The Elder Scrolls Online

So, after my exams last week, I felt really tired.
I was so tired that I:



Well not really, but I was tired enough that I wasn't able to fall asleep from insomnia. It's a really weird experience to not be able to fall asleep even though you're extremely tired.

But anyways, I decided to play some Elder Scrolls Online Beta. I had tried the game out before, but I didn't really like it. Although I didn't really like the game, I thought that maybe I just didn't reach a high enough level for it to be fun; so I gave it another chance.

Well, my opinion hasn't changed. The game has great visual and holds a lot of things that can be explored, however I found many things disappointing. Don't get me wrong, this game isn't bad at all; but it isn't at the level of greatness that I would pay $15 dollars a month to play.
My first qualm is with the combat. The elder scrolls games have had a history of having a pretty cool combat system that combines a sort of first person aiming system with melee and magical combat. The Elder Scrolls Online combat, however, seems more a lot more like the traditional tab targeting system. Sure some of the spells in the game are AOE (area of effect) based, but for the most part, you don't really need to aim, but just press the corresponding button to the skill and it will automatically hit (this include the normal attack and a lot of enemy attacks). Sure there is a dodge system, however that also doesn't appeal to me. This is due to the dodge system working based on the stamina bar. Dodging will make any damage you would have taking, get mitigated. You don't actually have to dodge the blow, as long as you start up your dodge animation, everything will miss you. So pretty much, if you just upgrade your stamina bar, you will be able to dodge more. I dislike this because I believe that everything should have a area of where it will hit, and dodging should be based off of the player's ability to perceive incoming threats and dodging them accordingly.
The next topic I'm going to talk about is, in my opinion, the worst feature of The Elder Scrolls Online. When making a character, the faction that you will be fighting fore is based on the race you choose. So if your friends are all in one alliance, but you want to play a race from a different alliance, then you won't be able to join them. Another issue is that based on which faction you join, you will arrive in different places and receive different quests. This means that some factions might have better quest lines than the others (and I've found this to be the case with the Aldmeri Dominion). This also means that you won't even be able to interact with other players. I'm not sure if there is a point in the game where you will end up meeting with other players, but I got bored of the game long before reaching at point. Also there are big faction wars that I've heard are really fun and a spectacle to behold, however that seems pretty far away from where I've gotten in the game, and I'm not willing to put in that much time to get to that point.
Another qualm I have is with the level up system and what abilities you can use. Your abilities are all limited based on which class you choose at the beginning of the game. I was really hoping that they would revolutionize how the MMO genre would handle the class system. I wanted to be able to mix and match different skills from different trees, but that doesn't seem to be the case with The Elder Scrolls Online.
I really want a game that will revolutionize the genre of MMOs, because I really like the concept of an MMO, but I never really found any MMOs that made me feel like I enjoyed myself. There still is hope though! I await the arrival of "EverQuest Next".

The game promises to have full on multi-classing, a dynamic environment (changing population spawns based on player actions and quest system that doesn't just follow a set story line), destructible terrain, an action based combat system, and big quests that require the help of all players and will end up changing the world based on the results.
I feel like a lot of what it promises might fall flat on it's face, but I'm still eager to see how it will turn out.