Apologies to Wildstar Fans But This Looks Horrible.

I have said I am no fan of the telegraph system in Wildstar.  If only a few abilities are telegraphed it would probably be okay but when you telegraph everything it just looks horrible.  Its a mish-mash of colored boxes, circles, triangles and cones on the ground and it just looks like a geometry monster vomited Skittles all over the place.

To top it off, I don’t think it adds much to the combat system.  You can accomplish everything they do without all the multi-colored telegraphs all over the place.  Guild Wars 2 does it.  Age of Conan does it.  So does Tera and Elder Scrolls Online.  And, yes, I know it can be turned off but if you turn it off you are automatically at a distinct disadvantage to all the players with them on.

I am sorry, I love PvP but this just looks horrible:

How Big is the Cyrodiil (the Elder Scrolls Online PvP Map)? Its Big. Really Big.

Found an interesting video on You Tube this evening.  In it, a guy compares the size of the Eternal Battlegrounds in Guild Wars 2 with the Cyrodiil map in Elder Scrolls Online.  Now, I knew Cyrodiil was bigger than the GW2 maps but I had no idea it was this much bigger.  The difference is pretty striking.

My Wildstar Thoughts

I have to tread carefully here because of the NDA but I will articulate some thoughts on Wildstar.  I will state, up front, that Wildstar is a well-crafted MMO.  It is quite obvious, from the moment you start the game, that the developers have worked hard making the game.  They imbued it with a solid world, a good story and a quirky sense of humor sharper than anything this side of World of Warcraft.

All that being said, I will not be playing Wildstar at release.  I enjoyed all the things I mentioned above but there are a few things that just turned me off.  The good news is that all of the things that I did not like are completely personal preferences.  From a mechanics standpoint there is nothing at all wrong with Wildstar.  Bugs are few and far between, the engine runs fairly well, the quests worked.  All the mechanics are solid.

Elder Scrolls Online PvP

With my history with MMOs, it should come as no surprise that the PvP in ESO would get the most scrutiny from me. DAoC continues to be my favorite MMO of all time and even in my time in WoW I spent a lot of time PvP’ing.  PvP will make or break a MMO for me.  If your MMO doesn’t do PvP well or doesn’t do it at all, I am much less likely to spend a significant amount of time there.

It is strange that Elder Scrolls Online focuses so much on PvP.  They basically took a single-player, quest driven RPG and made it into a MMO that focuses strongly on PvP throughout.  This seems like a very strange decision and one that takes a certain amount of courage. I am not sure how many Elder Scroll fans would classify PvP as one of the things they were looking for if they designed an Elder Scrolls MMO.

That being said, if it is well done, it will succeed.  There is a large contingent of PvP players in MMOs and they will support a well made game.  Admittedly, there are few truly well made PvP MMOs out there.  Guild Wars 2 tried mightily with their WvW PvP but I believe they missed the mark with a few poor decisions and an engine that was simply incapable of keeping up with the large amounts of players displayed on the screen at any given time.

Elder Scrolls Online Impressions Part II

Character Progression

The character progression in ESO is pretty interesting.  It is nice mix of the more free-form progression that you see in the single player Elder Scrolls games and standard MMO progression.

You make your initial choices in character creation by choosing your race and your “class”.  Your race will give you a single skill line that will give you bonuses such as increased swim speed or increased resistance to fire damage.  Your class will give you access to three skills lines that are unique to that class.

The nice thing about the class skill lines is that they do a good job of defining your character without pigeon-holing him.  You might be a Templar but you are not stuck healing and you can specialize in ranged or melee DPS.  There are a lot of options just within your class skills.

But that is not the only skill trees you have.  Not even close.  Each weapon type also gets its own skill tree, as does each armor type.  Because any class can use any weapon or armor, there are a lot of different options here.  Your character can be a sorcerer that dual wields swords, wears heavy armor and has a dinosaur for a pet if you so choose.  Or he can wield a two-handed sword, while wearing plate armor.  There are few limitations in what you can be.

Elder Scrolls Online Thoughts Part I

Obviously, the big upcoming MMO release is Elder Scrolls Online.  I had not paid much attention to it during development as I really was not ready for the disappointment that I just knew would happen.  I have played all of the Elder Scrolls games from the start.  Even with a bit of disappointment with Oblivion, I classify the Elder Scrolls games as the best single-player RPGs this side of the original Baldur’s Gate.

I figured they would totally screw up an Elder Scrolls MMO by using the WoW template for everything and I just was not prepared for that.  Hot key combat, quest hubs, standard character classes and raids to me is the anti-thesis of what made the Elder Scrolls games great.

So, did they screw it up?  Yes and no.  Read on for some impressions.

Its been a loooong time……

Well, I am back.  Its been well over a year since I last posted but I am ready to start blogging again.  So, what happened to me in the past year?

Real Life.

Work made it very difficult to game, much less write about gaming.  I worked as management in a retail store and my store has been a particular challenge over the last 1.5 years, finally culminating in me taking a severance and finding new employment.  The stress levels were outrageous and I simply never felt like gaming or doing much of anything.

Thankfully, that is behind me now.  I now have a new job that is completely out of retail, making more money and a lot less stress.  Because of this, I am going to get back into gaming and thus back into blogging.

I am not really playing anything currently as nothing really interests me out there right now.  I played a bit of Rift and it is still an excellent game but I am still somewhat weary of the old hot-key style WoW combat.  GW2 was a let down for me for a number of reasons that I will probably make separate post for this week.

I believe my next MMO foray is going to be Elder Scrolls Online.  I have played in numerous beta events and have really enjoyed the game.  The first few levels are dead boring and I would not blame anyone for trying it and going away disappointed or underwhelmed.  However, after level 10-15, the game seems to take a major turn for the better and becomes very engaging.  The PvP is even better.  The RvR seems to be done correctly and really improves upon GW2 RvR (or WvW as they call it).  Not only is it fun but they have seemed to do wonders with the engine because lag and frame rate issues seem to be at a minimum, even with hundreds of players on screen at once.

However, that is enough for now.  I need to make a dedicated ESO post as well, so expect that within a couple of days.  For now, for the few readers who might still be subscribed, thank you for bearing with me this long!