Tag: The Elder Scrolls Online

Storytelling has always been a sticking point in previous Elder Scrolls games. I contend that the traditional high fantasy nonsense of their primary plots don't do justice to an otherwise intriguing world to explore. The king of fantasy sandbox franchises didn't get to where it is without being interesting in some ways.It's the storytelling, not the stories themselves that make these games. Bethesda knows when to shut up and let environments and players converse - a rare commodity in games. A pedestrian jealousy, betrayal and murder in another game is buoyed by the dopamine squirt that comes with following a few well-placed clues and "figuring it out on your own."The Elder Scrolls Online isn't so subtle, in primary plot or ancillary discoveries.

I've never seen the draw of player-versus-player in MMOs. My favorite aspect of such games is exploration and cooperation, both of which fall away immediately when stuck in a tiny arena with a bunch of goons more interested in killing each other than completing objectives.Ignoring either of those issues, PVP (outside of EVE Online) feels pointless. It's sectioned off: a means to its own end that doesn't result in the completion of quests, leveling up or fighting massive bosses.The Elder Scrolls Online remedies the first two problems, only to introduce a new, creative kind of boredom.

Crafting isn't something I generally spend a lot of time with in MMOs. I usually find anything I want can be bought with gold I earned doing something more interesting than clicking "create" and watching progress bars fill up.The Elder Scrolls Online puts a surprisingly tall - and very enjoyable - emphasis on crafting. I was skeptical at first, but after spending most of an entire day exploring Cyrodiil, gathering materials and custom-building my personal arsenal I'm quite hooked.You see, crafting isn't treated like a completely separate aspect of the TESO experience. Each trade has its own skill tree, augmented with the same skill points used to build up a character's combat abilities. Some might groan at the tough choice between learning a new spell and being able to highlight resource nodes - and it does feel like a sacrifice at first - but it shows how important the developers want crafting to be.In most games, crafting is a gradual, granular slog. You build the crappy equipment until you've leveled up enough to make the slightly-less-crappy equipment and so on. TESO makes the time I spend feel worthwhile, as I leave a personal mark on each unique steel snowflake.

MMOs tend to open with flashy, pre-rendered cutscenes to show of just how cool their universe is meant to feel. Seasoned players know this is just smoke and mirrors -- something to draw in the pedestrian crowd and invoke the "feeling" of what's actually conveyed by digital dice rolls and numbers leaping from wild boars' heads.The Elder Scrolls Online isn't really so different in the first sense. There's a lovely, action-packed trailer with all the excitement of chains crashing through the sky and wizard/barbarian types thrashing about demon-y things.Like all Elder Scrolls games, however, you start much more humbly -- as a prisoner. You've been taken to Coldharbour and had your soul removed. One of the big bads of The Elder Scrolls mythos needs it -- and those of several million of like-minded players -- to continue being evil. You escape from this contrived tutorial, of course, and the game drops you on Cyrodiil proper in one of three starting islands.Where you end up at first is determined by which faction you choose. Literally nothing is done to explain what choosing a faction means. I had to hit up the game's website to learn the Ebonheart Pact includes the vikings, lizard people and dark elves. These being the raddest of Elder Scrolls species, I obviously chose their alliance and wound up in Morrowind.