As I promised, here is my report from what I witnessed behind-closed-doors at E3 (having both media and exhibitor badges paid off like gangbusters). Incidentally, I'm not reporting this anywhere else so this is exclusive to this forum.

The videos online have shown quite a bit of the fly-throughs, but none of the combat demo. A lot of this will be editorialized impressions since most everyone has by now read the facts.

Here goes.

ENVIRONMENTS:

The environments were actually very nice. They were not as cartoony as one might expect and there were a lot of subtle details that were pretty thrilling. Things look more-or-less to scale. Morrowind looked very nice, as did Skyrim (some of the detail in Skyrim was breath-taking) and Hammerfell in particular were a treat to see (always been my favorite province). Daggerfall looks pretty generic sadly. Some of the buildings in towns had a touch of the over-sized WoW-like style but not to a point where it was distracting. For the most part the world looked very good and it surprised me how much detail there was. It didn't look as impressive as Guild Wars 2 or Copernicus (RIP), and the landscape and structures were much more subtle and realistic.

Some of the LODs and fog shaders look buggy and unfinished but they have time to polish that up for launch.

CHARACTERS:

This is where it started to fall apart for me. It wasn't the cartoony, disproportionate nature of the characters that irked me, but moreover that they looked very out-of-place in an otherwise good-looking world. They didn't seem to fit and that is a problem in any game regardless of art-style. They weren't cell-shaded, but it was almost as if they were and the environment was not, that's how much they stood out, and in a very bad, distracting way.

The Khajiit and Argonian designs are a joke. You guys have seen pictures and stills but in motion they are even worse. Armor is also not looking good, both stylistically and quality-wise. There are some familiar designs but they seem very bubble-gummed up. Also all the armor and clothing has the same spec-mapping and shaders, but that could be because of the pre-alpha status.

ANIMATIONS:

Animations look off for some of the character models. Some are very smooth and some are very clunky, but that is forgivable at this stage. If the clunky ones catch up to the smooth ones by release it will be passable, although the run/walk animations seem like they are not tailored to the individual character skeletons yet. No major glitches, just no proper inertia and weight distribution: looks floaty and unconnected to the world.

COMBAT:

...is a mess. The main problem is that they're trying to toe the line between action and cool-down combat. They have basically the same system as GW2 but without any weight or connectivity to the character. It was the least impressive part by far. Also, the interface needs work. The one thing I did like was that your health, stamina and mana disappear when you're not using them like Skyrim. However, the lack of interface feedback was a problem and made it seem really messy. Maybe it's better when you're actually playing it but as it was them toeing that line was a major issue. They either need to go full-on WoW-like feedback, or go full-on Skyrim. The in-between is not working for them.

Incidentally, there was another MMO at the show, Neverwinter which was almost identical combat-wise except Neverwinter was more action-oriented and hits/blocks/dodges actually connected, unlike ESO. Also, you do not seem to have to aim your shots in ESO, if you are targeting someone and in range, you will hit.

Still, this is the main issue that makes it not feel like Elder Scrolls. And the indication is you will be doing a lot of combat.

We saw the class-combining and the fireball whirlwind...it was...dumb-looking, that's all I can say about it. It honestly looks like more trouble than its worth.

The real problem combat-wise is the similarity to GW2, Neverwinter and several other big MMOs on the horizon. It isn't straight WoW. But it has nothing in common with Elder Scrolls either and it is definitely not enough to stand out in such a crowded market.

Edit: Finesse system, totally forgot about this. We didn't get much into it, except your skill with it might yield better loot rewards (which I personally find pretty silly) but the closest thing I can think of to compare it to is the combat in the first Witcher game, where if you time your moves properly, you build up power/finesse and that carries over from enemy to enemy. Another thing to compare it to would be a rhythm game like, Guitar Hero I guess, but of course MUCH more subtle.

QUESTING:

We didn't see the player talk to anyone to get a quest. Instead they simply entered an area and the quest appeared on-screen to them. It was automatic. The player wasn't grouped with the other players doing the quest either, but they all seemed to get credit. It was much like a small-scale version of the public quests in Warhammer Online, except inside a public dungeon.

They did then do a time-traveling quest fighting a werewolf lord. It was a little confusing and very very silly. Quest-givers had a glow around them, and there was at least one fetch quest. The only cool part was the choice to kill the werewolf or save a woman. Not sure what repercussions this will have but it was definitely not something you see every day in an MMO. I wonder how many quests will have these kinds of choices.

CLASSES:

Not really enough info to go on but they did talk about wanting classes to not be restrictive and that pretty much any class should be able to fill any or most roles. Sounds to me a lot like TOR's class system but again, not enough info to make any real conclusions about.

CONCLUSION:

If they polish the graphical elements on the character side and redesign some of the character models, then pick a direction for there combat and separate races from factions, things could work out for them. This won't be a WoW-killer, and will probably play second-fiddle to GW2, not unless they make a really bold move with their combat and immersion (although neither of those are really the focus for them). Nothing blew me away and the fact that they didn't win any Game-of-the-Show awards is indicative that the critical reception was luke-warm at best. I spoke to several journalists about it and that was the impression we all got: Meh. Even as one of the biggest Elder Scrolls fans this just did not get me that excited. It was not terrible, although one could say that about some of their design decisions, but it wasn't anything special by any means.

If all you need is the Elder Scrolls lore to enjoy this then more power to you, but if you're looking for the TES feel and/or gameplay, it is all but entirely absent.

Feel free to ask any questions.

Well that review was honestly a bit of a downer for me. Hopefully as we get closer to launch the game will become more polished and more focused. I can't really make any decisive decision on it until I get to beta test it myself. This "meh" feeling does seem to be rather universal from the various journalists that have described their first impressions of ESO. Hopefully that will change as ZOS further develops the game and shows us more.

Not disputing what you said compared to what I saw, but what animations looked poorly? My only major issue so far is the same as one you brought up. It reminds me of something like the characters of Dragonball Z, being cell shaded, fighting on a map that is photorealistic. It comes off looking... supremely odd. The combat and the UI seemed just fine to me.

My sentiments exactly. Kinda disappointing, but there's plenty of time for improvement! I'd rather wait another year and have those issues polished, than see the fan base die off after three months...that's no fun Post-beta impressions will be more clear cut, I think. My biggest issue with what you said was the "lack of connection" in combat. There needs to be a solid reflection of people's actions, otherwise it's just like little kids playing bumble-bee soccer. Two swords swinging at each other -no one blocking- should connect in most situations, causing a 'stunned' effect on both people. Physics in general are really important to a game...mechanics are key.

If they fixed this, I could live with mickey mouse vs. popeye over a da vinci background, so to speak.

Well, not much we can talk about. I think most people agree that, from what they saw, the environments look great while the characters are somewhat out of place.
We can't really say anything about combat as we didn't see any of it. Maybe you could go into a bit more detail there? What is cooling down, what parts are more action-oriented?
However, playing something and watching somebody play can give very different impressions.

/edit: Also, is there a public demo of Neverwinter's combat? Aftter STO I'm not really interested in another Cryptic shovelware, but I'd like to give it a look now.

Did you get to see the full demo at E3 as well? If so, what were your impressions?

Makes you wonder what Zenimax Online has been doing for the past 5 years...

This actually really impressed me in Neverwinter: when I got hit while blocking, my character reacted and it wasn't delayed, which was awesome. Didn't see that much in the ESO combat, but again Neverwinter seems much further along in development than ESO.

@Varking: Yeah, it was, in a way "fine" but that's kinda my problem with it. It's TES, it should be (imho) brain-smashingly amazing (like Skyrim was for me). Oh well. Still hoping they NGE/CU it.

As for animations, I thought the basic movements looked wonky on some characters and there was visible chop between a lot of the attack anims (no smooth transition).


Surely, more detail, it wasn't easy to always tell what was going (without getting hands on you can't be 100% as you said) on but there were fast little cool-downs on the abilities. It seemed like the basic attack did not have a cool-down and it didn't look like there was an auto-attack (similar to TOR). Also, to do your power abilities, you had to build up a meter and then expend the energy to perform the action (identical to Neverwinter in this regard).

Here's some game-play from Neverwinter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQK_V8GYeow - closer to ESO than GW2, but a bit more fluid. The rogue's run animation is...awful however. Neverwinter does not seem to have class combo moves though, so there's give and take.

The one thing Cryptic are "trying" to do with NW which sounded really exciting was the Foundry, which is basically their user-created module system, just like making modules for NeverWinter Nights but for an MMO. If they can pull that off and not just rely on that for all their content that will add a lot to the game. Other than that though, Neverwinter was not really spectacular either, just more polished.


Honestly I don't think its so much about time and/or resource investment but rather about purpose and vision. They are just not forward-thinking developers and I'm sure that even if they wanted to, convincing Zenimax to actually let them innovate would be a lot harder than just doing what they know how to do: make DAOC 2 with TES branding.

They still have time to fix and polish things up in the game. If it still comes out not impressive, then it would be like a side game like Red Guard (if they do release it).TESO is going to fail or be good?, only the fans will make that choice when it comes out. I just happy for Dawnguard and that im able to have combat mounts now in skyrim I hope they will have new books in dawnguard so i can read up some more Lore

Thanks for the link!

Star Trek Online already uses Cryptic's Foundry (although NW's is probably a more advanced version). Although quite buggy, it is indeed a nice tool to create quest content (I made some myself). The problem however is that there's is little to no incentive to actually play that content. Cryptic naturally doesn't want to let players decide what rewards you get by doing their quests, so ... you don't get any. And yet it's still abusable for all kinds of reasons. For example, there is a daily quest for which you need to play 3 user-generated missions. The fastest way to do this is to chose a quest where you just have to push a button to complete it.
So, user-generated content in an MMO is a nice idea in theory, and the technology isn't that bad, but Cryptic hasn't found a way yet to turn it into a meaningful part of their games. I hope for them that they can pull if off in NW.

As for TESO, I think they still have a lot of time to polish their game. I hope the official forums go up soon so they can consider some of our feedback along the way.

Ah yes, I never played much of STO but I do remember something like that. Toward the end, SWG also had a user-created content system (I think it was simply the "storyteller" system). You would rack up points from making quests and completing user-generated quests that could be used for...something. Never did it myself so never found out what it was all for. Hopefully they have learned from the exploitable STO stuff and it won't be so generic and will have a reward system tied to it. As flawed as it is, it definitely is a unique and innovative attempt at a seemingly "impossible" feature for an MMO, so that wins them points with me.

Well, we are about a year from maybe beta release, so many things can change.
And lot of things depends of the eye who beholds them.
I hope we can see the video too, so we can make our own opinions of it.
Nonetheless, thank you for your report! For me, it adds just more expectation.

Somehow I totally missed talking about the finesse system. It was a long week and between the show floor and the parties I barely slept a wink. Added some details to the bottom the combat section.

Having seen some Neverwinter gameplay, I'd hoped TESO would be similar - or even a bit smoother, owing to their larger budget. Alas if it's less collision-based/real time than that.

Edit: also, if it's not auto-attack, does that mean it's left mouse to swing or do you tap/hold a hot key even for your 'regular' attack? I know you watched a demo rather than played, but just in case you found it out...

TES series has never let me down and always surpassed its predecessor. This will be the hugest of the series for them if done right and Im sure they know that. Its really early on still a ways off from Beta so for all the true fans my best advice is to just trust that things will work out and they will make one hell of a game.

The system you are referring to in SWG was actually the Chronicle system. Storyteller was a separate mechanic meant to replace live events, as the live events manager was moved from the SWG team to Free Realms. Regardless, Chronicle was honestly a bad gimmick that gave players limited capabilities of creating their own content so the developers didn't have to create any new content of their own.

I think the main reason that ZOS probably hasn't shown combat to the public yet is because it is not to a point where they want it to be. Right now I think they are essentially showing the foundation of how everything will work, so nothing seems really spectacular. Of course this could just be me rationalizing in hopes that the game will improve, but who really knows.

Overall I think the game has a lot of potential and a lot of the features ZOS is placing into the game could really improve on the current MMO model and make for a very fun and enjoyable game. We will just have to see how ZOS prioritizes their time and what they see as most important for having ready for launch.

Sorry, Reymas, but I have too much trouble taking the credibility of this review seriously. You've tipped your hand too often as to your personal feelings on ESO, and this review drips of heavy bias and arbitrary comparisons. You've gone out of your way to show your disappointment that ESO is not enough like 1) WoW and 2) Skyrim.

That's not to say that I view the game through rose colored glasses. I'm sure it's in dire need of polish and tweaking. But I just can't take your review seriously. Nothing personal, honestly.

The combat system: You've often referred to Guild Wars 2 as an example and I would like to point out that for a recent beta weekend one major update that Arena Net made was improved physicality in combat. GW2 is obviously further along in development but they're still improving combat. By ZOS not showing the combat that much and that the game is so far off leads me to strongly believe that the combat you saw was not indicative of what will be in the final product and that ZOS has a lot of time to improve feedback like ArenaNet has.

Bring it to xbox!

Well all I can really say is of course it is unimpressive at this stage. I think they spent the vast majority of their time making Tamriel's Worldspace(which looks beautiful) and making new Lore/content and fitting it into the game. Tamriel should be HUGE. Thanks for the info though Reymas.

One question though.

I know this has likely been answered already but I want a straight up answer on this. Is it 100% confirmed(at this point) that there is no way for an Ebonheart Dunmer to go to the Summerset Isles? In other words, can you only explore in your own faction territory and never set foot in the other faction's territory?

Everyone's already brought up the rest, but I'd like to point out that High Rock probably should look generic - it's the "medieval Western Europe" province, after all. I'd be disappointed if they made it too unique, actually. (Now, if they were to de-genericise Cyrodiil and make the Niben valley a tropical forest again, but I'm not holding my breath)

Thanks for your E3 report.

I agree with the environments. They do look beautiful indeed. Glad to see that it actually is very good.

Agree that much work need to be done for the characters, especially after showing us the fat orc and "horse legged soldier".
Armor designs and the overall feel just feels like Rift to me.

I had sort of expected the combat will be a mess, after hearing how they bragged about it in the GI vids. If it sounded too good to be true, it probably is.
LOL we should've expected combat to be a mess from the team that already said "Player Housing is Technically Feasible".
Not able to do Player Housing but able to deliver a solid combat experience? Feh~

Probably too late to salvage it now since release is only 1 year away. At best they'll probably
scrap what they initially planned and just make the combat feel like how its handled in Rift.

Unless someone else has eyewitness experience to ESO and has a different opinion,
his view is probably the most REAL among anything published on the net right now.

You want a Professional game reviewer's view?
Here's Gamespot Kevin Van'ord's view of ESO. Generally negative.
http://asia.gamespot.com/features/the-elder-scrolls-online-keeping-it-familiar-6381313/?part=rss&subj=6381313

Personally, I try to ignore individual impressions, because I gain nothing if somebody else is "impressed". Taking the quest system as an example, it's exactly like in the single player RPGs, and people would be upset if it was any other way. Yet the guys from gamespot tell me they are underwhelmed because it isn't a revelation ... well, what am I supposed to take from that? I don't give a humping horker about their feelings or expectations, I have my own, thanks but no thanks. What I care about are the facts so I can form my own opinion.

I just hope they work on the combat and characters before launch, cause honestly those are the only things that might bother me...