Do you think that ESO is primarily an ES game or primarily an MMO? How does it affect your choices

Arreyanne

I really don't think its either. The leveling is boring, which I have never experienced in multiple play threws of both Oblivion and Skyrim.

And the phasing oh my

Elsonso

As suggested in the necro, this depends a lot on your play style. What makes it contentious is that different play styles are afraid that they are not part of the game based on things that ZOS does, or does not do, and that escalates into doom and gloom, predictions of failure, and other dramatic responses.

ESO is both TES and MMO, a blend with concessions on both sides. Concessions are going to obviously be controversial, and on this forum, that lends itself to drama.

ESO does a lot of Elder Scrolls and is very much an Elder Scrolls game. The artwork, music, and world design is right out of Elder Scrolls and one would be hard pressed to stand in one of the cities and say, "this is not Elder Scrolls." The questing and manner in which quests are obtained and completed is also very Elder Scrolls. The races, armor, weapons, and lore are at least familiar to TES players. The economy and money system are pretty much Elder Scrolls, if you can say that any of the single player games really had an economy. ESO is close to being as open world as any of the other TES games, especially when you consider that each prior TES single player game is roughly equivalent to an ESO zone.

This is not to say that ESO does not diverge from Elder Scrolls in obvious and significant ways, like the magic-heavy skills, classes and class-specific skills, and the expanded action bar, to name a few. Combat is not the same, but is similar enough that TES people can use it. TES games cannot decide what to do about birth signs, racial abilities, attributes, and skills, and ESO is no exception, but at least they did not remove an Attribute this time.

The same thing is going to happen on the MMO side. Certain tropes that come from other MMOs are missing or implemented strangely in deference to the Elder Scrolls world and background. The 5-slot action bar is constrained for MMO players, but confusingly huge and complicated to TES players. The classes and class skills will make many MMO players feel at home, while at the same time not so much to TES players. To this day, I have no idea why they included the Trinity (Tank, DPS, Healer) in ESO, but it is there and is familiar to MMO players.

KhajitFurTrader

@lordrichter, you've nailed it.

newtinmpls

lordrichter wrote: »

ESO is close to being as open world as any of the other TES games, especially when you consider that each prior TES single player game is roughly equivalent to an ESO zone.

While I do agree that the maps of any given zone seem to be roughly similar to the size of previous ES games; the player experience is quite different.

I played (still occasionally play) Morrowind, and the amount of the map I cover when I say ... "go north for a while" is much quicker to get from "here" to "there" in ESO. Morrowind was just ... bigger, thicker, deeper. There is a minimap addon that is quite similar to the morrowind mini-map and it's kind of depressing to realize how "small" ESO actually is.

You mention the confusion of adding "the trinity" of tank/DPS/healer ... yeah that seemed weird, but not half so weird as having a "Cleric" (or possibly "Paladin") class - as neither has anything to do with ES lore, and frankly makes me think of blue box DND.

R0M2K

To me, different.

Inmersion= single player
Casual fun=MMO