[REVIEW] Elder Scrolls Online (Second Thoughts)

Okay so yesterday night I wrote a semi-scathing “review” of the early access for The Elder Scrolls Online, and since then a few things have happened.

I’ll start by talking a little about my day. I got up at 9:45 (It’s spring break so I don’t have to get up early) and went straight into town. Why? Because I had to pick up my pre-ordered Elder Scrolls Online Imperial Edition of course! I especially wanted to go early because the GAME store nearest to me had over-sold it’s pre-orders of ESO Imperial Edition, so the last people in there would get the spares… I didn’t want a spare: they always get used for display or for the staff to mess about with, and almost always aren’t in fantastic condition. I must have been one of the first in that day, arriving at approx 10:15, since they were just bringing down the pre-ordered ESO’s and Imperial Editions.

When I saw how big the box was I wanted to squeal, it was bigger than I thought, and the sexy plastic sleeve made it look like I was buying a high end laptop; not some fan-boy game. I had a nice chat with the staff (who always seem more cheerful the more money you spend), talking about what the game was like since they hadn’t played it yet and were asking, I was happy to inform.

I raced home impatiently, and you can probably guess the first thing I did. Yeah, that’s right. I opened the box. Carefully removing the stickers so as to not rip off any of the paint, I opened the box and again nearly squealed when I saw the Molag Bal statue inside, and the gorgeous steelbook game case. Suddenly I remembered why I’d spent this much money on a game and a few unnecessary additions. I was a little let down to discover the statue was plastic, since it looked metal from pictures I’d seen. My disappointment was short lived when I removed the game and statue to reveal the “Guide to Tamriel” book underneath. I have four words to describe what I saw: full on leather-bound.

The book was so sexy and authentic and leather and luxury, I took a look around me at all my new goodies and just wanted to swim in it all for a while. I have no shame in admitting that’s how I felt, I’m pretty materialistic.

So after a short while of admiring my new possessions and fantasising about how I could arrange them in some sort of new shrine when I get back to my room at Uni (I have a Zelda shrine; again I have no shame. I’ll put a picture up of it sometime), I switched on my laptop and gave it a quick caress. It’s my baby, and as much as I hate watching it crumble as it struggles to perform, I love elder Scrolls more. So far my laptop has handled it pretty well actually, despite being on an i3-3120M processor(which is actually better than a handful of i5’s) and AMD 7670M (2GB) graphics. My specs aren’t fantastic, but according to task manager I could run ESO on roughly 30% processing power and 60% RAM. Not bad.

I fire up ESO and begin a full day of spellcasting, adventuring, battling rogues, battling demons, battling feral creatures, gawping at the landscapes and changing my mind about quite a few things. I’m really not sure how it happened, but when I played today (launch day, I might add), the game felt a lot more complete. It didn’t feel empty anymore, and I stopped to respected the graphics style much more. Despite the graphics being much more stylised for this instalment of the Elder Scrolls, they are by far the most detailed and really blow you away on a regular basis. As I mentioned in my early access review, the musical score really adds to the whole experience, and you can tell that the writers wanted to create some sort of emotional connection to the world you quite literally “experience”. This game isn’t flashing lights and noises trying to keep your attention for 30 hours, it moves beyond that and reaches a place that I describe VERY few games as having reached:

Art.

Magically, many of the mechanics I described yesterday as being broken seem to be repaired. For example the attack delay/missfire doesn’t seem to be as prevalent as before. The jaws still grind though, unfortunately. But I can look past that, like all the glitches and bugs in Skyrim or Oblivion or Morrowind, it adds character to the game. The majority of the progression-blocking bugs are fixed, and 9/10 times a simple re-log will fix anything else.

I explored much more today than in in the Early Access days, and it paid off, this is what Elder Scrolls excels at. If you want to level up or find new items or learn new things, exploring is the answer to all. The whole game is built around this open world which is far richer than I had thought after my superficial scan yesterday. ZeniMax really pulled it off on launch day and the experience and response so far has been phenomenal.

One of the most memorable moments of the day which really had an impact on me was a Dark Anchor battle. I was happily slaying pirate-elves on a picturesque beach when I suddenly heard a loud crash and thunder, turning to face the sound (virtual-surround headset *wink wink*) I saw a huge tear open up the sky with a massive mechanical frame. The sound of crashing metal came through my headset and three Anchors fell from the portal in the sky to crash into the ground; I had to investigate, this thing was huge and menacing and could be seen from miles away.

Upon my arrival, I was greeted by the scene of some dark sorcerers chanting to their Demon Master: Molag Bal. Clearly they’d summoned this sky-rift, so I brandished my staff, ready to give them a good what-for. Shortly after dispatching the mages, demonic foes from another realm fell from the sky-rift and ran towards me and the small band of players who had gathered out of curiosity just as I did(I’d say there was seven of us). There was no time to question, there was no time to think, somehow we all knew. We ran forward and confronted our foes, and within what seemed like seconds I was surrounded by other players, at least 30, all helping each other and battling our mutual enemy.They’d all seen/heard what was happening and run to help and take part in what turned out to be a pretty huge battle by MMO standards. It was loud, chaotic and spectacular, and the game handled the number of players on-screen very well. I noticed no drop in frame-rate, and that gets a big thumbs up from me. Before long, the fiends were defeated and the Dark Anchors made a hasty retreat back into their portal which closed soon after. Sweet victory, lads.

The whole experience was fantastic, and I can see myself playing this game for quite a long time. The world is so huge and I’ve still barely scratched the surface here. I’m looking forward to trying out PVP very soon, and I’ll let you know how that goes.