20.8.2014

Reception:In all honestly, it's a great game and there have been vast improvements since the release of the game. Continuously updated and the developers listen to their consumers (via bug reports, forum posts and even IAMA's on Reddit). It is true that this game received a mixed reception upon release, yet despite the fixes, the bad reception keeps following it along the way.But don't let bad text deceive you, give the game a try, at least for the 30 free days they give you to really sum up your experience. Many word of mouths say the game is "below average" but usually players have not taken the plunge to actually experience the game. I was always sceptical about the idea of an MMO for a long time,until I took the eventual jump into trying the game. I have now being sucked into the MMO! There is an amplitude of players around all engrossed and enjoying the world of Tamriel.Graphics:This game has brilliant graphics, but at a cost of requiring a good computer. However, being an MMO it caters to a wide range of computers. To which I have seen it run really well on the average budget computers. Should be noted though that despite playing on a powerful PC, when a large amount of players are online in cities frame rate impact can be noticeable, but this should be something to wary about at anytime.Lore/Gameplay:The game itself covers aspects of Tamriel you haven't seen yet, and it is really mesmerizing to see! The ability to go from one province to the other is a grand feeling. Despite every province being available, it is only sections of provinces that are explorable, however it is believed that these may be expanded upon future updates. However, areas of these provinces feel large to travel across, the foliage and atmosphere is immersive along with attention to detail on the smallest things and there is plenty of delves, dungeons, bosses, villages and landmarks to explore.You can loot various crates, desks, drawers, houses etc. However this is an MMO game, so you won't find a random Daedric Blade or full set of armour lying about in the wilderness. It's all about levelling, crafting and if you're wanting random drops, attacking enemies and bosses with the hope of a highly levelled dropped item.Combat consists of various magic, fighting, blocking and dodging. You're classes and your weapons depict your way of play or you can feel free to mess around with your layout. For example a Mage that uses a two handed hammer (why not eh?). You can play through third or first person and the combat is enjoyable. Every class has a set of spells/skills that is unlocked through levelling, and triggered by tapping a number on your keyboard. This means for those who like spell casting, you do not buy spells (from what I know anyway). Instead you're spells are relevant to your class. To note, there is no kill cams (for those who played Skyrim).A crime and punishment system does not exist in the game as of yet, however it is believed to be included in a future major update. So sorry for those who like the assassin/thief type classes.For those who have played Morrowind, Oblivion or Skyrim. Lore from the previous games is really prominent, and your knowledge from the previous games really helps your immersion in ESO. Books are also still in ESO so you can further educate yourself about Tamriel or Nirn. Something to note (for avid fans), there are moments where specific lore in the game could be improved or slightly closer to the original descriptions. For example, Ancient Elves don't entirely match their description to that explained in previous books.Network:Networking seems to be a common issue with ESO for some players but from my experience so far, it's only my own internet connection that is letting me down. Even on a slow broadband speed (256/320kbs) I have hardly experienced any game breaking latency issues. Recently Zenimax moved their European servers to support better networking for European players.Overall:Give the game a try. You honestly won't know what to think until you try it. I was sceptical at first but ended up loving it. It's for a good price (PC) at the moment on Amazon and with 30 days free its worth a try. Just remember though it is an MMO, so it plays different to that of what you've experienced with previous Elder Scrolls games.Reason for the 4/5? The game has room for improvement and there some aspects of lore that I wish were slightly better, but it's not enough to make me think of cancelling a subscription. It's enjoyable, it's fun and immersive.Best of luck on your adventures!

6.4.2016

This is my go to game for dwindling away a few hours. Although an online only multiplayer, I don't always spend time playing with others. Just treat it like Skyrim with the occasional new friend discovered in a cave or swamp.Pro'sVery large and in depth - 3 alliances all offering completely different zones and questing experiences. (I've spent 3 weeks on one alliance tottering along). You can do a skyrim and just go for a wander and find those oddball quests in the middle of no where. From talking dogs to a gay werewolf couple.Balanced - I've played a few mmo's and the ability to be any class role with any character is quite impressive. This allows you to constantly change game style and experiment with new styles,spells, stats etc.Combat - Generally very fluid, the odd lag input can exist but few and far between. It has 12 spell buttons to allocate your moves too (minus 2 for your "ultimate" abilities). This is pretty decent for a console game and I find you can fluidly move between moves and create combinations you enjoy. Whilst the gameplay can feel different with classes, you never feel like one class rules over the others.PVP - I've only played a handful of times in the huge pvp zone, I suspect you would really need to make some friends or find a guild (or 5 as you can join 5 guilds) to truly enjoy the PVP. The size is huge with fully destructible bases, walls, towers,gates etc. You can pick a selection of siege weaponry and deploy/use where you like. Of course if you have played an mmo in pvp expect to be a victim to rather invested players with the best gear/level/veteran. Until you find your niche.Social - I've had a PS3 and a PS4 I think I've used the headset a handful of times, COD was so full of abuse from anonymous little sods. This game however has a nice community. I've not come across anyone directly rude or insulting to me. I believe this is due to the accountability and easy reporting tools. You can't really be anonymous and an arse when you are required to work as a team, so you find people are polite and bond to achieve end goals, (completing a dungeon or doing some pvp etc). It's quite refreshing. Might be worth mentioning I'm from England but I'm on an American server, my logic being if I joined the European "megaserver" not everyone would speak English.ConsGraphically - it's not the best, the colours all seem a bit dull and dusty. The spell effects generally are very pretty and I understand having joined a pvp group of 20 or so people, that if the graphics were increased the PS4 hardware would struggle with large scale groupings. You could argue it looks like a PS3 game not much different to Skyrim.Errors - I have had the game just randomly shutdown with a PS4 generated error message, asking me if I want to report this fault etc. I start it up again and it's fine. No where near as buggy as Skyrim though!Online only - Obviously I knew this was an MMO when buying so I'm not complaining about the fact it's an MMO. My issue is with Servers being down at times either for maintenance or random crash. I would expect to be informed before hand or during. The times maintenance has occurred, I've logged in to a message telling me the server is currently under maintenance please try again later. Some communication to the end user on this would be nice via the PS4. (Just to be clear I've owned it about a month and I've been unable log in maybe 4-5 times in that time).Group Finder - This is an ingame way to queue you with other people also in group finder, to do Dungeons together. The concept is great but it can take a few hours sometimes to you match you with a group. My biggest dislike about group finder, is if you already have a friend with you and want to you use it. You can only queue for one dungeon, instead of " all dungeons ". As the dungeons scale with your level you tend to limit yourself and spend hours in queue.Lack of Auctioning - if you have played other mmo's you generally find a free market of players trading ingame items. In elder scrolls guilds sell items to public players and you are required to locate all the guild shops to look through items. You however must join guilds and get permissions to sell your own items. It's confusing particularly to new players to the genre. I assume it was implemented to increase the community with players. I prefer however a free market to sell and trade without having to be involved in peoples guilds.

1.9.2015

This is my go to game for dwindling away a few hours. Although an online only multiplayer, I don't always spend time playing with others. Just treat it like Skyrim with the occasional new friend discovered in a cave or swamp.Pro'sVery large and in depth - 3 alliances all offering completely different zones and questing experiences. (I've spent 3 weeks on one alliance tottering along). You can do a skyrim and just go for a wander and find those oddball quests in the middle of no where. From talking dogs to a gay werewolf couple.Balanced - I've played a few mmo's and the ability to be any class role with any character is quite impressive. This allows you to constantly change game style and experiment with new styles,spells, stats etc.Combat - Generally very fluid, the odd lag input can exist but few and far between. It has 12 spell buttons to allocate your moves too (minus 2 for your "ultimate" abilities). This is pretty decent for a console game and I find you can fluidly move between moves and create combinations you enjoy. Whilst the gameplay can feel different with classes, you never feel like one class rules over the others.PVP - I've only played a handful of times in the huge pvp zone, I suspect you would really need to make some friends or find a guild (or 5 as you can join 5 guilds) to truly enjoy the PVP. The size is huge with fully destructible bases, walls, towers,gates etc. You can pick a selection of siege weaponry and deploy/use where you like. Of course if you have played an mmo in pvp expect to be a victim to rather invested players with the best gear/level/veteran. Until you find your niche.Social - I've had a PS3 and a PS4 I think I've used the headset a handful of times, COD was so full of abuse from anonymous little sods. This game however has a nice community. I've not come across anyone directly rude or insulting to me. I believe this is due to the accountability and easy reporting tools. You can't really be anonymous and an arse when you are required to work as a team, so you find people are polite and bond to achieve end goals, (completing a dungeon or doing some pvp etc). It's quite refreshing. Might be worth mentioning I'm from England but I'm on an American server, my logic being if I joined the European "megaserver" not everyone would speak English.ConsGraphically - it's not the best, the colours all seem a bit dull and dusty. The spell effects generally are very pretty and I understand having joined a pvp group of 20 or so people, that if the graphics were increased the PS4 hardware would struggle with large scale groupings. You could argue it looks like a PS3 game not much different to Skyrim.Errors - I have had the game just randomly shutdown with a PS4 generated error message, asking me if I want to report this fault etc. I start it up again and it's fine. No where near as buggy as Skyrim though!Online only - Obviously I knew this was an MMO when buying so I'm not complaining about the fact it's an MMO. My issue is with Servers being down at times either for maintenance or random crash. I would expect to be informed before hand or during. The times maintenance has occurred, I've logged in to a message telling me the server is currently under maintenance please try again later. Some communication to the end user on this would be nice via the PS4. (Just to be clear I've owned it about a month and I've been unable log in maybe 4-5 times in that time).Group Finder - This is an ingame way to queue you with other people also in group finder, to do Dungeons together. The concept is great but it can take a few hours sometimes to you match you with a group. My biggest dislike about group finder, is if you already have a friend with you and want to you use it. You can only queue for one dungeon, instead of " all dungeons ". As the dungeons scale with your level you tend to limit yourself and spend hours in queue.Lack of Auctioning - if you have played other mmo's you generally find a free market of players trading ingame items. In elder scrolls guilds sell items to public players and you are required to locate all the guild shops to look through items. You however must join guilds and get permissions to sell your own items. It's confusing particularly to new players to the genre. I assume it was implemented to increase the community with players. I prefer however a free market to sell and trade without having to be involved in peoples guilds.

4.6.2019

I purchased this game online via Xbox Store, hence why it does not show as a verified purchase. Fortunately Amazon allows you to review products here for the benefit of potential buyers, even if you obtained the product from somewhere other than Amazon.Elder Scrolls Online seems to be a bit like Marmite - you either love it or hate it, though I guess that can be said for a number of MMO games. I am not a big fan of MMO games as I find there can be so much toxicity/"griefing" within them. But what I do like about ESO is that the game mechanics avoids this. In this open-world, massive multi-player online game you will meet many many real players as you play.There are only certain "PvP" areas within the game where you can be attacked by another player against your will. Much of the map of the game is "PvE", meaning that other players cannot hurt you, unless, of course, you give them permission to do so by accepting their duel/fight challenge. When this happens you'll get a notification pop up saying that such-and-such a player challenges you to a duel. You get the option to deny or approve. Approve, and you fight! Deny and the other player cannot hurt you. In your game settings you can even set an auto-deny on challenges, so you won't even be aware that they sent you a fight invite; it is automatically denied. However, if you go into the PvP areas of the map, then you had best be able to defend yourself! This does not mean that you can let your guard down when you play even in PvE as there are a lot of monsters and NPCs who can attack you, and be careful of deceitful real players who you can trade with. I have seen some complain that a real players approached them, offered to sell them something (or to buy something from them), only to run off without paying when you hand the item over, or take them item you are selling then run without paying. I actually find this makes the game more exciting.The graphics in this game (I play on an Xbox One X on a 55" 4K TV) really is good, almost beautiful in some areas. The detail in the graphics is not so much Skyrim, but more akin to Oblivion. On my set up the game plays very smoothly and I have not experienced any slow downs at all. I have actually been playing ESO for some months now as I have all the DLC (Summerfest, Morrowind, etc), but I started a fresh when this Elsweyr DLC dropped today. There are many regions in this game, "biomes" if you like, where the visual environment is different. There is a sea, but you can't swim underwater.This new Elsweyr DLC have added a new map, new foes, such as the mighty dragons, and a new character class - Necromancer, which a lot of ESO fans have been asking for for a long time.The open-world map is huge, especially if you have all the DLC, and there is so much to do. I tend to play the game vary slowly; I do not run anywhere, unless I have to, I do not "fast travel" (auto-transport), as I believe you can miss out on so much. Some players like to complete a game like this as soon as they can, and will dash about madly trying to be the first to complete it. Me, I am more boring than that, I like to take in everything around me and savour the world I am in.I find the fighting can be a bit "slash 'n' hack" and that I tend to mash the buttons and hope for the best, but that is probably down to my inevitability than there being something wrong with the way the game handles fighting.You can get what is called ESO+, which is a subscription based service which gives you a few additional items, but it is absolutely NOT required to play the game.So, yes I am vary happy with this Elsweyr DLC, and I look forward to plenty of gaming time with it. Already looking forward to what may come next.

6.8.2014

As someone who’s played this game fairly solidly for about a month now I can report that I’ve discovered it to be far better than many reviews will lead you to believe and compares well with the other big ticket MMOs that I’ve played recently.Firstly this is emphatically an Elder Scrolls Game. It has the grit-under-the fingernails kind of realism of Skyrim as well as environments that are as breath-taking as they are full of character. The world is not static: it changes (for you) as storylines develop and you do feel that it’s something that you’re actually involved in. It is also an MMO though and for better or worse entails meeting certain expectations in terms of design and gameplay.On balance it gets things right. The quests are designed in such a way as to actually propel a narrative and the designers shy away from the “kill n of x and report back” formula. This isn’t a multiplayer Skyrim; what it is, is a different way of experiencing the Elder Scrolls world. As an MMO there are enough features to distinguish ESO from its better established rivals. For example, the FPS-style UI is a bit unforgiving to a practiced “clicker” like me, but won’t be a problem for anyone fancying themselves as having skillzz and it does leave the screen nicely uncluttered.Secondly, the character build system is genuinely innovative: aside from a handful of class specific skill lines your character can use any kind of armour or weapon in the game and take advantage of the benefits that they make available. Furthermore skill points can be used wherever you see fit with game balance maintained through a crafty little mechanic called “overcharge”. This reduces the return on skill point investment beyond a certain point, encouraging you to devise a more even spread. The down-side is that the possible combinations and variations in character build are phenomenal and it’s easy to get into a bit of a mess. Skill points are relatively plentiful though and if you find that you’ve made some bad decisions with your build you can soon get things back on track.Finally, the game play experience is a lot of fun. I can’t comment on how things were in beta, or indeed what the game was like when it launched, but then again that’s all irrelevant information because right now it runs perfectly well. I’m not particularly aware of any bot activity and gold sellers are extremely rare. I encountered one bugged quest which was annoying, but to put some perspective on this I recently came across a bugged quest in GW2 which has about 18 months of development on ESO. It’s not an excuse, but these things happen.I get a sense that the negative criticism surrounding this game has developed its own momentum now and people will trash it with unwarranted confidence based on out of date information, without trying out the game in its present state. Aside from the subscription requirement, at the time of writing this game can be picked up really cheaply, so if you enjoy MMOs and consider yourself to have an open mind there’s every reason to give this one a chance.

7.2.2017

Tamriel!!I'm a pretty novice gamer, but this game is amazing - it's one of those which truly stand apart from the others, so I think you can easily play this before or after (or without!) playing the others in the series (skyrim, morrowind, oblivion).It's a real-time, online game, which means there's always lots of other gamers playing at the same time. That has its pros and cons. A sort of con is that you likely have to subscribe to get online access - I use a PS4 and had to become a Plus member to be able to log on (but then you get the option of 2 free games each month, and cheap deals etc, so that can be a good thing anyway)- and in relation to that the servers sometimes go offline for upgrades and maintenance and you can't access the game during those times. That's quite rare though, and I've found it to be relatively bug-free.Because it's real-time you don't have a pause option, which can be frustrating - I find it's best to make sure you've got a few hours free before getting involved in any group events or fights.It is incredibly interactive - you can join guilds, trade items, make friends, team up to take down bosses or complete trials, do one-to-one dueling...What I liked is that for the most part you can decide how interactive you want to be, and you can also decide the approach you want to take. Once you get up to a certain level it starts to become necessary to team up for fights, but there's always so many other players logged on that it's pretty easy to join a group or tag along.Do you want to be a healer, a fighter, a thief? What race, gender, armour, weaponry...? And then, do you want to spend a lot of your time exploring Tamriel, crafting items, focusing on the main storyline and quests, or doing all the mini quests?And that's before you consider all the add-ons that are available to buy. You can get special outfits, different mounts (do you want to ride a horse, or a bear?), pets. And you can also get access to extra dungeons, the thieves and assassin's guilds, Cyrodiil etc.The fact that it's online means new things are being added pretty regularly too, and it just never gets boring. The graphics and effects are really good too - probably the only thing that would make me suggest playing the older games in the series first. I also play Skyrim, and have to admit the graphics on that do look a bit dated by comparison.The only thing that I do miss from Skyrim, is the ability to have a home - you have pack space, which you can upgrade (essentially how many items you can carry), and you also have bank space, which again can be upgraded; but I find these always run out really quickly, and it would be nice if I could keep some of the collectibles or armour/weapons, and put them on display somewhere, rather than just selling them if they're not useful. But like I said, it's such a different game, that I find it quite hard to compare them!

10.6.2015

I'm only about 8 hours into this game and I would normally never do a review this early. However, there are a number of people who are giving this game a very low rating which is tottaly unjustified. People appear to believe that this should have been like Skyrim or Oblivion effectively the next chapter in the elder scrolls series. No, it was never marketed as being that, nor was it ever marketed as being anything but an MMO. Yes, you can do your own thing but you can also get involved in the social world and all the players around you. Now, I must admit that I played the PC trial of this when it was released on that platform and I'll admit I didn't like it. It felt empty and gave me no desire to explore the world.

11.6.2015

Tamriel Unlimited - an early reviewIt's not bad so far. Graphically it's ok. It is not as pretty as Final Fantasy XIV but it is not too ugly. There is a ton to do, but it is not that easy once you have a few quests on the go to make any sense of the map indicator at the top of the screen. Far too many icons appear. I would much prefer an on screen map rather than having to jump out to a separate screen. Other gripes are the menus. One button to jump out of the nested menus would be good, especially when you come under attack when rifling through them. I have also destroyed a ton of foodstuffs since I have yet to find a single recipe after seven hours of play. They just filled up my inventory.

31.7.2015

This game is just as good as I hoped it would be, I cannot complain about the 15GB update file that you have to install before you can play the game, this is an online game only, what do you expect? These type of games are constantly updating their games so we have a better experience playing them so why other people are complaining about it I do not know.The game is what I expected it to be and more, I won't go into detail but if you played the other games like Skyrim then you will love this game, it brings back some great memories, especially when you go to an area that was in a previous game like Skyrim and you look how similar (or different) it is. The loading times are very impressive,

9.6.2015

I was eagerly anticipating the release of this game after playing skyrim on ps3. I got the game today and it took 3 hours for an update to download (compulsory to the game) before I could play. People who had bought the game warned me people were having problems getting online because of the sheer amount of people who were giving the game ago but I didn't experience such problems. First of all the lay out is similar to oblivion if you played the ps3 game. It takes a little getting used to. I thought it would be better or a lot like skyrim but it is very different. Skyrims selection was simple for example nord, orc, elf etc but no warrior class if you like. The new elderscrolls allows you to pick nord,

4.3.2015

I played the beta and thought the game was okay but at the time it cost an arm and a leg to play. Now its half the price and will be sub free very soon.I got back into it recently not expecting to like it as much as I did. I've played most of the MMO's and am a bit tired of them. ESO isn't really that much different from them but things I do like are the minimal interface, world looks nice and it pays to go exploring. The quests, although being generic type quests like all MMO's, are at least voice acted and have a little bit of variety. The main story line is okay but nothing to write home about. Plus I think they are no worse than skyrims quests. I quite like the crafting because stuff you make is usually better than what you loot.

9.6.2014

I participated in the betas and enjoyed the game, but found it to miss out on many things which really make an MMORPG successful, but Bethesda has really done justice in my eyes. This game fits perfectly into the Elder Scrolls collection and is a pleasure to play, and with Bethesda listening to the communities ideas and opinions and actually actioning them, it can only get better!There is no doubt that the game itself is a little slow to kick in, but by level 14-16 you should find it starts getting really good with a great variety of quests, side quests, new areas to discover and a lot of fun to be had.At the time of writing this review, I am a level 34 Khajiit summoner in the Ebonheart pact,

6.4.2014

It feels very much like an elder scrolls game but it definitely has it's differences. The gameplay is the same, you have your main quest and loads of side quests to choose from (or do them all), leveling up and fighting is the same however in the past i usually find myself using the 1st person view, in elder scrolls online i prefer to use third person as i feel like there's more going on around you that you need to be aware of and enemies that are far more agile than in the past.My choice of third person view may also be influenced on how the game currently doesn't support gamepad use although you can use a emulator like xpadder if you want. I've since got used to mouse and keyboard and with so much going on around you,

19.8.2016

I see a lot of people comparing ESO to Skyrim. It's an unfair comparison. ESO is an MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer ONLINE Role Playing Game) best played in third person whereas Skyrim is a single player RPG (with no online play) which is best played in first person. They're different games sharing the same lore. If you loved Skyrim there are no guarantees that you will like ESO. I started playing ESO because I wanted a change from the other MMORPGs I had been playing previously - World of Warcraft, Rift, Lord of The Rings Online, Tera, Age of Conan and many others. So I bought the PC version of ESO but soon got tired of the bots, cheats and gold spammers. So I tried Final Fantasy 14 for a while and it was good.

10.5.2014

Almost all the negative reviews of this game have been people saying it's not a solo game. We'll of course it's not it's an mmo. Why do people buy a mmo to not want a mmo?There is still a crazy amount of solo content, all of the quests for example collate into a beautiful single player experience, all fully narrated with minimal trash killing quests. This gives the game it's main quality.Additionally, the combat is VERY refreshing for an mmo and makes for challenging and engaging gameplay. It's not easy like other mmos and it's also very interactive which means you have to focus on what even the smallest enemy is doing to defeat them.The PvE is great as well, mainly due to the wonderful combat system.

The Elder Scrolls Online - Reviews

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