Most MMOs I’ve played have an issue where character animations appear detached from the environments. Through these quests, I noticed a solid responsiveness to my commands and movements.
I also wandered to a whole other island where prisoners were being forced out into a vicious jungle full of terrifying monsters. After all, this is a very early preview and I wouldn’t be surprised if things still needed fixing.īeyond that, I infiltrated a cavern full of bandits and took down a camp to acquire a sacred idol (although my first attempt had me gloriously perish).
Since I’m a noob, I wasn’t entirely sure if I was missing something or if the game was bugged. However, when I got to the actual volcanic vent that I needed for a quest, I ran around the designated area without anything triggering at any point. While I certainly didn’t get to quest much, I enjoyed my journey outside of town, battling Flame Hounds, Wyrms, an Iron Atronach, other demonic entities, and a beast named Vulk’esh as they funneled out of a crater spewing molten lava. I love the feeling of being on a unique questline that you chose to pursue rather than something the game forced into your hands. This snapshot of how the player could diversify their builds within The Elder Scrolls Online has me overwhelmed, yet excited, to dive into the full game, especially since the guild-based abilities are seemingly acquired by deepening relations with certain organizations. Within those sets are more powerful passives that must be assigned to your character with a constellation allowing four bonuses to activate at once. Here were three massive constellations based around Craft, Warfare and Fitness, each of which boasted dozens upon dozens of passive bonuses each. This one was pretty self-explanatory, but I felt my reality shatter (again) when I entered the Champion System menu. WoW also has the player juggling dozens upon dozens of abilities at once, which can be overwhelming, but feels far more satisfying to master.īeyond just skill points, players can increase their Magicka, Health and Stamina attributes with every level up. It’s also difficult to understand why the player is limited from having more abilities it’s visually represented by limited hotbar space, whereas World of Warcraft makes it clear you’re tackling different talent specializations that change up class abilities. In any RPG, specialization is important for getting a sense of the role you’re playing within the world, but this seems like far too few skills to have active at once (especially considering the amount of stuff you can mess with). Yet with a plethora of abilities at my disposal, The Elder Scrolls Online only lets the player have five standard skills and one ultimate equipped at a time. From what I skimmed through, I noticed more than 50 active abilities (and way more passives), and all of the ones I tried had a couple of iterations that slightly shifted their impact. Player skills aren’t just unlocked through class, but there are also specializations within it, weapon and armor skills, and abilities you can unlock through guilds and crafts. I was overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I could advance and modify within the progression menus. But my world crumbled when I opened the character menu. “Surely this game has abilities,” I thought. I was pressing the attack button over and over, but I knew that wasn’t right. Players can attack, dodge and block as inputs within a fight - a foil to World of Warcraft’s method of having a player auto attack and the ability to evade or block are percentage chances that automatically go off within a fight. In my first combat encounter with a Jailer Darkblade, I didn’t expect The Elder Scrolls Online to have such an active combat system.
This small area had characters to talk to rather than just quest givers, and due to how it zooms in for a face-to-face conversation with NPCs (where the player can make a few dialogue choices), these characters felt present and organic.Īfter running a few errands in town, I decided to run off into the jungle to look for some volcanic vents that needed closing.
With The Elder Scrolls Online, I felt like I was in an actual town that could react to my actions, especially if a guard caught me doing something illegal. Final Fantasy XIV focuses on dialogue, but it's more about a linear story plot. If this were World of Warcraft, players would be expected to run around and kill things, often for no reason.