Holy crap! This is the first time in a very long time that I have come out of the beta with a negative opinion of the game I tested. The character creation stuff was interesting but mechanically that game is a mess. Definitely does not feel like an ES game which is what I thought they were making: multiplayer ES. They have done an interesting thing to curb any media getting out about the content however as the entire screen is watermarked with your account's email address. There was not enough Skooma in the world for me to have liked what I experienced.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think this indicates the exact product that will launch: obviously, this is an early private beta, but still it indicates how they are going with the game.

it has bad mechanics? and its an elder scrolls game? i am so very surprised

I was under the impression that all signs pointed to it being a bog-standard MMO, and therefore completely uninteresting. I take it the beta isn't changing that, then.

oh aren´t you one of the hip kids..

@sammo21: could we get some specifics?

Can't say I'm suprised by this. And to be brutally honest, it makes me glad in some twisted way. I'm not a fan of the direction bethesda has headed the last couple years. Oh well, I'll at least always have my Morrowind...

i killed dragons in 1.5 seconds at level 25 in skyrim on my first try. at level 34 i quit because the combat was tedious and boring and unrewarding no matter who i was fighting against. if they put as much effort into the combat as they did with the environments they could make a great game..

some examples of RPGs with great combat/character building mechanics: dark souls, neverwinter nights 1 and 2 (not the new free to play mcdonalds game), pokemon red and blue (and others)

I would post some pics and video but they watermark the shit with your email...seriously, like my email is on the screen in 30 places. Imagine if they made WOW play like Guild Wars, only without the real time dodging and abilities. That's kind of where its going. You have the standard intro (I won't go into specifics) that anyone who has played Morrowind, Oblivion, or Skyrim has experienced. You create your character but the 9 races are split into 3 different factions and then you choose your class. However, instead of being a sneaky rogue like character and having daggers and a bow you simply choose one weapon and then you're stuck with that until you loot something post-tutorial. They do seem to have weapon and skill progress like most other elder scrolls games but WoW originally had that for weapons as well...so nothing new there in an mmo.

The game also default to 3rd person view, which was weird at first.

@tarsier: You had me until you said Pokemon...which is essentially glorified paper, rocks, scissors.

Yup. This is a pretty run of the mill MMO in every way. Like almost all MMO's that promise innovation, it's just doing the same sort of grind experience. It doesn't not feel like an Elder Scrolls game, it feels like a standard one of these games with some Elder Scrolls affectations around the edges. Now that's not really bad if you like those games and just want another on of those games and like the races of Elder Scrolls enough. This might be just what you're looking for. I found the combat underwhelming and unsatisfying, and the enemy placement and encounter design to be really kind of a mess. Now that could be more my problem with the genre rather than this particular game. But after a few hours of playing the beta, I got incredibly bored and uninstalled it.

@sammo21: i'm still not understanding the problem, having one weapon until after tutorial doesn't sound like an issue at all, neither does crossing wow with guild wars unless it's broken in some way, are you sure you didn't just get out of the wrong side of the bed?

@ll_exile_ll: yeh that's pretty much the reason I don't play any mmo's at all anymore, but it's a given, and i wanted to hear more about stuff like how the party interaction works in dungeons and combat

I think what they're doing sounds interesting. What has me worried is that they started out making a completely other game than they are now intent on delivering. It was far more classical MMO to begin with mechanically, and later they were pretty much forced to twist it into something much more Elder Scrolls-y, adding proper first person perspective gameplay to it, and all that that entails.

From what little I've seen of it in leaked footage, this circumstance is apparent. In first person it looks like a Elder Scrolls game being technically bogged down by its MMO-foundation. To be frank, they'd have had to go back to rebuilding the whole engine to really suit what they're now doing, rather than just slap one thing on the other.

I've a passing interest in ES:O, and if word of mouth is halfway decent, I'll give it a go on PS4 - because I really want to try out a MMO built for the gamepad from the ground up. Or I could just try out DC Universe Online for free.

Kinda disappointing.

Never been able to get into MMO's and didn't really like Oblivion and Skyrim as much as others (liked Morrowind though), but I'd lie if I said the idea of playing an Elder Scroll game with a friend or two wasn't interesting.

Also, Pokemon totally has a lot of depth. The metagame/competitive scene is absolutely crazy.

Uh anyone who says it doesn't play like an elder scrolls game needs to stop, you are wrong. You have right click to block, you hold the left mouse button to do a "power" attack, you DO have a dodge you just have to double tap in a direction, the combat actually plays better in first person, control to sneak, shift to sprint, you can search a ton of random crates even if most are empty, there is also no target lock you attack whatever you are looking at, but yes also you have 1- whatever for special abilities. Another thing is you pick a class at character creation... but at least at low level your class choice seems fairly meaningless. Anyone can wear any gear and learn skills with any weapon and use any weapon configuration. Long term your class choice may matter but it certainly doesn't make a big difference sub level 10 unless you are ignoring all other skill trees. Even still every class even has 3 skill lines to itself.

Is it a little janky? Yes. Is it Skyrim? No. But does it play like WoW? No, not at all in fact. Elder scrolls combat was never pushing the bar, ESO doesn't either. That said it definitely "feels" like an elder scrolls game and looks like a graphically weaker Skyrim. If you run into a dwarven ruin, it looks like a dwarven ruin, you run into a daedric shrine it looks like a daedric shrine, and skyrim well... looks like Skyrim. You look for a minimap... there isn't one. But you do have a compass with quest markers and important locations on it.

Everyone has their own opinion but after having hundreds of hours of time in the ES universe across many platforms I can say this did not feel like an ES games. There are ES trapping, yes, but it did not feel or play like an Elder Scrolls game. The enemies act like cliche, terrible AI mmo enemies. The combat doesn't feel like ES in pacing...saying it felt like GW2 wouldn't be fair as that was far less loose in terms of actions and abilities. I didn't think it felt like ES jank but generic mmo jank. The game still won't be out for another 4-6 months but the direction the game is taking makes me not want to play this. Does the look like ES, mostly...given the graphics are apparently only 50% of what the final version will look like (I hope to God).

I might play this if there is no subscription every month...if there is, my God...no.

Damn, was holding a little hope it would be good as I loved Skyrim but this looks to be another disappointing MMO

@nightriff: Eh, don't just take my word for it. There will be a public beta where most everyone can try it. I am just one voice of millions of gamers who will more than likely play this thing at some point. I personally just expected more than this and what I assumed would be a better product and ES experience.

I'm glad the whole "seeing my email watermarked on the screen" isn't a bug, because I had no clue what was going on. I didn't even get out of the tutorial dungeon before I was disconnected from the game, so I can't really give an opinion on it.

The graphics look just as good now as most non beta mmo's, and they are going to get better. This isn't even my first beta phase and I can tell you they are already better than they were just a few months ago.

Here is a news flash people.... This is not Elder Scrolls 6. It is an mmo in the Elder Scrolls universe of Tamriel pulling as much influence, look, and design as it possibly can from Elder Scrolls while also being an MMO. If you wanted Skyrim, only online, it is never going to happen. If you hate mmo's, go figure, you will hate this game.

To be fair when they first announced it, it was very clearly NOT a traditional ES game. They have since made it at least look like one but as you said, they are mechanically very different

*COUGH* Closed Beta *COUGH* NDA applies *COUGH*

@butano: GB mods have expressed that they have no interest in enforcing NDAs for betas and I think that's a good call.

Oh ok. I guess just be careful you don't use the same username here as you do on ESO. For as public as Zenimax has been about sending more invites out, the NDA was kind of a surprise to read when I got in.

Can you answer some of these questions about the game mechanics:

• Do you have to stop combat every time you want to switch spells?
• Does turning into a werewolf get you stuck in hallways?
• Does leveling your non-combat skills make the enemies way stronger than you?
• Is the inventory a long list of names sorted alphabetically that you have to scroll through every time you want to use a potion?
• Do the shouts bug up half the time and not work?
• Does your wife disappear from the world after you marry her?
• Do certain items weigh so much that just having them and your armor prevents you from carrying anything else?
• Do you have to spend all your perk points on the boring combat upgrades and have none left over for the actually interesting perks if you want to have maxed out combat stats?
• Does the vampire form do negligible damage?
• Do you have to cast a high-mana-cost spell on an enemy right before you kill them every time you want to drain their soul?
• Are thief skills ever useful for the non-thief quests?
• Does adopting a child do nothing?
• Is armorsmithing the most powerful skill in the game by far?
• Does alchemy require looking up a list of the best potion ingredient combinations for any reasonable rate of exp?
• Is lockpicking a single minigame you have to play thousands of times?
• Is magic resist the most important stat on your combat equipment by leaps and bounds?
• Is the world large and empty?

Thanks in advance, I want to make sure they've fixed the bugs the last game had.

You guys do realize CLOSED beta means you can't talk about it right?

As long as your GB name isnt the same as your ESO name you are fine to say whatever from what i understand

Maybe breaking an NDA won't get a thread closed here, but that doesn't mean it's not shitty and disrespectful to break it.

The devs allow us to play their game early completely for free, so that we can have fun playing, but also hopefully let them stress test and maybe even tweak a few systems and crush a few bugs before release. It's a wonderfully generous thing, and it works entirely on the honor system.

So when someone breaks the policy that they explicitly agreed to, they're just being a dick. Maybe GB's "don't be a jerk" rule applies?

Maybe stop playing on Adept difficulty.

I've skipped all my interest on this and have turned all hopes and attention to Fallout 4's inevitable announcement.

I played on a friend's account, so I can talk haha.

It felt like a normal MMO with nice graphics and "direct" combat. They pitched it as action based combat, but its really not completely skill based. I saw enemy arrows arcing to hit me like in WoW, so they don't take direct paths or follow physical parabolas like they would in real life. There seems to be some homing to them. Traditional ES combat uses body-part based damage, such as a head shot is more damaging than a shot in the arm, but that doesn't seem to matter in ESO. The hit boxes are huge on enemies as well. I played an archer and aimed to completely miss the enemy but it still registered as a hit.

I'm done with games that require you to hit very specific flags within the environment to progress. An example is that I had to talk to a dude who would tell me how to find a way out of the prison. I explored the area before talking to him and found the way out, but of course I couldn't interact with it. I talked to the dude and he "told" me where the exit was and THEN I could open the passage. Super arbitrary. That stuff needs to die. If I find the way out then the game should skip past having to find the dude to tell me about the place I already found.

Stuff like that makes me not want to play it.

I've been playing these MMOs since Ultima Online and am completely done I think. Obviously a TON of work goes into them. The art is very well done and the engine is probably the best I've seen in an MMO, but when they create an entire clockwork room with HD textures, amazing animations, and great lighting for me to run up to a "crystal" and push E to start a cutscene makes it completely pointless. I'm hoping Destiny does something different and interesting.

Actually, closed/open beta just refers to how they're letting people play it (either inviting a specific number of people or letting anyone who wants to download and play it).

Talking about it or not would be covered by an NDA, but, come on, I'm sure googling could find you pages of other people on other websites giving their impressions too. If Bethesda truly didn't want impressions about something out on the internet then it wouldn't be in the beta to begin with.

I dont think it plays at all like an ES game. Sure they looked at the art assets of Skyrim alot when making this game, but... its just not there.

Could not have been more bored with my time with it

I saw some recent gameplay footage of the "first-person" camera. It was terrible. Looked like a shoddy mod, with the bow and arrow not even aiming where the arrows were going. Here's hoping they tighten everything up before release.

@ajamafalous: Except on the front page banner of their beta forum....

"Remember you are under NDA and may not discuss any details of the closed beta publicly!"

Again, I don't mind if they talk about it(I won't due to me using this username for their game), but just making sure they're aware of their actions. If they use a totally different account that won't trace them back here, then I would say that they're in the clear.

Basically, rules of Fight Club apply.

Il reserver judgement for when i play it myself. If there's one thing you can count on with MMO's its that there will be forum threads with either an extreme dislike for the game or an extreme love for it. But i loved every elder scrolls game i've played so far so im willing to give them a shot.

I really wish branding wasn't so common place to make people think things that aren't actually true. "Bethesda" is working on this game but not the Bethesda that worked on Oblivion, Fallout 3, Skyrim. That Bethesda is Todd Howards team, that has no interest in doing an MMO. But being that Bethesda is rather large and ZeniMax wanted them to go out and try to soak up some of the perceived "MMO Money" another team began working on Elder Scrolls Online.

I couldn't speak about the quality, but at the end of the day it isn't the main team working on it. So I take that personally at face value. If it sucks, it isn't like the main teams track record is tarnished. Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skryim I all found fantastic. When Fallout 4 gets announced in a few years as it likely will, with the main team doing it...I'll actually get excited again.

@ajamafalous: Im pretty sure watermarking all of your screenshots with your email address means they are totally cool with us sharing shit right? Im not about to try to tell everyone what to do but all things considered I think its a jerk move and they technically do have the ability to take legal recourse against anyone breaking it. So like have at it I guess if you want.

It was never intended to be anything like the other Elder Scrolls games. If that's your expectation, then prepared to be horribly disappointed. That said, I had no real expectations of it and it still isn't great.

I'm pretty sure the watermark is more for them knowing who is leaking information.

@joshwent: We've always taken the position that we aren't here to enforce third party NDA's. It's a completely individual responsibility to adhere to agreements like that, but we are available to copyright holders and their representatives if they want to go through the proper channels and request that certain material be removed from the site. It does happen, albeit rarely.

While making threads to disseminate information like this may be ill-advised, I don't see it as breaking our jerk rule, the spirit of which is more intended to be applied to interactions between individuals than anything else.

So, in short: Giant Bomb generally isn't aware of any NDA's or their content, isn't a party to them, and can not be held responsible for enforcing them.

Too much MMO without enough TES.

That pretty much sums it up for me.

ya no, i was playing on the setting above normal, at around level 30 i turned it to the highest difficulty and that just made it so the enemies did the same amount of damage to me, so every encounter was a 1 hit kill thing on either side.. just bad.

Don't break NDA's man, it's not cool. Also that email address watermarking thing has become kind of standard practice with MMO beta as of late. Wildstar did something similar.

are there mudcrab

If one signed or agreed to not discuss a game, discussing it on an open forum is not a good idea. I don't think there is anything the GB moderation team should do about either since as long as it stays in the rules.

As for the game itself people were worried about this awhile ago. Basically what many people wanted was just "Skyrim with friends" but going MMO isn't that at all.

TES combat isnt great but a first person MMO woulda been a novel idea, so good on them avoiding the one thing that would set this pile apart. Cus people have to look at their wow derivative armor loot or whatever, so dont even offer a first person mode smart thinkin

it totally has 1st person...it's just not very fun..