• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Angry Joe Elder Scrolls Online Review

HowZatOZ

Banned
At least FFXIV isn't locking a whole race behind a pay-wall >_>
That is something I do agree with, and is rather annoying to have. I would argue playing a human race that looks slightly grittier than the already implemented race is pointless, but locking away actual racial choices is bizzaro. In their defence as well, you can actually obtain the Imperial Motif to create Imperial-styled gear, so the racial look becomes useless.
 

Zafir

Member
I don't know. I found all that I played of TESO in the beta to be garbage. I still don't even understand why its an MMO. Feels like with some effort they could have just made a single player spinoff.

Its awful as an MMO, and not really good as a game in general either. Folks are being extremely lenient with it. No idea why.




Im an old school MMO player, including AC, and I have no otherworldly idea what in the heck Im supposed to be seeing in this mess of a game that makes me want to pay a sub for it. Different strokes and all, but please don't use the 'Old school MMO gamers understand!' card, because that really doesn't fit here at all.
First of all, the full game isn't the same as the beta.

Second of all, the reason no one is slating it like FF14 1.0 is because it's no where near as bad. It's not even a good comparison. TESO has it's flaws but you can still get enjoyment out of questing, and the WvW is amusing enough too outside of some silly decisions (campaigns and them lasting 90 days). Compare that to FF14 1.0 where even questing felt like a massive chore.

Unless were talking about 2.0, but I didn't even see that being slated.
 
Is it common to start a new thread for a single review? Shouldn't we simply add this to the OT of the game - with all the other review links?
ToS does not have that many reviews yet.
Because he is one of the few that reviews a game proper like REALLY proper.
And also he is a Gaffer so give him some slack.

Fantastic Job on the review Joe loved every minute of it, work work as always.
 

Sarcasm

Member
Also that rather hyperbole statement above that ESO is locking away basic features with money incentives is just ridiculous. Why does no one call out World of Warcraft's mount system for $25 a pop? Granted you still need to buy the riding skill, but in essence its still the same translation of locking away game features. Also riding is never a "basic" feature, especially not in ESO. When I can run as fast as the basic horse, it isn't punish me for not having a horse.

I stopped playing WoW after that (but not cause of that). I don't know what they do in ESO (never got one in beta cause screw that grind) but the horses themselves aren't locked behind real life cash. Sure you can't get those via ingame.

You can get a horse (there is many + other race) ingame with virtual gold. And its not ungodly expensive even with the riding skill.
 
At least FFXIV isn't locking a whole race behind a pay-wall >_>

I still can't believe they did this. They want a monthly sub and then charge you more for a collectors edition that has a race you won't get otherwise. Stupid move.

AJ's bit on them taking as much money up front as they can looks spot on from what I have seen.

I like his in depth reviews and let's be honest, it's far better than the 5 minute crap fest that was IGN's review of it.
 

Famassu

Member
Those horse prices are just incredibly stupid. When creating a fictional world, the prices should make sense. 40,000+ gold coins should, like, be enough money to buy yourself a whole fucking island filled with horses, not a single pathetic horse... >_>;
 

Zafir

Member
I can't watch the video as I'm at work but did he only mention the expensive mount? There's a mount for 17k which you have enough for by the time your level 25ish.
 

Doran902

Member
I can't watch the video as I'm at work but did he only mention the expensive mount? There's a mount for 17k which you have enough for by the time your level 25ish.

He did mention the cheaper one but said it isn't nearly as good, and complained that the upgrade to the 19.99 collectors gets you the expensive good horse right away.
 

Zafir

Member
He did mention the cheaper one but said it isn't nearly as good, and complained that the upgrade to the 19.99 collectors gets you the expensive good horse right away.
Ah right. Pretty sure the one you get isn't the expensive one in the CE. But yeah its inexcusable that they locked an horse and race behind the CE.
 

Ivory Samoan

Gold Member
Ya dun fucked it up.

Not usually a fan of AJS, but this was a well-thought out review. Figured the game was DOA to begin with.

I love it when people let other people make their minds up for them.... /facepalm.

In other news, Joe's review is spot on in some places, way off mark in others.
The game is far from 'fucked up', but I acknowledge there is work to be done to get it up to pace. It's enjoyable as hell though, best questing/character progression I've encountered in a MMORPG.

Before knocking it, try it - if you can't afford to try it; maybe don't knock it.
 

Fuz

Banned
I had to work for a horse in Vanilla WoW. It was awful.

The horror... the horror...

That's taking into account enemies that only drop one gold piece at a time, which is very unlikely as you gain in levels. Note that Joe was level five in that small clip, I'm level 27 in Shadowfen and gain at least 25-50 gold per enemy without even considering selling items dropped.

I am level 32 and I've NEVER seen a mob (bosses included) drop more than 3 gold.

But you get money for questing and selling, so it's not really that you have to grind 40k mobs. Still, there's no denying that it was a slimy way to sell the in-game store mount or the collector's.
Well it's obvious the questing was done with single player in mind which is weird considering this is an MMO.
Honestly, I LOVE this. Don't like to be forced to group.
You're saying it like games always ship as a complete product :p.
They should, and we should stop being so tolerant about that.
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
At least FFXIV isn't locking a whole race behind a pay-wall >_>

Nah, they just lock more retainers/space behind a paywall they you pay per month. =P

Not going to watch the review, but ESO isn't a particularly deep game yet, but I'm having fun with it. Exploring and questing is pretty fun (much more so than WoW/FFXIV style) and PvP is a blast (from the DAoC guys). It also has a pretty good crafting system that makes players interact with each other. So there is that. I may not stick with it after my month is up, but it has a lot of potential.

On a retail level, the game is going to sell pretty darn wall on the consoles. It's made to work on them even more so than XIV.
 

cyberheater

PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
So you pay $60 for the game and then pay $15 a month to play it. WTF.
 

Ghost23

Member
A Realm Reborn is incredibly polished and leagues better than ESO. A Realm Reborn is keeping that userbase.

We'll see in a few months how many stick with ESO once their bundled 30 days runs out.

I couldn't stand FF14. It was extremely boring and just uninteresting.
 
Vanilla FFXIV? That has almost nothing to do with a Realm Reborn, though.

I tried both. The first was terrible and I mean terrible in the sense that were it not for the work put into the assets and art direction of the game I would have quit it after 15 minutes.

Realm Reborn is nice but after playing Rift and Star Wars: ToR it does nothing new for me. It feels like a mix of those two games with a bit of Final Fantasy flair on top.
 
I definitely agree that the grouping stuff is weird (and has been weird since alpha; no idea why they've been so stubborn about it) but I'm actually having a much better time with the final product than I did with any of the pre-release versions. I'll probably at least hit level cap. The game feels Elder-Scrolls-y enough to keep me decently hooked, for now.
 

Won

Member
Haven't played the game so I can't comment how true this video is, but the achievement unlocked after falling out of the world sure is great. Got a good laugh out of me.
 

Yaari

Member
Lol, his laughing is so forced and obnoxious. Otherwise it is a pretty decent guy I guess. But I'm not going to sit through a 40 minute review. He definitely puts the work in though, so props for that.
 

Coolade

Member
Lol, his laughing is so forced and obnoxious. Otherwise it is a pretty decent guy I guess. But I'm not going to sit through a 40 minute review. He definitely puts the work in though, so props for that.

You'd have to be more familiar with angry joe I suppose. I'm so used to his videos that nothing feels forced or obnoxious but simply normal at this point. Also, I just let the review run on one side of the window while I do my normal browsing. You want in depth reviews that cover as much as possible you go to Angry Joe. He puts effort in his work, that's all I can ask for.
 

Szadek

Member
Having a class behind a pay-wall is one of the craziest things I've ever fucking heard.
It's not that uncommon...in F2P games,and frankly I don't mind it there.
Dropping a few bugs to unlock addtional content in F2P is fine by me,within reason of course.
But in a full price game with subscription fee?
There is no way to justify it.
 

Ivory Samoan

Gold Member
Oh wow, grouping seems broken as hell in this game.

It's not really broken - it needs some loving however.

If you are like me, and like to quest by yourself and read all the books - then grouping is designed for you (dungeon/boss/pvp grouping is the only places you 'need' to group).
 

Artanisix

Member
I hated the beta, and I played for a solid week to ensure my opinion was backed up by consistent playtime. Hell it was a joke to me and I was looking more towards WildStar as my MMO saviour to sweep me off my nostalgia feet, but since launch I've been logging in every day playing ESO, and I don't know what changed but it definitely was for the better. Is it an average game? Yeah, most definitely and hell I'd be super eager about it if they went the Guild Wars route and had buy-to-play, but I'm comfortable in paying $15 a month and enjoying my time in Tamriel. Does this mean everyone should shutup and stop critiquing the game? God no, please rip it to shreds because that's the beauty of it all. But, I'd like to see more informative takes rather than a simple dash into a thread to yell "lol this looks shit."

I'm having a hard time taking your posts seriously when you claim you hated the beta after playing for a solid week and still opted to drop $60 on the game afterwards.
 

Tacitus_

Member
It's not really broken - it needs some loving however.

If you are like me, and like to quest by yourself and read all the books - then grouping is designed for you (dungeon/boss/pvp grouping is the only places you 'need' to group).

In the video questing together was broken as hell. Joe said you can't help people doing a quest after you've done it (and the video showed him being phased out of the fight while his team mate was still completing it), everyone needs to click the quest objects individually etc.
 
The funny thing is that ESO does bring some new things to the MMO scene, but these things are almost straight out of the Elder Scrolls series.

I think ESO has the spirit of Skyrim's questing and exploring, and even refined the combat into something playable. The story behind the quests in ESO are equivalent to the more well thought out quests in Skyrim, like the Guild quests. They aren't just picking up a book that tells you to go into a cave to find a spoon reward in a chest at the end. Also I really think ESO has the best combat of all Elder Scrolls. It's not purposefully clunky, and it really gives some amazing engagements for multiple mob pulls.

However, I never liked Skyrim or Oblivion, I find all of the lore and story generic and boring, the art style is ultra dull, and ESO is more of the same. So I really don't want to play ESO because it's more similar to the boring Skyrim than I'd like.

I would play ESO over Skyrim, just not at a subscription price.
 

BigDug13

Member
You'd have to be more familiar with angry joe I suppose. I'm so used to his videos that nothing feels forced or obnoxious but simply normal at this point. Also, I just let the review run on one side of the window while I do my normal browsing. You want in depth reviews that cover as much as possible you go to Angry Joe. He puts effort in his work, that's all I can ask for.

I just wish he also did a shorter edited version. I don't care about his skits, but his actual game insights are interesting.
 

The Cowboy

Member
Having a class behind a pay-wall is one of the craziest things I've ever fucking heard.
I could understand it being behind an expansion (especially in an MMO), but behind a collectors edition upgrade is just insane.
-
Great review Joe, really informative and I enjoyed it a lot (heck, i enjoy all your reviews - even when i don't agree with them).
 

Yopis

Member
Freaking love this guys reviews, puts so much effort in to each review, and articulates each point very well. AJ reviews are better than any of the "Big Gaming web sites" when it comes to his reviews, in my opinion.

After this review, I will be staying away from this MMO

Not really familiar with him but the review was actually entertaining...mildly. He did make some good points thats for sure. Hope the game survives. Hate that everything goes f2p. That takes something away from the game imo. Brings a certain crowd.

Hope they fix this and things work out. Don't mind making a commitment of 15 bucks a month. Dev makes commitment to clean things up bring new content and keep two way communication.
 
I feel like I'm one of 5 people who thinks this is the best MMORPG since vanilla WoW/EverQuest. Seriously. Ditched FFXIV for it, and I really liked XIV.
 

Chettlar

Banned
Ya dun fucked it up.

Not usually a fan of AJS, but this was a well-thought out review. Figured the game was DOA to begin with.

His reviews lately have actually been really good. He has lots of posts, and actually good, constructive criticism. Hey this was bad because this, and you could have improved it a lot by doing this.

His titanfall review, ACIII review, KZ:S review and a few other recent ones are really good.
 
Top Bottom