Eilistraee.com

It was officially announced that it would happen roughly a month ago. Elder Scrolls Online would go free to play in the Guildwars Style.

Well I got the email yesterday that they did it a couple months ahead of schedule. I am installing now. I will be making an Champions of Eilistraee guild when I get on.

I've heard that, yes. Planning to go to a "buy-to-play" model (buy the game once, play for free forever unless you want to pay extra money on items in the cash shop) March 17[sup:19xooaoy]th[/sup:19xooaoy] IIRC.

I played the game a little when it was in beta. It was alright, but I wasn't that impressed to be honest. Definitely didn't feel worth paying a monthly subscription for. And felt disappointed that despite their efforts to make the interface feel like the Elder Scrolls games (Skyrim particularly), the gameplay didn't feel at all like that. I was expecting something much more of a sandbox approach.

That said I might try the game again when I only have to buy the box. I was considering re-creating my Redguard from Skyrim, but would love to be in a Champions of Eilistraee guild when I do. No promises though; I'm currently quite heavily into Second Life again (of all places).


Love -x-x-x-

Shir'le

I tried Second Life a couple times over the years. Every single time I was talked into trying it by some friends then when it came time for me to login they were nowhere to be found for days on end. So both times I ended up in a vague non-descript game wandering trying to figure out just anything to do. I remember the first time I logged in there was this area in the menus for jobs people could take and get paid for but I lacked the skills to act on it.. The second time around I couldn't find those jobs menus so I could not act on the skills I finally had.

I think that the best way to look at SL is probably as a big 3D chatroom/virtual shopping mall. There isn't so much anything to 'do' as there's chatting with people and buying stuff to make your avatar look nicer. If you want and you have the talent for it you can make your own clothes and items and such to try and sell to people, but I've never even tried that. Can just be a nice place to hang out (and a freaky place to hang out depending on where you're going ).


Love -x-x-x-

Shir'le

Elder Scrolls is officially...Buy to play now. This means that you still have to buy a copy of the game, but then once you own a activation key the game is free to play. They have plenty of stuff on a micropurchase store but for the most part it's not game effecting. They do have a pack of treasure maps you can buy that when you find the treasure it gives you loot on your level that you can then use but it's all random generated loot on your level so it's nothing you can't get otherwise. All the rest of the stuff is mounts and pets and deco type stuff.


That little spiel out of the way, I am sitting oh so lonely in the Eilistraee's Champions guild. If anyone happens to wish to join I plan to not recruit anyone from in game, only from within our Eilistraeen circles. I won't refuse someone that approaches however, just no advertising.

I haven't gotten ESO yet. It's one of those games that I'm meaning to, but I've got so much other stuff to keep me busy as well. Not the least of which being that Pillars of Eternity launches this week, which is probably going to eat up a fair chunk of what little spare time I have.

If I do ever get it though then I'd love to join your guild.


Love -x-x-x-

Shir'le

Since I played ESO briefly in beta they've now sent me a key for a free weekend (which is this coming weekend). So will probably jump into it again for a bit to see.

To join your guild do I need to be of a specific faction or does anything work? (I never quite liked the appearance of the dark elves in the Elder Scrolls games).


Love -x-x-x-

Shir'le

All my characters are Daggerfall Covent. But I did make the guild so any would work. You can be a member of 5 guilds at once, and guilds are account wide.

I ended up creating a dark elf after all (a Templar, since I thought "big sword and healing magic is probably as close to a priestess of Eilistraee as I can get"). I must say though that I really don't enjoy the gameplay. As a friend said it's a game where you get to dislike the other players as instead of it feeling like a fun game where you all play together it feels like the other players get in the way of the gameplay and the atmosphere that the quests are trying to paint (a quest says that a tomb is dangerous and full of deadly creatures, but when you go in it's swarming with players and the monsters barely get a chance to spawn).

Worst case of this was a quest where I had to go and kill a creature called "Deathclaw" (ha ha Fallout reference). You had to lure this creature with some meat you got from a dead deer. So I got the meat as the quest indicated, placed it on a stone as the quest indicated, and... nothing. So I did it again (the meat disappeared after a while and the quest pointed to the dead deer again). And again nothing. But then I noticed that in a nearby cave another player was fighting some bat-like creatures. And I noticed that when I placed some meat of the stone a new bat-like creature spawned and once the player had killed it the quest reset back to the dead deer. So I had to do the meat thing a dozen times before that creature actually got to the stone to attack me. I think that was really the point where I called the whole game bullocks.

And the weird thing is that the game makes an aweful lot of use of phasing (where things only appear for one player). You're in a town and where you are in your quest you might see it burning and being attacked by enemy troops, but as far as I could tell it's the same town that everyone else is running through to do their own things. It seems to me that they should've applied that a whole lot better and then it could've worked.

I also tried to search for the guild, but I couldn't find any way to search for guilds. And the guild window said something about needing to be level 10 (which I never quite reached). But in the end I played less of it than I thought I would anyway as I preferred to go back into SL and socialise.

As for ESO, the game looks pretty enough, but I feel that it completely misses the point as to what made the Elder Scrolls games so popular. I don't think that I'll be playing it again.


Love -x-x-x-

Shir'le

I feel you did miss out on a lot. And a significant reason for why you missed out was that since it's a beta weekend there was a big flood of players in the newbie content all fighting over the same stuff. That being said I can't discount some other players taking veteran characters down there to grief.

I feel you missed out on a lot but in truth I can't really argue against most of what you said. I do enjoy ESO but it is no elder scrolls game. ESO is third down on my list of multiplayer games I play.

I am looking at my options for ESO and wanted to know if I was to choose one that had a defense of a PC requirement, is it based on the Defense or the adjusted defense amount?

Any playing ESO currently? I've been having an itch to revisit it but I'd rather not be completely solo in the game.

I'm currently the only TDAer playing ESO as far as I am aware. I'm playing with a few friends on the AD side though and I have to say that's it's really pretty good these days. F2p, although there are a lot of reasons to consider subbing too. I'd certainly recommend it. Vastly improved from the launch two years ago.