Tomshardware Review of ESO, Ouch!

[Tpek]

As bad botters and cheaters are, I have to agree with Ysk on the part that the lack of an auction house makes this part meaningless.
Honest players can still sell their wares to other honest players.
There's no centralized market that can be easily monopolized by the cheating community.

[JudgeDredd]

I'm not interested in this title at all - but one thing that did disturb me somewhat (for the future of mmorpg's) was the cost of a horse given the seemingly very low amount of loot dropped...seems it does seem to be geared to making people cough up the extra $20 for a horse in the collectors edition. If that is the case, then it's a kind of crappy turn for gaming.

I've never really minded having different versions of a game - and in game content being bought, but I do if the game is made in such a way as to require the additional content in order to have any enjoyment (or at least reduce your frustration) from the game.

[sandman2575]

If that is the case, then it's a kind of crappy turn for gaming.

Agree.  Pardon my ignorance (and laziness in not just going to The Google), but has Bethesda announced anything to the effect that "ESO" represents the future of the series -- i.e., no more single-player installments to follow on Oblivion and Skyrim?  'cause that would kinda suck...

[tgb]

Don't forget, Bethesda was one of the first to climb aboard the DLC money-train when they introduced "horse armor" for sale ($2, iirc) in Oblivion.

[Kushan]

Agree.  Pardon my ignorance (and laziness in not just going to The Google), but has Bethesda announced anything to the effect that "ESO" represents the future of the series -- i.e., no more single-player installments to follow on Oblivion and Skyrim?  'cause that would kinda suck...

I don't know how many time they have stated it won't be the case. In fact, ESO wasn't even developed by Bethesda themselves, but by their parent company Zenimax.

[JudgeDredd]

Don't forget, Bethesda was one of the first to climb aboard the DLC money-train when they introduced "horse armor" for sale ($2, iirc) in Oblivion.

But again - that doesn't bother me. DLC and minor purchases are fine. But in this case (and I only got this from the Angry Joe's video) to have such a huge game where it takes you ages to go anywhere AND price horses so high whilst limiting your loot is wrong. That would normally be classed as a bug. However, when you see you can have a horse with the collectors edition right from the start - well, that's just wrong.

Reducing the price of the horses in game and/or increasing loot - then I wouldn't even think of it as an issue. But as it is, and given a collectors edition having a horse available just smacks of opportunism.

[Yskonyn]

Well the Tom's article is no different from most other articles I have seen.
It has the title 'review' but instead of keeping the focus on technical bits the author goes into the Realm of subjectivity when he addresses voice acting and questslines.

Wait....WHAT????? A review is one person's (hopefully qualified) opinion.  Reviews are subjective by definition.  It's not supposed to be a laundry list of specs and features.

You are referring to 'Impressions' articles.

Reviews should be as objective as possible and just telling the reader what works and doesn't. What the state of a given game is compared to its predecessors or similar titles. All from a more technical standpoint.
I agree that there will always be a certain amount of subjectivity in reviews for the simple fact that they are written by a person who has inevitably been coloured in his or her view.
But reviews should try to keep most of the subjectivity at bay.
Impressions don't have to.

And don't say: whatever.. Potatoes, potahtoes.
You don't call a Scotsman English just because he lives on the same island either, now do you? ;)

And Nefaro I was referring to the Reddit links SgtRock posted.
If your mates all share AngryJoe's views then that certainly doesn't qualify as 'various sources' in the general sense. But I would still say their points of criticism are exaggerated! :)

[Yskonyn]

Another point that discredits the THW 'review' is that at the end he reverts to calling on WildStar. Perhaps this game will be the next MMO hit now that ESO has failed in his view.

If anything, this shows that the reviewer has no clue about what he is jotting down.
WildStar might be an MMO as well, but its goal and setup is completely different from what ESO tries to do.
WildStar is a gear/raiding based MMO with arguably even a MOBA like hybrid system. There is humour but little solid story otherwise. Gameplay focussen on action, gear and progression.

ESO is much more the classic storytelling experience like we loved when running our Tabletop PnP D&D sessions. But in a new modern outfit.
Story matters and player interaction is once again a spearpoint (guild trade. No AH for example).

Placing both in the general box of 'the next big MMO' is just silly.

[skeptical.platypus]

Another point that discredits the THW 'review' is that at the end he reverts to calling on WildStar. Perhaps this game will be the next MMO hit now that ESO has failed in his view.

If anything, this shows that the reviewer has no clue about what he is jotting down.
WildStar might be an MMO as well, but its goal and setup is completely different from what ESO tries to do.
WildStar is a gear/raiding based MMO with arguably even a MOBA like hybrid system. There is humour but little solid story otherwise. Gameplay focussen on action, gear and progression.

ESO is much more the classic storytelling experience like we loved when running our Tabletop PnP D&D sessions. But in a new modern outfit.
Story matters and player interaction is once again a spearpoint (guild trade. No AH for example).

Placing both in the general box of 'the next big MMO' is just silly.

Honestly, dismissing a review because the writer doesn't classify games to your desired niche is pretty silly, too.

I'm more curious if you disagree with the author's condemnation of the quality and variety of the voice actors, quests, and story content? From his description, if ESO is indeed an attempt to recreate the classic storytelling experience, it is indeed an epic fail of staggering proportions. You've condemned his opinion because he doesn't recognize the game as an an attempt to recreate the classic storytelling experience. What you haven't told us if you agree with his assessment on why it utterly fails as a storytelling experience.

[tgb]

Well the Tom's article is no different from most other articles I have seen.
It has the title 'review' but instead of keeping the focus on technical bits the author goes into the Realm of subjectivity when he addresses voice acting and questslines.

Wait....WHAT????? A review is one person's (hopefully qualified) opinion.  Reviews are subjective by definition.  It's not supposed to be a laundry list of specs and features.

You are referring to 'Impressions' articles.

No, I'm not.  Do you even know what a review is?  Have you ever seen a movie review or read a review of a book or a play or a concert?  They are the reviewer's opinion, which by definition is subjective.  And if that isn't clear enough for you, let's go to the dictionary:

review
Use Review in a sentence
re·view
[ri-vyoo] Show IPA
noun
1.
a critical article or report, as in a periodical, on a book, play, recital, or the like; critique; evaluation.
2.
the process of going over a subject again in study or recitation in order to fix it in the memory or summarize the facts.
3.
an exercise designed or intended for study of this kind.
4.
a general survey of something, especially in words; a report or account of something.
5.
an inspection or examination by viewing, especially a formal inspection of any military or naval force, parade, or the like.

I know this sounds a little condescending but I don't know how else to get it across.

[Yskonyn]

You can be condescending all you want and wave countless dictionaries at me, tgb. Nowhere in your own quote it says it should be the reviewers opinion. In fact, you own quote underlines the more 'academical' way of looking at things. As was my point.
So you can come off your high horse already.

Being critical certainly doesn't mean this is always in the fashion of "it sucks because I wanted it so and so" or it sucks because "I find it does because of this and this ".

The "I find" is an Impressions article. Not a review.

platypus, you are talking on a parallel track here. Clearly I wasn't puttings my point across very well or you don't get it.
Its not about dismissing the reviewers article because of that. It's the fact that he calls on WildStar (and Star Trek Online ?!). A totally different game with a totally different core player group.
Yet he placed them in a general box where one could take over the other if the latter fails. That is pure nonsense.

Still, the whole arguement is because of the way this threads starts and not even as criticism by a player. That is the trend on the internet I was talking about.
People just blubbering on about this and that which they only get from sources other than the game itself. That rubs me the wrong way and I find it to be something we should stop doing.
Its like girls talking about this friend of that girl, when they don't even know.
We are not gurlz are we? :)

If you still think my points are moot then we will either have to chalk it up to being lost in translation or just have to agree to disagree.

[Yskonyn]

Perhaps its best to illustrate my points a bit more. This is not a 1:1 assessment on the whole THW article, but a few things I'll highlight to try to get across what I mean.
Don't try to bait me into further magnifying a specific point here, I will ignore it.

He starts off on page 1 with this:
"He refers to you as "The Vestige", which is where we get the term vestigial from, used to describe body parts that are no longer needed. This is your first clue that your actions in the world of The Elder Scrolls Online won't matter."

It immediately raises the question with me wether this guy even has any experience with the MMO genre? Does any player action in any MMO before this actually mattered? No. There were always countless reruns by other people on the same boss you just defeated, for one. If anything, ESO actually tries to break the mold here with its phasing tech; once you have defeated a boss, he is gone forever (save a few general named NPC's) and the world has changed for your character. Contradicting his point.

Then he goes on: "The newbie island experience is so anguish-inducing that, in a rare case of listening to beta tester feedback, the developers provided an option of skipping it entirely as the default choice (...)"

Anguish-inducing? To him, sure. Does he know for a fact that everyone thinks so? No.
'Rare case of listening to beta tester feedback', he sure must be in the in-crowd and if anything this phrase shows a certain amount of built up frustration, indicating this might become the personal 'Impressions' piece that I am suspecting it will become at this point.

Onwards; He continues with remarks about copy-paste and how bad dungeons are. Where, admittedly, he does raise some valid points, but they get lost because of the fact that he doesn't even try to restrain his personal feelings.

Then the point about grouping and phasing is valid. He could've left all the snithe remarks at home. I am getting sick of this personal slugfest by now and wishes he rather sticks to the facts.
Still, I can see where grouping can be a chore if you have characters running different parts of the same quest. An issue that is largely fixed by now, by the way and further phasing improvements are coming. But at the time of hos writing they were indeed an issue.

To the part abouts quests:
"Quests

[Forgettable NPC] "Hi!  I need you to kill the Garbanzo King invading Castle Bland in Non-Descript Land 2. I'll see you at the mission exit."

(two minutes later)

[Garbanzo King] "You won't stop us from... Agh, you've killed me!  You'll pay for this!"

(five seconds later, boss respawns)

[Garbanzo King] "You won't stop us from... Agh, you've killed me!  You'll pay for this!"

(a short run later)

[Forgettable NPC] "Good job! Here's a sack of potatoes and 18 gold. Now head north and meet with the Flavorless NPC Generated #193_a for a quest where you run around and slap quest markers before returning to the quest giver... I mean me."

Quest dialogue in The Elder Scrolls Online is atrocious, and if there were a stronger synonym for the word "bland", I'd use it here."

Again this is a matter of opinion.
Most of the stories I find pretty engaging. There are those boring quests with uninteresting and forgettable characters, but many quests have great storylines. IF you take the time to listen and read and actually think about how it fits in the area or the lore of the game. There's many cool things to discover and there are quite a few quests that might mean little at first, but suddenly when you continue on your journey so are confronted with a situation that is a direct result of a quest you did earlier.
That's pretty new in MMO land, IMO and very cool.

For instance;
There was this quest about a couple who had lost eachother. The husband was missing and you have to find out what happened to him. On finding out he is dead, you get two choices; either tell the wife you've found his corpse or lie and just tell her you don't know what happened either.
I chose to tell her because she deserves to know. She is heart broken and commands me to leave.
A while later I am walking along the cliffs on the edges of town when I spot a female at the edge. I approach and a dialog starts where she is talking to (what I now understand) her missing husband and that she is going to find him in Heaven. She jumps off the edge to her death. It was the exact same woman I did the quest for!
This is AFTER I have done other quests, mind you. And there are much more instances like this.

So yes, if you are running through content on your way to get to level cap as soon as possible and don't care about the lore of TES, then perhaps the quests are boring. But if you stop. Slow your pace and actually think about how it fits into the world there are many *many* great stories to be found.

So: A few quest dialogue choices seem to give you the ability to let an NPC live or die, to make a choice that has an impact or effects some unseen karma. Please don't be fooled. These choices currently have zero impact on the game, your future dialogue options, or pretty much anything. They are cosmetic-only.

Is just false. He either hasn't looked well enough or wasn't bothered to.

And then fast forward to this:
"Shallow, generic, bland, meh, flavorless, vapid, uninspiring, monotonous, ho hum, pedestrian, plodding, mundane, trite, empty, devoid. I'm terribly reminded of the seminal 80s flick "The Neverending Story", where hero Bastian fights to save Fantasia from "The Nothing", an elemental force of the absence of content that ate through pages of interesting story and engaging plot. The Elder Scrolls Online is the game you'd get if The Nothing had won and decided to release an MMO based on a best-selling gaming franchise."

The starting terms are all 'emotional' tags, for the lack of a better term. They are subjective. They illustrate my points raised about my criticism on this article well. While not litterally, he actually tells us "I find .. such and so " here.

Had he refrained from using these 'emotional tags' and stuck to the general description of how things worked in the game I probably would have had less trouble with it.
For example; if he just wrote "Eventhough quests are fully narrated, at the core they are still all classic fetch, run from a to b or kill this, quests." That would have been an objective statement about what the quests boil down to, without the subjectivity that is now shown in the article.
That's the difference between a review and an Impressions piece.

There are more examples of the good and the bad in here, but as I've said above, I am only trying to illustrate my point better. Not peeling down his article sentence by sentence.

Thanks for reading and sorry for the wall of text.

Oh and on Angry Joe; that's just comedy. He knows like no other to push the buttons of critics and fanboys alike. It's hilarious to watch, but bears little value in terms of review for me. :D

[Nefaro]

Oh and on Angry Joe; that's just comedy. He knows like no other to push the buttons of critics and fanboys alike. It's hilarious to watch, but bears little value in terms of review for me. :D

You don't think any of Joe's points were valid? 

???

[Yskonyn]

Oh yes I do, but that's really besides the point as I believe his video's are setup such that he is baiting people into reacting a certain way to his video's.
Much a flavour of the day affair.
I just don't believe these are honest reviews, more satire.

[skeptical.platypus]

You can be condescending all you want and wave countless dictionaries at me, tgb. Nowhere in your own quote it says it should be the reviewers opinion. In fact, you own quote underlines the more 'academical' way of looking at things. As was my point.
So you can come off your high horse already.

Being critical certainly doesn't mean this is always in the fashion of "it sucks because I wanted it so and so" or it sucks because "I find it does because of this and this ".

The "I find" is an Impressions article. Not a review.

platypus, you are talking on a parallel track here. Clearly I wasn't puttings my point across very well or you don't get it.
Its not about dismissing the reviewers article because of that. It's the fact that he calls on WildStar (and Star Trek Online ?!). A totally different game with a totally different core player group.
Yet he placed them in a general box where one could take over the other if the latter fails. That is pure nonsense.

Still, the whole arguement is because of the way this threads starts and not even as criticism by a player. That is the trend on the internet I was talking about.
People just blubbering on about this and that which they only get from sources other than the game itself. That rubs me the wrong way and I find it to be something we should stop doing.
Its like girls talking about this friend of that girl, when they don't even know.
We are not gurlz are we? :)

If you still think my points are moot then we will either have to chalk it up to being lost in translation or just have to agree to disagree.

yksonyn, I'll point out that tgb's dictionary started out with an offer to show you an IPA, and if you don't enjoy a good IPA, well that's just silly. I'll also point out that you'd accomplish a whole lot more if you spent the time writing an accurate review that you've spent justifying your claim that the other article should not be taken at face value.

If you want to bother trying to convince anyone but yourself that ESO is a return to the storytelling traditions of old (a loose paraphrase of your assertion), I'd be interested in reading that. Otherwise, you are providing non of the objectivity that you bitch about in the Tom's article, and so your posts are about has valuable as his. I am far more interested in what you have to say about the game, but you keep talking about the article.

What are the elements of ESO that you find contribute to its separation from current MMOs as a return to the storytelling tradition many of us fell in love with games over in the first place? It is a successful attempt, more or less? If it isn't a success now (close to launch), do you see a framework, infrastructure, or developer efforts that suggests it will improve?

What is your experience with the dungeons in the game? How is it different/same/better than the 71 cookie cutter dungeons the author claims? In the end, that's one of the big reasons I couldn't return to Oblivion -- not only was there a dungeon roughly every fifth step, but so many of them were about so similar and short it didn't feel a lot more different than searching houses for zombiepocalypse supplies.

What about the economy? If horses are indeed in the 5 figure gold piece range, and dungeons distribute single figures, where is the rest of the loot coming from?

I honestly don't know if there are answers that will change my mind about wanting to play. I've had difficulties fully enjoying MMOs since LOTR, largely because I enjoyed leading and playing with my guild so much that other MMOs seem dry in solo play, and I don't have the same kind of free time to reinvest in a guild or anything remotely resembling "serious play." But the articles I've read and the impressions seem to condemn the game as a pretty powerful "meh," at best. You are one of the few posters here who seems to have a different opinion, and I'd like to hear that if you can just stop pointing out what's wrong with the author's intentions for even a couple of minutes.