Games The Elder Scrolls MMO

[Tilda]

Some HB oldies are going Dominion EU. Lords of England are going Ebonheart EU.
I am stuck working out where I want to be!!

 

[Talivar]

which HB ppl

 

[BloodOmen]

Can you use the EU client to connect to US servers or does it work like DAOC and you have to buy separate copies for each region?

 

[Fafnir]

same client just swap on client settings and dl a small patch

 

[BloodOmen]

Oki doki, cheers.

 

[BloodOmen]

Getting Error message 302 when trying to install it, tried every single thing I can think of to fix it, nothing works. So close to getting a refund right now.

Tried

Uninstalling + rebooting
Deleting hidden folders @ c:\programdata
Changing something in usersettings to 0 (can't remember what, was hub something or other)
Tried installing it on 3 different hard drives
Tried deleting the installer and redownloading it in case it was that causing the error
Tried running it as Administrator
Tried adding exceptions for it to every firewall + anti virus I have
Tried turning off all my anti virus
Tried using the repair function in the launcher

 

[Moriath]

Sorry your having issues blood.

From my point of view this must have been one of the smoothest launches in history.

No queues. I haven't had any bugs or problems. My wife a couple times got killed by invisible mobs.

I'm level 7 now and played a few hours without any issues.

The only thing I can think of is that the mounts are a little buggy.

 

[BloodOmen]

Got it working now, made a high elf sorc @ ebonheart US

 

[Moriath]

Dagger fall. EU

 

[Mabs]

a little bird told me, the EU servers are actually physically in the US, so lol

 

[Moriath]

Doesn't make any difference to me. Just the times people will be playing are more consistent with my play time.

 

[Cirventhor]

They will move the EU server to the european datacenter once it's ready, they've said. Dunno when that'll be though.

Also, @Cirventhor on Daggerfall EU.

 

[LordjOX]

On Ebonheart EU as @Uncarian
My only gripes with this game thus far is the "smart" heals in AvA and grand soul gems required to resurrect players in Cyrodiil
The heals bounce to the lowest hp player in the AREA and does not care whether the player is in your group leading to some dumb situations where your buddy dies and some random guy gets saved. Not only that, you can't resurrect your buddy currently without a filled grand soul gem. Since they are quite expensive at the lower levels, it's not feasible to use them for AvA atm

 

[Moriath]

im sure the healing stuff will be modified to prioritise grouped people eventually ... not tried any AvA at the moment though

 

[Zede]

Played the L12-15 dungeons repeatedly in the Betas - best instanced dungeon experience in many a year, as a healer anyways. The pvp map has massive open areas of rolling hills and not much esle. The first mmo to remind me of the openness of Daoc, and i've just bought it for that reason. I actually felt like a healer, which i didn't in Neverwinter and GW2. 2 Grps is 8 ppl, 8 is a good number for a wandering grp i'm sure old Daoc'ers will agree .. Starting on Ebonheart EU.

 

[svartalf]

Big feature on this:

Massively's Elder Scrolls launch week diary: Day one
by Jef Reahard http://data:image/png;base64,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 on Mar 31st 2014 9:00AMFantasy, Game Mechanics, Launches, MMO Industry, New Titles, PvE, Opinion, Hands-On, First Impressions, The Elder Scrolls Online, Subscription0


Like any proper Tamrielian title, The Elder Scrolls Online starts you off in chains. This isn't the boat-bound incarceration of Morrowind, though, or the relative comfort of Oblivion's initial Imperial lockup. This is the Wailing Prison, an otherworldly abyss stocked with iron maidens, soulless inmates, and a spectral Prophet who sounds a lot like Albus Dumbledore.

Don't worry, though; ZeniMax didn't blow its budget on Michael Gambon or the rest of ESO's A-list voice cast. This is a fairly deep game, and it also does a surprisingly decent job of translating 20 years' worth of single-player sandbox history into a mass market MMORPG.

Launch diary

Before I get more specific with my early release impressions, let me lay the groundwork for this week's launch diary. This isn't a review series, per se, and it's certainly not a guide. It's a snapshot of a particular play experience that may help you to decide whether or not ESO is worth your time. Or maybe you've already decided, but you're stuck at work and feel like commenting. Either way.

It bears mentioning that I'm a fan of the franchise who started playing with Morrowind and who has sunk many hundreds of hours into that game and its two sequels. In other words, I want to like Elder Scrolls Online, and thus far ZeniMax is making that pretty painless.

Creation

Familiar is the word that best describes the day one experience. And I don't mean that I beta-tested the game or followed it much at all prior to yesterday's early-morning server stampede. It still felt familiar, though, because ZeniMax aped Skyrim's PC interface (get ready to love your 'E' and 'Alt' keys) and because that oh-so-brief snippet of Jeremy Soule's famous franchise fanfare goes a long way toward setting my personal mood.

Character creation is, in a word, robust. It's divided into four stages, the first one being your racial and faction choice. Depending on whether you select the Daggerfall Covenant, the Aldmeri Dominion, or the Ebonheart Pact faction -- and depending on whether or not you purchased the Imperial edition of the game -- you'll find yourself selecting from one of the franchise's nine traditional races (10 if you bought access to the Imperials).

Once that's done, it's on to a deceptively simple class selection screen. While you're initially restricted to Dragonknight, Nightblade, Sorcerer, or Templar, trust me when I say that the game's progression opens up substantially once you start playing.

The body and facial sections of character creation feature a lot of options, and it's highly unlikely that you'll find your twin running around Tamriel due to the sheer number of sliders and presets. Yes, you can have a beer belly on your Orc. Yes, you can roll a female avatar that would make Sir Mix-a-Lot proud, and no, you can't make one of those tiny target PvP midgets or an Aion bobblehead doll with a ginormous hot pink afro. In other words, well done ZeniMax!

Baby steps

Combat is also familiar, at least at first. You'll need to aim at your foes -- no tab targeting here! -- and fire off ranged and melee attacks with your left mouse button. Holding down the right mouse button blocks. You can also deliver a stronger attack by holding and then releasing the left button. As in many of the action MMOs you've probably played in recent years, mobs will telegraph their intentions both via body language and with red cones or circles that you'll want to step out of as soon as possible.

Your health, stamina, and magicka vitals are displayed in bar form at the bottom center of your screen. They disappear along with the rest of the UI, though, (yes, even your hotbar) when you're not in combat. It remains to be seen how the recent mod community nerfs will affect the UI over the long term, but personally I couldn't be happier with the game's default interface. I'm not a min-maxer, nor do I particularly like math, and as I'm given to wandering around my favorite MMOs in "screenshot mode" with the UI turned off anyway, I'm completely on board with ZeniMax's functional but minimalistic approach.

One final dose of Elder Scrolls familiarity manifests itself in the ability to pick up random items in the game world. Mine had to have been the most leisurely escape in the annals of The Wailing Prison, as I stopped along the way to pillage and plunder every barrel, basket, backpack, and bone pile I came across. I even helped myself to the foul hides rotting away inside those gruesome maidens, and I pilfered quite a few lockpicks that I'm sure to find a use for later.

Final first day thoughts

In terms of aesthetics, thus far ESO is a mixed bag. The newbie prison instance is a visual marvel with its kaleidoscopic blues and purples and its hellish production design. By contrast, the starting city of Daggerfall is a bit of a letdown. I won't go so far as to call it ugly, but it's clear that ZeniMax opted for open world performance over eye candy, and I found myself reminded rather frequently of 2008's grimly stylized Warhammer Online.

Performance was generally good, though I do have to report a couple of loading screen freezes and one instance of NPCs failing to appear in the game world. A restart fixed both issues, and fortunately logging back in was instantaneous thanks to a complete lack of server queues.

All in all, I'm happy to tell you that my day one Elder Scrolls Online experience was almost entirely positive. I put approximately eight hours into the game and spread it across six characters (yes, I know, I need professional help). Check in with Massively tomorrow for my day two journal, where we'll talk about progression, skills, and the leveling experience.

Massively's not big on scored reviews -- what use are those to ever-changing MMOs? That's why we bring you first impressions, previews, hands-on experiences, and even follow-up impressions for nearly every game we stumble across. First impressions count for a lot, but games evolve, so why shouldn't our opinions?


Tags: bethesda, bethesda-softworks, bethsoft, daggerfall, elder-scrolls, elder-scrolls-launch-diary, elder-scrolls-launch-impressions, elder-scrolls-online, elder-scrolls-online-launch, eso, eso-launch-diary, factions, featured, hands-on, launch, launch-day, launches, morrowind, oblivion, pvp, rvr, sandbox, skyrim, tamriel, tes, teso, the-elder-scrolls, the-elder-scrolls-online, three-faction-pvp, three-way-pvp, zenimax, zenimax-media, zenimax-online, zenimax-online-studios

 

[Moriath]

@Roo Stercogburn not missing it? No cluster fuck as yet.

 

[Hawkwind]

Managed to get a few of my usual names, with exception of Hawkwind and Linux which was the first I tried to setup.

Ebonheart with LOE:
Marricus - Empire Nightblade lvl 9
Java - Dark Elf Sorc
Bracken - Empire Dragonknight Lvl 7
Salah Al Din - Templar Lvl 7 - was Kinda going for Saladin (real name) the Paladin. Regretting it now as I keep getting pm'd by Arabs for guild invites.

Only had one issue on Nightblade quests around Lvl 7/8 where you collect Daedric hearts and summon two mobs to kill. The quest is stuck and don't get the chance to summon them. Worked on Dragonknight after a relog early morning. Tried the same on Nightblade this morning, only 2 others in area and still no luck.

Have noticed the added a timer for some quests like getting off the starter island where you have to wait for refugees, a timer started for 30 seconds and the quest moved on instead of getting stuck.

 

[Cirventhor]

When getting bugged quests, it usually works if you keep relogging. Just be sure to wait 30 secs before you log in again each time, and you'll be placed in a different instance of the zone.

Annoying, but I've gotten all my quests to work so far doing this. It's pretty bad that this still isn't fixed though - this was an issue back in the beta in early february.

 

[Fafnir]

one bugged quest this far, the ghosts of westtry. Otherwise really smooth..

 

[Hawkwind]

Another issue I'm having is with my Razer mechanical keyboard, seems to be overly difficult to time the double taps to dodge. Got a Steelseries gaming one to try out instead tonight. Rather odd, I originally got the keyboard to make Neverwinter easier to play. If I'm honest by play I mean cheat (climbing zone walls )

 

[Poag]

I'm on Daggerfall EU as @Poag

 

[svartalf]

Part 2:

Massively's Elder Scrolls launch diary: Day two - Skills and progression
by Jef Reahard http://data:image/png;base64,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 on Apr 1st 2014 10:00AMFantasy, Classes, Game Mechanics, Launches, MMO Industry, New Titles, PvE, Opinion, Hands-On, The Elder Scrolls Online, Subscription0


Never in 15-plus years of MMO gaming have I been so bewildered when it comes to picking a main class and character. Part of this is because I ignored The Elder Scrolls Online prior to March 30th. So I'm drinking from the information firehose in terms of game mechanics while simultaneously trying to keep up with friends.

The other part of it stems from the fact that ESO has an absurd amount of build customizability. I'm glad it has only four classes instead of six or eight because six or eight would probably send me over the decisional paralysis edge and into some sort of fugue state. I think for the purposes of this launch week diary -- and my own sanity -- I'm just going to stick with my Redguard Nightblade and forge ahead. There. Done.

Maybe.

Classes

As I mentioned in the intro, ESO currently features four classes. They are the Dragonknight, the Templar, the Sorcerer, and the Nightblade. These roughly correspond with tank, healer, caster, and rogue, in that order. I say roughly because ESO's skill lines are really the game's meat and potatoes, as it's entirely possible to build a plate-wearing Wizard, a Ranger with self-heals, and so on and so forth.

Think of the classes as a baseline or an archetype, and then feel free to go wild experimenting with skill builds as radical or as vanilla as you'd like.

Skills

You basically have access to six actives at any given time, five of which are ordinary skills and one of which is a super-spiffy "ultimate" skill. To acquire skills you must acquire skill points to spend, which can be done by leveling up (one skill point per character level ding), collecting particular shinies called skyshards (one skill point per every three skyshards), and completing story quests and dungeons. There are probably other ways (PvP?) but frankly I haven't gotten there yet.

If you've played earlier Elder Scrolls titles, you'll recognize the familiar skill up messages underscored by subtle drum beats every time you advance one of your lines. If you're a newb, what it boils down to is that you level up, say, your two-hander skill, your medium armor skill, and your class specialization skills (of which there are three lines per class) alongside your overall character level as you're out doing whatever you'd like to do.

Whatever you're wearing and using will level up, and as you progress through various skill trees, you'll unlock new abilities, higher-powered versions of existing ones, and the ability to "morph" certain skills and supplement them with extra effects.

For an example, let's look at the active skill Strife from my Nightblade's Siphoning tree. In its base form, Strife DoTs your target and heals you simultaneously. After you level it up a bit, you can choose to morph it into either Funnel Health or Swallow Soul, the former of which adds an ally heal and the latter of which increases the self-heal.

And that's just one active skill from one of the three Nightblade lines. Similar mechanics exist for weapon skills, armor skills, guild skills (i.e., the Fighters Guild or Mages Guild from the single-player games), racial skills, and more.

The weapon and armor skills form the backbone of ESO's foray outside the traditional themepark progression box, as they make it possible to roll a Sorcerer who also wields a greatsword and a bow or a Nightblade who can pick up a magical staff and sling some spells -- or heals -- on occasion. Don't be afraid to venture off the beaten path when you're adventuring, either. Exploration is one of ESO's strong points, and you may run across other skill lines for your toolbox as I did when I happened upon a Daggerfall NPC guild called the Undaunted that opened up an entirely new advancement path once I agreed to join.

And don't forget to spend your attribute points as you level! You've got health, magicka, and stamina pools, and the general rules of thumb for fantasy games apply: health for tanks, magicka for casters, etc. Feel free to experiment, though, because that's half the fun of this game. If -- like me -- you feel a bit overwhelmed, you can always look at what others are building.

Finally, crafting has dedicated skills lines as well, but I'll save that for another article.

Activity recap

In terms of my day two activity recap, I completed all of the newbie quests in Stros M'Kai after finally settling on my Nightblade and am now firmly entrenched in the Betnikh line. I've played mostly solo thus far and have yet to join a guild or sample the game's PvP, which opens up at level 10. I plan on doing both in the next couple of days, and I'm also hoping to get a look at dungeons and crafting before the week ends, so keep an eye out for those reports.

My opinion of the game is still largely positive. It runs well, ZeniMax has clearly planned ahead for the player load (at least during this early release period), and the visual palette has grown on me even since yesterday. It helps that I left the dreariness of Daggerfall behind in favor of the lush greenery of Betnikh and the sands of Stros M'Kai. I've always been a sucker for MMO deserts, and this one doesn't disappoint.

At the risk of going all buzzword on you, Elder Scrolls Online feels much more immersive than your average MMO themepark. Part of that is probably the IP and my history with it, but it's also the UI, the ability to do what you want with your character, and the little things like rewarding exploration, disguising your character for certain quests (and getting to keep the disguise to wear later), and the way your avatar stops and reads a scroll when you're menu-diving or otherwise disconnected from the hustle and bustle of the virtual world around you.

If you're just joining us, don't miss Day One of Massively's ESO launch diary.

Until next time!

Massively's not big on scored reviews -- what use are those to ever-changing MMOs? That's why we bring you first impressions, previews, hands-on experiences, and even follow-up impressions for nearly every game we stumble across. First impressions count for a lot, but games evolve, so why shouldn't our opinions?


Tags: bethesda, bethesda-softworks, bethsoft, daggerfall, elder-scrolls, elder-scrolls-launch-diary, elder-scrolls-launch-impressions, elder-scrolls-online, elder-scrolls-skills, eso, eso-launch-diary, factions, hands-on, launch, launch-day, launches, mmo-travelogue, morrowind, nightblade, oblivion, pvp, redguard, rvr, sandbox, skills, skyrim, tamriel, tes, teso, the-elder-scrolls, the-elder-scrolls-online, three-faction-pvp, three-way-pvp, zenimax, zenimax-media, zenimax-online, zenimax-online-studios

 

[Zede]

Quests that worked fine in beta are now bugged, absolute genius !

 

[Moriath]

Quests that worked fine in beta are now bugged, absolute genius !

Correction. Quests that you happened to have a no problem with in beta but may have had a bug in that you didn't encounter have now exposed that issue.

 

[Shagrat]

If anyones still looking at getting this I just picked it up from the link in this thread here:

http://www.avforums.com/threads/the-elder-scrolls-online-pc.1869974/

28 quid for the game and a 3 day pre release key so you can play from today. Just created a user account and its accepted the pre release code so all looks legit.

 

[Tilda]

Best launch I've seen in years and years. Pretty flawless. Severs were up an hour early.
All quests have been fine here.

 

[BloodOmen]

Best launch I've seen in years and years. Pretty flawless. Severs were up an hour early.
All quests have been fine here.

Aye, shame about the amount of low level quests that are bugged. Spent 3 hours last night doing 4 quests, had to continuously relog to get the right phase that the quests werent bugged in.

 

[Soazak]

Nearly at end of game for Daggerfall and only had a few bugged quests, only one of them is perma bugged as well, the rest were fixed when I went back a few hours later, pretty good launch tbh

Bit annoying when it puts you in different instances though from group mates :/

 

[Moriath]

Aye, shame about the amount of low level quests that are bugged. Spent 3 hours last night doing 4 quests, had to continuously relog to get the right phase that the quests werent bugged in.

I agree some what I have come across a couple. I think it's hit and miss