Elder Scrolls Online

By: Robert Murphy

Once again we return to the lands of Tamriel in a rocky and turbulent time of war and conflict, where three factions dual it out for the right to rule the land and we get to join in on the action in Elder Scrolls Online. I myself saw my very first hint at an Elder Scrolls game about 2 years ago and immediately fell in love with the idea of it so needless to say I had the game the very first day it was available. The game waists no time in placing yourself right into the action as you awaken in the Daedric world of Coldharbour and must find a way to release your soul and escape. After you share your first encounter with your capture Molag Bal you escape with The Prophet who explains to your unique destiny in this tale as the Vestige, the Chosen One to put an end to the curse on the land set forth years ago. You’ll be joined by many others on your journey including your friends in the open world set before you so strap in for another adventure.

Characters in the game can belong to one of three different factions that live in areas of Tamriel and make their own claims in the right to control the land. The factions include The Ebonheart Pact, The Aldmeri Dominion and The Daggerfall Covenant, each with their own land to be explored once you choose one and start the game. While each area you encounter for your respected faction is quite large and expansive much of it gives of similar looks and feels to them. Many of the buildings and landscape appear to be the same throughout the game and feel a little copied and pasted and landmark towns and cities often feel this way as well. I felt like I was just walking around each area instead of fully experiencing the environment that I was surrounded in. This also does expand to some of the NPC characters you will meet in the game as well, while getting a quest as I traveled about I found myself having sensations of déjà vu when I talked to a character that looked about the same as the last one. This isn’t to say the quest themselves aren’t enjoyable though.

Quests and missions boil down to about the same categories that we’ve come to know from big games like this which are the killing quests where you go after a random target, object finding where you find a random item and then fetch quest where you have to go various distances to find or do something for an NPC. Wherever you go though you are bound to enter combat no matter what, Elder Scrolls Online litters dungeons and pathways with enemies for you to kill and in large numbers if you find the right spot. This brings us to what the combat is all about, players can choose from the number of styles such as dual wielding, one handed, two handed, etc. and then you have the various spells and abilities your class comes with as well. Players can place five abilities of their choosing into the 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 spots with the “R” key being your ultimate ability, there is a number of abilities your character can unlock during leveling with skill points and hot key them to make the character fit your play style. Players can also add skill trees to spend their points on by joining the various guilds such as the Fighter or Mage guilds, each granting you a quest to perform with them.

Now when I first started to play ESO, I found a problem with the games various quests that other players may also have encountered as well, when playing with such a large number of online players quests can get bogged with so many people playing the same quest as you. Other players and yourself can sometimes be put into competition with one another over completing a quest, a situation I experienced with one quest was a friend I had been playing with finished the quest before me and then as I followed a few minutes behind him the quest had auto completed and wasn’t able to fight the rest of the quest. Other minor issues occur like this every so often when players will kill a main NPC at the end of a quest right as you arrive and you must wait until the NPC respawns allowing you to move on and complete the quest yourself. Early on this came up for me in a dungeon quest around level 8 where other players were jumping about in the final room waiting for the final boss to respawn so they could kill it but the irritating fact is some were just farming XP so it was a bit of a hassle.

Finally, we have the player vs player system in the game which is unlocked once your character reaches level 10 and this becomes one of the ESO’s redeeming factors. Players can choose a PVP campaign and battle the other factions players have chosen to control various forts, camps and castles. The reason why this is such a great aspect to the game is it not only allows you to fight other online players but it really gives depth to the whole choosing a faction aspect of the game. Also the ESO system the game has is wonderful for rendering the massive amounts of player vs player characters onto one screen, its chaos and I loved it all.

Now as I said I have been waiting for Elder Scrolls Online to come out for a very long time and it might have been the over hyping in my mind that made me feel a little let down but then again I stayed away from most information before hand to avoid being spoiled, whose to say. I felt like the overall presentation of the game just wasn’t that impressive, nothing really wowed me about the world like my last Elder Scrolls experience in Skyrim when I looked in awe at the Throat of the World. It isn’t a bad game by any means, in fact it’s a very capable game but there’s nothing new about it, nothing to wow you with. So what can you take away from this review? Basically the game is “okay,” ESO is a functional game and is a serviceable MMO to play through but it is nothing new.

Good:

- PVP system is a great experience to take part in

- Combat is solid and very easy to pick up

- The various skill trees and abilities make gameplay fun and different for everyone

Bad:

- The game is a little stale for a new generation MMO

- Environments often appeared the same and very lack luster

- Fighting over quests can be a bit of a bother and a doddle when waiting for an NPC enemy to respawn to complete a quest

Scully Rating: 7.5 out of 10