Posted 12 February 2014 - 04:44 AM
*cracks knuckles*
Alright, impressions. (Disclaimer: did not play as much as I should have. Though that perhaps speaks for itself...)
Pros:
1. First-person. Great to be playing an MMO in first-person for once.
2. Elder Scrolls. (See caveat below)
3. Uhm...?
Cons:
1. Caveat to point 2 above - it's not *really* Elder Scrolls. The lore violations and reimagining of some things makes it TES Lite, imo. I know, they've got a lot of leeway with some things, like the period, and so forth, but I'm never going to accept factions of Altmer/Bosmer/Khajiit(WTF?) and *especially* the Ebonheart Pact - that is pure blasphemy. Nords do not mix with Dunmer. Dunmer and Argonians could not be forced into an alliance if the entirety of Tamriel depended on it. The practice of Slavery in Morrowind ALONE is enough to make the Argonians hate the Dunmer, let alone the constant border wars, raids, etc. Anyway. That's the most egregious of their lore-breaking, but things also come across in the design of the game (most notably the Coldharbour 'Anchors' you can see in the trailers and so forth...needs more explaining, imo.
2. Clunky. Movement is smooth, but combat is not. First-person is great and all, but you're competing with the fact that lag is a factor in all MMOs, and making things that slow/awkward is unreasonable.
3. Power. I'm confused as to how my character escaped the starting zone. Apparently level 1 in this is more akin to level 10 or 15 in Morrowind, level 5 or so in Skyrim. Even so, still not sold on how easy it was (relatively speaking) to get out of opening sequence.
4. Skills. I know it's an MMO. But when there are only five character classes, and you've more or less hidden away or locked out/removed the individual skills that I'd like to be increasing for my character...not cool. This is one of those things I think I needed to play more with, but from my time with the beta, I couldn't really call this system very "Elder Scrolls". And it didn't seem very in-depth relative to certain other MMOs. That could be a beta thing, though.
5. VA. Was pretty poor. Most performances felt wooden/phoned in. At the very least, the opening sequence (even for the beta, imo) should probably have had more effort put into making the characters gripping, engaging, and the world immersive. I can accept the first couple of characters I met outside the opening being poor, but frankly the initial sequence should have grabbed me. It didn't. Not good if that main storyline is supposed to be engaging.
Conclusion: At this stage, I'd say it's probably worth the up-front $60 buy-to-play. PURELY because it's got the option of first-person perspective, and it's TES (sorta). It's not anywhere near $15US-per-month territory. Fuck, why pay out the nose for a subscription to this when Guild Wars does everything this does, better, for no sub? For the setting? (Psh, watered down, not engaging) For the first-person? (Sure, if you're the kind who has money to burn on a one-trick pony, I guess...)
In other words: it should be Buy-to-Play. Then I'd recommend it as an average MMO with some strong points of difference/interest. But as it stands, I can barely sell it as an average MMO. Not for hundreds of dollars PER YEAR to play. Stick to Skryim for your TES, play something else with a more reasonable pricing scheme (like GW2) for your MMO fix.
And there you have it, everyone. Don't think I've overstepped the NDA anywhere, either... >.>
***
Shinrei said:
<Vote Silencer> For not garnering any heat or any love for that matter. And I'm being serious here, it's like a mental block that is there, and you just keep forgetting it.