Hm, I do wonder if when the newest ES game comes out people will start complaining about it saying its not multiplayer, or its not as good as previous games since you just cant beat nostalgia... It'll be interesting to see what happens when the new ES game comes out... Hopefully all the darn single players will go back to their lonely worlds... It annoys me when people complain that the game hasnt got good quality, then complain theres not enough content when they have NO idea how hard it is to make all this stuff, or how hard it is to make it all work together. This is an impressive project to say the least, and if anyone here could make a better game, then go ahead and do it and stop complaining. Though I can promise you for every single thing you think is a good idea, there will be a thousand people jumping down your throat saying its horrible. You cant please everyone... Like someone back up there listed companions as being a good thing, while on another thread with a poll most people said companions would be horrible in ESO.

Anyway, as everyone said you cant compare them, but I personally prefer ESO purely because its an online multiplayer game. I could spend all day on Skyrim, but at the end I'd have nothing to show other people, I couldnt share it. Which made it feel kind of pointless... Whats the point in spending days working on something you cant show off? I've been wanting an online ES game since Skyrim started, to be able to go through a cave/delve with friends, and I sometimes wonder if I'm playing the same game as other people... I get wrapped up in the quests and often have to follow them because I just have to find out what happens, or because how it fits into the lore interest me. Maybe people just cant get their heads around the full complexity of some of the quests... There was a slightly unnerving one about a man that had basically stitched up parts of his young son into a flesh atronach in an attempt to bring him back to life, but it was torturing the young boys soul. That had a simple lead in, at first you thought you were just clearing out another spirit infested ruin, but as you helped out this spirit who controlled the others you got the feeling from the wording and the voice something wasnt quite right... Though you only really found out at the end what was going on. And later on, in a completely unrelated quest you find the mother, and if you did something about her dead son she had a reply involving whatever you did. So in reply to a previous comment what you do does affect the world, entire towns get phased depending where you are in the quest line, whether certain quest line characters live or not and stay in your world, and I've come across various quests that once completed change what other NPC's say, some all tie into other quests, and its not just the main quest. I sometimes wonder if the people complaining quests arent as well thought out just grind, or speed level... Or pvp...

Another thing I like about ESO is the unpredictability of human nature. In Skyrim you could more or less predict exactly where an NPC could be at any one time. You could follow their same path and it'd always be the same, give or take the odd road attack or two. It was still fairly predictable and I find that boring. In ESO you never know when you'll see something wonderfully odd, like a hairy Nord in a wedding dress sprinting over the horizon on a guar. Or some Sorcerer hot footing it past you with about thirty angry mobs on his tail like something out of a Benny Hill chase. Or you could be struggling in a public dungeon when suddenly another player appears out of nowhere and backs you up so that you can survive it together instead of dying alone. Or at least you'll have company when you die... Its things like that which I like, and Skyrim or any single player game could never have it. All they have is pre-programmed patterns.

Looking back at the first posters post, they re-hauled the loot system in the last big patch so that its more specific to where you got it from. For example you wont get honey by killing a rabbit, you'll only ever get small game. You'll only ever get tomatoes out of a tomato crate now, and I know its also area specific since I've only been able to steal clothing out of baskets in towns, not in the middle of nowhere. I think theres also more faction dependant drops, but I havent paid that much attention. Anyone who doesnt understand why you'd get a weapon or armour, or some other usable item out of a wild animal has never seen the cartoons of the players wondering how it got there. Then it shows the animal having attacked or eaten a player previously. Besides logic doesnt apply in a game with a God of madness... after seeing some of the messed up stuff I wouldnt be surprised if some lunatic had fed their loot to an animal to keep it safe... or stitched it inside an animal like a mule... Who would look there after all? Now I'm glad you dont get every single damn item the NPC/mob was carrying, I'd need to carry a banker on my back to be able to handle all that loot.... my bags are already breaking at the seams just carrying the stuff I get from a few delves... If they dropped every bit of gold, cloth, and tooth they had on them it'd be insane... But the loot is definitely dependant what you've killed. And I like those crafting hireling letters, some of them are funny, others are like little stories I get in segments. And I believe you actually get the best crafting materials in a greater percentage from crafting writs, thats a logic drop isnt it? If you actually read the hirelings letters you seem to be helping their chosen career as component collectors, not everyone can be a hero/adventurer you know... And one of them at least said they got better business because they have you (some famous hero I presume) as a business client, so it does all make sense from various perspectives.

And by the way, looking at some previous comments, isnt the music the same music from previous games? If not its very similar, theres a track I loved in Oblivion and I was over the moon to hear it playing in the background in ESO. I dont even remember the Skyrim music... (apart from the main theme) Was it really that good?

They both do different things quite well.

Combat: ESO > Skyrim
Character System: ESO < Skyrim
Exploration: ESO <= Skyrim
Graphics: ESO > Skyrim
Immersion: ESO < Skyrim

That said, I'd like for ESO to be more open like Skyrim, so I can go wherever I like and find something to do. And with the upcoming DLCs, it will be.

Enaijo wrote: »

Raash wrote: »

I dont even see ESO as a true Elder Scrolls game to be honest.

If Bethesda/ZOS says that a game is a Elder Scrolls game, it just is ... it's their property. If they do a shooter and say this is the newest Elder Scrolls title, it just is ... no doubt about it.

I'd totally buy an Elder Scrolls RTS or Fighting Game ... Vivec, Lord of the Middle-Air vs Talos, the Enantiomorph, how cool would that be?! Even better would be a new game for the Elder Scrolls Adventures series, an action-RPG with a focused storyline. Maybe a whole new series developed by another studio so BGS can stick to open world games? One can hope.

You can't really compare the 2 games. Its an odd throw down because while ESO is ESO, it does have the Elder Scrolls label in the name so you can't help but associate one with the other.

The main differences to me come down to the actual playing experience..

In Skyrim, you're having an adventure in a somewhat believable world.

In ESO, while its heavily story based, and probably the best AAA story based mmo out today (especially if you like es lore), the gameplay experience unfortunately is fap fap grind pvp loot grind mmo, inside an unconvincing, if very good looking, Japanese garden instead of a world.

Both experience are good if you're into either or, so depends on what you're after.

Personally, I don't think the on rails theme park suits ES, given how good the sandbox adventure experience was in Skyrim. I definitely miss it while playing eso for sure.

My girlfriend and I recently took a break from eso until new content arrives. So we decided to play the older Elder Scrolls games for the time, She took Skyrim and I play Oblivion.

So ESO and the other games of the series aren't really comparable, but i have to admit we really enjoy and haven't been missing ESO for a minute.
Combat system in Skyrim and Oblivion actually feels a lot better when you install a hotkey mod and assign your spells/shouts/whatever to buttons like you do in ESO. With an AI mod and the use of the difficult slider nearly every fight feels challanging and reactive.
You should give it a try!

Eso just feels like an endless grind with zero story or immersion once you reach "endgame". Wether you grind Gold-Keys for random gear, grind AP for either gear or vigor, grind Champion points... since
I lost all understanding why I should participate in this treadmill at least until there is something to grind for (new content).

We sticked with ESO since early access, though Zeni started as a inexperienced publisher for online games, we belived in their vision. In my oppinion Zeni has made some really poor descisions in nearly every aspect of the game during the last year.

So...
We'll have a look at 2.1 when it has finally arrived. But i'm not too confident it will be for long

Well I don't feel they are comparable but if I had to choose which one I liked better, it would be ESO as an all over feel. I hated Skyrim and never even played it all the way through.

Ofc I played TES on consoles (Oblivion, then Morrowind, then Skyrim) In the course of ESO's time I've seen that a lot of the "fans" of Skyrim on pc, werent really fans of Skyrim, they were fans of what they could do with Skyrim via mod. Some videos I've seen were so past they point of the original game, it's like saying your child is you. It came from you, even though it has extras so it must be you...imo anyway

Rair.Kitani wrote: »

Psychobunni wrote: »

Well I don't feel they are comparable but if I had to choose which one I liked better, it would be ESO as an all over feel. I hated Skyrim and never even played it all the way through.

Ofc I played TES on consoles (Oblivion, then Morrowind, then Skyrim) In the course of ESO's time I've seen that a lot of the "fans" of Skyrim on pc, werent really fans of Skyrim, they were fans of what they could do with Skyrim via mod. Some videos I've seen were so past they point of the original game, it's like saying your child is you. It came from you, even though it has extras so it must be you...imo anyway

Your totally right. I had to mod skyrim a hour or two before i could start to enjoy it. Without i couldn't stand because the hole UI feels clunky and unresponsive.
But it's the same for me with ESO... After cleaning up i still got nearly 50 addons left and deletet about the same number

1-2 our? Ohh Jesus, that would be nice. Have done it twice for over 24h.
Installed over 200 Mods, Crash at Startup, other strange Bugs. Bugfixing. More Crash, more Bugs.

Damn reinstall Skyrim clean and try it aigan, mby i have done some Errors with Modconfig.

Skyrim run smoth now. Played for 40 hours, and got bored. Moded more, Game Crash.
Lost interest in Skyrim and cried....Story of my life

Installing Mods and bugfixing was more fun than the game after xD

c.p.garrett1993_ESO wrote: »

Skyrim > ESO:

- The story is okay, and I haven't made much progress, but it seems rather underwhelming and cliche.
- The NPCs seem distant. There's little interaction/ influence. You complete the task they have given you and you may as well never see them again. Choices don't seem to make much of an impact.
- The world is large, sure, but there's few places to explore and loot. At least in comparison to what can be done in Skyrim, which opens almost the entire world to you at level 1. As this is an MMO I do not expect access to the whole world but I am disappointed the game focuses more on going from place to place in the overworld for quests and less of the dungeon-delving exploration of previous games.

Edit: ESO is still great. I did not come expecting Skyrim Online.
I just like Skyrim more than I do ESO, which seems to be fairly common.
(I also enjoy Oblivion more than Skyrim, but that wasn't an option.)

I put something about that on the "Ask us Anything" list. Not that it matters, they only pick fluff questions. But in other MMO's, LOTRO for example:: once your toon out levels an area (by 5) the mobs completely ignore you unless you actively aggro them. I have no idea why this isn't in ESO! I would love to be able to go back and just walk around, check stuff out, search nooks and crannies, not to mention how much it would open for RP players. (since justice system closed doors to them)
Another one of those ways ESO falls flat in MMO comparison.

Victus wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

No comparison

Agree, no comparison. I'm not going to bother reading responses that attempt to do this.

Sure there's a comparison.
Many compare this to apples and oranges, as the phrase goes.
I disagree. We are comparing two games/ products in the same world.
You can't compare MMO designs to a single-player game, but you can compare how the story, world, and exploration hold up in comparison to that of previous titles.
I can't complain that Skyrim lets me use whatever but ESO is more limiting, as that is an MMO design. I can, however, complain that NPCs seem static or the world is underwhelming in exploration.

First of all, let's not act like Skyrim was the pinnacle of Elder Scrolls games. Skyrim is an unmodified Honda Accord, it's a perfectly solid but rather unimpressive vehicle for what we want it to do. They stripped all the features out of ES games and simplified it to reach as many players as possible. Are these bad choices? No, but it's like buying a car without any additional features, you're getting the vehicle to get you where you're going...not much else.

Ok, now is it better? They're entirely different games, it's not an entirely fair question and requires you put them on the same playing field, which can't be reasonably done when you explore the arguments. I think it's fair to say you'll notice similarities and you'll notice vast differences, take it as it is.

c.p.garrett1993_ESO wrote: »

- The NPCs seem distant. There's little interaction/ influence. You complete the task they have given you and you may as well never see them again. Choices don't seem to make much of an impact.

Ahh good point. That was what completely broke the world in wow too.. just compare your experiences with say.. crossroads in vanilla wow, vs the sad feeling of 'wtf where did they go?!?' when first stepping into my hyjal (cata's first zone). I don't care npc's killed the world out of wow...

You make an interesting point.. though I think in eso its gone a different route.. the same effect is there because they've assimilated the old quest hub idea into the actual quest area.. which is most impressive and glad someone tried something different.. Maybe its just the ratio of nobody's to plot characters is too high so that it dilutes the main plot..

And the visual style is perfect but wrong.. every screenshot is a background sure.. but really unconvincing (why are those crocodiles so perfect next to the perfect lillypads and reeds... we just need a few koi and it would be perfect... oh wait this is a dank swamp with daedra and pirates.. no way...)

I wish this game had been Skyrim with Friends. In Skyrim, the world was so realistic and I loved the game mechanics. ESO's graphics are what's keeping me playing this game but not as realistic as Skyrim's. ESO could have easily survived without the classes we have and gone the character build route that Skyrim has. I think people would have actually enjoyed it a lot more not being pigeon holed into a Tank/Healer/DPS role. You need healing? Take a potion. Just because the game is a MMO doesn't mean that you need to have "Class" based roles.

Game stability goes to Skyrim hands down. I never had any problems with lag when fighting creatures or in caves regardless of effects being cast. There were a few bugs but nothing like ESO has.

Had ZOS made Skyrim with Friends, they would have had NONE of the issues that ESO currently has and would have been rolling in cash. They would have had the #1 MMO, but alas, who knows why they decided to go the route they did.

I'm still having fun for now. Whether that's the case a year from now, only time will tell.

They're just different games and need to be evaluated as such. Yes, they share a world and lore, and have many, many similarities however they are also very different. Comparing them is unfair I think.

I didn't enjoy Skyrim as much as Oblivion, and I haven't so far enjoyed ESO as much as Skyrim. I think the first game you are immersed in is always your favourite as it is the one which every other game need to live up to.

What I like about Skyrim compared to ESO is that you can explore and loot etc and build up skills and equipment without there being an enemy needing to be killed around every single turn. It is almost impossible to enjoy the magic of the world of Tamriel in ESO because you are forced into swatting things all the time.

I agree that the size of ESO is impressive, however everything looks the same after you have been to the main areas. In Skyrim, there is just as much (if not more) variation of design in houses, towns, building elevations and the general world.

I like the way things move in ESO better. The way flags move in the breeze, people and animals walk and even the way vegetation sways around is far superior in ESO. I also prefer the HUD on ESO and the menu system in general. I also like the skills slots and the general skill lines better in ESO.

Regardless, I eagerly await TES6. I prefer to be single player games to MMOs and have thus far played ESO as if it were a single player game. If I was into MMOs, then I'd most likely have a lot of other views about ESO.

I think they shoul've taken arena/daggerfall formula for mmo, not tes3+. Daggerfall online would be so much win.