PC Gaming

The thing I dislike about MMORPGs is that they always have the same problem, and its always because the game is an MMORPG:

The whole game feels like an amusement park.

The scale of buildings and hallways is always comical. I always have to wait in line for a dungeon/raid/boss/NPC, etc. NPCs always feel like theyre there for a photo op and everyone is always crowding around them.

I wish that MMORPGs could add a feature where I can play in my own "channel," where the only other players that appear on my screen are ones I have invited to my channel. Because some MMORPGs are appealing to me, its just I don't like the crowds of ten trillion people all doing the same task "only a hero can do."

Not terrible for a 10 year old game.

I started playing it about a month ago.

Fills a nice void of solo podcast game. No mmo experince before because of dislike of group activities but most content is soloable so far. Enjoy the world and can drop in and out for however long.

The subscription honestly didn't feel overly necessary. Bought it as have been enjoying the gameplay loop.

Could have caught me at the right time in life 🤷

I tried to get into it a number of times, and the three major things that always wear me down are, first and foremost:

The obscene lack of difficulty in overworld content (next to running completely gearless or taking on group content/bosses solo to create an artificial sense of risk or danger). Most enemies are so easy that you never need to maneuver or use your full array of combat abilities. You end up mashing the same two or three hot keys on every single enemy while your HP remains at 99%.

The weird choice of classes and themes that do not accurately reflect what The Elder Scrolls has always been about. Rather than building classes based on my preferred weapon class, skill sets (Sneak, Lockpick, etc.), and magic classes (Alteration, Restoration, etc.), I have to be locked into a holy javelin-chucking warrior of light, a lightning-slinging daedric sorcerer, a fire magic dragon warrior with wings and spikes growing from my back, or some other weirdly themed class that didn't need to be a core archetype in the Second Era. Like, fuck man.. Base classes could have easily been born under the Warrior, Mage, Thief, etc. and then built upon from there.

The absolute clusterfuck of major/DLC quests that start the moment you walk into town or pass an NPC. It feels like navigating a fever dream as a new player, and it's overwhelming. A thousand tangled threads and no room to breathe. Even the main quest no longer has level requirements at each stage, so the Prophet will bid you goodbye and immediately call out again the moment you leave the cave. It's an absolute mess.

I could go on, but these are the worst three.

Its been awhile so maybe things have changed. When I tried it out it basically took everything I enjoyed about these games and scrapped that to make it work as an MMO. Somehow Im the main hero but had several dozen people jumping around me at all times. All agency of character choice was gone, along with half the possible skill sets. Every quest had one way, maybe two ways, to complete them. It was no longer I could sneak or bribe or negotiate or fight or pickpocket or trick them into fighting someone else or use a spell to mesmerize or put them to sleep or poison them or whatever else came to mind with my incredible multitude of tools. It was just dull.

I always thought ESO was what Elder Scrolls could be if it wasn't built on GameBryo/Creation. Because it basically is. Though it's also made by a completely different team/studio so it also misses a certain something that Bethesda GS does .

How can $15 million be considered a lot of money in a month when Diablo 4 has made a billion dollars in just over a year? I mean, that's a factor of 10.

I could also ask how it could be possible that Diablo could make a billion dollars despite pretty much everyone saying it sucks? And then what might the logic be in subsequently firing all the people who made it?

But I digress.