Elder Scrolls Online: So, Did it Meet Expectations?

Surpassed every expectation I had from beta, which was high.  I’ve run across one bug so far and it is on a side quest.  I’ve reported it and will come back to complete the quest later.  The game sucks me in, literally time flies by and next thing I know it is time to cook dinner and I wonder where the day went. 

The game reminds me so much of Oblivion that I forget there are other players in the game.  I am wandering around exploring and gathering raw materials for crafting.  I haven’t reached level ten yet on any character, in part because I’m having so much trouble deciding who to play.  The choices are endless and a small change here or there can completely alter game play. 

There are a couple of minor improvements I think they need to work into the game in the first update.  One is a pet inventory system.  Right now I have four pets and that is four bank slots consumed.  Another is for account bound consumables like treasure maps, I had to park one of my characters as a mule simply to hold treasure maps.  They are bank space intensive and clumsily implemented.  Don’t get me wrong, the loot from those pre-order treasure maps is great but having it clutter up bank space indefinitely isn’t great.  Or better yet, give me housing with a trunk and I won’t mind one iota the amount of space the treasure maps consume!

The world is alive and vibrant.  NPCs clearly have lives of their own and while friendly they aren’t intrusive.  The world feels like Oblivion to me, minus all the creepy Oblivion gates of course.  I have discovered more chests and lore books from just wandering around then I would have had I not done so.  The music is amazing and adds so much to the atmosphere.

The Elder Scrolls Online isn’t going to be a game for everyone.  Respec’s are expensive (which I am more than fine with), leveling isn’t lightening fast thru PvE, crafting isn’t make 100 of this and walk away, and grinding mobs is the slowest way to level.  But if you are looking for that kind of game, I can’t imagine you would be interested in TESO to begin with.  However, if you want immersive gameplay with gorgeous scenery, then TESO has more than accomplished that and much, much more.  The launch has been incredibly smooth and incredibly well done and the entire team at Bethesda and Zenimax Online deserve a much needed round of applause.

Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to go make a cup of coffee and head back into TESO.

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What keeps me long term interested in playing & coming back to ANY game?

I’ve thought about this a lot recently and we will completely discount story for this posting because if any game doesn’t have a great story then there is no chance of keeping me interested for any length of time.

Games must have housing and wardrobe appearance slots.  These two items alone make all the difference in my long term interest in any game.

I played Oblivion eons and ages ago on the XBox 360, heck it was my introduction to the Elder Scrolls IP.  It may not have had the detailed customization options that Morrowind had, which my husband still laments to this day, but I knew I could log-in and my character had a house where she could catch a nap, brew some potions, or just spend the rest of eternity safely. 

Everquest II has done housing and housing customization the flat out best I’ve ever seen in any game.  The options for housing are seemingly endless and the developers, and now the community, continually add to the housing diversity.  All of my EQ2 characters share one house, which I must admit I love.  They’ve all got their alters to their particular gods and their trophies from questing.  I love the pillows strewn about the floor and the critters that roam the home. 

Lord of the Rings Online has a good wardrobe system as does Everquest II (appearance clothing).  However, neither game does it perfectly.  Both have stunningly beautiful armor and clothing models that my characters drool over but they both suffer from the same flaw.  No game offers enough wardrobe space to make it expansive enough to switch outfits as often as I’d like.  The Secret World has a pretty good wardrobe system which is perfect for a game set in the modern world with modern clothing, but a lot of their clothing is geared to a much younger player and none of my characters particularly want to walk around in what I consider slutty clothing.  Rift now offers a decent amount of wardrobe slots for in-game currency or real life cash.  Problem is none of my characters are that rich in-game and I’m not spending real life money on wardrobe slots.

I love the look of this NPC in Everquest II.

My Guardian Hobbit in LOTRO never wears shoes but she does love a jaunty hat and on this fine day in Rivendell she was sporting her favorite hauberk.

The one thing Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 do better than any of their competitors, and the only thing in my opinion, is the dye system.  Collecting dyes and not having them be consumed on use is brilliant and perfect system.  Other games need to adopt this model.  Yes they might lose out on some revenue but they would undoubtedly make up that revenue from players like me that won’t purchase a single use dye.

No game, to date, gets housing or wardrobe perfect.  Rift has a goodly number of wardrobe slots but dyes are consumed on use and they don’t have pink dyes.  Rift does have housing but it has yet to make an emotional connection with me.  The Secret World has a decent wardrobe closet but the clothes are too revealing and cannot be dyed.  Guild Wars 2 only has the dye system in it’s favor.  Everquest II has phenomenal and extensive housing but no dyes and limited wardrobe to one outfit.  My characters NEED many, many more wardrobe slots in Everquest Next!  The clothing and armor in the Everquest franchise is so well done and so varied texturally that limiting appearance clothing to one slot is simply criminal.  Lord of the Rings Online has beautiful clothing but dyes are consumed on use and wardrobe storage and slots are too limited.  LOTRO housing is also lacking in comparison with Everquest franchise.

 

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World of Warcraft: How Has WOW Changed My Life?

Thanks to WOW Insider for leading me to this blog posting and the friendly folks over at Blog Azeroth.  WOW changed my life quite dramatically, I went from a non-gamer to a gamer on my own terms.

The Beginning

We meet, fell in love, and got married rather late in life, late 30’s.  I wasn’t a gamer by any definition.  I played Pac Man way back when but that’s pretty much it.  I, however, married a gamer.  In fact, shortly after we got married (less than a month to be precise), WOW was released.  I didn’t understand what he was doing in the basement for hours on end and I certainly couldn’t understand why those people and a “raid” was more important than me, the new wife.  I slowly gave up trying to understand and gave up trying to pry him away from the computer.

The Middle

Four years later, we’ve moved to Arizona and I’ve retired.  My brilliant hubby decides to buy me a copy of Guild Wars with my new laptop.  I was bored with Oblivion after hundreds of hours spent in Tamriel.  I had no clue what I was doing in Guild Wars and he hated it but I stuck with it for a couple of months.  And then on the sly on night when I couldn’t sleep, I downloaded the trial of WOW.  I created a Gnome Mage and I died A LOT.  Seriously, I sucked horribly.  I remember getting a recipe for Beer Basted Boar Ribs and thought it was super important. 

Didn’t take hubby long to catch on that I had stayed up all night playing WOW.  The next day I had my very own copy, he reactivated his subscription, and Refer-A-Friend active and thus began my adventures in Azeroth with hubby.  I rolled a Night Elf Hunter named Penelopa.  Looking back, I don’t know how we didn’t spend more time corpse running.  I had no clue about threat, shinnies were uber attractive, and I was terrified of PvP and dungeons. 

Today

We both play other games.  WOW is in my rotation frequently.  In fact, I just reactivated my subscription this week.  About a week and a half ago I saw a picture of the new druid travel form and it peaked my interest.  A little poking here, a little dabbling there and wouldn’t you know it I’ve got the WOW bug again.

My game play has improved dramatically since 2008.  I know what I’m comfortable playing and I know when I need a WOW break.  I may not love our server, but it is the server hubby has played on since 2004.  He hasn’t re-subscribed this time and I’m fine with that.  He’s happy when I’m happy and right now, playing WOW makes me happy.  I’m leveling my “baby” toons and looking forward to the release of Patch 5.0.4.

So, WOW changed my life, and hubby’s by extension, when it turned me into a gamer.  I play other MMO’s but WOW was my first true MMO and thus has a special place in the memory bank.

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Everquest 2– or the game I simply cannot quit

Four years ago, I had started WOW but was getting bored.  My savvy husband was ready and pointed me in the direction of Everquest 2.  This was way back when there were still islands outside Freeport and Qeynos for new players.  I was immediately hooked.  Here was a MMO that had what I missed most about the The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion – quest driven stories with the ability to explore the world.

I tried to convince myself and hubby that my computer was running the game adequately.  Truth be told, it stuttered so bad that today I wouldn’t last thirty seconds in-game trying to play that way.  I played for almost a month, but then went back to WOW which ran much better on my machine.  So while I spent another four years playing WOW on and off, trying other games, I never forgot about Everquest 2.  I would dabble for a month and then go back playing lesser games. 

Finally, when I quit WOW for good last year I immediately dived back into Everquest 2 eagerly.  This time my machine could handle the engine much better and the stuttering was limited to a few places here and there.  The graphics weren’t as stellar as hubby’s machine put out but they were still stellar compared to my first EQ2 experience.  We played Everquest 2 and Lord of the Rings Online for the majority of last year, until hit the hyperspace button and played Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Once I deleted the failed Funcom experiment this morning, I immediately reinstalled Everquest 2.  It felt like coming home.  There is a reason it is called Evercrack.  LOL  Sneakily, literally behind my back, hubby bought me a year subscription and the expansion I was missing, Age of Discovery.  I got in-game, said howdy to the guildies, and went about cleaning out my quest log.  I know I am going to enjoy the next couples of weeks and months in Norrath while it is blazing hot here.

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Aww Crap

 

Ok, this, The Elder Scrolls Online, is going to be truly amazing or truly awful an Elder Scrolls MMO.  I LOVED Oblivion and HATED Skyrim with a passion.  I’m very pleased to learn that the MMO is set a millennium before Skyrim.  That means the world created in Elder Scrolls will make sense and won’t be full of the dark, racist crap that was Skyrim.  I started gaming long after Morrowind was released and I tried to play it several times.  I can’t get past the graphics unfortunately, but I love the story.  Hubby played and loved Morrowind however. 

We both hated Skyrim after more than 30 hours of game play.  The Dark Brotherhood lost it’s focus, the Thieves Guild was pathetic, and the Nords turned into a community of xenophobes.  Heck even the Imperial were pathetic in Skyrim.  Hubby finished the game but I haven’t yet.  Killing the never ending stream of dragons was old and boring after a while, and no challenge.  And another pet peeve of mine … the OVER simplification and leveling in Skyrim was out of control.  Seriously, crafting gains you experience levels? 

So yes, I hate Skyrim and I love the Elder Scrolls franchise.  I’m hopeful that the developers, who thankfully are NOT associated with Skyrim, do not follow the mistakes made in the game.  At this point, despite it’s proposed release date of 2013, I’m taking a wait and see attitude.