Review: The Elder Scrolls Online

Playing The Elder Scrolls Online this past week has evoked some nostalgia of my earliest MMO experiences, for better and for worse. Here’s a game that doesn’t hold your hand, forcing you to adapt to the world’s strict rules. By the end of the tutorial I felt like I knew next to nothing about the game. That uninviting nature would set the tone for an experience that would require a great sum of effort for little payoff.

TESO‘s personality is one that is much more in-line with MMOs we saw in the 90s than what we see today. Although that means it avoids the prejudice that many of today’s World of Warcraft style MMOs face, it also means we’re retreading old territory; and this territory was left in the past for good reason.

Heavily rooted in The Elder Scrolls universe, TESO is a game made first and foremost for fans of the franchise. The lore hasn’t been tampered with, preserving the fantasy atmosphere that has fostered a growing fanbase since the early 90s. Everything from the three factions to the world design has been constructed with the goal of presenting the TES universe in a digestible online form for its first time without compromising its roots.

As with any TES game, character creation is of utmost importance. The character creation in TESO is one of the best ever seen in an online game, allowing you to not only choose between ten races, three factions, and four classes, but there are dozens of options for designing how your character looks. However, if you want to play as an Imperial, or a race on the faction of your choice, you’re going to need to pay beyond the $59.99 fee that the game requires to play. This invasive pricing choice is downright disgusting, especially when you consider this will be some TES fans’ first MMO outing.

The world of TES has been brought to life in TESO. Familiar places such as Morrowind and Cyrodiil can be visited and are richly detailed. The pretty visuals further incentivize the exploration aspect of the game, which at times is rewarded by newly found quests and treasure chests. Character animations are a bit stiff, and spell effects could have been better. But really, the game looks stunning on higher settings. It also scales well in the event that you’re running on a low-end PC.

The questing format you’ve become familiar with in games such as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is omnipresent. There’s a distinct level of intrigue here that makes you want to find quests, venture into sub-stories, and solve the world’s problems. Sometimes that means helping out a little old lady by gathering materials for her, many times it means diving into a dungeon and facing foe after foe until you arrive at the end. These quests are rarely as interesting as their single-player TES counterparts, though; this isn’t an online version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim like you may be expecting. It’s more of a watered down version of it with the perk of being able to share the experience with others.

The quest design isn’t as fleshed out as it should be. Not only does the game hardly present enough quests for you to progress, it makes you find them in almost every circumstance. While that encourages exploration, it also leads to frustrating scenarios where you’re running around the map aimlessly trying to find a quest of your level. Also, sharing with others isn’t always a benefit. Many quests devolve into you running into a questing area and dispatching of enemies along with dozens of other players in the area. Consequently, much of the challenge is only present when you’re fortunate enough to not be in a popular area. It isn’t really until you jump into a group dungeon that the quests feel as intimate as they were in previous TES games.

Made worse, quest rewards are awful, granting you a preset item independent of your cass rather than offering you a selection as with just about every other MMO today. Seldom do you receive something useful, and even if you do it comes after a series of quests that only give you experience points once you complete the entire chain, and it usually isn’t very much. Consequently, leveling takes an inordinate amount of time. Reaching level 10 alone may take you more than 12 hours.

The open-ended character progression system will be your motivation for enduring the overbearing quest design. Although there are only six ability slots, one of which is reserved for your ultimate ability, there are tons of decisions to be made in terms of what abilities you bring with you to the battlefield. Not only are there three ability trees for each of the four classes, but there are abilities and passives that belong to your equipped weapon type, guild affiliation, race, and more.

At level 15 you can equip a sub-weapon allowing you to unlock a new skill bar mid-combat. This is when your addiction to finding skyshards hidden around the game world (which unlock skill points) and leveling up becomes an exciting affair. You can build your character in a variety of ways. Any experiment to build into a classic archetype like a thief or mage will lead to incompetence. You’re encouraged to dabble into everything. This disregard for conventional MMO playstyles is a breath of fresh air.

The action oriented battle system is successful in many ways. Dodging, interrupting attacks, and exposing weaknesses are rewarded with easier kills, and in many cases avoidance of death. Made more interesting, you can choose to play in first or third person; both work admirably. This is the first MMO in a long time where you can perceive the world through the eyes of your avatar without playing the game in a handicapped form.

Crafting is also well presented. Heading back town with a bag full of goodies exciting, even if only to find out whether or not you have enough materials to craft a new item. With tons of items to craft and a variety of functionalities ranging from item improvement to deconstruction of items for materials, crafting addicts will find a lot of their playtime taken up by crafting sessions.

And then there are the bugs. TESO is absolutely rich with them. Falling through the world, having your quest progress stunted, and rollbacks are just a few of the frustrating problems that face early adopters. This is not a polished MMO by any means. Loading times are plentiful and lengthy whether or not you have an SSD. Although the game’s first post-release patch has tackled some of the issues, many still remain. Don’t be surprised if you’re contacting customer support on a regular basis.

Despite its ups and downs, The Elder Scrolls Online certainly has an audience, albeit a small one. It’s a game made specifically for the most hardcore of The Elder Scrolls fans, the fans who listen to every word spoken in every conversation, and read books scattered around the game world. Those coming in expecting an entertaining new age MMO won’t find it here.

The problem is, this is the first multiplayer game in the franchise. Those expecting an online version of their favorite TES are likely to be disappointed, which may rub them the wrong way, whether it be because the questing isn’t as interesting, or because the $15/month subscription fee is a lot to ask. I haven’t said this before, but this is the first MMO that deserves to be buy to play with no subscription.

It’s hard to shake the feeling that this game should have been released years ago. It’s laudable that it attempts to differentiate itself from the norm with well executed action-based combat, an open-ended class system, and a more leveling oriented structure rather than one that makes leveling a hurdle for reaching endgame where the real game begins. However, the game’s feature set and design is archaic, and at times lends itself to a boring experience. It’s only those who truly derive entertainment from lore and NPC interaction that will appreciate their stay.