Also, a quirk of using the mouse to aim your attacks rather than using a target locking system means that you're all too often left staring at screen-filling obstructions. If your opponent is standing on higher ground, on the arch of a bridge say, then by aiming at them the camera will find itself ensconced in the grass behind you. Likewise, when battling in a dungeon, beware of stalactites when aiming at smaller foes at your feet.
"But what about the first-person camera?" you may be inclined to ask. Well, about that... It's great for getting a close look at the world, but as an alternative viewpoint for combat it's almost essential not to use it. To be effective in a fight you need a wide view of the battlefield - especially true when grouping up with friends.
The more you delve into TESO, and the more you play with your character, the more rewarding combat becomes. Skills are tied to all kinds of things, from the race you choose, the class you plump for and the weapon you happen to be wielding at any given time. Our main character is a Nightblade with a skillset based on dual-wielded daggers. We unlocked abilities which allowed us to teleport over to foes, deal devastating damage to those with low HP and even to siphon the energy from them to fill our own, often ailing, health bar.
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A little later, we'd tweaked ourselves into a light armour-wearing archer, with a fiery bow charged with Soul Gem energy. We learned how to pepper enemies from afar, dealing huge damage while our heavily armoured chums took the brunt on the front lines.
Later still, we found another calling. With a powerful staff looted from a dungeon run, we could lay down walls of fire before ramming foes into the air and then nailing them with our previously learned health-sapping skills. The sheer variety on offer is glorious, especially once you get to level 15 and unlock two weapon sets which are interchangeable, along with their skill bars.
It might have been unwieldy, but crafting in Skyrim was still a huge part of the game for many. An axe you put together yourself was easier to become attached to. In TESO you can still build your own gear, but now you're able to keep hold of it for longer, thanks to an improvement system that rewards you for delving into its intricacies. Using the materials that you find through adventuring, you're able to research new traits and upgrades for weapons.
There's an element to crafting that we don't like, however. Unlocking skills, whether those be crafting or combat, eats up your skill point resource, which stocks up upon levelling or by discovering Skyshards in the world. Having both crafting and combat tied to the same points pool means you'll often have to pick one over the other.
As such, many of the useful skills that crafters will enjoy using, being able to see nodes in the world more easily, for example, won't get picked until you're well into the game. That said, you're able to re-spec all of your skills once you make it to your faction's main city, so this isn't necessarily a deal breaker in the long run.
2014年4月23日星期三
2014年4月21日星期一
The Strange Economy of Werewolves and Vampires in Elder Scrolls Online
Dungeons, man... dungeons. Elder Scrolls Online has them by the cartload. When you hit level 15, you’ll be prepared for your first true group instanced dungeon, and once you defeat it you’ll gain instant teleportation to the other two factions’ dungeons as well. With PAX East devouring much of my time this past week, I was just glad to keep progressing in ESO what little bit I did. I’m nearly level 20, and have hit over 40 hours played so far. I get that ESO has more than its fair share of bugs and design quirks, but I’m having a lot of fun regardless. There’s something about Zenimax’s theme park that really trips my trigger. It needs a lot of polish, sure, but what’s in game now is a lot more fun than I ever expected and I keep coming back for more. Anyway, on to dungeons.
There are several types of dungeons in ESO. The standard “Delve” dungeons that are scattered across the world, which players can enter, explore, clear for achievements and find skyshards in. These are sort of “lesser public dungeons”, and you’ll find random other folks in your adventures there. Scour the map and find them all, because each one has a skyshard, and you’ll want to collect as many of those as you can, believe me. Then there are Public Dungeons like Crow’s Wood that are small open zones for multiple groups which have an overall story, several missions, and usually a larger group boss to take down as well.
These are my goblins. There are many like them, but these are mine.
I like to think of Public Dungeons as a prelude to what we’ll find in Adventure Zones at the endgame. It’s worth noting that players were grinding like mad in these areas early on, and this is how many people hit level 50 within days of launch. You won’t find much of that now, though, as XP from mobs in these dungeons has been nerfed to the point where delves and Public Dungeons should only be played to get quests done, skyshards found, and achievements earned. Hopefully XP on the mobs inside will be rebalanced one day for those who do like to grind.
On top of all these more public dungeons, Elder Scrolls Online has more traditional single-group instanced dungeons. I’ve played through both the Fungal Grotto and the Banished cells now, two of the three level
There are several types of dungeons in ESO. The standard “Delve” dungeons that are scattered across the world, which players can enter, explore, clear for achievements and find skyshards in. These are sort of “lesser public dungeons”, and you’ll find random other folks in your adventures there. Scour the map and find them all, because each one has a skyshard, and you’ll want to collect as many of those as you can, believe me. Then there are Public Dungeons like Crow’s Wood that are small open zones for multiple groups which have an overall story, several missions, and usually a larger group boss to take down as well.
These are my goblins. There are many like them, but these are mine.
I like to think of Public Dungeons as a prelude to what we’ll find in Adventure Zones at the endgame. It’s worth noting that players were grinding like mad in these areas early on, and this is how many people hit level 50 within days of launch. You won’t find much of that now, though, as XP from mobs in these dungeons has been nerfed to the point where delves and Public Dungeons should only be played to get quests done, skyshards found, and achievements earned. Hopefully XP on the mobs inside will be rebalanced one day for those who do like to grind.
On top of all these more public dungeons, Elder Scrolls Online has more traditional single-group instanced dungeons. I’ve played through both the Fungal Grotto and the Banished cells now, two of the three level
2014年4月13日星期日
The Elder Scrolls Online review
When Bethesda announced that it was going to be bringing its groundbreaking Elder Scrolls series to the world of online gaming goodness, gamers everywhere salivated.
Questing across Tamriel from Skyrim to Cyrodil was something RPG fans had been dreaming of since The Elder Scrolls: Arena dropped back in 1994.
For years, Bethesda had resisted the growing temptation to throw multiplayer elements into the Tamriel experience. Now they've gambled by inserting a fundamentally different mechanic into the RPG world of the Elder Scrolls.
But such a bold, unifying move is risky. Ultimately, hours of gameplay, loot drops, lore, quest lines and skill trees are not important. But getting that gamble right is.
Elder Scrolls Online looks and feels like the everyman's MMORPG. It has a familiarity to it. You can pick it up and immediately know what it does. On that count, Bethesda has done well to create an online mechanic that users can immediately get to grips with. There are classes, they have abilities, there are maps and tradable items, there are factions that compete with each other across the world. At first blush, Elder Scrolls Online is safe, warm, and easy.
However, MMORPGs are complex beasts. There is as much enjoyment in managing your game as there is in playing it, and Bethesda could have spent more time devising an interface that was more intuitive.
One of the strengths of Skyrim was it was easy to understand, yet powerful in the game management system - which once modded was a dream to use. But Elder Scrolls Online was built for a more robust online experience. It had bolder ambitions and wasn't designed with single-player gamers in mind.
But this oversight is a problem, one of several that peels back the veil of the Elder Scrolls experience. First, the in-game management system of MMORPGs is the closest gamers come to offline play, so there is merit in a single-player approach.
But secondly, and more importantly, the clutter and complexity of the Elder Scrolls Online GUI makes it hard for fans of the series to pick the game up and get going. If you're up to level 10 and the game still hasn't guided you towards an effective kit out for your quick commands, then something crucial has broken along the way.
But progression is not a problem with Elder Scrolls Online. The title sits on a bedrock of non-linear quests, lore and experience that fans of the series will hungrily tap into. The amount of main quests, sub-main quests, side quests, guild lines, secret missions or simply just places to explore is absolutely enormous. That is, of course, to be expected from a game that brings together the many wondrous environments that Bethesda has exposed us to in the past.
There is ample content in Elder Scrolls Online, even without its expected DLC, for even the most rapacious gamer to be satisfied.
Added to the game's content there is a clever extension of the World of Warcraft factions mechanic, bringing additional complexity to the title.
Players can choose to join the Aldmeri Dominion, the Daggerfall Covenant or the Ebonheart Pact who then all compete for territory and control across the entire global map. By controlling territory members of each faction can be buffed depending on how much they rule over, giving gamers a real reason to engage in the politics of the meta game. Your chosen faction also determines which part of the map you start your character's life in - so choose wisely. If you are Skyrim or Cyrodil fan, you might not want to spend 15 levels trudging through Morrowind.
But regardless of where you are, trudge you will. The Elder Scrolls Online combat mechanic is a strange mix between Neverwinter Nights II and the earliest iterations of World of Warcraft. It's not necessarily bad, it's actually pretty decent, but compared to the intense combat of its single-player predecessors Bethesda's online offering feels stilted and barren.
Even the low-level boss battles you experience early in the game feel like they were put there, just so that'd you'd have something to aim at. When put beside the wealth of storytelling in the Elder Scrolls' universe, more could be included to create a sense of majesty and impetus.
What is impressive is the organic way that your character levels up and improves. Unlike more restrictive MMORPGs, Elder Scrolls Online allows you to build your character into the shape you want.
Gone are the arbitrary restrictions on armour or weapons, and instead you can choose to build your character into a hybrid of several other well-known classes. This is a throwback all the way to 1994's Arena and has been transferred well into the online world. It's also a forward thinking move by Bethesda. Once the guild scene starts to improve you can expect to see gamers thinking carefully about which builds to include, and how they can be deployed to the best advantage for their party.
But unfortunately, it is that all important "player-to-player experience" that is at the heart of the Elder Scrolls Online's problems. MMORPGs are supposed to be social experiences, one that you share with other players in a communal way.
Elder Scrolls Online does not yet have this flavour. That doesn't mean it's not going to get them in the future, obviously communities take time to build. But the early experience is of a Tamriel where gamers are only in it for themselves, and where they don't see the need for team play. This is a failure of design.
Bizarrely, even the combat areas of Elder Scrolls Online feel like the holding lobbies of older, less sophisticated online titles. Everyone is either taking a shortcut through your experience, trying to get their head around their menus, or is just ignoring you.
This critique matters because it resolves Bethesda's big gamble. Previously the Elder Scrolls series was intended to be a solitary affair. That's what made it impressive. You, and you alone, were immersed in a fantasy world of your own that begged to be explored.
Expanding that out to others was the next logical step, but in doing so Bethesda may have overreached.
Perhaps Tamriel wasn't meant to have thousands of marauding heroes. Maybe it should only have had 200, or 100, or 50 at any one time or on any one server. In overreaching Bethesda has missed a chance to create a more immersive online role-playing experience by not re-thinking the fundamental mechanics of the genre, which paradoxically was the reason that the Elder Scroll series was so popular in the first place.
Allusions to this thinking can be seen in other titles, like DayZ, which are continuing to reinvent the online first-person role-playing experience. As DayZ has proven, exciting and collaborative cooperative gameplay - with heart pounding PvP to boot - doesn't need to look like what's come before; and it shouldn't.
The Elder Scrolls Online is a solid, meaty title. It has hours of gameplay, satisfying character trees, and a wealth of online role playing experiences to churn through. It's safe and secure. It serves up the classic habitual MMORPG experience, albeit with a Tamriel twist. And for many gamers, this will be fine.
But Bethesda has created an example - not an evolution - of the genre. This is an important lesson for Bethesda to learn, because if it doesn't, it will have spent years creating a world that exposes you to everyone - but which leaves you feeling even more alone.
Three-and-a-half stars.
Questing across Tamriel from Skyrim to Cyrodil was something RPG fans had been dreaming of since The Elder Scrolls: Arena dropped back in 1994.
For years, Bethesda had resisted the growing temptation to throw multiplayer elements into the Tamriel experience. Now they've gambled by inserting a fundamentally different mechanic into the RPG world of the Elder Scrolls.
But such a bold, unifying move is risky. Ultimately, hours of gameplay, loot drops, lore, quest lines and skill trees are not important. But getting that gamble right is.
Elder Scrolls Online looks and feels like the everyman's MMORPG. It has a familiarity to it. You can pick it up and immediately know what it does. On that count, Bethesda has done well to create an online mechanic that users can immediately get to grips with. There are classes, they have abilities, there are maps and tradable items, there are factions that compete with each other across the world. At first blush, Elder Scrolls Online is safe, warm, and easy.
However, MMORPGs are complex beasts. There is as much enjoyment in managing your game as there is in playing it, and Bethesda could have spent more time devising an interface that was more intuitive.
One of the strengths of Skyrim was it was easy to understand, yet powerful in the game management system - which once modded was a dream to use. But Elder Scrolls Online was built for a more robust online experience. It had bolder ambitions and wasn't designed with single-player gamers in mind.
But this oversight is a problem, one of several that peels back the veil of the Elder Scrolls experience. First, the in-game management system of MMORPGs is the closest gamers come to offline play, so there is merit in a single-player approach.
But secondly, and more importantly, the clutter and complexity of the Elder Scrolls Online GUI makes it hard for fans of the series to pick the game up and get going. If you're up to level 10 and the game still hasn't guided you towards an effective kit out for your quick commands, then something crucial has broken along the way.
But progression is not a problem with Elder Scrolls Online. The title sits on a bedrock of non-linear quests, lore and experience that fans of the series will hungrily tap into. The amount of main quests, sub-main quests, side quests, guild lines, secret missions or simply just places to explore is absolutely enormous. That is, of course, to be expected from a game that brings together the many wondrous environments that Bethesda has exposed us to in the past.
There is ample content in Elder Scrolls Online, even without its expected DLC, for even the most rapacious gamer to be satisfied.
Added to the game's content there is a clever extension of the World of Warcraft factions mechanic, bringing additional complexity to the title.
Players can choose to join the Aldmeri Dominion, the Daggerfall Covenant or the Ebonheart Pact who then all compete for territory and control across the entire global map. By controlling territory members of each faction can be buffed depending on how much they rule over, giving gamers a real reason to engage in the politics of the meta game. Your chosen faction also determines which part of the map you start your character's life in - so choose wisely. If you are Skyrim or Cyrodil fan, you might not want to spend 15 levels trudging through Morrowind.
But regardless of where you are, trudge you will. The Elder Scrolls Online combat mechanic is a strange mix between Neverwinter Nights II and the earliest iterations of World of Warcraft. It's not necessarily bad, it's actually pretty decent, but compared to the intense combat of its single-player predecessors Bethesda's online offering feels stilted and barren.
Even the low-level boss battles you experience early in the game feel like they were put there, just so that'd you'd have something to aim at. When put beside the wealth of storytelling in the Elder Scrolls' universe, more could be included to create a sense of majesty and impetus.
What is impressive is the organic way that your character levels up and improves. Unlike more restrictive MMORPGs, Elder Scrolls Online allows you to build your character into the shape you want.
Gone are the arbitrary restrictions on armour or weapons, and instead you can choose to build your character into a hybrid of several other well-known classes. This is a throwback all the way to 1994's Arena and has been transferred well into the online world. It's also a forward thinking move by Bethesda. Once the guild scene starts to improve you can expect to see gamers thinking carefully about which builds to include, and how they can be deployed to the best advantage for their party.
But unfortunately, it is that all important "player-to-player experience" that is at the heart of the Elder Scrolls Online's problems. MMORPGs are supposed to be social experiences, one that you share with other players in a communal way.
Elder Scrolls Online does not yet have this flavour. That doesn't mean it's not going to get them in the future, obviously communities take time to build. But the early experience is of a Tamriel where gamers are only in it for themselves, and where they don't see the need for team play. This is a failure of design.
Bizarrely, even the combat areas of Elder Scrolls Online feel like the holding lobbies of older, less sophisticated online titles. Everyone is either taking a shortcut through your experience, trying to get their head around their menus, or is just ignoring you.
This critique matters because it resolves Bethesda's big gamble. Previously the Elder Scrolls series was intended to be a solitary affair. That's what made it impressive. You, and you alone, were immersed in a fantasy world of your own that begged to be explored.
Expanding that out to others was the next logical step, but in doing so Bethesda may have overreached.
Perhaps Tamriel wasn't meant to have thousands of marauding heroes. Maybe it should only have had 200, or 100, or 50 at any one time or on any one server. In overreaching Bethesda has missed a chance to create a more immersive online role-playing experience by not re-thinking the fundamental mechanics of the genre, which paradoxically was the reason that the Elder Scroll series was so popular in the first place.
Allusions to this thinking can be seen in other titles, like DayZ, which are continuing to reinvent the online first-person role-playing experience. As DayZ has proven, exciting and collaborative cooperative gameplay - with heart pounding PvP to boot - doesn't need to look like what's come before; and it shouldn't.
The Elder Scrolls Online is a solid, meaty title. It has hours of gameplay, satisfying character trees, and a wealth of online role playing experiences to churn through. It's safe and secure. It serves up the classic habitual MMORPG experience, albeit with a Tamriel twist. And for many gamers, this will be fine.
But Bethesda has created an example - not an evolution - of the genre. This is an important lesson for Bethesda to learn, because if it doesn't, it will have spent years creating a world that exposes you to everyone - but which leaves you feeling even more alone.
Three-and-a-half stars.
2014年4月8日星期二
Elder Scrolls Online News - Campaign Names Announced Ahead of Early Start
Elder Scrolls Online early start players are revving up their virtual engines in preparation for this weekend's start. Zenimax is whipping everyone into a frenzy and has announced the names of the campaigns in which players can take part beginning at level 10.
Early Access begins this weekend! Are you looking forward to your first steps in Cyrodiil? We’re preparing the battlefield right now, and before you know it you’ll be on the front lines, driving the enemy forces from their keeps in massive conflicts. PvP is even more fun when you can organize ahead of time, so we’re releasing the names of the North American and European campaigns that will be open when Early Access starts. Each name represents two campaigns, one on the NA megaserver and one on the EU megasever.
Early Access begins this weekend! Are you looking forward to your first steps in Cyrodiil? We’re preparing the battlefield right now, and before you know it you’ll be on the front lines, driving the enemy forces from their keeps in massive conflicts. PvP is even more fun when you can organize ahead of time, so we’re releasing the names of the North American and European campaigns that will be open when Early Access starts. Each name represents two campaigns, one on the NA megaserver and one on the EU megasever.Elder Scrolls Online News - Servers Down in Preparation for Launch Tonight
Read the rest of Bill Murphy's Elder Scrolls Online: Review in Progress Part One.
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