^This...the review is spot on and really shows how shit the game is.
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Angry Joe Elder Scrolls Online Review
- Thread starter crazepharmacist
- Start date
^This...the review is spot on and really shows how shit the game is.
Right, and I've even stated that in this thread. That doesn't make this review any less or more useful or relevant than a NeoGAF user. I agree that people should visit the thread and get more impressions (and a lot of good, honest ones), but that doesn't make Joe's review shitty or dishonest.
Everyone saying micro transactions need to get their facts straight.
This game has a store on their website where you can upgrade to imperial edition for $20 or buy a horse for $15 if you don't want the other stuff in the imperial edition. Thats it, nothing else. This isn't some F2P store where you can buy loot.
This game has a store on their website where you can upgrade to imperial edition for $20 or buy a horse for $15 if you don't want the other stuff in the imperial edition. Thats it, nothing else. This isn't some F2P store where you can buy loot.
RpgN
Junior Member
ChosenPredator
Banned
I like the days of ultima online where you could just go out in the wild tame a horse and ride it but now everyone is used to buying expensive horses that suddenly vanish and reappear whenever you need them breaking immersion instantly
More like, so many facts.
ESO is a lot of fun, plagued by some bugs sure, but every mmo at launch has issues. They will be fixed in time. The thing is the vast majority of the people (some others have played a lot and hold more credibility in their complaints about the game) complaining on GAF about this game have barely or not even played ESO. It is what it is, MMO's on GAF seem to get a lot of hate and bashing, hence why I usually avoid talking about them on here, I just stick to my guild.
WonkyPanda
Member
My input on that.
Xplatformer
Member
So what makes his review great, or at least stand out from other professional reviews? Just because it's written by Lief? Because of his delivery? Writing style?
RpgN
Junior Member
You call that facts?
Assuming Joe didn't get far or play the game? Trash another game to make ESO look better? Say his review is shitty?
I don't know where to begin. It's better to not waste time typing a long reply.
But here's one thing, the game is buggy right now. What does it matter if it might get fixed later when you already payed money and continue to do so monthly?
This applies for every MMORPG btw. It does not make it okay if MMORPG fans are used to having buggy games on release.
Next, it sounds like the game has more problems than just being buggy. Problems which have been described in Joe's review and which defenders like the one I quoted are ignoring.
MrCunningham
Member
It really sounds like publisher greed influenced development of this game in all the wrong ways going by this review.
They lost all credibility for me when after couple of days after the release there were already gold spammers and tons of bots in the game. P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C and spit in the face to anyone who bought the game. There should be 1000 Zenimax eployees sitting in the game 24/7 and banning all those accounts. There is no fucking excuse for their existence. NONE.
Nope, I'm still pretty sure you can create a thread for that review if you want too. Did you complain in the DS2 PC video review thread the other day as well?
I personally think Joe does a better job at looking out for the consumers and clearly puts a ton of effort into his videos compared to most written reviews, that's enough to warrant a thread for discussion. And again if you don't like it then don't come in here maybe?
The bots that just stand around farming "bosses" are so fucking annoying. I don't think I've ever got loot from a boss yet because the bots just wail on them as soon as they spawn and they're dead in a second.
Gintoki313
Banned
Did he say 17,000 gold!? If he said bosses drops
gold, how is that even possible? Especially if your buying other things during the game.
1-2
Enemies also drop weapons/trash loot that sells for anywhere from 10-50gold at low levels. Plus every quest gives you 100+ gold. You can also craft items to sell.
Did he hit lvl cap?
What builds did he experiment with? Thoughts on the dps, healer, and tank role in ESO.
What content did he play both solo and group?
What were his thoughts on PVP balance at Vet+?
Did he answer any of these valid questions?
Out of interest how do you know this is an awesome review unless you have played the game?
I completely admit the game has some issues, but it's far from broken. If you just play the game and explore its a lot of fun and that's what matters. Some of the issues will get fixed and that's the nature of an always evolving online game.
Regarding horses, you can get the first horse by level 15 easily, it is NOT that big of an issue, people these days just want everything handed to them.
Grouping hasn't been an issue for me, granted I only group for world bosses or dungeons and have had 0 issues with it. Well and also PVP where we run regular 10-12 man groups. Biggest issue we've had is the long loading into Cyrodiil and that is one major issue they have to get fixed.
Regarding Joe's review, some of it I agree with, but some of it (like the horse) were way over blown.
I dunno man, the lack of group tracking/questing sounds like a pretty huge fucking thing not to have in the game..
Look like about to level 20, maybe a little higher, but about there. He played a lot with his wife, probably 75% of the time or more according to the video footage shown and how much he complained about the grouping system. He clearly didn't get to Vet+.
mysteriousmage09
Member
Game screams MMO was tacked on way late in development. Grouping shown seems tremendously shit, not being able to help your friends with a quest that you have already completed is terrible. Questline finales being ruined by stupid shit like the Spider Queen being camped and blown up every 10 seconds. Just so much overlooked, basic shit that should be at the top of the priorities list and it's fucked up. Also can't be stated enough times how absurd the Imperial race and horse being behind an extra paywall is.
Of all the franchises to be brought to the MMO scene, this has got to be one of the biggest, missed opportunities in gaming history. Elder Scrolls Online should have been the easiest thing in the world to do. The only thing that's neat is how they allowed more freedom in expanding your character.
Of all the franchises to be brought to the MMO scene, this has got to be one of the biggest, missed opportunities in gaming history. Elder Scrolls Online should have been the easiest thing in the world to do. The only thing that's neat is how they allowed more freedom in expanding your character.
Gintoki313
Banned
Oh yeah, I always forget about selling loot. It doesn't seem so bad now, but that's still a pretty big price.
WonkyPanda
Member
Because Leif, unlike many other gaming sites, has actually put well over 100+ hours into the game and updated his in-progress review as he went along the game. An MMO isn't some vacuum-sealed game. MMOs are often either too hastily reviewed (SWTOR) or spent such little time with that the reviewer may even admit that this review isn't an encompassment of the full potential of the game.
Leif has written reviews for other MMOs, FF14 included, and it isn't unusual for gaming sites to swap different reviewers to review different MMOs. This makes it more difficult to gauge the actual worth of the review because two different people can have such a difference in view as to MMOs.
Beyond that, it's simply a well written, thoughtful review. You can tell his lens is objective and he is critical and receptive to different things about the game.
Honestly, go read it. I don't know what else to tell you. If you're new to MMOs, I can tell you that of all the genres in gaming, MMOs are often the most shit on in terms of review quality. And, honestly, it's hard to blame gaming journalist when it can take, literally, over 100 hours to really give an honest, full-fledged opinion of an MMO.
Hari Seldon
Member
Another great review by Joe. However personally, you can tell this game was a shitsandwich just from reading the feature list. I'd rather Joe focus his efforts on more ambiguous games. Wow clone #22342341 doesn't even deserve the time it takes to scoff at it.
GamingIsDead
Member
What does this even mean? Joe does what others don't do. He is at least honest saying this is not worth it for 60 euro's and 15 euro's a month. Also why should i play the game? When it was announced i never asked for it as a ES fan. It was flawed from the beginning and it shows how horrible it is on a lot of aspects.
WonkyPanda
Member
Again, you really can't read because I stated: that isn't the point.
It's great that you think Joe does a better job and looks out for the consumer. Really, that's great. However, your opinion of what you think Joe does right is enough to warrant its own topic because...because you feel other reviewers don't look out for consumers? Could you elaborate on this line of logic a bit?
And, again, it's about the facilitation of discussion. Why would you tell someone not to come in here. Obviously you get to voice your viewpoint, but I do not? Seems fair. Great point.
That's probably because a lot of people don't want to sit through 100 hours of bullshit to get to the good part of a game. I'm not saying that's how it is with ESO, but it does mean that it's perfectly valid for a reviewer to have an opinion on a game without having gotten to level cap. If the game is $60, I'm not going to sit through average for that long to get to a part that I might like, so these kinds of reviews are also informative, just for a different kind of person I suppose.
SlowRevolution
Member
He got started when people weren't completely tired of the "Angry ___" gimmick yet, if he had just reviewed games as some guy he probably would've had a way harder time gaining popularity..
The name definitely holds him back to some extent, and there are always going to be people who ignore his videos just because he calls himself angry, but at least initially it made sense. It probably still does, considering the size of his fanbase. Not really my sense of humor, but it seems like it's working out for him.
WonkyPanda
Member
What about the inverse, then? Loving the first 20 hours of greatness, but ignoring the actual endgame of an MMO that turns out to be utter shite? SWTOR is the perfect example. Go, look at its review scores. And then, turn to any MMO community and see how much the game was lambasted.
EDIT: I'm not saying you're wrong, but that's what makes MMOs so difficult to review. It's nearly impossible to strike that balance in a game. Joe and Leif clearly put their time into the game, which is highly appreciated. Sadly, that isn't seen with many MMO reviews.
Oh I can read. I said go post your review thread and rave about it over there if you want, no one is stopping you and I doubt anyone would give a shit as much as you give about Joe and his review. Maybe I'll pop in just to say I disagree and dislike the reviewing styles, you know the kinda thing that isn't even related to the thread topic at hand at all.
This is thread worthy because I like his videos and want to go into a thread to discuss them without shit heads shit posting shit. Is that hard to understand?
And , again, there's discussion about the video and there's shit posting about Joe and how much people hate his videos. Pick which one makes for a good thread.
IISANDERII
Member
That's the way it needs to be done.
So he reviewed a MMO after the first 20 levels? Are you being serious? Christ he doesn't even have a proper build yet.
In reality Joe the "professional reviewer" has reviewed and scored a game without even finishing the single player story content. What is next? Reviewing the next Battlefield after playing a couple of games online?
Jesus.
I'd say that if a reviewer is enjoying the game they're playing, it's in everyone's interests for the reviewer to keep playing it to see if it holds up. If the game starts off as feeling like it's not worth the effort, then, for me at least, there's not much of a point to slogging through to see if the endgame doesn't suck, because I'm certainly not going to.
Except there is group questing in the public dungeons, instanced dungeons, world bosses and Cyrodiil. The main issue is each person has to kill said mob, it doesn't share for the whole group (if each group member hits it everyone gets credit). Most of the overland quests are built for solo though for sure.
Vet+ its easier to group, I'm doing most of the Vet zones with friends and were doing just fine working the same quests together.
If you need to play a game for 50 hours to get to the good part then that's wrong. He's not enjoying what he's playing, why would he continue? I played ESO for 60 hours and am only level 28. Do I not have an opinion? Is my opinion invalid?
And since when is the MMORPG Elder Scrolls Online a single player game? The main story in any MMO is one of the least important aspects.
Your attitude is incredibly hostile and disrepectful to anyone who wants to engage you in a serious conversation.
WonkyPanda
Member
If you can read, then you can't understand what you read. That isn't the point I was trying to make. In fact, this isn't even about Joe and his review. When did I ever attack this review? I am attacking the fact that it is dumb that you are essentially advocating a plethora of review topics to flood the front page on the same game when you can consolidate it into its own thread, which is usually the case. Do you not understand that? I'm not going to post IGN's review, not going to post PCGamer's review, etc, because I think it's idiotic to continually post dozens of reviews for the same game.
If you think his reviews are so worthy of their own discussion, independent of the game, why don't you create a "Joe's review" thread?
RicoTheMad
Banned
I'm not surprised it got negative reviews. It doesn't seem like this game tried to do much other than be set in a familiar universe and be an MMO. I'm so sick of roller coaster MMOs, which is why the last MMO I played was EVE online.
Why can't we get a good sandbox MMO like Ultima Online again? Most modern MMOs feel like watered down single player RPGs with a "group" feature. It really saddens me to see that it's been nearly a decade and the genre has yet to evolve past this simplistic model. Seriously.
Why can't we get a good sandbox MMO like Ultima Online again? Most modern MMOs feel like watered down single player RPGs with a "group" feature. It really saddens me to see that it's been nearly a decade and the genre has yet to evolve past this simplistic model. Seriously.
Spiritreaver
Member
I just went back through the review and he definitely didn't. The highest level mob I saw was like level 16. That's the beginning of the second zone really.
On some of the issues I can remember while rewatching:
I agree with his problems with bugs and group content. Both are a huge dropped ball and while the bugs are being fixed, the latter should be addressed.
His issues with immersion were problems associated with 3 things, nature of MMOs, bugs, and gold spammers. The latter two are being worked on, ZOS came out and said this (public dungeon camping).
I completely disagree that quests are "hohum". The game features the best quests I've seen in any MMO to date, and it especially shows the more and more you play the game, which he definitely did not completely do.
The voice aciting is great. The specific scene he used is taken out of context.
Graphics are not great, but not bad, he's right here.
ZOS money grabbing, bullshit.
NPC allies are indeed useless, but this is likely a bug. It has stopped happening for me in recent instances. (The fight against Mannimarco)
Linearity. This comes up in the official thread a lot. The whole game itself is linear yes, it is not traditional ES. You move from zone to zone based on level. HOWEVER each zone is so large and can be explored while not following the linear path of quests. This is where the game feels like Elder Scrolls. You are encouraged to explore each zone entirely. You find quests, bosses, dungeons, etc. Cyrodiil the PVP is an even better example. It is a massive, massive, massive zone full of quests, dungeons, bosses, collectables. Not only the PVP content. You are free to roam the entire PVP zone searching for things to do. The only issue is the quests in this zone are lackluster, but everything else is pretty fun.
I really don't know what else to say because it's a long review and tough to argue point per point. I again don't think it's a fair review at all which half is based on bugs paywall jokes. He also didn't get far in the game at all.
It hurts me to say that as buggy as ESO is I'm used to it (MMO bugginess). Developers really need to get their shit together on this front. It's going to happen with Wildstar too. Buggy launches need to stop.
Teletraan1
Banned
How do you know for a fact that 20 gold in WoW is not the same as 17k gold in this game. Are you a MMO economist? By level 20 I had enough to buy the cheap horse (17k in ESO btw) in both games.
The starter horse for 17k has the same amount of stats as the one that comes with the imperial edition. They just put 5 more points into speed vs stamina on the imperial horse. You can feed your horse every 20 hours to make it go faster, have more stamina or have inventory slots. Each day it costs 250G to buy one of the 3 types of food.
So Joe is wrong.
Maximus.
Member
Thank you, this is the point I was trying to make. Why does one reviewer get his own threads? That would lead to a shit load of threads for each reviewer. That's why we have consolidated threads. The fact Jito keeps saying we can't post unless it's positive is ridiculous. I agree I don't like when people troll or post nothing into a thread, but to defend the creation of a thread for each video someone posts is something I don't agree with.
Well this forum is pretty good with being orderly with threads and you suggesting everyone to create a ton of individualized threads is different from the norm. Maybe it was before your time here, but there is a reason why we have OT threads and what not (to reduce the amount of threads for things like this). Your stance on the matter isn't any more valid than anyone else disagreeing with these threads.
New news deserves a thread, but new reviews I don't agree with that. That should go into an OT.
He got to level 19, which can be seen in the video. Saying he got to 20 isn't a stretch, so "definitely not" is harsh.
The quests are hohum. They're so predictable and repetitive. I feel like I already made this point, but it gets really boring saving the same-looking village from the same-looking enemies ten times.
Graphics are good, especially the lighting and water. Texture pop is pretty egregious, though.
Voice-acting is fine, in fact, it's quite good, but the lines that guards/citizens spew are incredibly obnoxious. Anyone who crafted in the starting Daggerfall Covanent area knows of the dude who shouts "I'd like to buy him an ale!" every 20 seconds.
ZOS money grabbing is not ridiculous. Locking major, major features behind paywalls (an entire race) or when you decide to play (playing any race in any alliance) are inexcusable. I've never seen such core features of an online game gated in such a way. The microtransaction side is overblown, I agree.
You gotta admit you don't see this kinda shit any where else other than Angry Joe review threads, it's the same every time and it's really pathetic the vendetta some of you guys have against him. Maybe just accept that he gets threads for his videos and if it really bothers you that much then complain to the people who can do something about it. Having a whine in the thread achieves nothing.
He makes a couple decent points but a lot of his critiques are from the perspective of someone that played/leveled very little. He whines about how expensive things are in the game; however, coming from MMOs like WoW and GW2, everything becomes pretty affordable as you level up, his whole horse tirade is kind of dumb when you can afford the cheap horse at level 15 and the expensive one at level 35-40.
Don't understand his "unsocial MMO complaint" either, you run into hundreds of players everywhere and the group finder tool is really effective; not to mention the PvP which is a group zergfest. This is one of the more social MMOs I've played and with public dungeons, world bosses, and events in every corner of the map, you don't even have to be in a group to take down mobs with other players for mutual benefit.
As for his "lack of immersion, soulless, and half-assed complaint..." I couldn't disagree more. The awesome soundtrack, graphics, and spell animations make this the most immersive MMO I've played (and I've played a lot of MMOs). I feel 100% like I'm playing an Elder Scrolls game or a single player RPG when I'm just riding out in the world solo.
He also complains about lack of challenge, and I've got to say, yeah, when you're in a group, the game is jokingly easy. It's balanced around running solo, and the game is pretty challenging if you're alone. As you add group members though, you're obviously going to kill normal quest shit a lot easier, and he was grouped all the time. Some of the early 4 man dungeons are also pretty challenging.
Aside from his nitpicking, his complaints about the bugs and some of the monetization are fair critiques. For me personally; however, the questing, exploration, PvP, and deep class customization make it more than worth my money so far.
Don't understand his "unsocial MMO complaint" either, you run into hundreds of players everywhere and the group finder tool is really effective; not to mention the PvP which is a group zergfest. This is one of the more social MMOs I've played and with public dungeons, world bosses, and events in every corner of the map, you don't even have to be in a group to take down mobs with other players for mutual benefit.
As for his "lack of immersion, soulless, and half-assed complaint..." I couldn't disagree more. The awesome soundtrack, graphics, and spell animations make this the most immersive MMO I've played (and I've played a lot of MMOs). I feel 100% like I'm playing an Elder Scrolls game or a single player RPG when I'm just riding out in the world solo.
He also complains about lack of challenge, and I've got to say, yeah, when you're in a group, the game is jokingly easy. It's balanced around running solo, and the game is pretty challenging if you're alone. As you add group members though, you're obviously going to kill normal quest shit a lot easier, and he was grouped all the time. Some of the early 4 man dungeons are also pretty challenging.
Aside from his nitpicking, his complaints about the bugs and some of the monetization are fair critiques. For me personally; however, the questing, exploration, PvP, and deep class customization make it more than worth my money so far.
Haunted
Member
They started development on this in 2007 when the market looked very different from today.
Their biggest mistake is that they never adjusted. I feel there's a space where a mediocre MMO with a hugely popular brand can be successful and make some money, but it's not with an expensive subscription-based business model that became outdated years ago.