This^ oh so much this.

There is a reason Mario and Pokemon are the two top-selling game series despite not have realistic, super amazing graphics. There is a reason, every old-school gamers still play NES, Gameboy, N64, etc games.

some how this http://elderscrollsonline.com/en-uk/media/videos/657 looked better then the pvp trailer..

This has been discussed before and I don't think I need to rewrite everything I've said about it, but people that use the MMO genre as an excuse to accept bad animations have (in my opinion, you can hate me if you want) very low standard and lack of trust in the genre. That said, I'd like to quote myself (and look like a shoe), but I don't feel like writing the same thing again, and I would like for people to concider this, because it is a very important and often overlooked part of art direction and art style in games:

That said, them working on it is not a reason to drop the discussion.

I do not like the female running animation from videos but everything else seems okay

Here's what I ask myself if I am ever bothered by the animations: is it fun? Is it pretty? Is it Elder Scrolls? If so, then I don't really care about the minute details of how my imaginary friend on the screen swings a sword.

Don't feel bad, I do not see the what people are talking about either..... How the char move looks like any other game to me.... I just don't see it with out some examples.

Can you explain how? Like pick out a particular animation and explain it to me?

Just not getting it.

A lot of that sounds more like physics than animations. ESO can't have the same kind of collision detection and physics.

Also, I hate Dark Souls. Just about everything about the game bothers me. I bought it on a friends recommendation and I have huge buyers remorse.

The world isn't immersive. It feels like I'm playing an arcade game. There is no reason to do what I'm doing. Mechanics are confusing and not very organic (as in progression feels separate from the game, rather than part of the game). None of that is quite relevant to this convo, but...

I also feel movement in Dark Souls is very mechanical and choppy. I always felt odd moving around, dodging, swinging my sword, ect. To me, movement in ESO looks a lot smoother.

Yup. Reading over this thread hasn't helped me at all.

I'm honestly not very elitist when it comes to visuals and such. I'm highly tolerant of bad graphics. I'm highly tolerant of low frame rate. I'm highly tolerant of low resolution.

Maybe its because I started out playing Nintendo on a fuzy old tube TV?

I think they look fine, in fact they look significantly better than a lot of MMOs

Animations definitely need some rework, they are not anywhere near today's MMO standards. Running, combat standing positions with some weapons (like 1h + shield) look very stupid and unnatural.

The only anim that really bugs me is when things die and flop over like a pratfall or a cartoon. It's hokey and doesn't carry the weight of death as it should. Other than that I'm okay with some of the Sims-esque stuff, but some good old-fashioned mo-cap (which is now much cheaper than hand-built anims) could go a LONG way methinks.

Dark souls is head and shoulders above this game or any MMO that actually does go so far as to introduce physics.

I'll grant that getting used to the controls is a bit of a challenge at first, but with that game and the solo TES titles you at least get the feeling that your character is affecting the world and effected by it. With TESO and most MMO games it looks like your character is cataloging hits taken and then registers a corresponding and rigid pain animation (if at all). Likewise things like blocking at attack have realistic physics to them where the animations of the opponents and match and seem to interact with the character. What we get TESO is just like most MMO games where the if a block happens it is more the player gaming it than the character living it.

Well , i liked the smooth combat of skyrim, animations with master destruction spells were great.

Shown in cinematic blood animation was very nice but that Chunkyness is almost unplayable if you look closesly at the dragon knight using ultimate

Skyrim's animations aren't smooth.

This is actually very much true. I hate MMO's in general. I played the ever-living crap out of my Troll Hunter in WoW (Race, not behavior), and really enjoyed it. However I didn't like ANYTHING out of the Battlegrounds and Pet system. Every other MMO I have hated, and did not like the time invested for the complete and utter lack of engaging gameplay. That is my main complaint against MMO's and the one that actually manage an engaging minute-to-minute gameplay are generally plagued with other problems. Heck only the words Elder Scrolls slapped onto this title even got my attention.

(One MMO that I ABSOLUTELY adore is Ace Online. Be a jet? hell yeah! I loved the Dog Fights, etc. it was so much fun to hook up a controller and just fly for hours.) (Also Shadow Bane was baller even though it had atrocious combat and quests)

So yes, I do have incredibly low standards for an MMO, and recognize that as an Elder Scrolls title it probably SHOULD be better. But I have such a distaste for the entire genre that this MMO being say 50% better than the crap that's out there is impressive in my book, and everything they have done looks better than any other fantasy MMO I have ever seen. (Aside from major lack of sandbox elements.)

So long story short if this game is 1/3 as good as the single player entries, and I can First Person, and have engaging minute-to-minute combat than this game will be 300x better than any MMO.

My expectations:

*Silly animations

*Lack of environment/ armor diversity graphically

*60% lame MMO-style quests

*Lack of true exploration in the world

*Chaotic combat that ends up being AoE spams to death

*Unnecessarily long times to rank up crafting/ levels.

*Lack of playability with friends in PvE areas due to level differences.

So there is where my expectations lie on virtue of it being an MMO. They are low. So if this game manages to do better than I will be pleasantly surprised.

However, I wholly support Zenimax's direction. This is a day 1 buy for me, and I'm one of those chumps buying a Ps4 for right when this game comes out.

~~ Long story short. Deliver on the important things. If you happen to change the genre for the better than go for it, but for now just focus all efforts on the core gameplay experience because that is ultimately the one thing I will see through, and will be the single most important thing I evaluate for my 1 month trial. If graphics, etc are lacking I don't give a flying f

Really? Did you forgot weapon swing animations ? Staff animations? Casting animations? Movement and horse animations werent smooth but combat was.

It is all about degrees.

As far as smooth goes. the continuum is like this:

Morrowind < TESO < Oblivion < Skyrim

None are perfect, but some are better.

Not saying that none are better, but to say that ESO has bad animations, but the TES games don't is absurd. All the TES games have, not-so-good, animations and Skyrim is no exception.

I thought that Dark Souls was one of the worst games I have ever played at least on the PC, Never played it on the console. Controls were rubbish if using a mouse and keyboard since that was one of the worst port jobs ever. I expected something great since everyone was saying the game is uber epic, and that game felt anything but.

Dark Souls was a unique and fun game on console, but the developers fully admit their PC port was a total abomination and for that reason Dark Souls 2 is going PC lead to make up for it.

Ok

I'm still of the mind that the two largest problems (and likely game engine limitations) are:

1. A lack of physics - at least with regard to other actor integration. So what we have (instead of steal on steal combat that provides for real player skill) are characters that execute animations in proximity to one another and then (provided calcs work) there is an effect that feels a bit disconnected.

2. A lack of player skill in the use of character skills. The skill sets are divorced (imo) and lack synergy. To compensate for this the developers created a synergy system where some player skill results in character bonuses, but not actual synergy where player skill fits inside the glove of character skill - like in the TES solo titles.

If they had been able to create these two factors in the game - even if they got the balance wrong - even if it was not perfect - then that would be a game changer for the genre. Also that these two lacking qualities are part of what makes animation look so rickety.

But due to the lack of these things TES solo game players are bound to be disappointed (not all, but those who like those mechanics) and the consensus amongst this crowd is going to be 'WoW clone.'

Yes the developers admit bad port and it was not the most graceful in terms of player controls. It still wins in terms of character immersion and the feeling of affecting environment and being effected by environment.

[edited to fix typos]

I assumed that the game being still in Beta would have bad animations, but the animations of the release video that we just saw are TERRIBAD. They are so bad, that I think they are some of the worst MMO animations I have ever seen in a major game in the past 6 years at least.

Lol, ZOS needs to fire their entire Animation team and get new people. This is a mess at best, a fiasco at worse.

Which is really sad because the graphics look amazing. Its like taking the Mona Liza and hanging it in the bathroom. lol

Less hyperbole, more specifics? Cringe-inducing frame rate issues (in one shot) and physics comparisons to non-MMO's aside, I'm having trouble pinpointing the exact issues people are seeing.

...Except that "release trailer" is comprised of beta footage. Why are we acting like this is what we'll see at launch? We've seen drastic improvements over the last few months, there's nothing indicating we won't see further improvements over the next few.

Even if beta they cherry picked the best to show.

Yeah, we had do mod the game for PC and since i had to use MODS to even play the game i played it but i did not buy it.

But definently going to buy Dark souls 2, there alot of fun sp games coming ; DS2 , Watch Dogs , Dying Light , Mount and Blade 2 , etc