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ESO Struggled More to Break From Being A WoW Clone Than an Elder Scrolls Clone, According to Former
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ESO Struggled More to Break From Being A WoW Clone Than an Elder Scrolls Clone, According to Former ESO Creative Lead | MMORPG.com
Former Elder Scrolls Online creative director Paul Sage explained breaking out of the World of Warcraft mold was more difficult than standing out as an open-world Elder Scrolls title.
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"It’s easy sometimes to forget what the MMORPG world was like over a decade ago, with so-called “WoW clones” being a dime a dozen." - Not sure we have left that era yet.
“So whereas I felt that you could still really be creative, there were still those marks of like, 'here's what people expect from an MMO'." - It is that "what people expect" which as lead us to an overly uniform MMO template. Always takes two to tango, it is not just the studios which pushed MMOs to more WoW like, our expectations fed back into them making that decision.
Mines too.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
It is of course nowhere near the top two but is doing well compared to many other MMORPG offerings. ESO is nowhere close in action combat to what WildStar was.
In 2015, ESO felt to me very much like a game dripping with Michael Kirkbride's world influence and Ted Peterson's design aesthetic. It felt like an authentic Elder Scrolls experience.
So in hindsight, Sage trying to stick to that design philosophy is a great impulse, but I do wonder if he stressed about the whole 'WoW-clone' aspect unnecessarily. Wildstar had way more of those woes that plagued it than ESO would have ever had to worry.
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013
Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005
Fishing in RL since 1992
Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
the game is decent fun, some of the quest story lines are interesting some not, same as any other game
My biggest problem with the game is the lack of skills, basically using the same 4 or 5 combat skills gets boring really fast. other then that its fine
Godz of War I call Thee
No, it should not.
Elder Scrolls games are single player where ESO is a MMORPG. The two genres have different needs that must be accommodated.
You have 12 skills slots available from level 15 onward, 10 basic and 2 ultimate. If you're only using 4 or 5 out of those 12 that is a self-imposed limit.
I was in the closed beta for ESO and it did feel like an Elder Scrolls game to me. The combat was ok and the crafting was decent. It had three different sides and picking a race meant you played in that side's area, like DAOC. The world was beautiful and I liked the voice acting. I played almost every one of the early classes to 50.
Some of the sieges were fun and PvP could be fun in general; I stayed out of the top tier though. Housing was fun to play with.
I didn't like a few things:
1) lack of available skills. You get 5 skills to start with and you can get access to 5 more if you swap your weapon. That's still just 5 at any one time. As a caster, there was a skill that boosted dmg and you had to have it equipped even though it was just a buff. So that takes one slot away from both weapon bars. The classes on all three sides are identical. A pathetically limited experience compared to DAOC.
2) I never have liked the weapon swapping idea in any game, and in early ESO it was full of problems. Lots of times it didn't go off or else it took seconds to swap.
3) the pet classes were simplistic with almost no control over pets at all. Another pathetically limited experience compared to DAOC.
And then the changes came. Didn't like One Tamriel, hated loot boxes. Then it didn't matter what race you were, all areas were open. Then they nerfed stealth for the Wood Elf and gave it to the new cat race that costs money. The money grubbing became more and more obvious. Lots of new powerful drops making crafting barely useful. The lag in PvP could become oppressive.
I guess in sum it's a fun game at a good B level, limitations, loot boxes, and problems keep it from being an A game.
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2024: 47 years on the Net.
It’s like a constant pat on the head for the player that they’re doing “ok.”
Not to say there shouldn’t be any rewards. But when the design is always giving the player something for not doing much of anything it seems creepy to me.
The elder scrolls games are about exploration and finding your own path. From those experiences there are some rewards but the actual reward is the unique journey the player embarks upon.
At least within the confines of what can be added to the game.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
One of the things I like about ESO is that I can get event rewards without having to grind away my play time solely in pursuit of them over the course of the event. It does get stretched out over several days, but only requires a small bit of time each day so I can still mainly focus on what I intended.
There isn't much exploration though. New World actually has a fair bit with their multi-tiered environments that can often be climbed. I've found a few things nestled away in small caves and the like that I wouldn't have found without essentially be right on top of them. It adds a lot to traversal, for me at least. I often forego my mount so I can take a winding path to my destination.