Viking Lady on old Norse Names" and an Old Norse Name list. "Sexy Hoe", "() Septim", "Legoless", "Standish Heals", etc etc etc make me wonder about people... Admittedly "Sexy Hoe" was in Neverwinter...but well ESO has the same sort of thing when you actually look around.
Yeah instancing was off. When I went down with the queen that was my own instance...at level 6 with absolute crap gear I think I died 4 times before I said..."Ok", when I came back at lvl 8 with much better gear I died 2 times...the first one I nearly got the idiot but the queen went down and then I had 4 things beating on me...the second time the queen didn't engage until the end after I went down...the third time I realized I needed her and I ignored the ghosts and concentrated on the NPC. When the combat gets hectic (you are moving, the NPC is moving, there are multiple targets infront of you) is when I wonder about their system a lot...it is under these circumstances that I tend to die with my nightblade and what I can see is that my damage had gotten spread out over both NPCs rather than concentrated on one.
But in other cases there was no instance and this is really bad if you are alone...because the NPC is then built to be engaged by multiple people and if you are alone...well lets just say the two times I ran into that situation I died. But it is also the case when 3 or 4 PCs are beating on the NPC there is remarkably little "jobs satisfaction" to be gotten from the event.
-
LotRo dropped its naming rules years ago unfortunately, way back in the day it was quite nice there, even silly plays on names would get changed, but that pretty much ended when SoA did :( only place theres any enforcement now is on the RP servers, and then only when it's petitioned (so I'm lead to believe)
Personally I don't like instanced stuff, however I don't seen any option in an MMO to make it work, and allow people to actually complete stuff! (I played UO in the bad old days, and I've seen what players turn into when they're given free reign)
TESO has a major advantage over most other MMOs that it doesnt have huge mobs of supposedly rare things just standing around the landscape just waiting to be adventurer fodder, though how much of that was down to the beta crowding remains to be seen (when for instance you're on the leading edge of player movement into a new expansion in LotRo for instance the critter placement doesnt feel as artificial as it does a few weeks after the crowd goes through)
Matt
-
I play on a RP server in LotRO and I seem to recall something about names when I first created a character...and I don't see outrageous stuff normally. Certainly nothing like what I see routinely in Neverwinter.
What is SoA? Shadows of Angmar? We just finished that part of the epic quest.
Well ESO has stuff, but not rare things waiting around...though at least on Auridon (the Altmer main island whatever the name is) the problem was actually finding leather bearing things to kill for the leather you need for your medium armour. I don't recall seeing things just there waiting... you can explore long distances without encountering a creature (outside of foxes or mud crabs or deer). It feels far more natural that way, the creatures are where it makes sense for them to be. So there are lots of Maomer invaders at their invasion site, lots of ancestral spirits at the haunted ruins, etc.
The placement in LotRO doesn't seem artifical so much as it seems "crowded" but well I guess that is better than people complaining there isn't enough boars or whatever. My first MMO was AoC, but I've heard stories about the first ones... I don't see how you can avoid instances really...and the story would be so much better with more instancing given its single player nature. The interesting thing is how the world changes....once you complete a quest then to you it is completed, and you don't see people fixing the same problem that you just fixed. So when you go back to the village you just saved from a fire you see people rebuilding it, even though I'm assuming there may be other players about who see burning houses and NPCs to fight. I'm not sure how they do it but it is a really nice touch. Also NPCs comment on your actions...which is another realy nice touch.
-
Yup SOA is Shadows of Angmar, usually used to refer to the pre-expansion LotRo, commonly known as the good old days, when the old forest was scary, and the barrow downs were actually dangerous!!
In the beginning LotRo was very strict with character naming, not only did your character name have to be non-copyright infringing, it had to be lore appropriate, though they relaxed that sometime after lake Everswim was added to the game, and pretty much dropped it entirely about the time of Moria dropping, it's pretty much only enforced now on reports (they actually used to check on their own at first, but I think that sort of died out once sub numbers got higher)
Yeah, I didn't quite phrase that how I meant it, I was more thinking of places like Northern Bree fields where you can run through an open field and there are orcs neatly standing around in a grid pattern (parts of Dunland seem to be the worst for that), and thats one of my favorite things in TESO, that there isnt a critter every 3.7m in a neat grid pattern!
Ultima Online at the beginning (I don't know whats happened to it since about 2000) didn't actually have instances, even the Dungeons were open world, so if there was a party in front of you bad luck! but UO had so many much more major issues (almost all caused by players being well, sociopathic) that it wasnt a show stopper.
Phasing is a really cool thing (I believe LotRo was the first to use it, starting with Isengard) though they've really only started using it properly from Rohan. pretty much the best thing about TESO for me though has been that the quests arent all "Go here, and kill X of Y" theres actually some variety in the quests, refreshing!
Matt
-
Yup SOA is Shadows of Angmar, usually used to refer to the pre-expansion LotRo, commonly known as the good old days, when the old forest was scary, and the barrow downs were actually dangerous!!
In the beginning LotRo was very strict with character naming, not only did your character name have to be non-copyright infringing, it had to be lore appropriate, though they relaxed that sometime after lake Everswim was added to the game, and pretty much dropped it entirely about the time of Moria dropping, it's pretty much only enforced now on reports (they actually used to check on their own at first, but I think that sort of died out once sub numbers got higher)
Yeah, I didn't quite phrase that how I meant it, I was more thinking of places like Northern Bree fields where you can run through an open field and there are orcs neatly standing around in a grid pattern (parts of Dunland seem to be the worst for that), and thats one of my favorite things in TESO, that there isnt a critter every 3.7m in a neat grid pattern!
Ultima Online at the beginning (I don't know whats happened to it since about 2000) didn't actually have instances, even the Dungeons were open world, so if there was a party in front of you bad luck! but UO had so many much more major issues (almost all caused by players being well, sociopathic) that it wasnt a show stopper.
Phasing is a really cool thing (I believe LotRo was the first to use it, starting with Isengard) though they've really only started using it properly from Rohan. pretty much the best thing about TESO for me though has been that the quests arent all "Go here, and kill X of Y" theres actually some variety in the quests, refreshing!
Matt
I want to say phasing came in earlier. It was in Bree Town before Isengard hit I think. And Lotro always had the instances. Fourteen people rush for the orc cave in northern Bree fields, and all end up in their own cave. TESO needs more of that, especially for the story stuff. Incidental quests not so much.
All the old school MMORPG's had that issue with groups ahead of you. EQ had it, AC had it, UO had it. It wasn't until the next generation, WoW, EQ2, etc where that started to disappear in favor of instances.
-
Well I have to admit I find the old forest scary...it is just creepy. The Barrow downs were more dangerous? I'm confused what do you mean did the nerf the skeletons and what not or something? Usually there was a small fellowship of us there, but my burglar did it solo only the idiot hobbit quest was really hard since she forced me to fight in a way that is bad for a burglar.
Hmmm, never visited Dunland yet, and since I play for free didn't spend much time in Evendim...I think the next step of the epic quest will take us there though. I'm not sure about a grid pattern though they usually have people posted in a ring around a bandit or orc camp or so. Wolves, bears and other wildlife is more "regular" but again given how much you have to kill to get your various slayer deeds and or enough hides to tailor that isn't so objectionable. Actually around Estaldin in the direction of either the hill man camp or else the orc battle camp is a fairly grid like collection of things. Scary I have to admit was taking the one path to Angmar that started in that camp...I was sweating the entire time I was sneaking my way through the path. I think I was 10 or so levels too low and then there were the statues that gave you horror and so on...it was creepy and unnerving. Angmar is pretty creepy and unnerving I have to admit.
In ESO at least now I know where the wolves are, so next time I need to upgrade my armour I know where I have to go for an hour and just slaughter the wolves in a circle. I will agree that the quests have been really well done, much better than what is in skyrim. I'm pretty sure I've yet to have gotten a single kill x of Y quests...or possibly I have but somehow they don't really stand out since most of the time it is "do this" and in the act of doing so you end up killing 20 gobins or what have you. That to me is a well done quest design. What I don't like about LotRO is the built in grind...and as a free player you sorta have to pick up as many deeds as possible since they nickle and dime you for everything. That is the one thing that ESO with a sub seems to be avoiding.
The real issue that I am seeing is space, as crafting is going to eat up a huge amount of bag space, I really think they need to do a Neverwinter and split your bag up into crafting and other stuff. Cause you can have hundreds of crafting things easily by the time you are 30-th level or so. Base 10 for the gems to add traits, then 2 per crafting skll per level of crafting in clothing, woodworking and iron working, 1 for your racial metal, 2 foods per recipe (with some doubling up), 1 water per potion level, plus a dozen for reagents, then 2-3 for the potency runes, a dozen for the aspect runes, and a further 10 or so for the last rune. That is simply a huge amount of bag space.
I'm still afraid I don't see them having a retention rate of better than 10-15% after the initial month is gone on the box.
-
You do know there are two other routes into Angmar from North Downs? The one with the camp is the hardest of the three. That is the one on the east. The center one is the easiest, and the western one is filled with drakes.
-
I want to say phasing came in earlier. It was in Bree Town before Isengard hit I think. And Lotro always had the instances. Fourteen people rush for the orc cave in northern Bree fields, and all end up in their own cave. TESO needs more of that, especially for the story stuff. Incidental quests not so much.
All the old school MMORPG's had that issue with groups ahead of you. EQ had it, AC had it, UO had it. It wasn't until the next generation, WoW, EQ2, etc where that started to disappear in favor of instances.
Phasing was the big techincal advancement from RoI it was an absolute nightmare during beta for it! the number of times you'd have missing quest npc's was truly astounding, at one stage it feld like every player had to have their own dedicated GM to get anything done!
LotRo did indeed have instancing right from the very begining, hell the very first thing you do the first time you play LotRo is an instance ;) I'm just saying I wish it didn't but I can't think of any way of making an MMO work without quest instancing (because I did play UO, and I've experienced an MMO with everything uninstanced in the game world, and hopefully never will again!)
Matt
-
Well I have to admit I find the old forest scary...it is just creepy. The Barrow downs were more dangerous? I'm confused what do you mean did the nerf the skeletons and what not or something? Usually there was a small fellowship of us there, but my burglar did it solo only the idiot hobbit quest was really hard since she forced me to fight in a way that is bad for a burglar.
Hmmm, never visited Dunland yet, and since I play for free didn't spend much time in Evendim...I think the next step of the epic quest will take us there though. I'm not sure about a grid pattern though they usually have people posted in a ring around a bandit or orc camp or so. Wolves, bears and other wildlife is more "regular" but again given how much you have to kill to get your various slayer deeds and or enough hides to tailor that isn't so objectionable. Actually around Estaldin in the direction of either the hill man camp or else the orc battle camp is a fairly grid like collection of things. Scary I have to admit was taking the one path to Angmar that started in that camp...I was sweating the entire time I was sneaking my way through the path. I think I was 10 or so levels too low and then there were the statues that gave you horror and so on...it was creepy and unnerving. Angmar is pretty creepy and unnerving I have to admit.
In ESO at least now I know where the wolves are, so next time I need to upgrade my armour I know where I have to go for an hour and just slaughter the wolves in a circle. I will agree that the quests have been really well done, much better than what is in skyrim. I'm pretty sure I've yet to have gotten a single kill x of Y quests...or possibly I have but somehow they don't really stand out since most of the time it is "do this" and in the act of doing so you end up killing 20 gobins or what have you. That to me is a well done quest design. What I don't like about LotRO is the built in grind...and as a free player you sorta have to pick up as many deeds as possible since they nickle and dime you for everything. That is the one thing that ESO with a sub seems to be avoiding.
The real issue that I am seeing is space, as crafting is going to eat up a huge amount of bag space, I really think they need to do a Neverwinter and split your bag up into crafting and other stuff. Cause you can have hundreds of crafting things easily by the time you are 30-th level or so. Base 10 for the gems to add traits, then 2 per crafting skll per level of crafting in clothing, woodworking and iron working, 1 for your racial metal, 2 foods per recipe (with some doubling up), 1 water per potion level, plus a dozen for reagents, then 2-3 for the potency runes, a dozen for the aspect runes, and a further 10 or so for the last rune. That is simply a huge amount of bag space.
I'm still afraid I don't see them having a retention rate of better than 10-15% after the initial month is gone on the box.
The old forest used to be so much more creepy, there was limited visibility, NO map, and the paths through the forest would randomly block and unblock, and Huorns would one hit kill you if you got too close! And the Barrow Downs heh, thats so heavily nerfed from what it was originally it's almost unrecognizable, it used to be covered in the fog effect, half the wights in the South downs were level 40 (and 50 was the cap then), the fog effects effectively hid the critters until you'd already aggroed them (no enemy indicators on the mini-map back then) or quest guide focus, you had to find your own way to things like the barrow entrances! there was no way you could have survived the Downs solo back then, hell you wouldnt venture into any of the actual barrows with just a small fellowship! Lalia was SO hard that I still squirm when doing it now, even though its a genuine faceroll now, since she can't even die anymore! Now that they've added boats to Everswim now, so you don't have to swim the length of the stupid lake over and over and over again! it's actually quite nice there ;D
LotRo really was significantly harder on landscape than it is now, Turbine in their wisdom(HAH) have nerfed stuff so much in their desire to get as many people to level cap so they spend money buying stuff for LI's to use raiding. I actually really miss the old Old Forest and Barrow Downs, it seriously made you make sure you had your smeg together before venturing in there (though the whole getting lost in the old forest did tend to wear a little thin after awhile!)
And like Erik mentioned theres a path from ND to Angmar thats completely free from beasties, and takes you to a camp full of nice friendly Jorthkin.
LotRo is way more grindy now than ever before and moving more and more that way, presumably since it makes more sense for them to nickel & dime you with deed accelerators etc if they make it grindy, hell I'm a lifetimer in LotRo and I'm still grinding the hell out of everything, for nothing more than a title most of the time, simply because thats what they seem to be moving the game towards being.
I'm with Erik though that TESO will need to move a lot of it's special quest areas into instances, otherwise you're just going to have too many annoyed and bored people. I've not run into to much of a storage issue in TESO though, but I suspect thats because of my sell everything I don't have a use for mindset that LotRo trained me into, and the fact I'm specialising my crafting among toons (something else I've been trained into), I still only give TESO 3 months before F2P, I honsestly don't think any new MMO can survive as subs only any more.
Matt
-
Well I only joined LotRO when they went free to play (the month before which was exceptional luck on my part as it got my main character a lot of bonuses) so I'm a "Newb" in that sense. Given that the game is now up to lvl 95 though the "nerf" was maybe necessary as I've read some of their designer statements and they were commenting that they were running into a very unwieldy system. It was why they redid the character class. I'm not all that fond of loosing a lot of my flexibility on my captain but I have to admit the effect of the changes has been dramatic. I can now tank properly the hunter and loremaster no longer pull the creatures off of me so fast, I have a taunt to pull them to me when they do run away, I am a lot more survivable, my combination of herald and banner plus mark work together very well. Solo I go full on damage and can lay down an astounding (to me anyway) amount of single target damage. I could not get over Starslayer complaining I was pulling stuff off the traps during the setting process...I had difficulty wrapping my mind around the fact "I could pull something?" My burglar is, well, at lvl 19 I can kill 2 lvl 23 goblins fairly easily...riddle takes one out of the fight, and my initial stealth attack takes away 25-33% of the others morale. I just have to wait for a critical to trigger my chain and then the fight is in the bag. Its almost rudely overpowered. The nightblade in ESO is sometimes worse and sometimes better than that...when things work well in ESO it was 1 hit from stealth and target down, or 2 (the second ability in the siphon chain followed by the assination strike could do most things in). But when I could not get in behind them...then I had big issues. With the magic stealth in LotRO getting behind them is nice but not required.
But I'd rather have a lot of things back the way they were in LotRO. More fog, no more red dots on the mini map, exploration, a creepier forest etc. I don't really like the barrow downs...as I can't figure out why my characters would be there doing that.
We have all bought stones of the tortise since the game throws XP at you left and right. I can't fathom why designers don't just do it like in CoV and let you turn off XP gain. If I want to level slower let me damnit. SWTOR would get my money for three tiny changes: pants for sith assasins, allowing sith assasin abilities to work with any weapon we are allowed to use, and a way to disable rested XP gain or XP gain in general. But apparently the ability to do raids dressed in slave girl outfits is more important.
If you don't have a quest pack for an area...it is pretty boring to be there. So far I've been sent to evendim a few times on other quests but I haven't got enough TPs to be buying stuff I'll outlevel that quickly. I have: north downs, angmar, trollshaws, misty mountains and moria so far. I have to wait to see if otherstuff comes on sale as I need a sale to maximize my TP expenses since EVERYTHING has to be unlocked with TPs.
Erik I know about the three passes to Angmar...now. At that point I was actually exploring the hill man camp solo and was a bit taken aback to be notified I was in Angmar. I was also creeped out and sweating buckets as there was lvl 50 characters wandering about and I was 25 or something. I mean nothing beats TSW for creepy wierd stuff...the black house, the first mission for your faction, talking to Old Joe, the filth in general is just vile...and the person who you read about who was making people drink it...*shudder*
I have been selling most things I have been finding in ESO that are of no use to me. But I treat my characters as independent individuals so they don't pool resources and this makes the prinicple they use in ESO where the bank is per account and you get the bank items when you open up to craft for me vastly annoying. Much like in SWTOR where they had family legacies...uhm yeah great...but what if I don't do that what do I get?
Well as far as ESO goes with subs they say they want it due to producing content. I'm going to assume that the content will also dry up to. SWTOR was the same way...big plans that vanished, to be replaced by slave girl outfits you can wear on raids.
-
well the answer is the same as "why" applied to any of the Epic story in LotRo, Damn incompetant, lazy, useless Rangers, (except for one Ranger who is none of these).
Matt
-
If anyone is interested, Early/Headstart/last beta started this weekend. I made a guild. Just me so far. If anyone is interested, my player ID is @icehawke
-
If anyone is interested, Early/Headstart/last beta started this weekend. I made a guild. Just me so far. If anyone is interested, my player ID is @icehawke
I'll add you when I get home from work @boggo or possibly @boggo2300 It was a LONG time ago that I made the account and can't remember if it forced the extra length on the name or not :)
Early access started a bit earlier than it was due to, so I managed to get on early and create characters to reserve the names I wanted (I missed out on 2 that I wanted in Beta, but have them in live!!)
Matt
-
So hows the water?
Just by coincidence Neverwinter was offering between the 4.4.14 and 7.4.14 free stuff if you logged in. Purely coincidence that was the launch of ESO dates... I can also confirm that LotRO didn't have anything special. We advanced our small fellowships a step down the line of lvl 50 epic quests (and they aren't too bad) with all of us using the stone of the tortise. My burgler is convincing the Elgain that they should open up some...I'm astounded how lethal you are in that class. Magic stealth as opposed to semi realistic stealth makes a huge difference. Plus I have +5 levels of stealth in my solo whatever...still I did the battle on top of Weathertop, something our small fellowship struggled with and it was over and I was going "huh...what...who killed all those guys...?" "Oh MY God...its a Troll" "Oh..the troll is dead...wow...err how did that happen?" Our small fellowship had to try that fight at least 4 times....but then we kept trying to use the entry to channel them...we finally succeed when we actually went into the open space. But I think solo you get substantial boosts to your characteristics (I had 4300 morale when usually I have 970 morale).
The cinematic trailers for ESO though have been pretty impressive. My question is that an Altmer or Bosmer mage? I'm guessing Altmer but if so the skin seems a tad more pale then I'd expect. There is a bosmer mage you meet in game that sorta looks like her though (you get the choice between using her or the old mage to stop a ghost).
-
I played early last week, and then got sucked into Rift because my regular Wed night Sith group played that instead of SWTOR.
-
I've found it a bit more crashy than beta (but since I didnt have any crashes in Beta thats not hard) I've had 2 crashes, and I fell through the world once (that was fun!)
It's been very crowded especially since Early Access finished, though the respawn on open world bosses seems to have been quickened up a lot, twice I've gotten somewhere just as the boss has been killed, and within a few minutes theyve respawned, in beta a few times I got bored and wandered off after 10 minutes of waiting.
Standing around in the wilderness minding your own business when an anchor drops nearby is definately an experience! I love the beginning of the chant the cultists use to begin the summons of the Anchor.
When they added the ability to solo Epic quests in LotRo that were formerly fellow or small fellow the boost they give the character makes them all pretty much a faceroll, it's much more fun to do them the old way, with a group of the right size, but if you don't have people on tap for it, it can be very difficult to get a PUG for the epics nowdays.
Can't say I've looked at the launch trailers, very impressed with the main story quests though, the level 10 one to rescue Lyranis from coldharbour rocks!