And thus begins your questing experience in Elder Scrolls Online. Simple, clean and minimal to begin with and yet perfect for the setting of the first quest of the game.
The prison setting is being called trite and over used by critics but the setting fits with the Daedra at the heart of the main story line. If Molag Bal were the villain and the story began anywhere else, it would just instantly not make the game an Elder Scrolls game. So, yeah the game begins in a prison environment but get over it, that’s where it should start.
A common complaint among gamers is that quests boil down to nothing more than, as my husband likes to phrase it, do my laundry bitch quests. I have yet to run into a single quest that had me go kill ten of this or fetch ten of that. Quests are far more involved than fetching and retrieving. I’ve saved a village from a father determined to protect and feed his vampire son. I’ve acquired tomes of arcane knowledge to help free a mage. I commune with spirits and defied the express wishes of the undead.
Quests are varied and unique and make the world and environment come to life. Do you stop and aid the merchant along the road? The environment is filled with quests that will never be discovered by standing in town waiting for the quest givers to come to you.
There is no central quest hub crowded with players trying to grab quests and run. Sure places like the Fighter’s and Mage’s Guilds can be crowded at times with players but stop and think about it. If your home was under attack from the god or gods that were regularly worshipped and were known to take personal interest in the lives of the world’s inhabitants wouldn’t you be rushing to the nearest organization you thought could help to protect the one’s you love? So, yeah congested quest givers isn’t a problem for me on those rare occasions it does occur.
The quest dialogue is fully voice acted and isn’t overly long but isn’t too short. The quests don’t hold your hand and led you from point A to point B. Players have to think, listen, and figure things out on their own. There is a directional pointer on the HUD to aid the player, identical to Skyrim in fact, but that is the only “help” in questing that exists in the game.
Immersion in the game is complete and total because of the quests. They suck you in, they make you care about not only your character but the NPC characters. The quests are by far the best I’ve experienced in any MMO to date and questing is my thing, it is something that makes or breaks a game for me. I cannot stress how well done the quests are or how well they’ve managed to completely immerse me in the content.
Awesome game.
ReplyDeletesocial gaming network