Dear ESO - I'm a Fan. Thanks for your hard work!

Kyotee0071

All and all this has been a smooth launch. I just think a lot of folks are spoiled these days, or just haven't really been through many MMORPG launches.
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Warning - Opinions Incoming

I've been through several launches of different MMO's over the years. This one is going about as good as to be expected, if not better than a lot of past games *cough Wolrd of Warcraft's release was awful. Lots of unscheduled downtime, massive bugs.*cough* Yes I went there, because so many folks bring up "WoW" pretty much the minute any MMO topic comes up. Trust me WoW's launch was not pretty.

Take the time and look what this game has that a lot of us, myself included, take for granted.

For instance the armors in this game look great with little to no clipping issues. A lot of recent games have horrible clipping issues on their armors, and they have been out for year/s.

This game has amazing NPC voice overs. SWTOR was glorified when released because it did such a fine job in this department. ESO's Npc's have personality, with great dialogue. I've laughed on quite a few occasions while interacting with the NPCS of the world. Their animations are spot on during those scenes as well.

The world is beautiful. If you have a decent computer with a nice graphics card I promise you this game looks amazing. My rig is a couple years old but I upgraded my Power Supply and nabbed an EVGA 4GB 770 video card - The details in the world are breathtakingly awesome. No other game in this genre has actually pulled me in "fully immersed" in a gaming session like ESO has managed to do numerous times.

Speaking of which, the character models are superb. I can look at someone and tell if they are a Breton or an Imperial if I can see their face. Imperials have a much different nose than Bretons. Redguards are actually easy to spot do to their eye/nose combination. And Altmer, Bosmer, Khajiit, etc. All look amazing.

The animations are smooth. I can really feel the difference between a light attack with a sword vs a heavy attack. My character actually recoils if I block an incoming heavy melee attack. The Npc's stumble backwards if I interrupt one of their big wind-up spells. Overall they are very nice.

The quest are very interesting and tell the story of the land you are currently adventuring in. You can see the results of your completed quest in the world (do to phasing) and the NPC's respond to your efforts. You really feel like you made a difference after quest instead of the usual "Collect 10 Bat Ears and return to me at once" that most MMO's still use today.

The combat is great. I won't dive into it too deep. If you came from traditional MMO's that use tab targeting/macro targeting. Press your 3 favorite ability as the global cooldown will allow, all the while watching your character dodge or block based off stats and %chance - This game is a very nice breath of fresh air. I love being able to control if my character uses a light or heavy attack. I love being able to control what and who I block. I love being able to roll out of a nasty aoe. It's just a very engaging combat system. On top of that we have "synergies" between class skills that maybe a lot of folks don't use now, but it could lead to something much deeper as the game's combat evolves.

Every container you see (that I have found) can be looted. Think of that, every container you see has some sort of loot in it. Just that little touch right there can not be easy programming. I mean there are a ton of containers! In most other MMORPGS those dressers you see, those boxes, those chest, they are just there for looks to add to the environment. Not in ESO baby!

I could go on and on, but honestly this post is already getting a little "long winded".

Is this game perfect? Far from it. There are bugs and there will always be bugs. Developers brainstorm and work hard to find and fix 10 bugs only to create 15 new ones. It's an ongoing cycle. But for a MMORPG that just released officially 11 days ago, this game is very well made and definitely off to a solid start. The sky's the limit if we as players support the game, and most importantly the developers keep improving the game as it ages.

This is coming from someone that vaguely remembers Oblivion and hardly played Elder Scrolls games over the years. I've been playing MMORPGS pretty exclusively since 1999. So my opinions stated are not coming from an Elder Scrolls "Fan Boy", but a genuine MMORPG fan that appreciates this game for what it is at such an early stage of it's life.

P.S....Dear Developers (like I'd be lucky enough if they noticed this post haha)..If you see this please, pretty please with Moon-Sugar on top do something about all these gold selling spammers. They are spamming Guild Invites now (that is a new one to me), Spamming our mail boxes, and spamming chat. I report around 20 a day easily, but they just keep coming.

Also there is a major problem with "bots" farming public dungeon bosses. There are also bots harvesting nodes. My guess would be the bots are also Gold Sellers. Thanks!

Dimachaerus

I'm a fan as well, and I'd be happy if everyone would address me as a fanMAN and not boi! rude!

rawne1980b16_ESO

I have to admit, for someone that has complained about some things, what it gets right it does great.

One of my biggest gripes in a lot of games is one you brought up ... armour clipping. Shoulder pads that clip through heads, weapons that clip through legs and hair clipping through helmets.

It's one of the reasons I don't like cloaks much, something always pokes through them and looks awful.

From the armour i've seen so far it looks great.

And no chainmail bikini's which are hardly practical.

Character models are also fantastic, as is the games art design.

Some of the quests i've come across are amusing and humour is always a nice touch.

The little things help too. Little camps in the middle of nowhere with notes, things like that.

I don't have any major gripes with the game itself besides annoying bugs and i'd like PvP to be more rewarding XP wise but, like I said, nothing major.

My biggest problem is with Zenimax Online themselves. I'm having a horrible time dealing with their customer support over a pretty big issue involving money.

But the game, besides a few faults, is shaping up quite well.

Sue_D_Nim

@Kyotee0071, that was a well thought out post and lovely to read. I can't follow it up at all except to say that I add my thanks to the devs for this wonderful world they've created for us to run off and live in for a while.

@rawne1980b16_ESO, it's the little things that do it for me as well. How about something as trivial (to some people) as an animation when you look in your bag or open your map? Those are fantastic. It's so much nicer than seeing a couple of dozen player avatars standing around like mannequins. That's kind of creepy. At least this way they look like real people.