Elder Scrolls Online: What were they thinking?
[Updated: 8/30/2018 to cover Fallout 76]
[Previous update: 7/4/2014 to cover Cyrodiil and Craglorn]
I’m done playing the Elder Scrolls Online. What is it? It’s the newest installment to the Elder Scrolls video game series as a massive multiplayer online game (MMO). Though, my first question that comes to mind is, “What were they thinking?” This game is a huge step backwards for the Elder Scrolls Franchise in so many ways. I know a lot of players ‘like‘ the game (which is all subjective), but in this article we’ll try to understand why this game is not the caliber of a game that it should have been for an Elder Scrolls installment. Let’s explore.
Console Version — Delayed
The Elder Scrolls Online game was available on the PC first and eventually made its way to consoles such as the PS4 and the Xbox One. For the PC, the game was released on April 4th, 2014. For the consoles, the game had planned to release on June 15, 2015 . Zenimax originally announced a six month delay for the release of the console versions, but it took much longer. In lieu of that release, they have made an offer to let you play sooner. If you bought the PC version before the end of June, you were able to transfer your leveled character over to your console. This, of course, assumes everyone has a PC to play it on. Zenimax attempted to build a unified ESO universe where all players from all platforms are using the same world. It didn’t work. This explains the six month extension required to attempt a unified MMO across all platforms has never been attempted by any game developer to date. That Zenimax attempted this unified world was both ambitious and risky. It also meant trying to get Sony and Microsoft to allow this. It didn’t work. It was ultimately wasted time and effort.
It’s also worth noting that if you’re buy the Xbox One version, you will be required to buy an Xbox Live subscription ($59 for 12 months). If you’re playing on a PS4, you don’t pay anything extra. The PC game formerly required a credit card to enroll in a subscription to unlock that included 30 days. As the game has aged, Bethesda has changed its policies. Also note that many players whose time has expired have lost the ability to play when their credit card declined for unknown reasons. On consoles, it’s free to play.
Console vs PC
After having played this game nearly to completion, I definitely had second thoughts about marrying the console release and the PC release players together. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize it’s a really bad idea and a recipe for disaster. Why is that?
Consider that it takes at most 2 months to complete the game and obtain veteran rank 1 (level 50). Yes, it’s a relatively short Elder Scrolls by comparison to previous installations. To obtain further veteran ranks, you simply have to grind, grind, grind. Most of this grinding is done by hanging around with groups of other people and doing laps. This means you’ll go from one battle to another (maybe 3 or 4 total) in a loop. This loop battling is, well, boring. It does level your player up, but it’s not really much fun after you’ve done it for a while.
If they had married the environments, it would mean that by the time the console players are eligible to get to Cyrodiil, all of the VR12 players will be picking off these ‘newbie’ console players one by one in PvP mode. It’s going to be quite a bit unfair to all of these new console players. In fact, I believe that it would be better at this time to completely isolate the console players into their own servers separately from the Mac/PC edition. Let the Mac/PC players continue in their own world but without the console players. It already is unfair when newbies try to even enter Cyrodiil if you try to play after the game had already existed for 2 months..
In fact, it would be a whole lot more fair to weed out the veteran ranked players from being able to see or interact with non-veterans.
Released too early?
The PC version? Yes, unfortunately. In fact, I played it on a quad core Mac mini (which has its own set of problems.. some related to the game, some not). That said, the game has lots of bugs, glitches and problems. Some quests have characters speaking German when the dialog printed to the screen is in English. There are times where parts of the environments don’t render correctly. The quests are sometimes haphazard and don’t appear to be in any way linked. Gaining skills and experience is random, though somewhat structured around these random quests. The game lag can get quite annoying at times. The script kiddies are already at it mining for gold, loot and experience.
Immersive Experience? Not quite.
In Skyrim, the environments had been working towards full interactivity and more realism. It wasn’t quite there yet, but you could pick up apples, heads of cabbage, weapons and armor. You could carry them around in your inventory, wear items or even move them around in the environment. It was a fully interactive and immersive experience. While some of this carried over to the Elder Scrolls Online (like crafting) far too many things didn’t (list below).
In Elder Scrolls Online, too much of that interactivity is missing. Sure there are containers to open, but you can’t kick the containers around, knock them over, break them, pick up apples or cabbages or weapons and move them around or even place things into the containers. In fact, far too much of the interactivity that was beginning to show in Skyrim was completely abandoned in the Elder Scrolls Online. So, what’s up with that?
Defiance
What does Defiance have to do with the Elder Scrolls Online? ESO seems to use the same MMO engine. Granted, Zenimax tailored the engine to its own purposes (within limits), but the underlying basics (things that cannot be easily changed) are still there. So, while this MMO engine provides relatively pretty environments, they’re static. You can’t do anything to the environments. The plants are fixed, the boxes are fixed, everything is fixed. There is nothing that the player can do to move anything around. The only thing that’s movable in the game is the player and a horse (and enemies).
One of the things I always enjoyed about Oblivion, and to a lesser degree in Skyrim, is that there are wandering enemies and friends. In fact, you don’t know which is which until you come upon them. One of the things I had been hoping for is a less ‘enemy’ based game. Meaning, no one should be an enemy until you make them so. Which means, nothing should attack you until you pick a side or provoke them. Alas, not here.
Based on Zenimax’s questionable choice of choosing the same engine that Defiance uses, that leaves the Elder Scrolls Online with less than satisfying in-game play. In fact, for some of the same reasons I abandoned playing Defiance, I abandoned playing the Elder Scrolls Online.
Game Mechanics
While the combat mechanics are similar enough between ESO and Skyrim, they are also different because multiple network players can jump in and help. Though, as I said, in some dungeons, multiplayer is not possible.
On the flip side of that, though, the multiplayer experience is weak and uninspired. The whole running around without collision is way less than realistic. Network players don’t collide and simply walk through one another like ghosts. I’d prefer a much more realistic collision detection. I’d also like an experience where people can participate in commerce, like owning shops and running them at a fixed location. I would also like to see network players be able to create quests, dungeons and bosses. Yes, player created content should be clearly labeled and excludable via preferences. But, it should be part of the universe.
Voice acting and the like
I’m not terribly impressed by this installment of the Elder Scrolls series. In fact, the choice of Michael Gambon (or a very close soundalike) was not a good one. His lines are inconsistent even between the same dialog in the same paragraph of spoken dialog. It sounds amateur and rushed. This is something I would never have expected from Zenimax/Bethesda.
Graphics
It’s funny. This game looks great in some places, and really bad in others. The landscapes, for the most part look spectacular with the sun shining. In the dark, however, it’s just flat and dull. There’s almost no lighting in most places when there’s no sunshine. Interiors are dull and lifeless. The lighting model used in this engine is, at best, fair. Again, this is what you get when you buy into an off-the-shelf engine. Instead, I would have preferred them modify a Crytek engine which has about the most realistic lighting model I’ve ever seen in a game. Unfortunately, this game suffers from the lack of quality lighting in far too many places.
For example, armor on knights looks great when in direct light or in sunlight, but in the dark there’s nothing to make it look volumetric. It just looks flat and dull.
Multiplayer Gaming
Because this is an MMO game, there are plenty of network players. Unfortunately, much of the game is focused on single player questing. Sure, your comrades can join you in defeating some monsters, but there are also plenty of dungeons where this is not possible. This is the same as Defiance and this is the single reason I stopped playing Defiance. You can easily wander into an unbeatable boss dungeon and simply have to abandon that quest leaving it unfinished. If that quest is part of a chain of quests, that whole quest-line is also dead. This is entirely frustrating and I won’t deal with games that do this.
More than this, the single most frustrating thing is that people leave their characters logged in all of the time and clutter up the environment. You’ll find hordes of network players hanging around banks, clothing creation tables, armor creation tables and other similar workbenches. Sometimes there are so many people that you can’t even get to the table to use it. Sure, you can walk through the players, but if you can’t get visible view of the table with the camera, you can’t target the table to work on it.
One of the other frustrating network player problems is that you’ll tend to find network players hovering around key quest giving NPCs trying to do the same thing you’re doing. The problem that falls out of this is trying to determine what character is actually the quest giver. Having hordes of people around something also gives away where that thing is. Also, it’s really stupid to hear a quest giver NPC saying something like “You’re the first person I’ve seen in ages.” Really? Like how many other network players are logged in right now playing this exact quest in this same dungeon? Stupid dialog such as this amazes me in a network multiplayer player game. Who at Zenimax didn’t get the memo that this is a network multiplayer game?
Which leads to one more problem… shared resources. Some items in the environment are basically ‘one player at a time’. That means if you find a Water Hyacinth and someone grabs it ahead of you, they get first dibs and it’s gone. This means you have to go find it somewhere else. This problem has happened far too many times during quests leading me off on scavenging tangents. In fact, a similar issue is when I’ve just started a quest and a minute later, the quest ends saying the quest is completed. I’m like, what the hell? Then I realize, someone else just finished that quest and it gave me the completion notice also. This is bad. You should always be required to finish whatever quests you start on your own unless that quest is explicitly labeled a multiplayer quest.
Cyrodiil
At the original time of writing this article, I hadn’t yet ventured into Cyrodiil. However, I now have. Unfortunately, the gameplay doesn’t get any better in Cyrodiil. In fact, it really takes a turn for the worst. While all of the non-Cyrodiil zones are standard questing and dungeon crawler types, Cyrodiil is the antithesis of what Elder Scrolls has always been.
Yes, Cyrodiil offers a huge map that encompasses all of the cities we’ve come to know from Oblivion, but instead of being thriving quest giving communities, it’s a barren landscape of forts and castles, few and far between. In between these military installations is a whole-lotta-nothin’. Really. There is nothing there. While there are quests that are placed onto your area quest map, the quests are all campaign related. Things like, taking over a fort, capture the Elder Scroll, etc etc.
ZeniMax degrades Cyrodiil into yet another version of Hasbro’s board game Risk, only in MMO video game format. I’d liken it to another game like Civilization, but it’s less like Civilization and more like Risk. There are 3 factions: Red, Yellow and Blue. Depending on which faction you join, you’re responsible for making sure your ‘team’ captures the most stuff during any campaign.. with the idea being to capture the entire game area, just like Risk.
No, I’m not avert to playing a game like Risk, it’s just that I’ve already played Risk many many many times over the years. Risk is not what the Elder Scrolls series should become. Yet, here we are. The Elder Scrolls games should always be about questing and dungeon crawling, first. There are so many better multiplayer ideas that could have been used on the Cyrodiil land, but unfortunately we get Risk instead. This Risk game is not bad for what it is, but it’s just not creative nor in keeping with what I would expect from an Elder Scrolls title. It’s also far less than impressive than what I would expect from Bethesda.
Castles and Rebuilding
The worst part of Cyrodiil’s Risk is its castles. The other teams can build catapults and other weapons to use against your castles. As the castles get bombarded, they break and fall down. If the castle falls down enough, the other team can capture it. To keep this from happening, all of the players must not only continually rebuild the castles, they must also use their own ‘money’ to rebuild it. If you want to rebuild a wall, you have to pay for it out of your own stash of money. No money? Can’t rebuild. Personally, I found this minutiae to be just too over the top and unnecessary.
Winning
Yes, while it’s important that your ‘team’ wins Cyrodiil during the campaign, there are a lot of sub-game types also embedded in the area like capture-the-flag and death-match all wrapped into this single area. It’s also worth noting that Cyrodiil is almost entirely PVP (Player vs Player). There is very little PVE (Player vs Environment) in Cyrodiil.
The problem with Cyrodiil is that it is far too sprawling with literally devoid of anything other than PVP gameplay. Seriously, this land is so big, trying to find enemy players in it can be as challenging as fighting the battles when you finally find them. The sore point when your player dies is that the spawn points are so few and far between, you’ll end up spending literally 10 minutes just trotting back to where you were on a horse simply to try that battle again. Because there are so few spawn points, it makes Cyrodiil a truly painful experience when battling. Definitely not a battle-friendly environment. This is a pretty huge fail on ZeniMax part. The spawn point is also entirely dependent on who kills you. If you’re killed by an environment NPC, then you spawn like you normally do. If you’re killed by another player, you’re forced to respawn at very selective spawn points owned by your faction… which could be on the other side of the map.
Worse, they’ve turned the Elder Scrolls themselves (the actual Elder Scrolls) into a game of capture-the-flag. Instead of being useful as scrolls, now they’re just tokens to carry around. It’s now the job of other teams to grab your team’s ‘Elder Scroll’ and take it back to their own land. It’s then your responsibility to go get that scroll and put it back into its home area. Yes, it’s degraded the Elder Scrolls into Capture The Flag. I mean, I don’t know how much more degrading it is to see the actual Elder Scrolls, which are supposed to be some of the most coveted and sacred of magical artifacts in Tamriel, treated like play toys.
If the Elder Scrolls themselves are such prized artifacts, why are they floating on an alter sitting out in the open under a dome? Shouldn’t they be in a library or underground protected? Who thought this would be a good idea?
On top of the derivative problems present in the Risk-like strategy aspect, it’s just far too sprawling to really make this area of any real value. The campaigns in Cyrodiil literally last 90 days. That’s 3 months. And it would take every bit that 3 months just to even try and take over the entirety of Cyrodiil. I guess if the only thing you’re trying to do is level your character up to Veteran Rank, then it’s worth it. Oh, and the only way to get Veteran Rank is to have taken part in Cyrodiil actively. Yes, that means rebuilding castles, as boring as that activity is.
Unfortunately, Cyrodill literally doesn’t thrill me. First, it trivializes the Elder Scrolls. Second, because the area is so sprawling with nothing else to do there but focus on taking buildings over, it’s really way outside of what I consider an Elder Scrolls game. I mean, the idea behind the battles is interesting. However, using a board game derivative to build your implementation is far less than impressive, Bethesda. It seems like the game developers just didn’t have any better ideas than ripping off the Risk board game.
Instead, I would have preferred to see several types of campaigns. Instead of 3 factions all working against one another (PVP), that they all work together towards a common goal… like taking the area back from the Daedra. I don’t mind PVP and I’m glad there’s an area here, but ZeniMax should at least offer up other methods of conquering Cyrodiil than simple-minded and derivative PVP gaming. If you really want to do PVP, I’d rather just have an arena somewhere. I mean, a small location with limited map sizes where gamers can simply go in and battle in an arena. In fact, Arena was one of the early Elder Scrolls titles. Why not offer an area as an homage to the earlier Arena battles? With multiplayer, it makes perfect sense. Yet, they give us the Risk-derived Cyrodiil. I continually find myself venturing back to the questing areas over being in Cyrodiil. I find myself bored to tears after spending even 15 minutes in Cyrodiil. Just give me the standard quests and don’t force me to rely on Cyrodiil to advance my player character.
Faction Lands
When you begin the Elder Scrolls Online, you will become part of a faction such as the Daggerfall Covenant, the Ebonheart Pact or the Aldmeri Dominion. Depending on which faction you end up in, certain parts of Tamriel will open and others remain locked. However, once you complete Cyrodiil as a veteran, you will be able to go through all of the rest of the closed lands. Personally, I think this is rather stupid. If, as a designer, you’re going to create a world with many lands, let all players go through all of the lands. Don’t selectively exclude gamers based on a faction. This is stupid. Of course, we can create and level up other player characters who end up on those other factions, but that’s means you have to manage 3 players all leveling up together. This is something I don’t want to do. I play a game no more than once, never three times.
Craglorn
After having recently reached Veteran Rank 1 (VR) — AKA Level 50, I was ‘invited’ to be transported to Craglorn (the recently released Veteran Rank area). Don’t expect Craglorn to be like any other land you’ve visited. Oh, no no no. Zenimax has once again changed the rules of the game. When you reach VR1, you might think you’re now reasonably strong. Again, no no no. Reaching Craglorn is like starting ESO all over again at Level 1 with no armor or weapons. In Craglorn, ALL of the enemies and I mean ALL of them are VR 11 or higher. Oh, but there’s one more change to this area. ALL of the enemies in Craglorn swarm. There is no way to get a single enemy alone to grind and rank up. Nope. If you hit one enemy, at least 4, 5 or more VR11 enemies come charging at you. Think about this for about 30 seconds and you’ll realize the problem… I’ll wait….
So, having thought through the problem, you quickly realize there is absolutely no place to grind here. None. The only way to grind here is to group with others and grind together. Even then, grouping VR1s together probably won’t be that successful. Effectively, you cannot quest solo in Craglorn until you’ve reached at least VR 12. Worse, the first quest given in the area has you fighting VR11 bosses… which are, in fact, VR20-somethings. Even worse then that, it takes killing a shit ton of enemies just to move the VR experience bar even a nudge. So, yeah. It’s unlikely a VR1 character is going to step into this area and win at anything let alone rank up fast. Expect to spend some gold on new VR ranked weapons before entering this area.
Craglorn is probably one of the worst ZeniMax fails around the entire ESO game. Though, I have to admit that ripping off the board game Risk is right up there with Craglorn’s design. But, setting your character up as VR1 in a primarily VR11 area is just simply insane. Again I must ask, “What were they thinking?” This is not challenging. It’s just an exercise in frustration. I’d have to say that Craglorn is probably game designing at its worst. Every other gaming area, they’ve had general enemies no more than 1-2 ranks higher than where you are. But, throwing a VR1 ranked character into a VR11 territory is just stupid.
About the only thing I have found to do is loot treasure in this area and join in on some world battles whenever I can find them. This way I can at least try to rank my character up very slowly. But, finding world battles around the area is fairly difficult because there aren’t that many people here questing and world battles are few. Even dolmens aren’t in Craglorn. Oh, there are dolmen’s marked, but they don’t work like the regular dolmens. Again, Zenimax changed the way this area works. Inconsistent to say the least.
Craglorn is really designed for grinding, pure and simple. If you go in there, expect to grind, grind, grind.
Gameplay Differences
Let’s understand some of what I consider broken between the Elder Scrolls Online compared to Skyrim. Some of you might like some of the changes listed below, but I preferred where Skyrim was heading. That is, moving towards making everything interactive and more like our reality with real physics. Taking a step back in gaming is never a good idea. Here’s my list (note this is not comprehensive):
ESO: Horses appear out of thin air and disappear into thin air
SKY: Horses are stabled, must be found, can die
ESO: Horse animation is stilted and cartoony
SKY: Horse animation looks at least more realistic than ESO
ESO: Containers are fixed and contain gold 1 max or food (not necessary)
SKY: Containers can contain jewels, gold > 20 or potions.
ESO: Food is unnecessary because magicka, health and stamina regenerate almost immediately after combat ends
SKY: Food is necessary until you get armor or enchantments that increase health regeneration which is typically very slow.
ESO: Objects are fixed and cannot be moved
SKY: Objects are movable in the environment: Apples, weapons, ingredients, etc
ESO: Defeating an enemy yields 1 gold and possibly a glyph or quest item (rarely armor and never armor the NPC was wearing)
SKY: Defeating an enemy yields gold sometimes and whatever armor and weapons they had. Their armor and weapons can be stripped.
ESO: Bows automatically come equipped with arrows. The bow holds the damage.
SKY: Bows and arrows are separate and have separate damage levels. Couldn’t craft arrows. They were always found.
ESO: Unknown if you can own a house
SKY: You can not only own houses, with Hearthfire you could build one from scratch.
ESO: 60 max slots for items and every item (including each ingredient) requires 1 slot (excluding some quest items). If you run out of slots, you have to use the bank which gives you only 60 more. Then you have to buy more with gold.
SKY: Expandable slots for items and unlimited items can be stored in containers in owned houses. Granted, houses cost at minimum 5000g, but once you buy a house the storage space is unlimited. You could get more slots by finding the Horse stone, scrolls, casting a spell or by wearing enchanted items (which can be found or created).
ESO: Soul Gems are very very scarce. Basically only available from sellers.
SKY: Soul Gems are easy to find. Specifically, they are usually found in dungeons with mages or necromancers.
ESO: Once in battle mode, there’s no way to sneak. The game simply won’t let you. If you do manage to hide in battle mode, the game takes you out of battle mode as though you had run away. The enemy’s health resets requiring you to start the battle over from the beginning. This includes bosses.
SKY: Once in battle mode, if you hide behind a rock or container you can usually hide. If you crouch and hide in battle mode, the game does not reset the enemy’s health unless they have regenerative capabilities or you leave the area.
ESO: An arrow’s range is a 5-6 feet. If you’re out of range, an arrow does nothing.
SKY: An arrow’s range is at least 50-100 feet. If you can see the enemy and you can aim, you can hit them.
ESO: If you’re in sneak and attack an enemy, you’re immediately taken out of sneak and the enemy knows exactly where you are and begins attacking you. The best you get is 1 sneak attack.
SKY: If you’re in sneak and attack an enemy, the enemy will come search for you, but you can move and avoid being found. You can continue to sneak attack as long as you remain undetected.
ESO: Equipping a new weapon is cumbersome.
SKY: Equipping a new weapon is through the weapon wheel (as long as it’s set up in advance).
ESO: Entering a menu to switch weapons or consume a potion doesn’t pause the action. Enemies continue to attack while trying to switch weapons or consume potions. You need to have them on hot keys.
SKY: Entering a menu during battle pauses the battle to allow switching or consumption of a potion.
ESO: Dying reduces durability of all equipped items.
SKY: Dying ends the game and you have to reload. Durability of items is determined by its use, not by player death.
ESO: Boss battles inside a dungeon trap you in the dungeon until the battle is done, you quit out of the game or you die. There is no way to flee an interior battle as exit doors aren’t usable.
SKY: You can always exit a dungeon even when in battle.. excluding certain bosses which lock you into an area (i.e., arena battles).
ESO: Swimming yields no skill improvement.
SKY: Swimming improves strength
ESO: Diving in water not possible.
SKY: Diving not only possible, but required to reach some quests.
ESO: Mouth movements with dialogue are simple open close like a puppet
SKY: Mouth movements with dialogue use mouth phoneme animation to seem like they’re actually talking
ESO: Sneaking costs stamina, does not level up
SKY: Sneaking levels up as you use it near enemies, costs no stamina
ESO: Repairing armor is at least 5x more costly in comparison with the gold you obtain. Repairing all items might be 200G-300G and you might have 500-800G or so.
SKY: Gold is plentiful and repairs are 10G or so per item. It might cost 200-300G for all items, but you probably have 2000-5000G
ESO: Bots and script kiddies => a side effect of multiple players
SKY: No bots => no online play
ESO: Some dungeons don’t allow network players in. You’re left alone to complete the boss which can be challenging because you cannot sneak or hide in battle. Basically, you need to be a mage or warrior for these dungeons. Rangers and Thieves won’t easily work.
SKY: N/A.. but you can use alternative tactics like sneaking and sneak attacks which are not available in ESO once battle starts.
ESO: Map is tiny (about a quarter of the screen) and looks like a cartoon.
SKY: Map is full screen, makes it much easier to find things.
Though neither have a search feature which would make finding places on the map a whole lot easier.
ESO: Custom waypoints not available on map
SKY: Custom way points possible
ESO: No stealing, no pickpocketing
SKY: An intrinsic part of every other ES game since at least Morrowind
ESO: Fast traveling costs gold (costs more as game progresses)
SKY: Fast traveling is free
ESO: Books cannot be taken or stored. Though, Lorebooks disappear after reading them and end up in a ‘library’ on your character.
SKY: Books can always be taken (unless it’s specifically stuck to an area).
ESO: Can’t sit in chairs
SKY: Could sit in any chair
ESO: Can’t kill any NPCs
SKY: Can’t kill some NPCs (critical characters, kids, etc), but can kill most.
ESO: Items cannot be dropped and picked up later. They can only be destroyed.
SKY: Items cannot be destroyed, but can be dropped or sold to free up slots.
ESO: Travel only to waypoints at any time. Traveling not from a waypoint costs gold. All territories are infested with large numbers of constantly spawning enemies. Dungeons are not always set to the player level and are frequently set higher to encourage network co-op, otherwise it can be impossible with a single player.
SKY: Travel to any city at any time. Occasional enemies can be easily avoided. Dungeons were set at or close to the level of the player making some levels too easy to play. Though, some dungeons aren’t.
Frequent Updates
While I do realize this is a multiplayer game, some of the updates can be especially big and have long download times. For example, some updates are as large as 8GB (nearly the same size as the full game). Download updates are frequent at intervals usually once a week. So, expect to wait to play while the updates are downloading and installing.
If they’re planning on this many updates this frequently, then the game should come with a background updater to automatically download updates during idle times.
Overall
The Elder Scrolls online is, at best, a mediocre game. The choice of the Defiance MMO engine to drive ESO leaves a lot to be desired. I was actually hoping Zenimax wouldn’t use that engine as there are many problems with it. While Zenimax was able to customize some pieces better than Defiance was able to, there are simply some pieces that still don’t fit with the concept of an Elder Scrolls game. In fact, using this engine is far and away a step backward for an Elder Scrolls technology advance. It’s unfortunate too because I was actually liking where Skyrim was heading. And, taking what Skyrim was to a Next Gen console would have made the next installment spectacular. Instead, with the Elder Scrolls Online, what we’re getting is not the next step, but a lateral move that’s about as compelling to play as Morrowind.
Though, at the time Morrowind released, it was very compelling. Today, Morrowind seems antiquated, as does the Elder Scrolls Online. Unfortunately, Zenimax tried using something off-the-shelf and the result is less than stellar. It’s unfortunate too, because I was just getting into the Elder Scrolls series. If this is what we can look forward to in Elder Scrolls games, Zenimax, you can count me out.
As for Cyrodiil, it is basically boring empty space with mostly nothing to do. There is effectively no standard questing in Cyrodiil. All quests are military quests such as grabbing the Elder Scroll and moving it somewhere else or spying. Unfortunately, Cyrodiil is basically such an uninspired area, I find myself bored often and frequently leaving to find quests in other lands. Unfortunately, at level 46, I find myself actually running out of standard quests and no way to get to the other unopened territories. So, I’m actually kind of stuck for more stuff to do in the Elder Scrolls Online.
In fact, what I’ve been doing as of late is just finding resources and putting them up for sale in guild stores. At least there’s pretty much a never ending supply of resources, except on Cyrodiil where, again, there’s literally nothing but a huge and a big game of Risk.
Fallout 76
This section has been added here to discuss Bethesda’s newest MMO, Fallout 76. It’s highly likely that Bethesda/Zenimax has simply taken the ESO engine and used it to build Fallout 76. I haven’t played or seen any play of Fallout 76, but I’m not holding out hope that FO76 will be substantially better than ESO.
I’m certainly hoping that they have abandoned the Risk board game PVP mode. It was totally unnecessary and out of character even for an Elder Scrolls game. It will definitely be out of character in a Fallout game.
I will have to reserve my judgement of Fallout 76 until its release later in 2018.
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Resident Evil 6: Complete disappointment
As you may or may not know, I also like gaming. Specifically, RPG and first and third person shooters. Well, at least some first and third person shooters, anyway. Whether I like it depends on how it’s done. In this case Resident Evil 6 is not done well at all.
Resident Evil Franchise
Even though this game series has turned into a fairly hefty cash cow for both Milla Jovovich (and hubby) in the celluloid format, the games have been relatively uninspired for the last several years. The last really good Resident Evil game was RE4 and that was years ago. Well, I’m sad to say that Resident Evil 6 is a complete and total disappointment in the gaming department. Capcom just can’t figure this out. For whatever reasons, the developers over at Capcom Japan just aren’t with the program.
The absolute best game of this franchise is still, bar none, Resident Evil 4. This game had all the makings of turning the franchise into a smash hit. Unfortunately, the game developers decided to try something new with whole tag-along partner thing in RE5 which failed miserably, by the way. That game was an unmitigated disaster. It had no depth, the story was boring, the fights were stupid and the fact that you had to keep your partner alive in the middle of the fights was asinine. There was no fun to be had with that game at all.
You’d think Capcom could have figured out that the reason Resident Evil 5 flopped so badly was that it was just so poorly done. Yet, here we are with Resident Evil 6 bringing in much of the boring and silly storylines from 5 even though Leon is heading this chapter up. It’s unfortunate, too. This could have been such a great addition if Capcom had even minimally listened to its fanbase. No, they did their own thing again and assumed this is what we wanted in a game. They could not have been more wrong.
Seriously, Resident Evil 6 doesn’t even have a pause button!?!? You can’t even pause the effing game. I mean, seriously? Why not? Every other game on the planet has figured out how to pause, why is Resident Evil 6 the exception? You can’t even step away to go take a pee without some zombies nailing you. What fun is there in that?
Worse, when you restart the game, it takes you back almost an entire chapter just to begin again. You can’t even start at the point where you left off. Seriously, this is one extremely badly designed game. On top of just these stupid design issues, the gameplay is sluggish, awkward and the collision detection is some of the worst I’ve seen in a game in a very long time.
No awards for this turd
As much as Capcom seems to think this is some award winning thing, it’s a festering piece of feces covered in flies. It has no redeeming value at all. This game is so bad, it’ll be in the bargain bin in 60 days. Less, I’d venture. If you really want this game, just wait about 30 days and pick it up on the cheap. Even then, why waste your time with this dreadful game? Go pick up Skyrim or Fallout 3 or Portal or some other much better game than this and spend some time with a quality game. If you really love Resident Evil, pick up Resident Evil 4. It’s still far far outshines anything Capcom has ever done to date in this series. RE4 is, in fact, so far ahead of every other RE game that I can’t even fathom that Capcom had a hand in writing it. In fact, they probably didn’t.
It’s unfortunate that Capcom doesn’t quite get the gaming landscape today. Resident Evil 6 had so much it could have been and the developers just squandered away that opportunity. This is and will be the last Resident Evil game I buy from Capcom. No more throwing good money after bad. Capcom get with the program. As they say, once bitten, twice shy. No more Capcom titles in my house.
[UPDATE 2012-10-24: Thanks Riko]
Apparently you can pause the game, but only if you turn off multiplayer (?) features. Note, however, that I didn’t ‘turn on’ any multiplayer features when I played. I just played the game with however the campaign started. If that enables multiplayer features, I didn’t know it. Worse, I wasn’t playing multiplayer at all, however. I was playing the game in as though it were a single person campaign. That this game apparently turns on multiplayer features even though you are not using it (and worse, blocking the pause feature) is just stupid game design. I have to agree with Riko. This game is one big turd named starting with an s and ending with a t.
Stars: 1/2 out of 5 (Capcom gets the 1/2 star for effort).
Video game designers stuck in a rut
Video game consoles, such as the PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 (and even PC’s) have gotten more complex and provide impressive 3D capabilities and 5.1 sound. Yet, video games have not. There was a time many years ago when video game designers would take chances and create unique and unusual titles. Games that challenge the mind and challenge the video gamer’s thought processes. Games used to be fun to play.
In recent years…
Today, most games fall into a very small subset of genres: First/Third Person Shooter, Fighting, RPG, Simulation, Sports or Music (with a few lesser genres appearing occasionally). While the innovation in the hardware continues to progress, the video game designers are not progressing. Sure, it takes time to get actors into a studio to record tracks. Sure, it takes time to build and rig up 3D models. Sure, it takes time to motion capture realistic action to plug into those 3D models. Yes, it takes time to program all of those complex algorithms to make it all work as a whole. I understand all of that. But that’s the process, not the innovation. These are the tools necessary to get the job done. They are a means to an end and not the end in itself.
Design considerations
For whatever reason, big video game executives have it in their heads that the tried-and-true model sells a video game. That may be true to some degree, but you can also wear-out-your-welcome with overused techniques. In other words, when a game title sucks, the word spreads FAST in the video game community. That can stop a video game’s sales dead.
When starting a new game project, the producer and creative staff need to decide whether or not they are planning on introducing something new and innovative. First and third person shooters (FPS/TPS) have already been done and done and done and done again ad nauseam. That’s not to say that yet another TPS or FPS can’t be successful. It can.. IF there’s something compelling to the game… and that’s a big IF.
Sure, there are video gamers who will play anything they can get their hands on (known as video game fanatics). But, as a game developer, you can’t rely on these gamers to carry your title to success. These gamers do not necessarily make up the majority of the game buying public. As far as myself, I am an much more discriminating buyer. I simply won’t buy every title that comes along. I pick and choose the titles based on the styles of games I know that I like to play. For example, I do not buy turn-based games of any sort. I don’t care if it’s based on dice rolls or card draws whether in a fighting, FPS or RPG game. I won’t buy them because turn-based games get in the way of actual playing. Turn-based games also tend to be antiquated. I understand where turn-based play came from (i.e., board games). But, it has no place in a 3D world based video game.
Again, choosing to add turn-based play into your game is your decision as a developer. But, by doing so, you automatically exclude gamers who won’t buy turn-based games, like myself. There are gamers who do enjoy turn-based games, but I don’t know of any gamers who won’t buy real-time play styles and buy only turn-based. So, you automatically limit those who purchase your game to those who buy turn based. But, by making your game real-time, you include a much bigger audience.
These are up-front design considerations that, as a developer and producer, you need to understand about gamer buying habits. These are decisions that can directly affect the success of your video game title.
Previous innovations
In the early days of 3D console games (mid-80s through mid-90s), game developers were willing to try new and unusual things. Of course, these were the days when 3D was limited to flat untextured surfaces. We’ve come a long way in the graphics arena. But, even as far as we’ve come in producing complex and unusual 3D worlds within the games, the play styles have become firmly stagnant. For example, most First/Third person shooters today rely on a very linear story to get from point A to point B. Driving the game along is an invisible path. So, while the complex 3D world is wonderfully constructed, the character can only see the world from a limited vantage point. The cameras are usually forced to be in one spot (near or behind the character). The character is forced to traverse the world through a specific path with invisible boundaries. So, exploration of the world is limited to what the game designer and story allow you to do.
This style of game is very confining. It forces the gamer to play the game on the programmer’s terms rather than on the gamer’s terms. Worse, when this play style is combined with checkpoint saves, health meters and other confining aspects, these games can easily become tedious and frustrating. So, what a game developer may consider to be ‘challenging’, in reality becomes frustration.
A shot of new innovation
The video game development world needs is to open is collective eyes. Don’t rely on the tried-and-true. Don’t relay on formulas. Don’t assume that because a previous game worked that your next game will also work. What works is what video gamers like. What doesn’t work is what video gamers don’t like. The video game community is very vocal, so listen to your audience and learn. Most of all, try new things… and by that I don’t mean tweaking an existing formula. I mean, take a risk. Try something new. Let gamers explore the world. Produce worlds that are open and complete. Let gamers build things. Let gamers take the game to whole new levels. Build in construction sets to allow gamers to create things you have never thought of. Build in ways to save the constructions to web sites and allow gamers to monetize the things they’ve built.
These are innovations that lead to progress. These are innovations that instill addictiveness into the game. These are innovations that keep your game alive for years to come. You only need to look at the popularity of Second Life, World of Warcraft and even the Elder Scrolls series to understand that an unlimited world with construction kits allow gamers to take the game into directions you’ve never even thought of.
Most games play through in only a few weeks (sometimes less than 1 week). The gamer buys it, plays it through and then trades it in never to touch it again. This is effectively a movie rental. So, once the gamers have had their fill, the game is effectively dead. This style of game does not provide your company with a continued stream of revenue from that title. Only titles that have open ends, that offer expansion packs, and that allow gamers to construct things on their own are the games that keep a title alive for years rather than a few weeks.
That may require a slightly bigger cash outlay in the beginning (to support a title that has a longer lifespan), but if done correctly, should also provide much more income for that game company. This is why titles like Fallout 3, Oblivion: Elder Scrolls IV and World of Warcraft are talked about months (and even years) after the game’s initial release. But, forgettable games like Fracture, Too Human or even Force Unleashed have no extra play value after the game ends.
Gaming elements incorrectly used
In too many game designs, programming elements are used incorrectly to ‘challenge’ the gamer. Game challenges should come in the form of story elements, puzzles, clues and riddles. Game challenge elements should not involve game saving, turn-based play, checkpoints, character deaths, camera movement, controller button sequences, or anything dealing with the real-world physicality of the gaming system. In other words, challenges should not be tied to something outside of the video game or outside of the story. So, as a designer.. you should always ask yourself: Does this challenge progress the game story forward? If the answer is no, the challenge is a failure. If yes, then the story becomes better by the challenge.
Button Sequences
For example, requiring the gamer to respond to a sequence of button presses in a very specific real-world time limit is not challenging. This is frustrating. This means the gamer needs to trial-and-error this section until they can make it through the timed sequence of buttons. This is a failed and incorrectly used ‘challenge’ event. This section does not challenge. Instead, this sequence requires the gamer to ‘get through’ that section. Note that ‘getting through’ is not a positive gaming aspect. Worse, if this game section comes in a FPS game, but only occasionally (only to fight a boss), this is also incorrectly used. If this play style is used regularly and consistently throughout the game, then the gamer knows that it’s coming. If it’s used only at certain undisclosed points rarely, then the gamer has to fumble to realize what’s going on when there is no warning.
Death Sequences
Another common, but also incorrectly used gaming element is the character death sequence. For some reason, recent games have promoted the use of character deaths as part of the challenge element. So, there are sections of some games where the designers specifically designed the level so the gamer has to ‘die’ his way through the level. These trial and error sequences, again, are incorrectly used and do not aid in moving the story or the game forward. These also tend to promote deaths as a way to solve problems. This is not appropriate.
Games should always promote the positive aspects of life and not promote death as a means to an end. Worse, games like Too Human take the death sequence to an extreme and make the gamer wait through an excruciatingly long cinematic each time the character dies. This, again, is an inappropriate use of a gaming element. The game should be designed for the GAMER and not for the game designer. Long death sequences such as what’s in Too Human overly emphasizes death. This is, again, not appropriate.
Health Meters
Health meters are another common gaming element that are incorrectly used, or lack thereof. Every game that allows the character to ‘die’ needs to have a visible health meter. Games that use the Unreal engine do not have this. Instead, when your character takes enough ‘damage’, the screen will become red with a halo. The problem with this system (and this is also why its incorrectly used) is that the gamer doesn’t know how far from ‘death’ the character is. This is not a challenge. This is annoying and frustrating. This leaves the gamer wondering just how much health they have.
Game Saves
Again, story elements move the game forward. Having the gamer stop and reload a game takes the gamer OUT of the game and forces them to restart from some arbitrary point. Checkpoint games are particularly bad about this. When checkpoints are the only way to save a game, this means the gamer must waste their real-world time through trial-and-error gaming. This means, the user must wait through character deaths and then the subsequent reload of the level to restart at the checkpoint. Again, this is not a challenge… it’s simply a waste of time. When levels are designed such that the gamer’s character will die at least once to get through the level, the level has failed. This forces a reload of a previous save. This element, again, is misued as a challenge element. Taking the gamer out of the game by forcing a reload ruins the game experience and disrupts the story you, as a developer, worked so hard to make cohesive.
Future of Gaming
Even as game developers are now stuck in the genre rut, they do have the power to break out of it. They do have the means to produce games with more compelling and addictive content. Instead of using old formulas that used to work, designers need to look for new ways to innovate, monetize and bring video gamers into their game worlds and keep them there. Games shouldn’t be viewed as a short term point A to B entity. Games need to move to open ended and free exploration worlds. Worlds that let the gamer play on the gamer’s terms. Sure, there can be story elements that tie the game together like Fallout 3 and Oblivion. In fact, I’d expect that. But, these game threads should start and end inside the game as quests. You can play them when you want to and you can leave them hanging if you don’t want to complete it.
Game elements like checkpoints, saves and button sequences need to be rethought. Some of these elements can be successfully used, like checkpoints if implemented thoughtfully. However, allowing the gamer to save anywhere lets the gamer save and start at their leisure. But, that manual save process leaves it up to the gamer to remember to save. For this reason, checkpoints when combined with save-anywhere is the best alternative when gaming. After all, the game was supposed to be produced for the gamer.
Designers, creators and developers need to challenge the notion of what is a video game. They need to use the 3D worlds in creative NEW ways. Let the users explore the worlds on their terms, not on some dictated path and story. Designers need to take a page from Bethesda’s book on free-roaming RPGs and expand on this. Closed ended, path based games have limited playability and definitely no replay value. Monetarily, developers need to understand that open ended construction based games let gamers take ownership of the game and make it their own. Closed, narrow pathed games do not.
Random Thoughts - Randocity! 
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