Played World of Warcraft recently...

Iccotak

There are pros and cons to both WoW and ESO but if I had to only pick one it would be Elder Scrolls Online

Pros of WoW...
I won't deny nostalgia I have for when I played it back in 2010 and despite the dated graphics WoW has great environments. The world feels large and they use color effectively that makes them pretty despite the dated graphics

That said 80% of WoW needs a visual update overhaul considering;
1. WoW is a top MMO in the market and makes Blizzard billions of dollars so they can clearly afford it
2. They have modeling technology as we have seen with the latest expansions
3. It has been over 8 years since Cataclysm updated the visuals

It's hard to appreciate the new models when old visuals of environments and armors cover it up

ESO beats WoW in quest design by a long shot.
Yes there is a lot of content but 80% of it is just outdated and poorly written.
I like reading quest text in games when it actually engages my mind and makes me think, but in Wow; The "get 5 rat tails" meme is no joke, there are lots and lots of stupid & unimaginative quests that will make your brain bleed even in recent content.

WoW has the some of the worst quests I have ever seen in AAA computer gaming. This is very important for a game that is supposed to be an MMO RPG. The Stories the player experiences along their journey is very important and if you can't regularly create a somewhat engaging story design then people are going to hate questing in your game.

Questing loses its novelty really fast in WoW, you're just clicking to get to the next one to level as quickly as possible.

I would equate Blizzard with a Bad Dungeon Master.
Their philosophy seems to be;
-have Great set pieces for the beginning so then players have good first impressions
-have Great set pieces for the end for a great & epic pay-off
BUT don't put any effort into the journey itself and fill it with meaningless tasks that are designed to extend played time instead of - consistently making engaging content and a fun experience.

It's no wonder Blizzard offers a level boost to new players because even they know that leveling is awful. Blizzard focuses on the end instead of the journey and it shows because, overall, questing feels like a chore instead of a fun experience. Leveling is a brain-dead ride while you have Netflix or a podcast on in the background and the fun doesn't start until endgame.

Maybe if the Developers focused on quality quest design instead of filler tasks they could actually have quests that are voice acted.

ESO, for the most part, has consistently engaging stories and side-quests. They made the right choice of making "Task" or "Chore" quest design relegated to daily activities, for the most part.
This four part video series explains in more detail what I am talking about and makes it easy to understand why WoW quest design is bad and what makes a quest "engaging".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtvrPTbQ_c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5camMoNw-o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otAkP5VjIv8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur6GQp5mCYs

Nemesis7884

i am also contemplating to get into wow becaues nostalgia is triggerign me hard right now.... but i also remember how absolutely painful slow the level up experience was and that i never got over lvl 20 lol

Sylvermynx

I started WoW in early 2006. Running for FORTY LEVELS.... my goddess that was numbing. I don't remember feeling the quests were awful, but then, it was my first MMO.

I was pathetically grateful to reach 40 so I could have a mount. And then BC released, flying mounts. I loved BC and WotLK, not thrilled about Cata, MoP was great.... but after that I just couldn't stand it any more. I've never been back, and won't be going back. Especially for "classic". "Classic grind"....

StormeReigns

Pros: They're both MMORPGS
(I.e: Fruits)

Cons: They are different games
(I.e: Apples & Oranges)

Hindsight: Its okay to like multiple games at once with out trying to force a personal bias and nostalgia on either
(I.e: eating a fruit salad)

Urusovite

But WoW Devs are actually listening to the players and uhh their game works

linlilia

If you say so. I hear tons of complaints from people I know that play/played WoW and their complaints are on the same level as ours and the big difference I hear is that everything becomes outdated with each expansion, whereas here they TRY to keep old content playable.

StormeReigns

Urusovite wrote: »

But WoW Devs are actually listening to the players and uhh their game works

Giving the "impression" of listening to the player base and actually listening to their player base are vastly two different ideals.

Goblin & Worgen = terrible models and worse animations for 10+ years. That just now recently are getting the much needed update.

FotM Class+Specs from last two expansions are still rolling strong and dominating in both PvE & PvP content with no acknowledgement of fixing it in the new one like was done in TBC, WotLK, Cata and Mists.

Ignoring 14+ years of players requesting that they make crafting professions actually meaningful and competitive to both PvE and PvP content (just now being looked into).

Ignoring requests since Mists on reducing the Homogenization and bringing back class+spec identity.

Just because it "works" doesn't mean it isn't broken.

fetito666

But ESO is also nostalgia! Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind... etc... (Yes, they are singleplayer games I know!).

Daggerfall had a printed 150 pages manual with all the lore. Oh, sometimes I miss those times.

Williamaire

im playing both...I love eso, but nothing beats wow's wPvP for me...nothing even close...I love the excitement of leveling with the chance of a fight at any moment. also, its a lot of fun running around ganking people...

Davor

fetito666 wrote: »

But ESO is also nostalgia! Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind... etc... (Yes, they are singleplayer games I know!).

Daggerfall had a printed 150 pages manual with all the lore. Oh, sometimes I miss those times.

Cleaning up the basement I found the Daggerfall manual and strategy guide. Oh man good times.

KillsAllElves

WoW is ugly. Nuff said

jainiadral

I tried it twice, but couldn"t make it past level 10 in either of my two attempts. It feels like a relic from its pure tab-target combat (no mouse click targeting for you!), slow leveling and skill acquistion (only had three abilities at lvl 10), sloppy quest design...

The quest that stood out to me was a lore-based gather quest for my night elf. She collected everything to restore (I think) an ancestral blessing fountain. When she turned in the quest, some ancestor spawned and started droning a story in a voice too low to be heard. The subtitles were covered by the lore-filled and detailed quest reward window. Reading one meant you missed the other Too bad, because this is probably my favorite-- the worldbuilding, raison d'etre type of quest. *sigh* That was totally off-putting.

All I can think when I feel like I should stop being so judgmental and fire it up again is, 110 more levels of this?

MLGProPlayer

I don't know how anyone can still play a game from 2004, especially one that hasn't aged well, at all.

dcam86b14_ESO

k

Ydrisselle

jainiadral wrote: »

I tried it twice, but couldn"t make it past level 10 in either of my two attempts. It feels like a relic from its pure tab-target combat (no mouse click targeting for you!), slow leveling and skill acquistion (only had three abilities at lvl 10), sloppy quest design...

The quest that stood out to me was a lore-based gather quest for my night elf. She collected everything to restore (I think) an ancestral blessing fountain. When she turned in the quest, some ancestor spawned and started droning a story in a voice too low to be heard. The subtitles were covered by the lore-filled and detailed quest reward window. Reading one meant you missed the other Too bad, because this is probably my favorite-- the worldbuilding, raison d'etre type of quest. *sigh* That was totally off-putting.

All I can think when I feel like I should stop being so judgmental and fire it up again is, 110 more levels of this?

Umm, WoW has mouse click targeting, but it also has a mechanism to prevent deselecting your target by a misclick... maybe it was activated for you. I never used Tab to select my target while I was playing (and that means 2005-2017).

Red_Feather

I played it 13 years ago and it felt dated even then.

jainiadral

Ydrisselle wrote: »

jainiadral wrote: »

I tried it twice, but couldn"t make it past level 10 in either of my two attempts. It feels like a relic from its pure tab-target combat (no mouse click targeting for you!), slow leveling and skill acquistion (only had three abilities at lvl 10), sloppy quest design...

The quest that stood out to me was a lore-based gather quest for my night elf. She collected everything to restore (I think) an ancestral blessing fountain. When she turned in the quest, some ancestor spawned and started droning a story in a voice too low to be heard. The subtitles were covered by the lore-filled and detailed quest reward window. Reading one meant you missed the other Too bad, because this is probably my favorite-- the worldbuilding, raison d'etre type of quest. *sigh* That was totally off-putting.

All I can think when I feel like I should stop being so judgmental and fire it up again is, 110 more levels of this?

Umm, WoW has mouse click targeting, but it also has a mechanism to prevent deselecting your target by a misclick... maybe it was activated for you. I never used Tab to select my target while I was playing (and that means 2005-2017).

Were you using add-ons? I tried googling to see if I'd missed a setting and every recent answer I read said that you needed some unnamed add-on for mouse click targeting. I was never able to click-target anything-- I kept getting my toon's annoyed, "I don't have a target" battle bark. Several hours of that was probably the straw thst broke the camel's back.

Jeremy

The character graphics were ugly and stupid looking. But I thought the environments were charming in their own way. They weren't detailed or realistic. But they had a style of their own that really helped draw you into the game

I agree with the OP in respects to the questing though. It was tedious. I still remember having to force myself to finish places like Tanaris off. The zones had great atmosphere. But eventually the boring tedium of the questing took it's toll and the game began to feel more like a chore than a hobby. The combat was clunky as hell too, which didn't help.

WoW is still the only game I have ever played though that's actually been able to run large scale PvP without any lag. So in terms of performance, it deserves credit. It's kind of sad that a 15 year old game can still run circles around modern games in that department. You would think the opposite would be true.

idk

Iccotak wrote: »

Maybe if the Developers focused on quality quest design instead of filler tasks they could actually have quests that are voice acted.

There are many things that set ESO apart from such an older game that still looks and plays like an older game. The game being made on the cheap (lack of voice acting) is just a small part of it.

Thing is, here at ESO most of us could care less about WoW outside of the nostalgia that brought you back to it for a visit.

MartiniDaniels

I strongly disagree about "engaging" part. There are amazing engaging quests in WoW. Just give me an example from ESO quest line which beats BRAVO company quest line in WoW. But here we may come to the point of comparing apples to oranges. ESO quests are more melodramatic and serious, but they lack gameplay part which makes all this constant drama not immersive (for me). Yeah, here there was great curse destroying the town and here came you lvl5 scrub and eliminated everything on sight running between markers with zero brain or mechanical effort, without any risk of death and with no rewards other then occasional skillpoint (quest reward/timespent ratio is awful in ESO, you may just go farm spellscar and you will get in 1 hour more experience then in a dozens hours of questing. Yeah there are several quests which grant meta items, but those are just a few.).
WoW quests on the other side are funny and epic on the quest line level, and are good from gameplay side cause they rotate different mechanics non-stop, provide great rewards (ton of XP and BiS gear for this particular leveling character) and you can actually die any moment when you aggro 3 mobs in a time, as well as some quest bosses are very challenging.

But WoW combat system is awful, graphics are outdated (though still charming) and auto-leveling engages you in non-stop grind... so I won't say WoW is better then ESO, but for the quest part I'll pick WoW's system and overland any time. But this is just me, I am bored by melodramas. From this forum I see that a lot of people enjoy such kind of "interactive reading", that's ok, questing in ESO is simply not for me.

bluebird

Why not both? I play both, for different reasons, and both are great in their own right.

ESO is a wonderful immersive world with interactive quests, a great crafting system, and it even has housing. WoW on the other hand has vastly superior class design, has iconic and diverse characters with epic storylines, and 95% of its mounts and outfits can be unlocked via gameplay not through the cash shop.

Preferences can be personal, so I expect people will disagree, but ESO's combat is a joke compared to most other MMOs. ESO plays like a hack-and-slash buttonmasher, not as an MMO or even as an interesting single player game. 80% of specs play literally the same way. Buff up, apply DoTs, spam stuff, then repeat. The concept of dps cooldowns, combo abilities, procs and other synergies are almost nonexistent (Sorc has one proc skill and a pets+daedric curse synergy, Nightblade has Grim Focus, and Necro has corpses I guess). Hell, even GW 1 which is ancient had more interesting abilities. Or even SWTOR which has been near death for years has better class designs (e.g. Fusion Missile + Rail Shot). A single class in WoW has more gameplay variety (e.g. Demo lock, Affliction lock, Destro lock) than ESO's classes combined (Are your dots blue, red, or green? Which ability and light attacks will you spam? Such interesting choices )

Iccotak

@bluebird
comes down to time and energy
I don't know about other people but I only have time for one MMO

bluebird

Iccotak wrote: »

comes down to time and energy
I don't know about other people but I only have time for one MMO

Well, yes, I didn't mean play both every day. But like, you can play both on-and-off. The content release of the games really only requires 1-2 months of gametime after a new DLC/Patch hits, the rest of the time there isn't much to do.

Hurbster

Am enjoying my holiday in classic WoW immensely. Still logging in to ESO daily, doing guild events and stuff. I have been playing ESO since beta and quite frankly (after the disappointment of the Secret World reboot which I was really hoping would be my second MMO) I need a break for a few months.

It's exactly as I remember from 15 years ago and it's awesome. I gave up on WoW after Data, Classic is everything I want right now.

Good time for a break for me as I'm at the point where I am looking at my character select screen and I just don't want to play any of them right now, no interest in dungeon dlc so I'm going to recharge the batteries for a bit. Best solution all around.

Tigerseye

Last time I saw the "new" (it's been a while, now!) WoW models, most of them were pretty awful.

I had to stop playing my female human main, as she just looked too weird, even from behind (her arms were far too long).

I preferred the old, painted on faces - at least one of them was pretty and serene looking (admittedly, the others looked pretty braindead); as opposed to the bug-eyed, wildly staring monsters, which is what they became.

The Blood Elf update was slightly less awful, body proportion wise, but they gave them horse faces, with long noses and long philtrums, for some reason.

ESO models aren't perfect and could do with a couple more customisation options (horizontal width of mouth and nose tip angle, for example), but they are still considerably better than the "new" WoW ones.

Hurbster

Meant to say Cata, silly auto correct.

Tigerseye

bluebird wrote: »

Why not both? I play both, for different reasons, and both are great in their own right.

ESO is a wonderful immersive world with interactive quests, a great crafting system, and it even has housing. WoW on the other hand has vastly superior class design, has iconic and diverse characters with epic storylines, and 95% of its mounts and outfits can be unlocked via gameplay not through the cash shop.

Preferences can be personal, so I expect people will disagree, but ESO's combat is a joke compared to most other MMOs. ESO plays like a hack-and-slash buttonmasher, not as an MMO or even as an interesting single player game. 80% of specs play literally the same way. Buff up, apply DoTs, spam stuff, then repeat. The concept of dps cooldowns, combo abilities, procs and other synergies are almost nonexistent (Sorc has one proc skill and a pets+daedric curse synergy, Nightblade has Grim Focus, and Necro has corpses I guess). Hell, even GW 1 which is ancient had more interesting abilities. Or even SWTOR which has been near death for years has better class designs (e.g. Fusion Missile + Rail Shot). A single class in WoW has more gameplay variety (e.g. Demo lock, Affliction lock, Destro lock) than ESO's classes combined (Are your dots blue, red, or green? Which ability and light attacks will you spam? Such interesting choices )

I would prefer it if they could combine the best elements of the best games.

I'm kind of a serial monogamist when it comes to MMOs and so, would prefer to not have to keep switching.

Tigerseye

Sylvermynx wrote: »

...not thrilled about Cata, MoP was great.... but after that I just couldn't stand it any more. I've never been back, and won't be going back. Especially for "classic". "Classic grind"....

Couldn't agree more.

I did really like Uldum, though - that was my favourite WoW zone, pre-MoP.

Now I remember Uldum and Pandaria with pretty equal fondness.

Cata would have been better if it had all been like Uldum.

Pink sand...

bluebird

Tigerseye wrote: »

ESO models aren't perfect and could do with a couple more customisation options (horizontal width of mouth and nose tip angle, for example), but they are still considerably better than the "new" WoW ones.

I think that's mostly due to style. I get it if people aren't a fan of WoW's style; I used to be in love with a game called Kingdom of Amalur which had an extreeeemely wonky style that was super cartoonish, but I loved it anyway and replayed it on several characters.

Proportions-wise though... have you seen a male character in ESO? They have like no ass. Their legs just sprout from their spine. And their hips are tiny little boxes that are half the size of their shoulders... and no matter how far you set the leg sliders, they still remain tiny sticklegs that in no way shape or form could carry that torso. Most male characters are so top-heavy that they should just topple over when they try to walk

What ESO does well though is facial customization. It's great that we also have a lot of extra ways to personalize our characters like more tattoos than wow, and adornments and the like (obviously, since ZOS are selling customization options in the cash shop *cough cough*).

Tigerseye

bluebird wrote: »

Tigerseye wrote: »

ESO models aren't perfect and could do with a couple more customisation options (horizontal width of mouth and nose tip angle, for example), but they are still considerably better than the "new" WoW ones.

I think that's mostly due to style. I get it if people aren't a fan of WoW's style; I used to be in love with a game called Kingdom of Amalur which had an extreeeemely wonky style that was super cartoonish, but I loved it anyway and replayed it on several characters.

Proportions-wise though... have you seen a male character in ESO? They have like no ass. Their legs just sprout from their spine. And their hips are tiny little boxes that are half the size of their shoulders... and no matter how far you set the leg sliders, they still remain tiny sticklegs that in no way shape or form could carry that torso. Most male characters are so top-heavy that they should just topple over when they try to walk

Yeah, my ideal man, basically. :P

I like men with big shoulders, small butts and very slim legs, so I'm probably not the best person to ask about that, lol.

I didn't have a problem with the original WoW character style, which was more painterly than cartoonish, at all.

Also didn't have a problem with the Pandaren models (I like them, in fact).

Just didn't like how they updated the humans to be far too cartoonish and bug-eyed, when they hadn't been like that, at all, before.

The female humans were, literally, scary from a distance.

They looked like praying mantises.

Iccotak

bluebird wrote: »

Iccotak wrote: »

comes down to time and energy
I don't know about other people but I only have time for one MMO

Well, yes, I didn't mean play both every day. But like, you can play both on-and-off. The content release of the games really only requires 1-2 months of gametime after a new DLC/Patch hits, the rest of the time there isn't much to do.

To answer this

Quests
Because WoW makes previous content irrelevant and demands far more of your time than ESO does.
They keep trying to reinvent the wheel which results in previous expansions being pointless.
If they magically fix their problems in a couple years with the outdated visuals, improved combat experience, removing the majority of Task quests like "Kill 5 rats", better character creation, then we'll see

Sure WoW has epic storylines and story beats that are fun but there has to be a somewhat consistent quality in quest design, storytelling, and presentation. WoW doesn't have that for me. It's over-bloated with time consuming tasks which makes leveling a drag and you need either a friend or a podcast to mentally stimulate enough to get through

The only time I can think of doing a quest in ESO similar to WoW was the Psijiic skill line quest which has been labeled by the community as the worst quests design ZOS implemented in the game

Combat
You can mention specific mechanics, skills, or data, etc. but at the end of the day I am focused on how it makes me feel.
-I am engaged in ESO's active action combat.
-WoW's combat does not engage me and it was worse in classic.
it's really that simple

if you like it good for you.

On the cash shop - this is a consequence of the market as well as trying to work with consoles.
with a optional subscription and a B2P model ESO has to find other venues to get money to support the game
Do I approve of the Crown crates? Not 100% no - I do think that there should be more mounts a player can earn in game

Customization and mount variety are a different discussion that you can find here:
Mounts
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/464017/unique-mounts

Pets
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/476482/change-combat-pet-appearance