This posting (and the one that will follow) is meant primarily for those players who purchased ESO with high expectations, but have encountered difficulties that made them consider leaving the game. I'll start by saying that I unequivocally love this game, warts and all, and without disparaging those who have voiced complaints, I'd like to offer my perspective on why this game simply works for me.

In this first post, I'd like to talk mechanics, basically meaning the type of rig you've equipped to run the ESO client, and how that might affect the type of experience you're having with the game. We all know that there have been many bugs plaguing the release of this game and ZOS has acknowledged this with its numerous patches. But, in my opinion, the game is an exquisite hybrid of the Elder Scrolls tradition with the MMO genre. I'll talk more about this in my second post.

A large part of my satisfaction with the game stems from the fact that I have actually encountered very few problems in running the game. I remember a bug in Crow's Wood(?) in which the Boss just stood there and did nothing while I tried to engage him. In Darkshade Caverns, I was frustrated in my attempt to complete the run by being stuck under a mushroom, of all things. I've seen the bots early on, but I don't see them any longer, and I did experience the memory leak that came with v 1.1.2. This leads me to my main point: I see very little in the forums as to what type of PC systems are being used to run ESO. So I thought I'd offer a snapshot of my system, and why I believe it's effective at running the game.

I built my own rig approximately a year ago, and the high quality components I chose to use make a difference, a BIG difference. It's a Home Theater PC hooked to my HDTV with HDMI output. CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K running at 3.4 Ghz. GPU: Geforce GTX 670 with updated drivers. 8 Gb of RAM memory. And (this is important) Windows 7 Professional (64 bit version). I discovered the reason for the importance of the 64 bit OS when I was playing GW2 previously and it always crashed in high volume areas of the game. I discovered that any 32 bit version of Windows will only make use of 4 Gb of memory, and even though I had installed 8 Gb of memory, I was running out! During the memory leak fiasco in ESO, I crashed once, and that was after 6 hours of playing.

The folks at Maximum PC say that the best upgrade you can get for your computer is a Solid State Drive (SSD). I have a 225 Gig SSD, along with a more traditional 3TB hard drive. I have the OS installed on the SSD, and it boots up in about 10 seconds. Even though I installed Steam on my regular hard drive, the ESO client has a permanent home on my SSD. I have never experienced lag with ESO, nor do I have any difficulties with weapon swaps, spell-casting, or standard combat. It plays beautifully!

Of course, your internet connection is critically important, and a lot of times that's out of your control. My SP is Comcast, and I'm running 28 Mbps download, and 6 Mbps upload. It seems adequate to me.

I'll conclude by stating the obvious: I believe dedicated gamers should be proactive in the building and maintenace of the computer rigs they use. Building a computer may not be your cup of tea, but it benefits you to be aware of how a computer system works and how that may affect your gaming. Sorry to say, but if you're running Windows XP with 2 gigs of RAM, all the bug fixes that ZOS provides will do little to enhance your experience with ESO. And to me, that is really sad, because this is simply a GREAT game!