ESO is getting rekt in reviews - 6/10's all around

nimander99 · July 2015

I pay attention to user reviews only. On meta critic if several hundred users have reviewed a game, ill lend credence to what consensus is.

nimander99 · July 2015

Am I the only one who finds it interesting that these reviews have come out the moment the first DLC is announced? Sounds like a concerted hatchet job.

Caesar Tantalia · July 2015

The sad truth about reviewers = masters of playing reduced nr of hours but writing articles pretending having played lots more ... and they are good at it.

Korozenn · July 2015

DDuke wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

TheBull wrote: »

Amsel_McKay wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

For sake of discussion, here's the user score according to Metacritic:
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-elder-scrolls-online-tamriel-unlimited

I lol at the games on metacritic with better scores the ESO... In short you will soon realize that its a bad site to follow...

Not many games have a better user score than 9.2.

9.2 from 298 users.

Meanwhile, the original page for Elder Scrolls Online lists 5.7 from 2316 users.

That is a bit suspect indeed & I was surprised to see it at 9.2, especially with PC as platform.

Console users seem to rate the game around 8-9, which still seems a bit high (imo).

Personally I'd give it a 7.5 in its current state, hopefully more after next patch (which seems promising).

Yeah, the console version is certainly not at the level of the PC version yet, but it seems like those on console will get some much needed love with the Imperial City update. Here's to hoping~

BurtFreeman · July 2015

Metacritic: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-elder-scrolls-online
metascore: 71 based on 64 reviws
user score: 5.7 on 2318 ratings

nimander99 wrote: »

Am I the only one who finds it interesting that these reviews have come out the moment the first DLC is announced? Sounds like a concerted hatchet job.

the above 64 reviews are from april - may 2014

Samadhi · July 2015

driosketch wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

For sake of discussion, here's the user score according to Metacritic:
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-elder-scrolls-online-tamriel-unlimited

And here is the other roughly 90% of ratings from before the name was changed and the Tamriel Unlimited re-release was classified as a separate game:
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-elder-scrolls-online

Click the ratings, 379 positive, 144 mixed, 335 negative. The bulk of the bad reviews are from a year ago.

The game is in a different place now, believe it or not.

Have been playing it non-stop since launch, and have not been able to tell.

Oh wait, that is not true -- Cyrodiil at launch worked better.

SirAndy · July 2015

Kharnamatic wrote: »

...

[Moderator Note: Removed moderated quote]

kevlarto_ESO · July 2015

All just opinions, I make my own personal judgment based on my fun and the fact that all my friends that started day one are still here.. I stopped relying on reviews to make game purchases along time.

tplink3r1 · July 2015

LOL, EUROGAMER compared ESO with the single-player TES series and The Witcher, another single-player game.
Why don't they just hire someone who actually plays MMOs to review them?

Remorce78 · July 2015

lordrichter wrote: »

The Eurogamer one actually However, unlike Gamespot, Eurogamer correctly identified the laziness that ZOS had when they did the overall game design. I am also a firm believer in PLAYSTATION 4 over XBOX ONE, which is what Eurogamer used. Friends don't let friends play ESO on XBox.

This is not laziness. I have worked on games for almost 10 years and what you perceive as laziness is actually behind the scenes work. Just frosts me a bit when people dont see something right in front of their face and call it laziness or the company not caring about their players.

Do you think they drink pina colada's all day and point and laugh at the players attempts to play their game? There are so many things happening behind the scenes that you never see. The game is not complete and updates are always being put on things. Just because things arnt fixed asap that you noticed there is a prioritization on what bugs get fixed. Some bugs are never fixed as when you add code to a game you can easilly disrupt the code communication thereby creating more bugs and errors.. therefore sometimes fixing a minor bug that doesnt totally disrupt gameplay may cause more issues and problems than leaving it alone. Or maybe its so minor of a bug it stays for a year or two on the fix list but is so low on the list that it never moves up to get fixed.

anyways my little rant on that lol.

As for the reviews its hard to find a trusted review as most sites and review agencies have loyalties. There is one I watch at times on tv. You see them reviewing a game and they talk about how they personally didnt like it and they give it a 7/10. Then they review another game from another agency and talk about how they really liked it and give it a 7/10. So they dont like one and like another but give it the same review? one subsidizes their agency and one doesnt lol. Best thing these days with agencies having their hands in so many pockets is make up your own mind and dont rely on others to tell you whats good and whats not. What I may love for a game you may hate. I refuse to play sports games and most first person shooters... not my style of play. But some of you may love it. Not all reviews are done by the same person as well. What may be a 100% accurate review to you one day and you see another review on the same site for another game it may be really different as it may be written by a different person. or its reviewed by mike but the page is written by michelle.

Samadhi · July 2015

Remorce78 wrote: »

...
As for the reviews its hard to find a trusted review as most sites and review agencies have loyalties. There is one I watch at times on tv. You see them reviewing a game and they talk about how they personally didnt like it and they give it a 7/10. Then they review another game from another agency and talk about how they really liked it and give it a 7/10. So they dont like one and like another but give it the same review? one subsidizes their agency and one doesnt lol. Best thing these days with agencies having their hands in so many pockets is make up your own mind and dont rely on others to tell you whats good and whats not. What I may love for a game you may hate. I refuse to play sports games and most first person shooters... not my style of play. But some of you may love it. Not all reviews are done by the same person as well. What may be a 100% accurate review to you one day and you see another review on the same site for another game it may be really different as it may be written by a different person. or its reviewed by mike but the page is written by michelle.

It is possible to not personally enjoy a game, but to recognize it as well-made.

I did not enjoy the Witcher 3 much. I felt it was overrated, and the way the systems in the game worked did not appeal to me.
In terms of overall quality, I would give it a 7.
It had a number of redeeming factors and was well put together, it just did not appeal to me.

I enjoy ESO a ton, but I recognize that it has a number of glaring flaws that have yet to be reconciled.
In terms of overall quality, I would also give it a 7 (an 8.5 if Cyrodiil worked correctly instead of being a laggy mess).
It has a number of redeeming factors, but it is mostly a suffering mix of single-player series with MMO gameplay that does both poorly but provides options. I would not be playing it if it were not an Elder Scrolls title though.

Best thing to do is to take in multiple reviews from multiple sources and read all of them, positive or negative, critically and then come to conclusions.
This is barring buying a game and trying it, because at that point you have already passed the stage that reviews matter.

BigM · July 2015

Amsel_McKay wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

For sake of discussion, here's the user score according to Metacritic:
http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-elder-scrolls-online-tamriel-unlimited

I lol at the games on metacritic with better scores the ESO... In short you will soon realize that its a bad site to follow...

^^This!

By the way guys say what ever you like about this and other reviews of this game. One thing you can't say, is it won't hurt the game in the long run. Like it or not the game's bad reviews will bring it down some.

SahrotRein · July 2015

As much as I always care about people's opinion - I don't now.
I've loved ESO ever since the initial release a year ago and I loved it untill now and will always prefer it over many other games.

I like ESO and that's what matters to me. Other reviews ain't gonna stop me from playing what I like.

Elsonso · July 2015

Remorce78 wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

The Eurogamer one actually However, unlike Gamespot, Eurogamer correctly identified the laziness that ZOS had when they did the overall game design. I am also a firm believer in PLAYSTATION 4 over XBOX ONE, which is what Eurogamer used. Friends don't let friends play ESO on XBox.

This is not laziness. I have worked on games for almost 10 years and what you perceive as laziness is actually behind the scenes work. Just frosts me a bit when people dont see something right in front of their face and call it laziness or the company not caring about their players.

This is not the laziness that I was referring to. I am referring to the fact that the game design is average in places and I think they could have done much better. The individual developers worked long hours and produced a great game, but it could have been an excellent game. The difference, in my opinion, between a great ESO and an excellent ESO is the game design. I think they just had to take shortcuts, for budget, schedule, or resource reasons, resulting in a lazy design. Lazy: not rigorous or strict.

Remorce78 wrote: »

The game is not complete and updates are always being put on things. Just because things arnt fixed asap that you noticed there is a prioritization on what bugs get fixed. Some bugs are never fixed as when you add code to a game you can easilly disrupt the code communication thereby creating more bugs and errors.. therefore sometimes fixing a minor bug that doesnt totally disrupt gameplay may cause more issues and problems than leaving it alone. Or maybe its so minor of a bug it stays for a year or two on the fix list but is so low on the list that it never moves up to get fixed

You have my permission to rant on about this topic.

Too many people think that everything is a simple matter of programming. Apply programmer, open Mountain Dew bottle, out comes program fix. Give an artist Photoshop and all texture problems can be fixed in minutes.

deleted221205-002626 · July 2015

The game is still soo much fun and the pvp is "potentially" top notch.. theres some lag issues as we all kno but I personally love the megaserver and the fact everyone is in the same place. The storyline and graphics are good if you payed any attention to them as well. I think theyre in a hard spot between making the storyline make sense from previous releases and trying to satisfy the mmo community that is used to getting theyre way in every other game and killing it as well. 99% of people realize that when you get what you want instantly with no effort its of no value to you and just soo easy to walk away from. I realize I only pvp so take my suggestions with a grain of salt but I think the biggest issue is still the pvp lag making it unplayable with 10-30sec delays in heavy combat. hows ps4/xbox been in that actually im curious?

Farorin · July 2015

Review? Psh, nobody should let somebody else tell them what to think. Make up your own mind. Sure the game has had some issues, but it is still always evolving.

Some times I have hated it, sometimes I love it, but I keep going back to it, and I love it more than I don't, so it must have something good.

BurtFreeman · July 2015

Remorce78 wrote: »

This is not laziness.

sometimes it does!
just one simple example: have a look at wall of elements tooltip! the morphs description are wromg and never fixed.
i see no reason other then laziness.

Elsonso · July 2015

BurtFreeman wrote: »

Remorce78 wrote: »

This is not laziness.

sometimes it does!
just one simple example: have a look at wall of elements tooltip! the morphs description are wromg and never fixed.
i see no reason other then laziness.

What you call lazy in fixing bugs, I call prioritizing more important things first.

BurtFreeman · July 2015

lordrichter wrote: »

What you call lazy in fixing bugs, I call prioritizing more important things first.

a bug is something, a text correction is another: you do not really need a programmer to do that.
you can call whatever you like, but this is the reason of the 6/7 vote review: poor quality control.

Elsonso · July 2015

BurtFreeman wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

What you call lazy in fixing bugs, I call prioritizing more important things first.

a bug is something, a text correction is another: you do not really need a programmer to do that.
you can call whatever you like, but this is the reason of the 6/7 vote review: poor quality control.

You do not need a programmer, but the person who probably does it is a UI designer. Between runs to the nearest donut shop and card games with the other UI designers, I am sure that they have very little time left.

I won't debate quality control because I have no way to know what caused the defect or when they noticed it. Quality control is just as much prevention as it is detection, but fixing defects is still a matter of prioritization. Fixing text is obviously less important than whatever it is that they are working on. If this was not the case, it would be fixed.

Personofsecrets · July 2015

GOOD

Grimnaur · July 2015

I enjoy the game a lot, so I don't care what critics say. I don't let them decide my enjoyment factor. As of right now, I would personally give it a 7.5/10 with the potential to be around 9/10 if they fixed things, and got the thieves/dark brotherhood added.

I will say from MY OPINION, from what I see from the Imperial City DLC, I would give that a 2/10. I am not liking what I see at all, but still love the base game. I gave it a 2/10, since all I would really get from it is 2 dungeons for 2,500 crowns. That is a whole other topic though.

Remorce78 · July 2015

lordrichter wrote: »

You do not need a programmer, but the person who probably does it is a UI designer. Between runs to the nearest donut shop and card games with the other UI designers, I am sure that they have very little time left.

I won't debate quality control because I have no way to know what caused the defect or when they noticed it. Quality control is just as much prevention as it is detection, but fixing defects is still a matter of prioritization. Fixing text is obviously less important than whatever it is that they are working on. If this was not the case, it would be fixed.

yeah each site has their own system in regards to what they do. The games I work on have two tiers for text corrections. One is a surface tier where low level staff like Community Managers can access. but there are some that are coded right into the game code itself. From my own experience most sites have them coded right in. If that is the case unfortunately there are like only 2 groups of people that can access and change it and those are the coders themselves. and like I said previously, in that case its a matter of prioritization. Fix something spelt wrong or fix this code that crashes things if you do a certain thing.... and each time new code is input you may get more code errors which in turn have higher prioritization.

Since spelling wont kill the game its extreme low priority. I know when I fixed story grammar or spelling errors I usually just did it once a month and set aside a few hours of my day... however there are many many times I spent 26+ hours working straight and still not had a chance to get to little errors and some slip through. Probably best thing to do would be create a tech error forum section to report different types of errors. Gives better access to players and coders for viewing and organizing errors coding or text wise in the game. I will ask them about that and see what they have to say.

Nerouyn · July 2015

Kharnamatic wrote: »

MMOs have always gotten " free passes" from the gaming media because they are so big/time gated that it takes so long to review them.

That's not completely true. Eurogamer quite famously gave a bad but completely fair review of Age of Conan when it launched. But they were famous precisely because everyone else had either gone too easy on them or chickened out and not reviewed it at all.

Kharnamatic wrote: »

Ouch, ESO got REKT!

Personally I think ESO made some big mistakes. Classes, skill point cap, racial bonuses, worst inventory management system ever. But it also has great combat, story, voice-acting and quests. For me the game lacks something at a senior design level. There's too many elements which fight each other so it's like the game has an identity crisis.

So I reckon a score of 7 to 7.5 would be fair.

What I see a lot of in reviews (I haven't bothered to read these new ones) though which is unfair are criticisms about how ESO isn't as good as the single-player games in relation to elements which absolutely could not have been translated into an MMO. And whether they express it or not I think a lot of reviewers can't help but compare their experiences with the single player games and find the MMO lacking.

Azurulia wrote: »

Eurogamer has had a history of giving some pretty bad reviews in the past. I've come to more or less ignore what they say.

Personally I've found them and IGN to be particularly accurate with reviews. I trust them and ignore pretty much everyone else. Especially MMO-centric sites whose advertising is heavily dependent on the games they review.

mbaker540 · July 2015

I miss X Play with Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb. I wonder what they would have given this game.

grumlins · July 2015

Well Gamespot might be the most popular here in the USA but any site that would ignore the serious holes in the design of games like GW2 (rated a 9) and NWO (rated a 7) has exactly 0 respect from me because I've played both those games at length not only are they terribly designed but they have huge imbalance problems and they both have a horrible economic pay to win practice cleverly hidden behind a currency conversion system. (ie real money into game money giving huge advantages).

So please, find someone more reputable and then I'll care.

UltimaJoe777 · July 2015

Shadesofkin wrote: »

Who cares what reviewers say?

Based on the comments I read on the Gamestop page I'd say no one. Thing is everyone has their own opinions and one should never let others sway their interest level. If the game looks good to you then that is all that matters. If you are interested at first but let others make you question the game then you fail as a gamer right there.

Reviews are like peer pressure: it can impact you the wrong way if you let it, even if the review is positive. Be your own judge... Always!

Nerouyn · July 2015

grumlins wrote: »

Well Gamespot might be the most popular here in the USA but any site that would ignore the serious holes in the design of games like GW2 (rated a 9) and NWO (rated a 7) has exactly 0 respect from me because I've played both those games at length not only are they terribly designed but they have huge imbalance problems and they both have a horrible economic pay to win practice cleverly hidden behind a currency conversion system. (ie real money into game money giving huge advantages).

Well I know for a fact that's not true of GW2.

Gold doesn't buy power. It buys cosmetics. End-game exotics are very easy to acquire. Ascended is more of a grind but only marginally (about 5-10%) better than exotics and since many ascended components are account bound, gold can only help a little bit anyway.

You could sink a LOT of gold into legendary weapons but they're no more powerful than ascendeds.

And gold is so easy to make. Speed run a few dungeons every day and you'll pocket 10g easily without breaking a sweat. With gem conversion you'd have to pay $1.25 US to get the same amount. So not worth it.

Not that the game didn't have other problems - like berserker stats being the most / only viable set until recently - and 9 might be a bit generous considering.

Kazzy56 · July 2015

PS4 EU

Its subjective...personal...so the reviewer (who basically is just a game player like the rest of us, not a god), is expressing their personal opinion. It doesn't make it right or wrong..it simply makes it the reviewers (and we are all reviewers) personal opinion.

The game is far from perfect as is the case for so many games. People love to pick on ESO because they expected it to be like others TES games. It isn't. Its an MMo, not a totally single player game, and its not a clone of other MMos.

Its still, however a blooming good game for those who want to take the time to discover the world that is ES. Improvements will happen and you know, you can't please all of the people all the time.

I take reviews with a pinch of salt. I do my homework then decide for myself. I was well aware of the issues when I bought this game. All anyone has to is to look at the forums.

I bought it, I am still here, and still having a great time in this beautiful world that yes, needs a lot of adjustments, and can be buggy at times (what game of this size isn't?).

I'll read reviews, but in the end I'll make up my own mind.

Have a great Tamriel day

Xqluded · July 2015

6/10 = wrecked?

LOL