Thanks to Bethesda, over the last month I’ve had the pleasure of entering the world of Tamriel for two weekends, through the Elder Scrolls Online beta of course. Many of the questions I had for ESO have been the same questions I’ve wondered of every MMO since my time in WoW and Aion. “Are there only fetch quests?” “Do the quests form boring and short story lines that don’t build upon the larger world” “Do I have to kill 3 dogs for leather for the next 30 levels?” And with these questions, almost every MMO has answered, yes.
I spent some time with Morrowind back in the day, skipped Oblivion, but fell in love with Skyrim. What I’ve seen many wondering online is, “Is ESO, Skyrim online?” No, it’s not. It’s much better. It’s Elder Scrolls Online. That is what struck me most about ESO. That may sound dumb, but let me clarify. Many MMO’s have tried to be WoW in a different skin. It’s obvious and it hurts to play. But ESO wants to be Elder Scrolls, not WoW and it hits the mark, dead on.
Your choice of race coincide with your choice of Faction in ESO. Choosing the Ebonheart Pact brings the races of Nords, Dunmer, and Argonians. Choosing the Aldmeri Dominion brings the races of Altmer, Bosmer, and Khajiit. Finally, the Daggerfall Covenant brings the races of Bretons, Redguards, and Orcs.
Then you’ll choose a class, which is one of the ways in which ESO diverges from normal Elder Scrolls character building. You can choose from Sorcerer, Nightblade, Dragon Knight or Templar. From there you’ll further customize your characters skills as you level in ESO.
You’ll then be introduced into the vibrant lore of Tamriel through a small introductory and capturing quest line, that I won’t spoil for you here. It’s the beginning of the game, yes. But I didn’t see being introduced into ESO that way and it was a surprise for me, so I’ll leave it to be a surprise for you. After that, you’re in Tamriel, let’s play some ESO.
As I said above, ESO does an amazing job of being itself, and staying away from trying to be another MMO. In one of the biggest ways it does this is through the questing and world building. The quests are far from your, kill dogs for some random guy, for no apparent bigger reason. Each quest does, no matter how small exactly, what many quests in other Elder Scrolls games do, they build the world and lore.
Through the quests that I played, many times one small quest would lead to multiple quest chains. All building the story of the region I was in. What may have started as a hint that there are people in need of help on the beach, would end in a hurricane size storm forming in my game. What was a simple, “Speak to that NPC,” would become multiple quest story lines that fed into each other, ending with the world actually changing around me. Even how you track quests in your log, to using the compass at the top of the UI to follow your quests is right from Elder Scrolls.
Combat in ESO is streamlined with left-click attack/heal and right-click block. You’ll also have six hot keys available for any spells or abilities you want to have on hand at any given moment. You do not have a free floating mouse but a reticle in the center of your screen that your mouse is attached to. This made it simple to aim/attack as well as glance at the world around you. Now, I played the ESO beta on PC, but with the control scheme, it seems to me that it may make an easy transfer of an MMORPG to console. Left-click equals left trigger, right-click equals right trigger. I only wonder about hot keys for your numerous abilities. Will players have to yell commands at their consoles? I hope not.
Now to the atmosphere and world of ESO itself, it’s absolutely stunning. The textures and layout of the world are phenomenal, everything you’d expect and hope for out of an Elder Scrolls game. Not to mention the audio, oh the audio. Music, sounds effects and of course, the fantastic talents that have lent their voices to ESO. The visual and audio presentation of ESO are remarkable.
As for problems of the beta, I have yet to find any, as far as major bugs go. I have heard of the game crashing to the beta screen, then taking its sweet time to come back online for others. But I have yet to experience such a crash. Only once did I have ESO decide it wanted me to stare at an NPC for 5 minutes after he was done talking. He gave me the quest, I said I would take, then decided to stare at him. I had to close the game, then restart, but that was the only time it occurred for me.
But after the time I’ve spent with ESO so far and the more time I will have with it do to beta events coming up, I think ESO will be a pretty solid experience. Time will tell if the beginning experience of ESO carries through all the way, but if it does, players will be quite satisfied.
Elder Scrolls Online arrives on PC and Mac April 4th and Xbox One and PS4 June 2014.
