Elder Scrolls online is yet another entry to the fantasy themepark MMORPG genre. If you played Skyrim or the earlier ES games, the interface should feel familiar. Even the map is designed like the single player games. Many things like picking up objects, opening/closing drawers, hiding, pick-pocketing, etc are all here; same with skill trees. You start off as a certain class but you can branch out to whatever you want. In The Elder Scrolls fashion you can wield any weapon and adorn any armor, so how you want to build your character is up to you! They also have a level 50 cap and a *sigh* endgame, but even before this game got released, I had zero interest, especially after they announced their initial subscription model. (and released that 'Endgame is the real game' video) But even so, I did attempt to enter one of their betas to at least give it a try before I blew it completely off.
So I started playing the ESO betas...and was not impressed. I mean, I liked that you start as a prisoner like the other games. It has decent graphics, and 1st/3rd person view, but it just seemed...empty. Like the game had no soul. Plus, I couldn't justify paying a subscription to this shallow (at least in my head) game. I've always said from the beginning that ESO would be more successful if they went buy to play. ESO has a certain playstyle that would fit B2P better than P2P. Well, they finally listened! The game will be released as Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited on March 17. For the first time, I'm genuinely interested in playing this game! Think about it: There are those that are used to playing the single player game where you only pay once to play. Just based off the little bit I saw I determined that this game was not worth paying the high initial price then chucking money every month. But now with a different business model the game is much more appealing, why? Because with a subscription, players feel almost obligated to put as much time in the game as they can or not get their monies worth. Developers feel strained by having to meet the demand of content hungry gamer. (though I think developers feel like that regardless of the business model) This is a win on both fronts, especially if there is some sort of cash shop (non cheating, of course) involved for steady income. Now if they can lower the price of the game...
Ever since SoE released that they were building on the newest Everquest series, I was more than elated! A full voxel sandbox where you can build and destroy land. A game where you can truly be what you want. The graphic style is a bit cartoony but, you're talking to someone who has been playing WoW for over 7 years!
The class system sounds similar to Elder Scrolls Online. You pick a class and depending on your actions, certain classes will unlock for you. Abilities unlock depending on your class and the weapon you're wielding. The player can then mix and match abilities to form your dream class. I really like that these newer MMORPGs are loosening the restrictions of MMOs past, such as picking a class and sticking with that one class for the rest of the character's life. Part of why alts are so popular in MMOs like World of Warcraft. Not saying it was a big issue, however. Games like WoW made up for it buy having a huge world where you can level another class/race and have a completely different experience. In a way that's how games like that kept a high replay value. Now with newer MMOs allowing the player to play any/every class they want, switching characters is the last thing you need to do. Final Fantasy did this the best, in my opinion. You start off with your initial class and when you hit a certain level, you can start off with another class by going to the respective guildmaster. It's like you rerolled another character but you're just starting over as that class. And because leveling a crafter is like leveling a combat class, you can level all professions as well. The best thing is that you don't have to repeat you story quests or any other long boring chain!
Outside of class abilities is a full build-able, destructible land at your disposal. The cool part about this is that any changes to the land itself are permanent. That mean full scale battles can leave a very large and memorable mark in the game world which can have you and others talking about it for many ages to come.
I'm just looking forward to try this game out in the betas! The fact that they are going full sandbox has gotten my attention. Of course there are things like PvP and crafting and all that, but for now I'm just glad a game like this is coming soon!
I heard about this game one day while doing my daily Massively binge. "A game attempting to be the successor of Dark Age of Camelot, hmm" I thought. I was the unlucky ones that never got the experience the 'greatness' that was DAoC. As time went on I would read the updates to the game, and later their kickstarter page. The more they added, the more interested I got into the game. A lot of things they were adding sounded very intriguing. So what exactly about this game has me wanting to play? Good question!
The main things they claim they will do differently is the large scale battles. In an RvR game, your game will need to be able to handle faction battles of large scales. I mentioned on another article about how Aion had epic battles and they were! The only issue was that although my computer can handle solo and small scale content fine, every time I ventured to a Fortress raid my game all of a sudden turned into a slideshow. Even though there was an option to only load you and your party's characters, you still had the issue of lag. When I say these battles were huge they were huuuuuuuge. I hope CU can buck the trend and have an actual system capable of handling a grand scale of players.
Like Everquest Next, it's planned to be sandbox-style MMORPG. Unlike EqN, PvP is the main play style of this game. Like its predecessor DAoC there will 3 faction game where resources and the sort will be available for the taking. The game's economy will be fully player based, so I'm curious on how this will affect getting weapons, items and so forth. The game also promises no cash shops or free to play. Everything you do in the game will be earned and will use skill, not a fat wallet, to achieve greatness. I will be forward to further progress of this game in the future!
Well, so much for ESO, huh? Lol. Even mindlessly farming Black Desert gold is more fun than what that game turned out to be. It's a shame too because it had so much potential.
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