Impressions of ESO By New Players, The Good, the Awesome, the Bad - your opinions. Options

[mALX]

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This thread is for everyone to post their impressions after playing ESO; what they liked, anything that might be improved, etc.

These first posts are being transferred from the "What I am Playing" thread; so bear with the first posts please, lol.



My son started in on ESO tonight. So far it is looking Awesome! A bit confusing, because I was having trouble figuring out who was a Player and who was an NPC - well, some were working so I knew they were NPC's; and some were running around madly, so I knew they were Players; but the ones walking or milling around - those I couldn't tell.

And some character came up and attacked my son's pet imp and then attacked my son for no reason - in the middle of a town. Neither my son or I could figure out if it was an NPC or some crazed player. My son finally killed him because the guy wouldn't leave him alone; and there was nothing on his body to indicate if it was Player or NPC! (So still don't know, lol).

Right now he is still just trying to figure out what the/his objectives are.

All the conversations are run in a small box on the left of the screen, and the print on the conversations is so tiny I can't read it - my son can't read it either, it is that small.

But the game itself - the graphics and sheer size of it is AWESOME! The characters are lifesized, the ships really look like ships and not small replicas. It is an amazing game so far!

My son has played online a LOT before, so he will orient himself a lot quicker than I will be able to - but for right now he is playing solo.

I am seriously considering sneaking on while he is at work and starting a character in the Ebonheart just to try it out, .



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You can't get to Cyrodiil till you reach a very high level, it is blocked completely before then. And yes, Cyrodiil is the only Player VS Player (from what I heard it is a massive battleground there, Alliance VS Alliance - which means I'll never want to go there, lol).


Never having played online before - I wanted to go solo. My allies don't fare well in melee with my characters, I hit the wrong people with both weapons and healing magic.

My son said that online game is all about creating a small group of friends who each have a needed skill set to ensure the group survives and prospers. "Tanks" take the damage for the group (Orcs/heavy armor); the healer keeps everyone fighting; etc. As a group you strategically plan the battles and how best to defeat the enemies.

The enemies are leveled to be powerful enough to be a challenge for a group of players; and I don't know if their level drops based on the numbers in the attack. If it does, then playing solo would work very well; but I don't know if it does or not.

My son said that even the best multiplayer game in the world is only half as good if you try to play it solo, for him the group adds tremendously to the experience.

But for me, I want to play it solo till I feel very comfortable with the game - then maybe just one or two close friends, no group of strangers.




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Well, I played the whole first section of - the tutorial dungeon. There were several really tough fights that I have yet to figure out what I did right to win.

The tough enemies dropped excellent loot such as enchanted weapons and armor - I just need to figure out how to equip it now, and find my inventory!

I made the stupid mistake of creating my character with no gear! I was looking at her body in the bikini and forgot to redress her! So I'm doubly relieved that I made it out of Coldharbour alive - and beat Molag Bal's minion in a boss battle to do it!

Unfortunately, I walked into the firepit in Indoril Manor and can't figure out how to jump out; so I exited the game to find out.

My impression of the game so far = it reminds me VERY strongly of the game "Fate" except with tremendous graphics and other people running around.

(I think the game "Fate" is a quasi version of the game "Fable;" but I haven't ever played Fable so don't know for sure if that is accurate). Fate is usually found prepackaged in the games folder of new computers with Windows OS's.


The feel of it is much closer to Morrowind than any other TES game I've played. When you escape the dungeon and reach the town you can go around and talk to NPC's who have a white arrow over their heads - they have quests to give the player.

Oh, and if someone loots before you and an item is empty - wait a few seconds and try again, this place restocks VERY quickly.

If you are going to loot bodies, do it fast because they will disappear quickly as well. This place cleans itself up and resets very fast compared to World of Warcraft!

I accepted two quests, one is part of the main questline for my area (Ebonheart Pact, so whatever town that is - can't think of it right now).

Also, almost every key on your keyboard has a function, so I need to make myself a key to remember them all - but I think "M" is for Map.

If you walk up to another Player and hit "E" (which is the "Activate" key) - it opens up the option to Chat with them, trade with them, join their group, invite them to join your group.

(I found that out by accident while trying to get out of the fire pit).

It was really exciting, and if it turns out to be like Fate - I got so addicted to that game that the company called me on the phone and told me to get off the game because my free trial had ended and they were reluctant to shut me down in the middle of gameplay, lol.

So far all my impressions are good. Everyone I know that plays it has become very addicted to it, and has said it is everything Skyrim should have been - so far I'm really impressed.

The dungeon Coldharbor was huge and amazingly done. I am quite sure I left a bunch of loot behind in it.



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They have a tremendous range of ways to personalize your character: Age, hair style and color, height and weight, all the usual facegen we are used to in TES, face and body painting/tattoos, there are over 20 eye colors and shapes - very nice eyes. Even the neck/leg/arm/and hand sizes can be tweaked. And they have very decent hair that is clean and combed, unlike vanilla Skyrim.


A few things I found clunky:


Keys for certain functions are not where i am used to them being; like activate is E and spacebar is jump. That is exactly opposite of what I am used to.

And I am afraid to rekey the keyboard for this game like I did for other games because so many keys are used for something particular (I for inventory, M for Maps, O opens up your profile page showing your friends, for quick access to message them - etc)

Also messaging/using the chat box - since players can have up to 8 different characters, if you want to message a friend they ask you to name which character of theirs you want to get the message.

Well, the character's name has to be spelled exactly correct, and these are TES Lore names (get my drift? Lol). I was trying to message someone last night with a very long two part name, with my left hand not working and in game - couldn't do it.



OH! Another plus I discovered last night: no need for pose and animation mods, they are built in! Your character can do over 300 animations and poses right from the start just by keying them into the chat box = instant pose or animation!

There are numerous dances, numerous sits, sleeping, eating, drinking, drunk, playing musical instruments with varied songs, digging with a shovel, raking, waving, motioning to come here, etc, etc, etc - hundreds of them! AWESOME !!!!


And they also have all the craftings from Skyrim including smithing/alchemy/enchanting/cooking/etc.




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[Grits]

So I checked around and it seems that PSN ids and Xbox gamertags are displayed instead of character names by design. This is a really, really horrible decision in my opinion. I can see where that makes it easier for players to find players, but I’m interested in characters. So hello there, xSwagMastr_666x. Shall we adventure together? Ugh.

[mALX]

So I checked around and it seems that PSN ids and Xbox gamertags are displayed instead of character names by design. This is a really, really horrible decision in my opinion. I can see where that makes it easier for players to find players, but I’m interested in characters. So hello there, xSwagMastr_666x. Shall we adventure together? Ugh.

I wonder if there is a way to block them from showing all the time? I think "settings" might have a way to adjust that, but really don't know. Yeah, if the Player name is weird like my son's is then it would really be awkward to remember who is who.
But like if I saw "SubRosa," or "Grits," or "Acadian," I would be like, "WOO HOO!" So, I guess it works both ways depending on if it is a name you would recognize, I think on my son's they used his Steam ID name or something, it is really weird.

[SubRosa]

[But like if I saw "SubRosa," or "Grits," or "Acadian," I would be like, "WOO HOO!" So, I guess it works both ways depending on if it is a name you would recognize, I think on my son's they used his Steam ID name or something, it is really weird.

That brings up a question. Is ESO a Steam-Only game? At least for PC users? Do you log on to Steam and play on their servers? Or are ESO's servers separate from Steam?

Edit: I just did a little reading about their MegaServer system. That makes me guess that Steam/Valve is not actually hosting the game. It does seem weird to me though, since Steam is all about online DRM. How does that play with ESO's own network? I did a little reading of a forum post that really made my head spin about how you buy the game from one, get your cd-key from the other, install the game from one, uninstall from the other, etc...

I also wonder what kind of server architecture they are using for their Megaservers. The article I linked to implies multiple physical servers per Megaserver. So that makes me think VMWare, or maybe a Cisco UCS? Or perhaps they really do have one physical box. I imagine an IBM P795 would fit the bill for a single Megaserver. We have a few of those at work, and they are beasts. But I prefer VMWare and the UCS for their flexibility.

The IBM route would explain why an entire megaserver might be down for hours at a time. I saw a mention of one being down for 13 hours at some point. That sounds like a P795. While it can have hundreds of Logical Partitions (basically virtual servers inside), to do hardware maintenance, you have to shut down the entire box, and all those Lpars with it at once. What I love about VMWare is that it is modular. You can move all the VM Clients off a physical host in real time, take that host out of the farm, do your maintenance, put it back in, and move the clients back, and it is all completely seamless to the end user. There is zero outage. Anyway, I am blabbing geek talk, nevermind.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Jun 9 2015, 10:47 PM

[mALX]

[But like if I saw "SubRosa," or "Grits," or "Acadian," I would be like, "WOO HOO!" So, I guess it works both ways depending on if it is a name you would recognize, I think on my son's they used his Steam ID name or something, it is really weird.

That brings up a question. Is ESO a Steam-Only game? At least for PC users? Do you log on to Steam and play on their servers? Or are ESO's servers separate from Steam?

Edit: I just did a little reading about their MegaServer system. That makes me guess that Steam/Valve is not actually hosting the game. It does seem weird to me though, since Steam is all about online DRM. How does that play with ESO's own network? I did a little reading of a forum post that really made my head spin about how you buy the game from one, get your cd-key from the other, install the game from one, uninstall from the other, etc...

I also wonder what kind of server architecture they are using for their Megaservers. The article I linked to implies multiple physical servers per Megaserver. So that makes me think VMWare, or maybe a Cisco UCS? Or perhaps they really do have one physical box. I imagine an IBM P795 would fit the bill for a single Megaserver. We have a few of those at work, and they are beasts. But I prefer VMWare and the UCS for their flexibility.

The IBM route would explain why an entire megaserver might be down for hours at a time. I saw a mention of one being down for 13 hours at some point. That sounds like a P795. While it can have hundreds of Logical Partitions (basically virtual servers inside), to do hardware maintenance, you have to shut down the entire box, and all those Lpars with it at once. What I love about VMWare is that it is modular. You can move all the VM Clients off a physical host in real time, take that host out of the farm, do your maintenance, put it back in, and move the clients back, and it is all completely seamless to the end user. There is zero outage. Anyway, I am blabbing geek talk, nevermind.

IBM don't make anything using the Intel processors (or compatibles like AMD) any more. The P series and Z series each use different CPU's - which might even be the same ones, since the z boxes are soft machines like all the S/360, S/370 and S/390's before them, loading a microcode that acts as virtual hardware. They've migrated from discrete transistors up to the current chips without changing the "hardware" op-codes (except that keep adding more).

Id expect this all to be on Intel/AMD x64 processors, and using Linux to keep license fees down. They'd still have to take a whole rack of them down at once for some changes. The reason I'd expect Intel compatible is the ability to just reuse things from the PC/Xbox code lines, as well as assets made there.