Let me start with a synopsis: The Elder Scrolls Online is a solid, well-constructed MMO. While it doesn't have any revolutionary systems that will be considered indispensable to future MMOs, it takes the existing genre and improves on it in several key ways. The attempted combination of traditional Elder Scrolls elements both helps and hinders the core game by turns.
Is it the home I've been looking for? No. But in a market saturated with carbon copies, it's a gem, and I'll live here for a while. Let me tell you some of the reasons why.
THE WORLD
If the Elder Scrolls series is known for one thing, it's creating a vast, open, living world. I imagine that one of the first things the ESO team asked themselves was, "How do we put a vast, open world in an MMO?"
The short answer is - you don't. Sandbox games have tried, none have succeeded. You don't wander out of high-sec space in EVE unless you're nuzzled up against your Corp buddies like a baby whale. SWG let you go anywhere, sure, but you would get absolutely murdered if you stumbled across the krayt dragons - and heaven help you if you went to Dantooine (and your vehicle, if you went to Dathomir).
So they went with a theme park layout with some sandbox elements. Let me say that the theme park grind in TERA was one of the few things that really put me off about that game - there are only so many ways you can walk around in a circle before you get really tired of it.
ESO enhances the theme park design by making parts of it completely unnecessary. As I've wandered, I've discovered villages that were dying of the plague, hunters perched on rocks, waiting for their friends - and I didn't have to find any of it. I've been well above level to deal with the monsters in each area, and could certainly hasten my advancement if I so desired.
But I don't want to. I want to explore ever nook and cranny. I want to stumble across caravans that have been ambushed and track down missing pets and explore the far side of an island to find what big bad creatures make their home nestled along the shore. Maybe once I've gotten through each area with one character, I'll move faster with my alts - but right now, the world feels much more immersive to me than its closest comparison, GW2.
Is every area breathtaking? Are the graphics leaps and bounds ahead of the competition? No. But it's a pretty world, and it's one that feels real to me, and I'll take my time living in it.
THE COMBAT
Guild Wars 2 was, for me, a highlight of recent game development. The devs set out with a goal in mind, and they pursued it with single-minded determination - "Respect the player's time." But ultimately, the simplified skill trees, the distribution of similar skills across every class, the desire to make it so that every class could perform every role, all worked together to make me feel like I wasn't contributing anything special to the game. Even in dungeons with a coordinated group, it often became who was going to activate CC and healing when, instead of having dedicated players handle it.
Which is great, when you want to clear a dungeon a few times, get the armor set, and move on.
But I prefer having a role, and getting good with it. I prefer other players knowing they can count on me to tank/heal/kick something in the face. And ESO seems to be a good blend of flexibility and dedication.
While I haven't gotten to the endgame content yet - which I have heard requires a lot of coordination - I have been pleasantly surprised with the skill system. My initial disappointment with the three skill trees for each class - consisting of an ultimate, five abilities, and four passives - more or less went away when I realized that those abilities can be morphed, combined with skills from any of the weapon trees, and bolstered with guild, racial, and armor skills.
This means that you are both free to experiment with different roles - one of the first player roles the devs highlighted was a tanking rogue - and, simultaneously, have access to some pretty powerful skills that other classes don't have. While the combat system is not revolutionary, I think it is very functional and well-constructed.
THE QUESTS
This is an area that the game has taken a lot of flak for. Some people think the writing is clunky, and it certainly is, in places. In other areas, it's absurdly entertaining. Raz, your companion through part of the Aldmeri quest lines, is one of my favorite NPCs so far. He's an excellent combination of suave spy and rascal. And it may be an old gag, but I still laughed when a mage gave me something to try, and promptly told me that he'd be waiting a mile offshore to see if anything bad happened.
And while, yes, there are times that saving a burning village gets as repetitive as killing ten wolves, the quest system as a whole gets me more involved than GW2's or TERA's or SWTOR's, and certainly more than WoW's.
Zero Punctuation took a crack at it for separating out certain quests, so if you're grouped up but pursue a different course of action than a buddy, one of you might promptly enter a different instance - but these are mostly limited to main story quests, same as in GW2. ESO just doesn't hide it as much.
THE CRAFTING
Not much to say about crafting - it's a fairly straightforward system that takes some time to grasp but a long time to develop.You have a single base material for your product - metal for most weapons and heavy armor - and then require an additional material for whatever trait you want to give it. Researching traits takes some time, as does grinding up your crafting capability to make higher level armors. Additionally, you can improve your armor using items found from refining your base material that kick it from white to green to blue, etc.
All of this results in a fairly deep but intuitive system - again, not revolutionary, but well-constructed.
THE FUTURE
Killable NPCs. Pickpocketing, More guilds. More end game content. The devs have some ambitious plans, and I am very much looking forward to seeing them implemented.
THE MODEL
It's funny how much a few years has changed everything. Once upon a time - back in the old days - I had to walk uphill both ways to deposit a $15 traveler's check to pay for my game time, regardless of what game I was in.
Now, everyone wants MMOs to consume. Give it to me free, let me check it out for thirty, forty, a hundred hours, pay for a couple niceties, move on. Let me have a dozen MMOs installed at once and not feel bad for not playing all of them.
Well, that's nice and all, and I understand that's the way the world is moving - but I want an MMO that I play consistently. I want an MMO that gets lived in, and that by living in it, I earn things that I didn't have to pay separately for. I don't want to spend ten hours grinding up for my next tank and then see someone drop $5 and have a M1 Abrams. I want a game where things have to be earned, never bought.
I want a game that develops, with a good community, and devs that aren't trying to figure out exactly where they can set a price point vs grind to get you to fork over some money.
So, I'm a little biased in ESO's favor. I want it to succeed. I want it to prove that a subscription model is still viable, that EVE and WoW aren't the only two who can do it.
That ship has sailed, I know. But I'll spend $15 a month pretending it can still happen.