Have you played it before? What are your overall impressions of the game? It will also be available on console, correct? Any good?
Yes, I have participated in 3 beta sessions and the game has gotten better with each beta, as it should. In my opinion, it plays very similar to a TES game with MMO characteristics. The map is fairly large, especially if you consider you can eventually explore all 3 factions areas, and in each of the betas I have found myself getting immersed in the world around me by exploring, gathering, and looting random dungeons. The character customization is unbelievably large and gives many options for tweaking the appearance of your character. I feel that managing your inventory is much easier in ESO than it was in Skyrim. The inventory menus are much easier to navigate and they are well organized. I really like the direction they are going with the crafting system (see video below). The group and public dungeons are a lot of fun to explore and fight NPCs with a group. Overall, I am enjoying the game and would recommend giving it a try if you are a fan of TES games. It is releasing on PC on 4/4/14 with early access on 3/31/14 for pre-orders. It is coming to Xbox One and PS4 sometime in June. I will be playing on Xbox One.
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There were certainly things that I did not enjoy during my time with the beta sessions. 1) I felt the starter islands at the beginning of the game held your hand too much. As a TES game fan I want to be dropped into the world and head in any direction looking for adventure. The starter islands did not allow you to do that because if you tried to escape the island you would be killed by slaughter fish. 2) I felt the enemy NPCs were too easy to defeat as I was able to clear mobs of 4-6 NPCs by myself. 3) The combat felt floaty and the NPCs did not feel as if they had any substance to them. I could walk right through them as if they were never there. 4) The early level progression (1-10) also seemed to take a long time which effected the skills you were able to unlock. Once I hit level 10 the game completely opened up and became interesting. To get to that point it was a very boring grind. If I wasn't a TES fan I probably would have chalked it up after about 5 levels. Luckily, Zenimax listened to the beta testers and made the following changes (see video below).
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As far as first-person vs third-person is concerned, I prefer third-person. I never thought I would like third-person because I play all TES games in first person. However, your situational awareness in first-person is almost non-existent. I can see people making first-person work for them, but it is simply not for me with ESO. See video below for a comparison of the two views.
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My biggest concern is the $15 monthly subscription fee. Most sub fee games fall short in the amount of post launch content value. It has yet to be seen if Zenimax will be able to release enough of good content to warrant a sub fee. They have said they plan to launch new content every 3-4 weeks, so we will see.
I have not had a chance to experience any PvP yet, but it looks pretty awesome (see video below).
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Will the game be good? Yes, I believe it will do well, but it will not win over every gamer. I would suggest giving it a try and deciding for yourself. Will it be a WoW killer? Probably not.
