I was all pumped for this game but after E3 and all the opinions out there.... eh.

http://www.gamefly.com/news/article/213091/editorial-the-elder-scrolls-online-disappointing/


The above quote is what a lot of people are saying, it's not taking risks and that's a surprise since it's been in the works for 5 years now. I'll have to see for myself before I can make assumptions but I am getting worried, as the title says. What do you guys think?

"Not taking risks" could mean many things. Is it that they're focusing a huge deal on it so as to make it distinct and different from the WoW-clone rut many other games are stuck in? Or does it mean that a WoW clone is the safest route?

At the moment, it sounds like all of combat is still in a pre-alpha stage that is indeterminate.


... This post was rather fitting for my sphere.

I think you'd be better off taking in ALL the info and forming your own opinions.

Also I think you should have posted this in one of the numerous threads that already exist that say the same exact thing.

i have no worries at all, i know zenimax will do a great job on the game.

You're hardly alone in your trepidation, you and most of the rest of the internet. Just look at any article on ESO, even the positive or neutral ones, and the comments are filled to the brim with negativity and hate. Not to say it isn't deserving, or its too early. It will take a lot to turn that around.

It seems way too easy for people to nit pick now adays and just lable things as "terrible" just from a glimpse. Focus on what the possibilities are: multiplayer elder scrolls game. It's what ES fans have wanted for a long time. This might not be perfect but I think they're heading in a good direction.

most people on the internet are negative nancys anyhow. its easy to bash and hate on [censored].

instead of looking at it like these devs are working hard to bring alot of people (like myself) what they want , an elder scrolls MMO.

So i will not hate on them, i will support them and be there on day one, after that its there job to keep me paying. but to judge a game based on nothing but screen shots and call it a wow clone is foolish.

All you have to do is look at other recent game announcements and reviews. The negativity surround TESO is unprecedented. We haven't seen outcry like this since SWG's NGE/CU.

Even SWTOR had mostly positive outlook before release. There will always be detractors but there has been nothing like this. Negative impressions pretty much across the board? From journalists and reviewers big and small alike? Even GI has trouble defending them.

They can't not listen and if they don't they are just putting a blindfold on and their heads in the sand. If you want to join them be my guest, but I'm not about to stand by and be so naive.

It could be argued that the TES fanbase is in a lot of ways a lot more hardcoe than other game fanbases. At least, our hardcoe ones are really hardcoe, and thus very outspoken, both in the subjects of lore and gameplay.

Idk man now you're competing with Star Wars fans, Warcraft fans, not sure you can call us that much more hardcoe. Sure, we have our fanatics but if you look at fanaticism in those other fan-bases it goes far beyond what we see in TES. Never seen any TES conventions where people dress up as their favorite races or characters (not that I wouldn't be among them).

The fact is that a lot of the fans want what we thought would be a no-brainer when it comes to an MMO version of the single-player game we love. It isn't that they are changing it that's the problem. It's that it is being taken several steps backwards from what we love about the single-player experience. They can feel free to ignore that all they want, but it's only gonna bite them in the end.

Most MMO releases, and hell even currently DiabloIII are usually far worse

If the game is good on release, none of this will really matter.

Diablo 3 was highly anticipated by both press and fans, they were by and large looking forward to it ardently. It is only taking flak now because, upon release there were game-breaking problems.

Find me a preview article that was published from a major to mid-level game journalism site before D3 was released that was as negative as the one above and we'll talk.

Most AAA MMO release announcements either carry indifference or mild curiosity from the player-base. One with a built-in fan-base usually tracks fairly positive, at least from them.

As I said, this is unprecedented. Outside of this forum, things are not looking good.

I dont understand why they even compare this to Star Wars, its so dead beaten horse, IMHO its so big joke LA could use it in porm-industry, "Oh Vader, Im your father, show it to me" ES is again finally a popular IP among gamers, thats what matters. If you dont know ES you've lived under the rock its that simple. Skyrim's popularity wasnt surprise really. Another useless article.

so were over the "it svcks" and are now going to be defensive of it? i still say its gonna svck if they stick to the route they are going now. As it stands i think this first impression was actually quite reasonable..

I don't think anyone will be over the fact that "it svcks" until it stops svcking.

Come on now... random internet article comments are the armpit of all humanity and you know it. You might as well try to take any serious meaning from YouTube comments ffs.

How would you prefer to guage the current audience reaction then? How about all the negative articles from major gaming networks detailing their disappointment?

Who do you think will be playing this if not the same people who are commenting on it, ghosts?

Reymas is right. It's not just the commenters but the journalists themselves. Kotaku even listed TESO as one of the most disappointing parts of E3. The only place you will reliably find positive comments about the game is here on these forums. Go figure - of course you'll find supporters of the game here. What's really telling though, is that you're hard pressed to find supportive comments anywhere else.

And come now, comparing comments on gaming websites to youtube is not even remotely sensible. That's not helping things. Surely you want to be a sensible supporter of the game, and not come across as a zealot.

The current audience is far too wide and dispersed at this point to really get any kind of accurate pulse. Even when the game is released, and there is an official forum, only a very small percentage of a game's playerbase actually takes part in the forum community.

I'm not saying that ESO doesn't have some hurdles to overcome, I'm just saying that we have, at best, a handful of personal opinions of individual people --gamers, just like you and me-- who just happen to be employed by gaming websites. Those reviews (of a game in alpha stages) should be taken with a grain of salt. It's too early to make any real judgments. Good or bad.

Theres going to be negative/positive articles/reviews.

Btw, good positive one from E3.

http://www.rpgamer.com/news/Q2-2012/061112d.html

At the branching point in the quest, the player was given the choice of either helping the quest-giver by killing the werewolf or helping the werewolf by kidnapping the quest-giver. In the game, one of two different follow-up quests will be available to the player upon the quest's completion, dependent on the route the player chooses. If the player kills the werewolf then the player will be approached by a relative of one of the ghosts, but if the player kidnaps the quest-giver then they will meet a character associated with the werewolf.

Think people are going to love choices. TESO scores! Hopefully theres more of them and all sort ones. They definitely get more out of it because they removed quest-hubs. Loving it.

I hardly think I can be called a zealot. I'm not advocating or bashing the game. I'm advocating patience and good sense in judging a game we know far too little about. But you can't honestly tell me that you can get anything worthwhile on article comments. As if they're representative of anything at all. I hardly need to point out that people are more apt to complain than compliment. That's amplified about a bagillion times here on the interwebz.

Those gaming websites are taking a big risk by voicing their negativity like that.
I thought negative previews/reviews on games with big publishers meant no more exclusives/early hands-ons/gifts and whatnot.
Or does that only apply to low scores?

It rarely happens at all. If you make a bad game, you expect to be told about it. If you punish critics for voicing an opinion that you don't agree with by blacklisting them, that generates a lot of bad publicity. Activision tried to do something similar to a French site, GameBlog, when they announced that Amazon France had leaked a posting for Black Ops 2 back in February. Acti demanded that GameBlog pull their story - GameBlog refused, since it's a gaming news site - and Acti blacklisted them and retracted their invitation to an upcoming press event. What does that say about Activision? Trying to censor news articles?

Gaming blogs report opinions as much as they report unbiased news. The comments sections allow other gamers to express their own opinions. So far, the opinions of TESO are pretty much "Oh look, another MMO that looks identical to everything else we've played in this genre." It's up to Zenimax to prove us all otherwise. E3 was their big chance for that, but it seems the gameplay that was shown only reinforced the standing opinions.

i have a good feeling we will be able to keep this game alive, the elder scrolls is a video game franchise unlike Star Wars

Also, unlike Star Wars, Tamriel is only one continent on one planet.