A Look Into Elder Scrolls Online Beta

Hey everyone! It's Lin with a review on Elder Scrolls Online beta that happened just this weekend. This isn't my first time playing the beta, actually...this is my second time, the first time I was invited to participate during November of last year. What I saw was not pleasing, something I will elaborate on further. Then why is it that I decided to come back? I was told that there were significant changes to the game and, hearing this, I took the bait. And I was happy to find that they were right...it's an excellent game and feels very different. So what changes made it so this game turn into a bad game into a great one...?

I think before I even begin, the most important thing to talk about was the first beta I participated in, November's beta.  It was as if they wanted to make a WoW clone, just with the perspective (first person) and theme of the Elder Scrolls series. This did not make it a very good game and, though Symphonic Reverie was made in February, based on the performance of the beta, I wouldn't have even thought it worthwhile to do a review on it at all. The very game seemed mediocre and moreover, it felt as if it had no soul. And honestly I thought it was doing as many other famous MMOs do, where they were trying to pull people in using the series' name as opposed to having a well-made game.

A screenshot of a demon...monster...thing at the time of November early closed beta. It looked okay with very few textures.

The graphics were mediocre, the gameplay kinda of boring and stale, the storyline wasn't at all interesting because it didn't seem fleshed well. It didn't really hold my interest and only a couple hours in, I knew that the game wasn't something I wanted to subscribe to if it were to be released in this manner.

But this weekend's beta was completely different.

The gameplay was fun and interactive. This is AFTER I played in first person perspective. The first time I played the beta, I played in third person, which honestly made it look really lame and flat. The world didn't look very detailed or seem to have quality. And after playing for the second time, I realized that it didn't have a feeling of excitement that first person perspective gives. Keep in mind that it has nothing to do with the perspective in the most general sense. There are many games that are first person that would do much better as a third person perspective based game. With ESO in particular, because the graphics were improved by tenfold, the detail and beauty of the game was really shown by the first person perspective. The theme of Elder Scrolls really showed its true colors this beta...armor and weapons were well detailed. Environments that were light based and friendly, like many towns, were vibrant and cheerful (in its own Elder Scrolls-ly way), while more sinister environments had a much darker palette and rightfully so.

"Environments that were light based and friendly, like many towns, were vibrant and cheerful..."

The voice acting were practiced and it felt a lot better than it did the first time. What was nice to hear were new voices in the series...it has always annoyed me to hear the same voices just changed a little bit in the Elder Scrolls series, so hopefully they don't do the same thing. Anyway, I found myself getting into the main quest as well as the side quests. There are also some instances where they pay homage to their own series, making jokes on their own lore or quests that give a familiar nudge to veteran players. I think that a lot of ESO is story based just like the actual series; in a way, ESO is an Elder Scrolls sequel, just that it happens to be multiplayer. I also find that this game is less like a traditional MMO where you're looking to level yourself up as quickly as you can.

Did I mention the number of skills you are capable of working with? There is a seriously insane skill tree to this game. The multiple branches of skills you can work with go farther than just class skills or weapon based skills, but also racial and guild skills too! Note that this was still constant for the first beta I did in November, but the fact that the game itself felt more polished and managed to hook me this way made the skills available that more tempting.

"This is a seriously insane skill tree to this game."

Crafting is fun and interesting and the only issue I may have with it is the lack of bank space that allows me to have the freedom to work with everything. With the limited amount of space, there are many times where I have to throw away some crafting supplies in order to fit in rarer ingredients/materials. Otherwise, crafting has a unique spin and is one of the only MMOs I know of that allows a different style of crafting (e.g: a knife can be made in several different styles like elvish or dwarfish). This allows a lot of personal flavor and customization.

The crafting menu for blacksmithing in particular. Many premade equipment that's unwanted can always be turned into scrap material for your own creations.

There are a few issues I do have with the game though. The first thing is something that ProJared, another reviewer that I watch, said on his first look of the beta...the feature of alliances having only certain races is heavily limiting multiplayer capabilities or the other way around as well. If you wanted to play together with your friends, you were limited to only choosing between three races so you land in the same city. Otherwise, you would have to play separately in completely different areas and, from my understanding, will not get to see each other unless it's fighting each other to the death (all of the alliances are having a three way war, apparently).

Another limitation I see with the creativity is the limited edition features. The limited edition version of the game is available now...and while it features a LOT of stuff, one of them is the capability to use the Imperial race. Which is really stupid to me because of two reasons: 1. you're forcing people to pay extra money just to use a different race they may like and 2. you're forcing people who HAVE paid that price to at least make one Imperial character to get their moneys worth. Perhaps others will see it differently, but this is how I see it. Whether or not you should get limited edition is all based on what your personal commitment to the series itself. I'm still in the early stages of even thinking of subscribing regularly, so getting the limited edition hasn't even been considered by me yet.

The limited edition stuff that you get. It does look pretty damn cool, gotta say. But is it $80.00 cool? That's a question I can't answer for you.

Unfortunately there are also serious bugs and issues with NPC interaction. There are many times when I've had to use the GM given command "/reloadui" because the game would just freeze on a screen where I couldn't get out of. Though most times it wouldn't cause the client to crash (I've only crashed twice this whole beta), it wouldn't allow me to move or get out of the NPC interaction no matter what button I pressed. This happened often with the bank and crafting menus. Another bug was with the story based quest where the NPCs who were supposed to appear never did, thus the quest couldn't go any further. The solution to this was to log out and then log back in. The quest would continue, but that's still a bug that needs to be addressed.

Okay, so what's the verdict? Is ESO worth the $60 bucks plus the monthly subscription? If you really liked the series, yes. I think that ESO is a very good game and looks and feels worth while. The graphics are great, the gameplay is smooth and feels polished. Crafting and side quests are fun and the plethora of skills show that there's a lot of creative potential as well. Looking past the money grubbing with the limited edition, the game itself still features a great character customization. While the bugs are still evidently in the game, if they are fixed before the final product is released in early April, ESO will be hands-down one of the best MMOs out there.