Early Access - Issues and My Feelings Thus Far

Publius_Scipio

First let me say I am a big fan of ESO and have nothing but respect for the entire team at Zenimax and their years of hard work on the game.

I am currently not sure what to think of my early access experience thus far. There are many issues still present (as can be seen all over the forums). Me personally, I suffer from the Mac client random crashes (memory leak?), and quests not functioning so I can't progress (i.e. Bloodthorn Assassin's quest, suspicious cargo on ships not spawning).

Early access honestly feels like beta to me. And beta was beta, i understand that, but I/we paid money (Imperial Edition at $80) for early access. Early access is the finished product for us to enjoy. There are many issues and the clock for early access keeps ticking away. As of right now I cannot enjoy the main storyline of the game on top of the very annoying crashing to desktop.

Also many of the issues we are experiencing are the same ones from beta. And from reading the patch notes released after the last couple of betas I thought these issues were squared away.

Publius_Scipio

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/63066/amazing-simply-amazing#latest

Another thread on the matter.

Publius_Scipio

bump

Publius_Scipio

Do you guys consider early access lost time because of the issues?

Ojustaboo

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Do you guys consider early access lost time because of the issues?

No for the simple reason that I can't think of one online game that has been perfect in its first week. Due to the nature of these games it's almost impossible.

That's why when people say they are taking time off work etc for release of any game, many of us advise them they are foolish to do so.

I bought the imp edition because I wanted it, I took the 5 day early access as a bonus they were letting the pre order people have, and I fully expected long queues, server crashes etc during that time and into the first month while they tweak everything.

So far for me, it's been the smoothest game launch I've ever played.

It's not a matter of them behaving like this because the customer is stupid enough to put up with it, it's simply that with any game this big, there will always be problems.

There's 20 people from the EU currently in game from my guild, for all of us it's been very smooth, the occasional quest bug for some requiring a re log but nothing on the scale of the last few betas

BlackOmega

I think that online game launches in the last few years have largely shown that launch day (early access or not) are for the most part buggy, etc... Diablo 3, FF14, a few others, to name a couple off the hop.

While I know that D3 and FF14 had major issues for weeks on end, to the point where you could not log in period... I think that ESO has been, for the most part, a step above the others with regards to launch. Sure, quite a few people are having issues, but the servers are for the most part stable, and those who are in seem to be having few issues (comparatively).

While I feel for those with issues (and I do sympathize due to experiences in past MMO launches), I think Zenimax did a pretty good job with the release over all.

reggiekisb14_ESO

im on hold for the third time over 2 hours of holding the last time i was told someone would call me right back to correct my account issue of not being able to login/password error. The guy promised me i would get called back and he would wrap my 3 tickets and the last tech call into one and expect a call immediately that was 330 est today hmmm i paid 80 dollars for this crap and my son bought his with my card and his account is fine this is a bug/error and they are handling it horribly if this is the way things are handled i want a REFUND..... if your smart get one 2 get out as soon as you can this game will not be around for long poor tech support shotty beta items and bugs not fixxed and people will not pay 15 dollars a month for this for long........REFUND......

Publius_Scipio

reggiekisb14_ESO wrote: »

im on hold for the third time over 2 hours of holding the last time i was told someone would call me right back to correct my account issue of not being able to login/password error. The guy promised me i would get called back and he would wrap my 3 tickets and the last tech call into one and expect a call immediately that was 330 est today hmmm i paid 80 dollars for this crap and my son bought his with my card and his account is fine this is a bug/error and they are handling it horribly if this is the way things are handled i want a REFUND..... if your smart get one 2 get out as soon as you can this game will not be around for long poor tech support shotty beta items and bugs not fixxed and people will not pay 15 dollars a month for this for long........REFUND......

We'll see what happens.

Publius_Scipio

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/62821/a-broken-game#latest

Another related thread

Blowtorch

Everyone saying this is the smoothest launch they've ever seen in an MMO hasn't played any. In recent memory GW2 had fewer issues. This game has quests that are bugged that prevent you from progressing..that's not a bug, it's a huge issue.

Publius_Scipio

Well whatever is happening now, the 3 day early access people have been added to the mix today.

Are we going to have a patch before 4-4 or will this all continue past that date?

KerinKor

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Do you guys consider early access lost time because of the issues?

Not at all, I assume the worst and get pleasantly surprised if I get to play at all.

I pre-order because I like to provide some feedback to the developers to help them plan for release day, I also like some perks in some cases, but Early Start programs mean nothing to me, I've been in many and most of them were utter chaos with server crashes, massive queues, endless problems.

This one has been better than others, I've actually got in some game-play, but I'm an adult I know things go wrong, I sit back patiently and when patience runs out I simply walk away, life's too short to go round screaming REFUND!

To those screaming REFUND, you won't get one, you have no rights to one at this stage in the game's life. No on-line game EVER guarantees you getting ANY time to play at all. Read the EULA to see just what few rights and entitlements you have.

Early Start access is no different from normal paid-time and you'll never get a REFUND! for not being able to play.

Sure, you can try legal action, good luck with that (you'll lose), you could try a chargeback on your credit card (say goodbye to your credit score for that).

Publius_Scipio

I am not asking for a refund and I know MMO's are complicated and launches can (and most times do) become "hairy". But what's happening with ESO boggles my mind because these are many many many bugs that have been known and reported over multiple beta sessions. On top of that the patch notes acknowledged the bugs and said they were fixed.

Right now to me early access feels like another beta.

Heishi

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Well whatever is happening now, the 3 day early access people have been added to the mix today.

Are we going to have a patch before 4-4 or will this all continue past that date?

I'm actually one of the 3-day people and so I just got a chance to go in and test things a little this morning. The only issue I have ran into thus far is the zoom issue. The zoom issue only affected my first char, when I made my second char, the zoom was fine. The voice test didn't work on either I don't think. I know it didn't on the first. I haven't progressed out of coldharbor for testing questlines, but I can imagine there are a number still bugged.

Blowtorch wrote: »

In recent memory GW2 had fewer issues.

I was in the GW2 Beta as well. I agree GW2 had a pretty smooth opening give or take a LOT of broken side quest and a few broken abilities. They also had massive issues with their cash shop for about the first month. As I recall there were a lot of issues with disconnects and people unable to log on as well, at least from what I read. I didn't personally experience much issue. Keep in mind also, GW2 was their second MMO, they already had experience of running an MMO for many years before GW2 came out. (Granted I think Zenimax has had a few other MMOs, not sure). For GW2 they basically recycled and improved the engine and servers used from 1.

steveb16_ESO46

I wouldn't mind so much if this were a beta and not something I'd paid a lot for. Or that they hadn't claimed they'd fixed the problem causing it, without actually testing it in the conditions that caused it.

Starter islands were fine for me but Suspicious Cargo was reduced to relogging several times and standing near a couple of crates that finally started respawning (every 20 seconds or so) and waiting for them eventually to have assassins in. Eventually - because mostly they had vases or books in.

Fighters Guild bug was still there although in the end it did reset as someone relogged and it triggered for us all.

But in the end it does not matter if there's some stupid workaround. This is an expensive game with a sub. We're paying to have fun, not spend our time figuring out arcane and enjoyment-killing ways to trigger quest completions.

Whatever is going on needs fixing before the bad word of mouth spreads. It's live now - you can no longer use the old 'It's all fixed' Jedi Patch Note trick. It actually has to be fixed.

Publius_Scipio

steveb16_ESO46 wrote: »

I wouldn't mind so much if this were a beta and not something I'd paid a lot for. Or that they hadn't claimed they'd fixed the problem causing it, without actually testing it in the conditions that caused it.

Starter islands were fine for me but Suspicious Cargo was reduced to relogging several times and standing near a couple of crates that finally started respawning (every 20 seconds or so) and waiting for them eventually to have assassins in. Eventually - because mostly they had vases or books in.

Fighters Guild bug was still there although in the end it did reset as someone relogged and it triggered for us all.

But in the end it does not matter if there's some stupid workaround. This is an expensive game with a sub. We're paying to have fun, not spend our time figuring out arcane and enjoyment-killing ways to trigger quest completions.

Whatever is going on needs fixing before the bad word of mouth spreads. It's live now - you can no longer use the old 'It's all fixed' Jedi Patch Note trick. It actually has to be fixed.

My question has become, what were the patches we downloaded for (since many issues have persisted) and who wrote/posted the patch notes saying bugs were fixed?

justabignerd

I totally agree, "Early Access" has ALL the glitches the last two Betas had, no fixes I have noticed yet at level 13 and I have 7 quests in my log that I can not complete. I like the game but I also feel very cheated on the game because this is still Beta.

everseeing_njpreub18_ESO

I have had 2 quests bugged on me, otherwise i have had no lag, no DC's, no other problems in any way. IMO this launch was very smooth and i have been enjoying the game for the last 2 days of my early access.

So no i do not think i wasted either time or money or anything, having a great time.

Heishi

Oddly enough I noticed the last beta seemed to have more bugs than the previous few. Though word at the time was that all the fixes were applied to the private beta version and were thought to be included for the launch version. I haven't made it past coldharbor to test this, but that's what was said.

Publius_Scipio

everseeing_njpreub18_ESO wrote: »

I have had 2 quests bugged on me, otherwise i have had no lag, no DC's, no other problems in any way. IMO this launch was very smooth and i have been enjoying the game for the last 2 days of my early access.

So no i do not think i wasted either time or money or anything, having a great time.

Well you are extremely lucky. The rest of us would like to be in your boat.

methroixb16_ESO

At this point I'm rather disappointed, probably since I've been anticipating this game so much.
In-game bugs I can accept; it is after all a pretty big game and it's still very, very young.
What I have a harder time accepting is me not being able to log in to my account, to activate my headstart or anything else for that matter. No matter which apparatus (PC, iPad, Android Phone) or browser I use, I can't get past the login screen on the account page. Nothing ever happens when I click "Sign In", regardless of platform.

So far, color me unimpressed, with a dash of irritated.

Publius_Scipio

Having a strange login issue now, "login info incorrect, try again".

AngryNord

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Well whatever is happening now, the 3 day early access people have been added to the mix today.

Are we going to have a patch before 4-4 or will this all continue past that date?

If the creators of this game want to still be employed in six months from now, they'd better be working on a patch as we speak...
(Unless Todd Howard and Matt Firor have already decided to take an FFXIV, of course...)

Saerydoth

Blowtorch wrote: »

Everyone saying this is the smoothest launch they've ever seen in an MMO hasn't played any. In recent memory GW2 had fewer issues. This game has quests that are bugged that prevent you from progressing..that's not a bug, it's a huge issue.

I've only encountered one bugged quest so far. It was a situation where the objective was not spawning. Logging out and logging back in fixed it. I saw this exact same issue occur with about 10x the frequency and severity in WOW less than a year ago. WOW being over 8 years old at the time.

When WOW launched, it was days before I could even log in. Same with Diablo 3, couldn't log in for several days (after the official launches, not early access). I encountered about 20x the number of bugs in the most recent WOW expansion than I have in ESO so far. This is a VERY good launch by MMO standards. I've played about 5 hours so far and really only encountered the one issue that stopped me from playing.

Yes, the situation where quest objects are sometimes not spawning needs to be fixed. But it's not as major as people are saying.

RithArkZ

GUYS I FOUND A GLITCH.
If any of you guys just randomly can't get it on your mount and its not hungry and still buying food for it at the stable master WELL THEIRS A WAY. Go and kill your self, Which means Suicide then poof you can ride your mount again. Its a minor glitch but still could happen to any of you guys. rate this insightful so people can see this and help them. Its not credits to me, its for the people and support i want to give.

Publius_Scipio

RithArkZ wrote: »

GUYS I FOUND A GLITCH.
If any of you guys just randomly can't get it on your mount and its not hungry and still buying food for it at the stable master WELL THEIRS A WAY. Go and kill your self, Which means Suicide then poof you can ride your mount again. Its a minor glitch but still could happen to any of you guys. rate this insightful so people can see this and help them. Its not credits to me, its for the people and support i want to give.

Short answer: use /stuck

achimb16_ESO3

I also suffer from the random crashes on OSX. Less than at the beta weekends, though, about every two to three hours. Unfortunately, there's not always a crash log to send, sometimes I only get a white window and have to force quit ESO.

It mostly happens in town with lots of effects going on - I suspect the particle effects of some skills, e.g. last time I crashed it happened when turning to an NPC in Vulkhel Guard that used a frost staff.

I hope this will be fixed soon, since it will might get worse (and probably deadly) in the big AvA fights.

JadedZerg

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Do you guys consider early access lost time because of the issues?

well not exactly I mean I am level 12 and most of the bugs I've been able to work around (Bursting Balreth before the NPC stops attacking, or relogging for other quests).

The real question is were the bugs that have plagued other games known pre-release or were they found post release. In this case we know that these bugs have been known for months with no fix, which is much worse than people discovering bugs that were not known in the beta.

We'll see. I assume if they don't take care of it dedicated modders will somehow figure out how to release an unofficial patch.

Publius_Scipio

@achimb16_ESO3‌ you can check out the Mac specific forum at the link below. You 'll find more info there regarding this and other Mac issues.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/categories/EN-mac-support

Reignskream

Ojustaboo wrote: »

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Do you guys consider early access lost time because of the issues?

No for the simple reason that I can't think of one online game that has been perfect in its first week. Due to the nature of these games it's almost impossible.

That's why when people say they are taking time off work etc for release of any game, many of us advise them they are foolish to do so.

I bought the imp edition because I wanted it, I took the 5 day early access as a bonus they were letting the pre order people have, and I fully expected long queues, server crashes etc during that time and into the first month while they tweak everything.

So far for me, it's been the smoothest game launch I've ever played.

It's not a matter of them behaving like this because the customer is stupid enough to put up with it, it's simply that with any game this big, there will always be problems.

There's 20 people from the EU currently in game from my guild, for all of us it's been very smooth, the occasional quest bug for some requiring a re log but nothing on the scale of the last few betas

100% agree. People need to have a little more respect for an understanding of all the issue's that do come up for MMO's at launch and the likes.

LimeFox

I have never experienced an MMO launch, so all my gamer friends were assuring me of the crashes, long, long queues and wait times, and the fact I probably wouldn't be able to play at all for the early access.

I've been pleasantly shocked. I have not ONCE sat in a queue, period. The game has occasionally crashed from a random error, but not to the degree that it's unplayable - I've gotten maybe one crash every few hours. I'm almost to level 10, and aside from a few very minor things, really haven't had any issues with glitches yet. No bugged quests yet, etc.

I did have the face zoom in problem on character creation, which is disappointing but hardly game breaking for me. Graphics look very pretty on ultra-high with one kind of funny exception - trees and bushes look like the designer took the shrubbery stencil circle and clicked/rotated like a crazy person. They do look a bit weird. (But seriously, who cares? Shrubbery doesn't exactly affect my ability to kill things.) But really, if that's the worst thing I find about the game, then kudos to Zenimax.

It's been a very smooth launch for me, and I hope they're able to fix the errors keeping a percentage of people from playing. It's fun so far, and I'm enjoying it!