The Elder Scrolls Online Preview

There’s a short Gamescom-based preview of The Elder Scrolls Online over at Playdevil. As usual with MMOs, you have to keep in mind that it’s based on an hour or so of hands-on time for a game that is potentially meant to be played for hundreds of hours, but it’s otherwise worth a read. Here’s a snip:

The game initially feels more like an Elder Scrolls game than I’d have expected, with a familiar UI, quest log and world, which is all excellent. Soon, however, things certainly get more like what you’d expect, with a number of hot-keys, a death system and an atmosphere that isn’t quite what you’d want. People run around in circles, prance about, don’t listen and generally get pretty annoying.

At least the quests seem a bit more epic there’s no fetch or collection quests, and the plot seems to be a fair bit more involved that a traditional MMO. However, for those who are thinking they may just play by themselves be aware that the combat is very, very much standard MMO-fare.

Enemies have a guard zone, aggro, and specific exploits in order to try and win a combat. It’s also, as a result, far less natural and much more stilted than combat has been in previous Elder Scrolls games. All of this, in my opinion, takes away rather than adds to the game. Also, the fact that the vast majority of the game can be played by yourself makes me struggle to see why the developers have not gone for a free-to-play model.