Do you feel The Elder Scrolls spirit while playing ESO?

Parasaurolophus

Yes, I understand that this is a rather slippery and ephemeral topic. After all, we can say that everyone feels the atmosphere of the TES series in their own way. However, in talking to many fans, one thing I've found is that fans say that the universe of the Scrolls is somehow special and stands out from other, especially modern fantasy universes. That it is full of unusual solutions for the genre. We can say for sure that this trend was set in Morrowind and successfully followed in Skyrim. Yes, yes, in Skyrim. When someone says that Skyrim is a tracing paper from Scandinavia, it seems to me that the person does not know anything about Scandinavia or Skyrim at all. When I hear about Scandinavia, images of fjords, warriors with spears, form in my head! and raincoats!, navigation and fishing, throat singing and their national music. None of this is in Skyrim. Nothing. Therefore, I think that Skyrim came out quite authentic and does not resemble anything. It was more inspired by the myths of Hyperborea than Scandinavia. That's what I mean. Authenticity, strangeness, original solutions, difficult to understand deeplore, this is what this universe is loved for. However, it's not just this one thing... You should also pay attention to many gaming and gameplay moments.
Do I feel the Elder Scrolls spirit while playing ESO? Well, in order:

1) I will express a very unpopular opinion, but in the true TES is played only with a first-person view. Not only because the single parts were developed for it, but also because it provides the best immersion. I know that many people have played Skyrim in third person. But for me it's like playing GTA in first person. Excuse me.

2) Gameplay. Yes, the overland thread is above. But I just want to say that, alas, the overland is simply filled with garbage. We can't get something really interesting and useful, like a Daedric artifact. We all have to farm all the time. Farming, looting, combat and questing are completely separated in eso. It's like they're different games. We have questing sessions, cabinet looting sessions, resource farming sessions, dungeon sessions and so on. All this works too separately.

3) ESO is just a different genre. And it has a completely different pace of the game. It's faster, it's more dynamic. Whereas in singles you just travel and enjoy the game. Why can't I enjoy the world in eso as well as in singles? I answer

4) Sameness. ZoS should release new locations every year and it is clear that they will not be filled in the same way as games that have been developed for several years. I understand all this perfectly, but it does not make it any easier for me. We actually always have a standard set for urban architecture, rustic and ruins. All. Seeing only a small part of the location, we see it all. Each time the cities consist of too few presets. Especially Alinor architecture. Yes, and it's a pity that all the cities on Summerset have the same architecture. It's also a pity that the cities of Northern and Southern Elsweyr are almost the same. Every time we have a standard set of words denoting enemy and friend for each race. Every time we have a standard set of furniture. It makes all of Tampriel look the same to me.
Just... Just imagine a separate part of TES on Summerset or Elsweyr. How much better would this experience be in terms of exploration.

5) There is another very important point in order to enjoy the atmosphere of the Scrolls. This is acceptance. And here everything is ambiguous. In general, succession is good, but there are some rather strange moments. For example, I do not understand why it was necessary to change the design of siltstriders so much, or the architecture of the Telvanni house. Or for example, change the design of the towers in the Dead Lands.

6) And of course the general style. ESO still tries to be brighter than other parts of the series. And ESO clearly lacks some kind of realism. Although the world seems to be still the same "mundane", quests very often involve us in some kind of magical adventure. We are constantly setting up some kind of magical crystals, traveling through time or in someone's memory, exorcising the Daedra. Some simple stories are very much missing when we cleaned the basements of rats for a handful of coins. Because of this, nothing impresses me in storylines. Another divine artifact that no one has seen for thousands of years? Another trip to Oblivion? Pfff...

7) Skills. Namely, in principle, it is not possible to play an adventurer as a simple warior. All skills, even stam, look like spells.

8) And yet, I must admit that the best concept artists work in Bethesda, but not at ZoS. Artistically, ESO falls short for some reason. And this is a serious problem for me, by the way, since I appreciate the series for its uniqueness. But in eso I feel that the artists don't think about uniqueness. Very often, the design of armor or architecture has become rather lazy, as if ZoS saves on labor or time. Often just a jumble of spikes and patterns. This requires a separate thread.

9) Brad Derrick is good. Although I often miss Jeremy, Brad has a lot of good music, especially for vanilla.

10) LORE is still good. Yes, we are too often confronted with the forces of Oblivion and other mythological moments, and the quality of the writing falls every year. Nevertheless, in books, lore remains quite high-quality, interesting and deep. Well, a little out of the ordinary.

Other players outside the category) Customization is good. And I'm ready to forgive crowds of half-naked cowboys, as long as the world created by the developers looks normal.

So, do you feel the spirit of the series while playing ESO? What is the spirit of TES for you? How important is eo to you?

wookiefriseur

From time to time I like to play an immersive session where I disable chat, health bars and names and then I go questing, while roleplaying in my head.

Then I play in first person, reading all the quest related books/notes and talking to all NPCs. I also like to lookup quest related lore on uesp. That way sometimes it feels like a TES game and sometimes it doesn't. TES music playlists help too.

But without the forced immersion on my part it mostly feels like an MMO with many references to the other TES games. Which is also more or less what I expected from the game.

Funnily enough I detect the highest TES spirit concentration when:

1. doing some housing endgame
2. picking a costume for the current zone
3. doing something with companions

BretonMage

For me, the lore and the music is what links ESO to TES. Having a consistent feel regarding the land, the people and the stories. Travelling around Tamriel and occasionally hearing snippets of music from TES is fabulous. I'd love to hear a little more of the atmospheric TES-type music to be quite honest, where perhaps not every song is a dramatic fanfare of trumpets or choral music, and where there are a few more tracks with soulful Morrowind/Oblivion-style music.

Two areas of difference, I feel, are atmosphere and gameplay. Admittedly I prefer the atmosphere in TES, it somehow feels more beautiful and more immersive. That is probably not achievable in an MMO where perhaps graphics need to be simplified (they do, right?), and there are necessarily hundreds of people running and jumping around you. So ESO has its own atmosphere with glowing mounts and glowing people. I can live with that, as long as it's aesthetic and tied to lore.

Gameplay is different, and that's perfectly fine, and actually quite fun in ESO. I like the combat in ESO, it feels more fast-paced, reactive and fun (though it was a bit more fun before U35). Collection of items is more complex and more interesting in ESO, though maybe it's getting a little unwieldy with the increasing number of item sets and the complexity of hybridization thrown in.

Freelancer_ESO

I think ESO does a good job of keeping the spirit of the main quest Elder Scrolls experience where you are a big flashy hero that has somewhat "relaxed" morals.

I think it fails to keep the spirit of the more open ended experience that many of the games also offered and as the game has aged it's gotten worse in this regard imho.

AzuraFan

I'm playing through Skyrim again right now. I've put more than 100 hours into the current game. Playing Skyrim has a very different feel to playing ESO. In Skyrim, the world changes in some ways as you progress through the game. Also, it's so much easier to be immersed because you don't have the flash, chat, and ludicrous stuff you see in ESO.

In Skyrim, every playthrough is different (part of the reason why Skyrim and Oblivion and Morrowind are so popular - the replayability. I've also played Arena and Daggerfall but years ago and don't remember if they offer the same). In ESO, it's not. You go into a delve/dungeon/whatever twice and the enemies are in exactly the same place and behave in the exactly the same way as the first time you went in. Same goes for overland.

In Skyrim, you can play your character in so many different ways. I was just reading some threads on the Skyrim reddit last night and it's amazing what players come up with. Again, it's about replayability. In ESO, I think that all the classes are starting to feel the same now in some ways, and the player is quite restricted by meta builds and such. Par for the course for an MMO.

And, of course: NO GRINDING in the single-player games.

I see ESO as an amusement park set in the Elder Scrolls universe. Nothing wrong with that. ESO has kept me entertained for a couple of years now (though I'm running out of things to do). But when I want a true Elder Scrolls experience with deep immersion and rich lore baked into the game, the ability to really play as I want, and the ability to customize the experience (through settings, mods, skill choices and the use of those skills, etc.), ESO doesn't hold a candle to the single-player experience.

If I was mostly interested in a SOCIAL experience, experiencing Tamriel with other people, ESO would win hands down (though there's a co-op mod out for Skyrim now).

(as an aside, now that I've gone back in time by playing ESO, some parts of Skyrim are quite poignant, especially when talking to NPCs in Solstheim. This will be especially true if you played Morrowind, but applies to having played ESO too.)

Cadbury

To be perfectly honest, the lore is really the only reason I stick around. To me that's where its "spirit" or "soul" really lies. The single player Elder Scrolls games were the reason I even decided to try ESO. The rest of the game is a fun distraction in an 'I'm at an amusement park." way. But, hand to heart the lore is the only real hold ESO has on me.

I wouldn't shed a single tear if someday they decided to turn this into a 100% solo game.

At the end of the day, I just don't feel invested.

Faulgor

No, but I don't see what they could change now to make it work.

On the gameplay side, I think a lot of mistakes have been made in staying consistent with the IP - e.g. Enchanting should require trapping souls. The classes are mostly "made up" when there are a plethora of classes from the single player games (why Templar and not Crusader, for instance?), as well as most skills and effects. Summoning huge Dragon-like wings might be fun for some when playing a DK, but it certainly doesn't say "Elder Scrolls" to me.
Likewise, in terms of design and aesthetics, there are some incomprehensible changes. Why isn't the bonemold armor the guards in Vvardenfell wear bonemold-colored? What's up with the Telvanni towers? What happened to Dunmer voices?

But those are almost details, compared to the difference in genre.
A lot of the TES atmosphere is due to exploring a vast world on your own. Preparing for the journey is an integral part of the gameplay, whereas ESO is the most convenient in terms of fast travel and average travel speed so far.
What this means is that there is basically no wilderness in ESO to explore, every corner of the world feels completely civilized, populated and charted. It's a theme park. This is not aided by the triviality of overworld content.

I think scale is also a massive problem. IMO, it should have never been the goal to include all of Tamriel. Although ESO is a big game, this makes the world feel much, much smaller. Only hearing about a place in books and dialogues is as vital to keeping the mystery and grandeur of the world alive as having "blind spots" in the lore like the disappearance of the Dwarves (ask Todd Howard). Explaining/showing everything robs the world of its wonder.
I'd've rather had only one city and the surrounding area for each race in the base game, with subsequently larger cities and more untamed wilderness. E.g. look at High Isle on the world map, and imagine the same for say Daggerfall.
Would have also left more opportunities to expand on the Bosmer and Bretons.

SPR_of_HA_community

I feel bad balanced MMO with strange changes each patch, constant nerfs and not pressing skills.

I do not play other games of this series and do not plan to do so.

Rowjoh

ESO was never intended to be a continuation of the single player games and Bethesda/ZoS articulated that leading up to launch and thereafter.

Although the base setting and many more detailed aspects is very much Elder Scrolls, it is simply not technically possible to build and evolve an mmo that mirrors the single player offering. They're seperate genres.

It's like trying to compare the best selling book with the film. Technically you can't, no matter the similarities and differences, because they're completely different mediums.

Anhedonie

Not really. Nowadays it just feels more like some random MMO with all the glowy mounts and stuff.

SammyKhajit

In the “old” zones and before Greymoor, yes. After that, it’s morphed into something more generic.

Nightowl_74

To some extent, but for me a big part of Elder Scroll ambience is that it's lonely. The map is quite large, with cities spaced far apart, and very few npc's are more than cordial. Most of them don't even get to that point until I risk life and limb clearing out a cave system or some old ruins to retrieve a bauble for them. I think that's why a few of the animations startle me sometimes, such as giant spider attacks and draugr. An MMO can't accomplish that, with other players wandering around.

There are a lot of quests that require some sort of evil act, with no "hero" option other than choosing not to do the task at all. To me these are more impactful in terms of defining my character's morality than any number of dark brotherhood contracts, and ESO doesn't have them. Not that I've noticed anyway, it seems that there's always an "out" to allow me to finish quests and still be the good guy (or at least the neutral guy) if I want. DB contracts are fun to do but not deep, no interaction with the target npc's is needed aside from the actual assassination.

ESO looks like it should, and when I'm decorating my houses or out and about gathering at odd hours (which I often am due to working swing shift) that's when I most feel TES spirit.

zaria

Back then I joined the beta my reaction then out of Coldharbor was that if felt like an Elder Scroll game.
Obviously with the restrictions of an MMO.

mague

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

7) Skills. Namely, in principle, it is not possible to play an adventurer as a simple warior. All skills, even stam, look like spells.


So, do you feel the spirit of the series while playing ESO? What is the spirit of TES for you? How important is eo to you?

Did you even try to play as a warrior ? You can paly the game with your fists and some potions if you like. Just not in group dungeons.

About the spirit.. not everyone has the same spirit. I never cared for Daedra artefacts. For Skyrim i made a mod to play as unarmed monk. And ESO, minus trials and group dungeons, still has the spirit to play the way you like. I play that way sice 2015.

Tesman85

I do, to a certain extent. For clarity's sake, I'm writing this as someone who has played Elder Scrolls main titles since 1998. Still, I like ESO very much. The game certainly isn't as immersive as the single player titles and for obvious reasons not as moddable as TES III-V. Also, the presence and actions of other players in questing spaces etc. does remove the "solitary hero" atmosphere. But much of the Elder Scrolls charm is still there:

1. The environments. The dev team certainly has studied both the single player titles and the lore surrounding them. Almost every place is recognizably Elder Scrolls, echoing the previous titles. E.g. Vvardenfell gave me serious nostalgia vibes from the (too) many hours I played Morrowind back in the day.
2. The lore. Another place where the dev team has mostly done good work. There are some jarring things like too much dragons alive and awake, but mostly things are lorewise as they should. The new lore introduced in the game fits the world well IMO. And like it should in a TES game, there is a plethora of books and other texts about every imaginable subject.
3. Questing. They often tie into the TES lore and so aren't just generic "kill this or fetch that"-type of quests. Many quests are also well written and executed in a general sense, even though there are also some flops. I have liked almost every storyline this far. Especially when questing at early morning or other non-peak times, there's a magic in freeform wandering and doing random quests that approaches that of the single player games. The last time I had this enchanted feeling was just yesterday as I played the first quests of the new DLC.
4. The music. It's excellent, simply put. The good old Nerevar Rising theme appears here and there in many forms, always sparking that Morrowind nostalgia. The wholly new music also fits TES world perfectly and is beautiful to listen to. It's a big part of making ESO feel a part of the ES continuum.
5. The freedom. There are obvious restrictions to what is possible compared to the single player games, but it shows that the developing philosophy was to provide as much freedom as possible. For instance character builds can be taken to interesting directions with gear, general skills and morphs. Of course, there's the mathematical meta, but if one isn't hunting that there is a great variety of second-best builds that can be very viable for everything but the endest of end game circle. The world is free to roam and even the storylines can be played in any order. This last thing is also a flaw, granted, but the intent is still good.

In summary, accounting for the restrictions and annoyances the MMO format inevitably gives rise to, ESO is a good Elder Scrolls title worthy of the name.

Anifaas

Yes. ESO is my favourite Elder Scrolls environment. When I think of TES now the ESO login music fills my head.

emilyhyoyeon

The TES spirit for me doesn't come from single playerness or sandboxiness, it comes from having a TES theme, so I do feel my version of the Elder Scrolls spirit from ESO. I would feel it even from a TES nintendogs style game. That's not how most people feel about it from what I've heard over the years, but yeah.

Some specific things like restrictive skills, that ruin the TES spirit for some people in this game, don't ruin it for me. I still have fun headcannoning certain things about skills for different characters and this also makes the restrictiveness less bothersome for me. For example, I pretend the NB execute on my argonian mage is an extra strong health siphon spell since she uses absorb restoration magic mostly, whereas I pretend the NB execute on my khajiit assassin is not even a spell at all but just her using one of her physical daggers since she doesn't use magic.

Daoin

no.....in my view the mmo aspect of the game has no ES spirit...but the theme is good and i like ES all-in-all.

SPR_of_HA_community

As MMO it has no spirit too now.

MMO do not work like that. They do not change everything and do not nerf you each patch.

spartaxoxo

I think it does. The lore feels very similar. The Elder Scrolls have always been easy. The environment and characters feel familiar. The music is top notch. I actually feel more freedom to build my characters the way I want than I ever did in the regular game. Yes, you can't get literally every skill. But armor is infinitely more complex. Staves are actually fun. And there's way more skills to learn to really make something unique, if that's what you're into. The locales are also way more varied, which makes since you're exploring all of Tamriel and not just one place. Once you've done a few draugr barrows, you've done them all.

It's more or less what I expected an ES MMO to be, and I think people ruin it for themselves by comparing it to the single player games. If you're constantly thinking about what the game doesn't have, it makes it hard to enjoy the things it does.

Finedaible

Summerset was the last expansion that I felt immersed in an Elder Scrolls world, and it wasn't because of the flashy content but because of the writing and player agency. Up to that point, it felt that YOU as the Vestige were the agent of change and it was your personal quest to put an end to the threats by gathering allies and seeking help. Since then it feels like the newer stories just are NOT the Vestige's quest and you are just tagging along an NPC's slideshow story. Sure, NPCs do claim you have helped them stop X/Y/Z world-ending threat number 500 after all is said and done but it doesn't feel like you were really crucial to the story.

SPR_of_HA_community

I think too, that after summerset game start change in wrong direction.

Kiralyn2000

AzuraFan wrote: »

And, of course: NO GRINDING in the single-player games.

Eh, wot?

Sorry, the "earn skills as you use them" and the "gain levels/perks as you gain skill levels" systems (especially in Oblivion) make the TES games amazing havens of grinding. People bunny-hopping up and down stairs in MW and OB to level Atheletics, people uber-grinding the crafting loop in Skyrim, leveling your magic skills in the basement of the mage guild in Morrowind by casting spells til you were out of mana then sleeping in the beds, etc.

No grinding in TES? Seriously? /rofl

----

As for the OP, the only one I really agree with is "they're totally different genres". Yes, this is an MMO. For all that it tries to hang on to some game mechanics (at least stylistically) from the single player games, it's still an MMO at the end of the day. I don't expect it to be like the TES games other than in it's setting and lore.

And I don't "immersion", so that's not an issue. /shrug


edit: re - first person vs third person. I play the TES games in first person, because they play better that way. I play this game in third person, because it plays better that way.

Not sure if there's any "Elder Scrolls spirit" that I feel. There's likely a "Bethesda open-world spirit", because I also played Fallout 3 and 4 for the same general 'feel'. (which I didn't get as much from New Vegas, which had the same engine, but the world was designed by different people). And yeah, ESO obviously wouldn't have that, because it's an MMO + made by different folks.

TaSheen

I find the "spirit" of TES to be quite present in ESO, along with the look and feel of the zones and NPCs. The combat, not so much, but then, I've never been much about combat in any game I've ever played. For me it's all about exploration and questing, character building, and fun with whatever other "extra" systems games have presented.

Captain_Devildog

I had the eso spirit with my Templar but then u35 came..

AzuraFan

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

AzuraFan wrote: »

And, of course: NO GRINDING in the single-player games.

Eh, wot?

Sorry, the "earn skills as you use them" and the "gain levels/perks as you gain skill levels" systems (especially in Oblivion) make the TES games amazing havens of grinding. People bunny-hopping up and down stairs in MW and OB to level Atheletics, people uber-grinding the crafting loop in Skyrim, leveling your magic skills in the basement of the mage guild in Morrowind by casting spells til you were out of mana then sleeping in the beds, etc.

No grinding in TES? Seriously? /rofl

I've played all the ESO games (have thousands of hours across the last three and who knows what for the first two) and have never had to do any grinding. Sure, there are players who want to level up every skill (which is NOT required in any way, shape, or form), or are too impatient for their skills to level up naturally (as they will if you just play the game the way you want), so they spend time using "level up skill" tricks like jumping everywhere. But it's not required to play, enjoy, and engage with any of the content in the game. It's a choice those players make.

For example, in my current Skyrim game I've finished all three main quests (base, Dawnguard, Dragonborn) and the majority of the side quests and guilds. Have visited at least 80% of the locations. I haven't used enchanting or smithing once, and most of my magic skills are still below 20. The skills I actually use are all at 100 with the perks I want (I don't like changing skills to legendary, so I don't). The same goes for Oblivion - had a pure magic character with no combat skills.

If players are grinding in the single-player games, it's a self-imposed grind. In MMOs, there's always some required grind. That's the difference.

SammyKhajit

Nightowl_74 wrote: »

To some extent, but for me a big part of Elder Scroll ambience is that it's lonely. The map is quite large, with cities spaced far apart, and very few npc's are more than cordial. Most of them don't even get to that point until I risk life and limb clearing out a cave system or some old ruins to retrieve a bauble for them. I think that's why a few of the animations startle me sometimes, such as giant spider attacks and draugr. An MMO can't accomplish that, with other players wandering around.
.

This is very true, although this one would characterise it more as “solitary” than lonely. In Skyrim, you get to explore the vast expanse and the soundtrack really adds to the feeling of a lone wanderer. It’s probably one of the first walking simulation game

With ESO, lots of players running around and it’s a different vibe. But this one would like to think that there is something of an Elder Scrolls spirit, in that the players typically help each other out, give helpful advice in chats and so on.

Jaimeh

Probably in the minority here, but I'm glad ESO is not like the single-player games, and I don't think it should try to be either. It is its own self-contained game, and in my opinion, the atmosphere is still very much within TES world, even with the constraints of an MMO. In fact I find (again probably not popularly) that if fans of the single games put pressure on the dev team to make it more like those, it will chip away all that is unique and awesome about it. All the previous titles are available for players who like that exact experience, and hopefully they will get to see the next installment in this decade. But ESO is very beautiful on its own merits; the exploration is vast and superb, and the combat system is better than the stand-alone games, in fact, dare I say, better than almost any other game of its kind. I hope ESO will continue to thrive, I love the experience and the universe it offers, it's a very rewarding game, especially if you don't try to mold it into something else

Varana

AzuraFan wrote: »

I've played all the ESO games (have thousands of hours across the last three and who knows what for the first two) and have never had to do any grinding. Sure, there are players who want to level up every skill (which is NOT required in any way, shape, or form), or are too impatient for their skills to level up naturally (as they will if you just play the game the way you want), so they spend time using "level up skill" tricks like jumping everywhere. But it's not required to play, enjoy, and engage with any of the content in the game. It's a choice those players make.

For example, in my current Skyrim game I've finished all three main quests (base, Dawnguard, Dragonborn) and the majority of the side quests and guilds. Have visited at least 80% of the locations. I haven't used enchanting or smithing once, and most of my magic skills are still below 20. The skills I actually use are all at 100 with the perks I want (I don't like changing skills to legendary, so I don't). The same goes for Oblivion - had a pure magic character with no combat skills.

If players are grinding in the single-player games, it's a self-imposed grind. In MMOs, there's always some required grind. That's the difference.

But then, you can play ESO exactly the same as well. You can visit (almost) all of the locations, finish all the quests, and level all the skills you use, without specifically grinding. Overland, including 99% of the quests in the game, is made for exactly that style of play. It is, many would argue, tailored to that style of play more than is good for the game.

The only part where more grinding is necessary, is if you want to engage with the multiplayer aspect (group content, PvP) or dive deeper into one of the other aspects of the game (housing, fashion, crafting, trading...) But the important part is "deeper". On a casual level, you can do all of that while naturally playing the game.

zaria

SPR_of_HA_community wrote: »

As MMO it has no spirit too now.

MMO do not work like that. They do not change everything and do not nerf you each patch.

This, the balance team has to be reminded that their primary objective is to keep players playing.
Secondary concern is balance who is solo and group PvP Cyrodil IC and BG, trials and dungeons at hard mode and vet.
Who is harder and very irrelevant if primary objective fails.
Yes secondary is important but very secondary.
Landing the aircraft safely is a bit more important than creating an fireball at time.

Make this very clear as in user engagement is up or your out.

Dragonlord573

No honestly. I feel it in the original game and the triad arc, but the chapters and DLC? Been feeling it less and less each quarter. I went back to Skyrim the other day and the vibe it gives off is entirely different. I felt freedom in a world that took itself seriously. In ESO all I feel is a lack of freedom for where I can explore in a world that takes itself less and less seriously. NPCs don't feel immersive as they just walk around in circles saying the exact same two lines to one another. The drunk NPCs talking about needing a head in the hole are ever present. Shop keepers say the exact same dialogue they've said for years when I pass by them. NPCs only mention things I did in the base game with no mention of stuff I did in the DLC. AWA also ruins this cause brand new characters will be credited with doing stuff they never did

I know the players are supposed to emulate the population of the world, but in places like High Isle where very few people are at, the world feels lonely. Like if you killed all the NPCs in Whiterun and only the guards and essential NPCs were left. It also doesn't help that a lot of those players appear immersion breaking. The players who dress their characters up to look like WoW characters or the typical high elf with max chest size in a skimpy costume. It's those types of people who pull you out the quickest and remind you that you're playing a game. Like seriously it has become a game for my girlfriend and I to go to Mournhold and talk crap about the unimaginative "fashion" people have.

And then we have the quests. The zone quests thankfully are still on par with Elder Scrolls questlines, but the side quests are so hit or miss that I seriously can't tell if the writers have even played a mainline game. Sure Oblivion and its predecessors had goofy quests but ESO dials it up to 11 at times.

The tone of the game is so in conflict with itself that I've seen ESO less and less like an Elder Scrolls game over the last two years. And unfortunately it is all thanks to things outside of my control.

Edit: fixed some spelling errors and added to a point.