He actually likes a lot of stuff. He's definitely more positive than I am.
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Angry Joe Elder Scrolls Online Review
- Thread starter crazepharmacist
- Start date
Nydius
Member
Precisely. It's not just Joe's videos, either. I've seen many other videos which show the same issue. ESO is MMO design from a decade ago. 10 years ago it was acceptable to be in a group running around Azeroth and needing to wait for items to respawn so everyone could click it individually. Since then, most MMOs have introduced pooled objectives and resources.
ESO doesn't. Like early SWTOR, grouping is a hindrance in ESO thanks to poor planning and design. Everything is done faster solo until you decide to do a dungeon but then you only need to do the dungeon once or twice until you go right back to soloing. (Edit: Plus there's the added lunacy of bots in public dungeons which, despite Zenimax's recent claims of banning said bots, seem to be increasing in number.) You don't need a group or a guild until end game or pvp. MMOs where the bulk of the content is best done solo are hardly worthy of the MMO genre title.
-tetsuo-
Unlimited Capacity
OTs tend to be very positive. The first OT does, at least. Especially ones that are as small as the ESO one.
Nope. The ESO OT was shitting on the game for a long time. Then people started to actually play the game, and it slowly changed. It was fun to see.
Also, you can complete quests by just playing with other people, even while you are not in the same group.
The questing experience feels polished, and i can see someone comparing it to SWTOR only if they didnt even try ESO. Sure, there are issues and bugs, but honestly it seems like people found a game to (overly) trash just for the fun of it.
I am not dismissing criticism of course, im talking about comments like "the game is pure shit".
Oh I agree with you, just wanted to point out a lot of us are grouping and doing good. The only time it really sucks is if its a lot quest on a random spawning item on the ground since everyone has to get it separately.
-tetsuo-
Unlimited Capacity
Define "a long time". This also doesn't change what I said. OTs tend to be very positive and the ESO one is very positive.
SuperAndroid17
Member
The talking tree made me lol!
I only replied to you because you started to talk about WoW cash shop mounts.
I don't play EsO, so I won't say who is wrong or right.
You seems to know how to make that lot of money, you should share it so you will prove Joe is wrong.
There's a lot of cherry picking and misrepresentation mixed in with the legitimate concerns, which is my main beef with the review. I might go into depth in another post when I get home, though I'm not sure anyone will bother listening.
Spiritreaver
Member
Do quests and sell loot you don't need to NPCs.
I have 22k at the moment at 42 and I've been dumping my gold into bag/bank space, over a 20k investment right now. I don't even sell all the gear I find. The bulk of it I break down for crafting. I pretty much never try to barter stuff either.
Even just NPCing every thing I find would give me more gold than I'd need to spend on something.
Also the game is fine without a global AH. If you've played Path of Exile it works the same way here. Plus there are merchant focused guilds you can join I'm sure.
I found 1-2 decent purple items I've sold through just a single shout of: "WTS X PST offers only". Get a reply within seconds, and since I hate bartering I just take the highest offer.
If mobs dropped more gold than they did, pockets would be flooded.
EDIT: Also I played WoW for the first time ever a few months ago. I got all the way to 90 and did some of the early raids. My character can't afford most of the mount abilities, like MoP flight, let alone faster flight speeds. So I don't get how horses in this are any different.
Xplatformer
Member
Thanks. I'm not new to MMOs. I've played them a lot. Well, Everquest, LOTRO and DCUO.
To be honest they generally aren't my cup of tea for the same reason they don't scratch Joe's itch that often.
1) I generally hate the gameplay. they aren't action mmos most of the time (I hate gaming on a keyboard)
2) I could care less about the setting that I'm gaming in. The world tends to not interest me at all..
DCUO was the exception to #1, and LOTRO was the exception to #2 (started following LOTRO development in '99)
While it's ok that someone spends 160 hours with a game prior to reviewing it, I'm pretty sure I can go by that person's first 50 hour impression to know if I'm going to enjoy the world and the gameplay enough to spend $60+$15 over the next two months. Hell, I'm not going to put in much more time than that.
It's fine that people don't like Joe. It's also fine that people disagree with his opinions.
Doesn't change the fact that a lot of people like his schtick (me being one of them) more than comparable reviewers on other websites.
Okay, here we go~
-----
My biggest two beefs. I'll try to keep it concise:
This is true, most of the enemies you encounter in the lower level areas will drop 1-2 gold each. What is also true is that they drop armor, weapons, jewelry, and junk loot solely meant for vendoring. The items you find usually have a vendor value of 10-15 gold, though some loot you find have special traits that allow you to sell them for more than double their base value.
As for why quest "bosses" don't drop fat loot, I'm assuming it's because they don't want players to farm them. You'll almost always get a reward in the form of a piece of equipment given to you by the quest NPC upon completion of the quest, however.
It's particularly funny in the context of the review, because he cuts the clip and bitches about receiving no reward for killing the boss. What you don't see is him walking out of the instance and immediately getting an item for killing the boss and finishing the quest. I know this because I did the same quest last night. This clip is also silly for reasons I will explain further on.
Also, the loot issue he's talking about only applies to quest mobs. World / dungeon bosses will almost always drop common, and uncommon quality items on death, but also have a chance to drop unique rare items.
For this next part I will use a map:
Ignoring for a moment that the maps are pretty densely packed with points of interest, with each symbol on the map containing quests (or world bosses in the case of the skulls), you'll notice a dozen shrine looking icons with blue auras surrounding them. From any point on them map, you can click on these shrines to instantly teleport to them for a small gold fee. If you interact with a shrine directly, you can teleport for no fee at all.
What does this mean? It means that after you explore the map for the first time, you can travel to any point within it in under a minute. On foot.
Why didn't Joe bring it up in the review? I don't know, and I won't question his motivations, but he can't claim ignorance to the fact that fast travel exists because you're forced to use it in order to leave Cyrodiil.
And yes, you could kill 40,000 skeletons and pick up individual gold pieces to obtain a tier 2 horse-- If you were completely inept at the game. You could just vendor your loot and trade with other players to get it. In the case of the 17k horse, you can easily get it before level 20 by doing this. For comparison, the chocobo mount in FFXIV requires you to be level 20 before you can complete the quest to get it (although there is no gil cost attached).
----
Some smaller things:
Map complaints (link):
Here you see him wandering around on the second floor balcony of a building, complaining about how horrible the map is because he can't find the banker. Since I'm currently questing in the area, I decided to take a screenshot of that building's entrance. And yes, this is some darksydephil shit.
His minute long visit to Oblivion (link):
Here he shows some footage of him entering the Deadlands, pressing a button and exiting the instance. The implication here is that this is the entire quest, despite the quest text "Close the Portals: 1/3" appearing on the screen. So where's the rest of the quest? It's 12 minutes earlier in the review where he fights the boss and bitches about the 2 gold drop.
----
Two things I noticed that are probably legit misconceptions:
I could go on, but I'll cut it off here. As I said before, many of his concerns are legitimate. Phasing and quest progress are handled abysmally in a group setting. The impact of players camping and botting in dungeons absolutely shatters immersion, and makes stealth nearly worthless at times. And technical issues like the dupe glitch, bank wipe bug, and falling through the map were inexcusable post launch.
It's just grating to see him grossly misrepresent parts of the game, or speaking at length about issues that are anything but.
Still, the review did have its uses. I hope Zenimax sees the bad press and makes adjustments to the game that will ultimately make it better in the long run.
Eschaton, I will take my L now.
-----
My biggest two beefs. I'll try to keep it concise:
This is true, most of the enemies you encounter in the lower level areas will drop 1-2 gold each. What is also true is that they drop armor, weapons, jewelry, and junk loot solely meant for vendoring. The items you find usually have a vendor value of 10-15 gold, though some loot you find have special traits that allow you to sell them for more than double their base value.
As for why quest "bosses" don't drop fat loot, I'm assuming it's because they don't want players to farm them. You'll almost always get a reward in the form of a piece of equipment given to you by the quest NPC upon completion of the quest, however.
It's particularly funny in the context of the review, because he cuts the clip and bitches about receiving no reward for killing the boss. What you don't see is him walking out of the instance and immediately getting an item for killing the boss and finishing the quest. I know this because I did the same quest last night. This clip is also silly for reasons I will explain further on.
Also, the loot issue he's talking about only applies to quest mobs. World / dungeon bosses will almost always drop common, and uncommon quality items on death, but also have a chance to drop unique rare items.
For this next part I will use a map:
Ignoring for a moment that the maps are pretty densely packed with points of interest, with each symbol on the map containing quests (or world bosses in the case of the skulls), you'll notice a dozen shrine looking icons with blue auras surrounding them. From any point on them map, you can click on these shrines to instantly teleport to them for a small gold fee. If you interact with a shrine directly, you can teleport for no fee at all.
What does this mean? It means that after you explore the map for the first time, you can travel to any point within it in under a minute. On foot.
Why didn't Joe bring it up in the review? I don't know, and I won't question his motivations, but he can't claim ignorance to the fact that fast travel exists because you're forced to use it in order to leave Cyrodiil.
And yes, you could kill 40,000 skeletons and pick up individual gold pieces to obtain a tier 2 horse-- If you were completely inept at the game. You could just vendor your loot and trade with other players to get it. In the case of the 17k horse, you can easily get it before level 20 by doing this. For comparison, the chocobo mount in FFXIV requires you to be level 20 before you can complete the quest to get it (although there is no gil cost attached).
----
Some smaller things:
Map complaints (link):
Here you see him wandering around on the second floor balcony of a building, complaining about how horrible the map is because he can't find the banker. Since I'm currently questing in the area, I decided to take a screenshot of that building's entrance. And yes, this is some darksydephil shit.
His minute long visit to Oblivion (link):
Here he shows some footage of him entering the Deadlands, pressing a button and exiting the instance. The implication here is that this is the entire quest, despite the quest text "Close the Portals: 1/3" appearing on the screen. So where's the rest of the quest? It's 12 minutes earlier in the review where he fights the boss and bitches about the 2 gold drop.
----
Two things I noticed that are probably legit misconceptions:
- The ability to make a character part of any alliance is not a collector's edition bonus, it was exclusive to pre-orders.
- The horse from the collector's edition is equivalent to the tier 1 horse, and not the 42k one.
I could go on, but I'll cut it off here. As I said before, many of his concerns are legitimate. Phasing and quest progress are handled abysmally in a group setting. The impact of players camping and botting in dungeons absolutely shatters immersion, and makes stealth nearly worthless at times. And technical issues like the dupe glitch, bank wipe bug, and falling through the map were inexcusable post launch.
It's just grating to see him grossly misrepresent parts of the game, or speaking at length about issues that are anything but.
Still, the review did have its uses. I hope Zenimax sees the bad press and makes adjustments to the game that will ultimately make it better in the long run.
Eschaton, I will take my L now.
Now this, this is a great breakdown and an adequate look at certain parts of his rather hyperbolic video. Of course, as Docbon noted there are a number of problems with the game that Angry Joe represented, but there are also problems with the review in that it tries to fluff up the complaints with ill-wrong information.
Ah well, each to their own I guess and its great that Joe actually enjoyed the game while giving it an average score. I'm not one to praise the game as the next WoW killer or something, but it does ignite that rather addictive feeling that I haven't experienced since vanilla WoW, which I'm grateful for.
Okay, here we go~
-----
My biggest two beefs. I'll try to keep it concise:
This is true, most of the enemies you encounter in the lower level areas will drop 1-2 gold each. What is also true is that they drop armor, weapons, jewelry, and junk loot solely meant for vendoring. The items you find usually have a vendor value of 10-15 gold, though some loot you find have special traits that allow you to sell them for more than double their base value.
As for why quest "bosses" don't drop fat, I'm assuming it's because they don't want players to farm them. You'll almost always get a reward in the form of a piece of equipment given to you by the quest NPC upon completion of the quest, however.
It's particularly funny in the context of the review, because he cuts the clip and bitches about receiving no reward for killing the boss. What you don't see is him walking out of the instance and immediately getting an item for killing the boss and finishing the quest. I know this because I did the same quest last night. This clip is also silly for reasons I will explain further on.
Also, the loot issue he's talking about only applies to quest mobs. World / dungeon bosses will almost always drop common, and uncommon quality items on death, but also have a chance to drop unique rare items.
For this next part I will use a map:
Ignoring for a moment that the maps are pretty densely packed with points of interest, with each symbol on the map containing quests (or world bosses in the case of the skulls), you'll notice a dozen shrine looking icons with blue auras surrounding them. From any point on them map, you can click on these shrines to instantly teleport to them for a small gold fee. If you interact with a shrine directly, you can teleport for no fee at all.
What does this mean? It means that after you explore the map for the first time, you can travel to any point within it in under a minute. On foot.
Why didn't Joe bring it up in the review? I don't know, and I won't question his motivations, but he can't claim ignorance to the fact that fast travel exists because you're forced to use it in order to leave Cyrodiil.
And yes, you could kill 40,000 skeletons and pick up individual gold pieces to obtain a tier 2 horse-- If you were completely inept at the game. You could just vendor your loot and trade with other players to get it. In the case of the 17k horse, you can easily get it before level 20 by doing this. For comparison, the chocobo mount in FFXIV requires you to be level 20 before you can complete the quest to get it (although there is no gil cost attached).
----
Some smaller things:
Map complaints (link):
Here you see him wandering around on the second floor balcony of a building, complaining about how horrible the map is because he can't find the banker. Since I'm currently questing in the area, I decided to take a screenshot of that building's entrance. And yes, this is some darksydephil shit.
His minute long visit to Oblivion (link):
Here he shows some footage of him entering the Deadlands, pressing a button and exiting the instance. The implication here is that this is the entire quest, despite the quest text "Close the Portals: 1/3" appearing on the screen. So where's the rest of the quest? It's 12 minutes earlier in the review where he fights the boss and bitches about the 2 gold drop.
----
Two things I noticed that are probably legit misconceptions:
----
- The ability to make a character part of any alliance is not a collector's edition bonus, it was exclusive to pre-orders.
- The horse from the collector's edition is equivalent to the tier 1 horse, and not the 42k one.
I could go on, but I'll cut it off here. As I said before, many of his concerns are legitimate. Phasing and quest progress are handled abysmally in a group setting. The impact of players camping and botting in dungeons absolutely shatters immersion, and makes stealth nearly worthless at times. And technical issues like the dupe glitch, bank wipe bug, and falling through the map were inexcusable post launch.
It's just grating to see him grossly misrepresent parts of the game, or speaking at length about issues that are anything but.
Still, the review did have its uses. I hope Zenimax sees the bad press and makes adjustments to the game that will ultimately make it better in the long run.
Eschaton, I will take my L now.
Great post. But ultimately, I think he's right when it comes to the content. It's subjective, sure. But basically, this game has a wealth of things to do, they are just boring/bland. Realm Reborn IMO did a better job with the overall grouping and community based missions, so most missions were fun to a degree. I feel like most of the missions in this game are drawn out too long, have slow pacing, and just aren't fun. The story isn't that great either.
EDIT: But I agree with your criticisms about the review. It's a shame given the amount of time and effort he puts into these, that he doesn't do a better job examining his view points before going with them.
Really, if a game can be boiled down to just being boring it's hard to recommend no matter how good the other parts of the game are. I'm with you.
Enosh
Member
I didn't buy ESO and have no real interest in the game but just as we expect from any single player review to be written by someone who has actually finished the game so to we should expect from MMO reviews to be written by someone who, while might not have finished the game since that's a broad concept in mmo terms, should have at least reached level cap and explored the zones along with being able to provide some commentary on the endgame
does that take a lot of time? yep, but if you want a thorough review it's what should be done
of course if the first 20h are shit feel free to mention it
But he's still a professional. Indy just mean he's not affiliated with a big media group.
The fact that he didn't hit cap means I have to take a few things with a grain of salt, such as his comment that quest decisions have no real deep impact. How could you make that call if you haven't actually played the game to story completion?
Early on in the game as a member of the Daggerfall Covenant, you have to decide whether to destroy an ancient Ayleid relic, or hand it over to the Daggerfall Covenant so that they can use it to help them win the war. Of course, the people who accompany you to obtain this relic all have strongly differing views about what should be done with it, and when you make the decision, some of them will decide to cut ties with you.
The quest itself concludes, but you don't see the effects of it until 30 levels later, when you reach Rivenspire. It's nothing earth shattering, but it's clear some decisions have consequences that don't immediately manifest themselves. You just have to pay attention.
Of course, the other faction storylines might be handled differently. I'm just speaking from my experience.
Spiritreaver
Member
Really great post docbon. You're quickly becoming one of my favorite posters. 
Don't entirely agree, but very well said and more constructive than my rants of crazy hyperbole, lol.
Don't entirely agree, but very well said and more constructive than my rants of crazy hyperbole, lol.
Xplatformer
Member
You guys should watch his TWITCH stream going on right now. He's entertaining to some. Enough for some to give him $5 a month just to help keep him doing what he does.
Do we know what level Joe was at when this review was written?
MMO reviews are worthless if they are not given enough time and not followed up upon on a consistent basis as the game evolves and has ups and downs throughout.
I don't even believe the trial month time has even expired for ESO yet so I think any "review" is to be taken with a grain of salt until then. I believe this for all MMOs. You just don't get the real picture. FFXIV's flaws didn't really expose themselves until after the themepark came to a stop. Since then, there have been two major patches which have either changed the game for better or worse. The game is clearly not the same. Now, expand that to World of Warcraft. Or LOTRO. Etc.
Standard reviews for the MMO genre are worthless. I mean, unless you feel the game is just so bad that you wash your hands of it (and ESO is NOT one of those games) then...well, they are being handled wrong. Only two major MMOs in history probably fit that mold. FFXIV 1.0 and Anarchy Online (for a good amount of time). And even THOSE games evolved over time.
MMO reviews are worthless if they are not given enough time and not followed up upon on a consistent basis as the game evolves and has ups and downs throughout.
I don't even believe the trial month time has even expired for ESO yet so I think any "review" is to be taken with a grain of salt until then. I believe this for all MMOs. You just don't get the real picture. FFXIV's flaws didn't really expose themselves until after the themepark came to a stop. Since then, there have been two major patches which have either changed the game for better or worse. The game is clearly not the same. Now, expand that to World of Warcraft. Or LOTRO. Etc.
Standard reviews for the MMO genre are worthless. I mean, unless you feel the game is just so bad that you wash your hands of it (and ESO is NOT one of those games) then...well, they are being handled wrong. Only two major MMOs in history probably fit that mold. FFXIV 1.0 and Anarchy Online (for a good amount of time). And even THOSE games evolved over time.
Honestly man, when you're talking about simple things like grouping mechanics and questing, I don't care what level you are at as it's apparent from the get go. If he was specifically talking down end-game content without having played it, that would be another story.
That's fine. The grouping needs work. It's legit to point that out. However, how much do we want to bet that when/if Zenimax expands on it and it improves, Joe won't be covering it?
The questing complaints though (non grouped)... I don't understand tbh. They are the exact same types of quests that exist in every Elder Scrolls game. And...people love the shit out of ES games. Why the big hub bub now? Because it's an MMO so, now they are bad? I honestly don't get this.
Fuz
Banned
I'll repeat myself: They're taking our money now.
And please, please stop with that idea that MMOs have to be evaluated only at cap... a game should be fun since the first moments, otherwise it's a bad game.
(I'll also point again that I actually like the game and think that Joe was too harsh)
GungHo
Single-handedly caused Exxon-Mobil to sue FOX, start World War 3
What feats does someone need to accomplish to be proclaimed an expert on MMOs?
Since when has there ever been an expectation that a game, a movie, or a person gets a do-over after a bad first impression? Sometimes this happens with popular games that have big influxes of new content. Sometimes that movie gets a director's cut on a Blu-Ray that inspires a fresh look. Sometimes a company will give you a second interview even if you fucked up. But, that's not the expectation.
Thanks for going in so much detail about the review and the game. Very much helps put things in better perspective.
The nature of MMO pretty much makes it impossible for your quest results to have real world impact on the PvE side. They could maybe change dialog options and they could have the servers themselves advance through a storyline, but it's pretty much impossible to have a single player able to make world-changing impacts in an MMO because that would alter content for players who had not done those quests.
This is why I bought the game. Everyone was so positive. Then I played it and ran into all the problem Angry Joe mentioned. The game isn't that good.
The game addresses this somewhat through the use of phasing. For the most part, every time you complete a step in the quest, the world changes from your perspective. Unfortunately, it has the big side effect of creating the grouping issues that Joe mentioned in the review.
Haunted
Member
People that think the game is bad say their piece and then leave. The only ones sticking around in an OT after a while are the ones liking the game.