Player vs. Player, is one of the most blood boiling, anger inducing aspects of any game. Yet, it can be one of the most exciting parts as well. My first real experience with PvP was Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC). For those of you who have not had the privilege of playing DAoC it is a Realm vs. Realm (Tri-Realm) combat system, similar to what we’ll be seeing in Elder Scrolls Online (ESO). DAoC is a game that put this type of PvP on the map, and not many developers have wanted to attempt building a game with this style, at least not until Guild Wars 2. Read more
Fighting in an MMO is one of those things that can either be really fun, or mind numbingly boring. MMO combat systems in the past have been about the action bar, or playing “Whack-A-Mole” healing. It is only recently we have begun to see MMO developers make that push from staring at Group Windows, or Action Bar Cooldowns, and getting the players to stare at the gameplay that is happening. Games like Guild Wars 2 tried to encourage people to stop looking at the action bar, making it so the combat was more visual. There were times I would catch myself looking at the Action Bar to see if an ability was off Cooldown, but it was a step in the right direction
During my brief 2 hour game play at PAX East, I can say Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) is leaps and bounds ahead of any other game when it comes to getting players to watch the screen. There is no Cooldown (CD) on any abilities (except for provisions, which have a 20 second CD). I wrote an article back in December about ESO combat, and after playing the game first hand, that article was spot on. The combat is better than I was expecting. I am not a major fan of Elder Scrolls single player games. I don’t enjoy them, partly because I don’t really enjoy single player games, but the one major thing I did not enjoy was the clunky combat, especially in Skyrim. I found the combat to be very sluggish and slow–swinging my weapons felt like my character was struggling with them. I have spoken to many Elder Scrolls fans, and some agreed that at times the combat felt slow or sluggish. In ESO, I did not have this feeling. The combat is very fast paced, fluid and incredibly smart, a little too smart at times (I died…a lot). Read more
Character creation, it’s one of those areas of a RPG game that people believe it is focused mainly for Role-players. I recently wrote an article talking about how we as MMO Gamers put part of ourselves into the games we play (It’s Just a Game). In the previous Elder Scrolls single player games you were given plenty of customizable options to make your character look the way you want it to. In MMO history you rarely got the options to truly customize your character, you had the typical Male, Female, Race, Body Type, Skin Colour, all of which did not have very many options. Elder Scrolls Online is our chance as MMO gamers to have that plethora of customization options, and trust me there is a plethora of them.
Before I go into detail about what options will be available and how the screen looks, I want to make it perfectly clear that all the information provided was as of the PAX East Release, and everything is subject to change. Nothing is ever written in stone when it comes pre-beta or beta for that matter.
Argonian in The Elder Scrolls Online
Join Garbrac as he discusses his Elder Scrolls Online 2-hour playthrough at PAX. Listen in as he discusses Combat, PvP, End-Game, Game Mechanics and much more tonight at 11PM EST. Ask your questions through the live chat.
