UESP Report on ESO from PAX East

[Daveh]

I've written up a short PAX East 2013 Tamriel Beer Garden Event Report from my experience at PAX this weekend. If anyone has more questions on my experience/opinion of the game feel free to ask it here. I have a bunch of thoughts which I thought weren't appropriate or relevant for the report.

The short/quick summary of my experience with the game is very much "a Skyrim MMO" which is a good thing in my opinion.

[HatofMadness]

Well done!

[AddictedtoMorrowind]

How many Septims did you use for the Tamriel Beer Garden thing?

[Musicman247]

Awesome! Thanks, Dave!

[Daveh]

How many Septims did you use for the Tamriel Beer Garden thing?

Hah! I only used two (for food). The rest of the time I was glued to either the game or the developers.

[Abel]

Thank you for the write-up! Greatly appreciated.

Did you get a chance to experience the sound of the game at all? If so, how was the music? Was it as good as recent TES games?

[AddictedtoMorrowind]

Haha! You should've gambled the rest and bribed some developers. Thanks for this report!

[Daveh]

Thank you for the write-up! Greatly appreciated.

Did you get a chance to experience the sound of the game at all? If so, how was the music? Was it as good as recent TES games?

Yes...each station had its own set of headphones. I don't remember the music at all...either it was set very low so I didn't notice it or wasn't there yet. I was so into the game itself I can't even remember much about the sound in general.

[The Tom]

At first I thought it was a shame that the coins didn't have Tiber Septim's face on them, and then I remembered I was being an idiot because this is ESO and he won't be born for another 300 years...

You said the interactive objects and people were marked with a glow, which is acceptable in my eyes, but did you think the town had that static quality that most MMOs suffer from, where the NPCs stand around doing nothing other than glowing?

[Abel]

Thank you for the write-up! Greatly appreciated.

Did you get a chance to experience the sound of the game at all? If so, how was the music? Was it as good as recent TES games?

Yes...each station had its own set of headphones. I don't remember the music at all...either it was set very low so I didn't notice it or wasn't there yet. I was so into the game itself I can't even remember much about the sound in general.

It could be that the music hasn't been implemented yet. There was some vague talk about 'randomly generated' music and recently they confirmed that Jeremy Soule was 'involved' in ESO.

[Daveh]

At first I thought it was a shame that the coins didn't have Tiber Septim's face on them, and then I remembered I was being an idiot because this is ESO and he won't be born for another 300 years...

You said the interactive objects and people were marked with a glow, which is acceptable in my eyes, but did you think the town had that static quality that most MMOs suffer from, where the NPCs stand around doing nothing other than glowing?

I seem to recall some NPCs moving and there was a fair amount of livestock wandering around (rats and pigs I remember in particular). I'm not sure if all objects/NPCs with quests glow or just your active ones. At the moment the glow is minimal and you don't notice it until you get closer to the thing. It wasn't very emersive breaking unlike what I've seen in other MMOs. Of course this is one of those things that could easily be changed during beta (for the worse or for the better).

[Eltee]

Awesome report, Daveh! Thanks!

One comment that almost all the devs had was their use of the UESP as a regular lore and information source. I think all admins/editors here should be proud at the fantastic Elder Scrolls resource we've built!

Squee! Convey congrats from all of us to the Wiki side. That really is a hell of an accomplishment.

[AKB]

How many Septims did you use for the Tamriel Beer Garden thing?

Hah! I only used two (for food). The rest of the time I was glued to either the game or the developers.

Did they let you keep them, then? I'd love to see more high resolution images of them, if you could take them.

[Daveh]

How many Septims did you use for the Tamriel Beer Garden thing?

Hah! I only used two (for food). The rest of the time I was glued to either the game or the developers.

Did they let you keep them, then? I'd love to see more high resolution images of them, if you could take them.

Yup...I smuggled them out. There is TamrielGardenSeptim.jpg that I took but I'll take another hi-res shot of a single coin shortly.

Edit: I uploaded TamrielGardenSeptimCoin.jpg as a hi-res version of a single coin. They are metal and have the same design on both sides.

[AddictedtoMorrowind]

That is so cool. I love the woven bag that was included with the coins. What are the coins made out of?

[Daveh]

That is so cool. I love the woven bag that was included with the coins. What are the coins made out of?

Some sort of metal. I'm guessing brass from its basic properties (weight, gold, non-magnetic) with some sort of antiquing finish.

[HatofMadness]

I wonder if the Dorian Glitch was available...

[AKB]

I like how one of the first things you do when you're given a bag of Septims is ask: "Are they magnetic?"

I'm not criticizing as I'd of done the same to figure out what they were made out of, but for some reason it does seem like it might be the wrong knee jerk reaction.

[Daveh]

I like how one of the first things you do when you're given a bag of Septims is ask: "Are they magnetic?"

I'm not criticizing as I'd of done the same to figure out what they were made out of, but for some reason it does seem like it might be the wrong knee jerk reaction.

Hah...too true! My defense is that I've been doing magnetic non-destructive testing in various forms for the last 18 years so it's practically a reflex for me.

[OblivionDuruza]

One comment that almost all the devs had was their use of the UESP as a regular lore and information source.

Warms my heart! Really interesting insight into the feel of the game, particularly its apparent likeness to Skyrim. Did you notice there seemed to be any incorporation of the Radiant system we saw introduced in Skyrim? And by the way, always glad to see more of you Daveh!

[Avron the S'wit]

Did they let you keep them, then? I'd love to see more high resolution images of them, if you could take them.

Yup...I smuggled them out.

How many did you smuggle out, and how many doves must I sacrifice to obtain one?


In any case, a great report and I'm glad you got the experience. Hopefully we'll bump into you in the actual game itself!

[Daveh]

Warms my heart! Really interesting insight into the feel of the game, particularly its apparent likeness to Skyrim. Did you notice there seemed to be any incorporation of the Radiant system we saw introduced in Skyrim? And by the way, always glad to see more of you Daveh!

I didn't play it long enough to see exactly what friendly NPCs act or do, whether they are just static or move around like in Skyrim. From what little I experienced my *guess* is there will be a mix: quest NPCs would be static (as they seemed to be) and "random" NPCs that move around added for flavour. Monsters appeared relatively intelligent and would attack you on sight when you approached them (relatively small aggro radius).

How many did you smuggle out, and how many doves must I sacrifice to obtain one?
In any case, a great report and I'm glad you got the experience. Hopefully we'll bump into you in the actual game itself!

I haven't counted but I should have got away with 18 coins. I'm actually seeing if I can get a bunch of extra coins for another project and will keep you in mind.

[iamlegend]

Great Report, i'm looking forward to the game.
Just one question, what happens when you die?
is it like some other MMO's that you just lose eveything and spawn in a certain place or are there some checkpoints?
i think it's rather unlikely you can save anytime you want?
thanks for the future reply

[Daveh]

Great Report, i'm looking forward to the game.
Just one question, what happens when you die?
is it like some other MMO's that you just lose eveything and spawn in a certain place or are there some checkpoints?
i think it's rather unlikely you can save anytime you want?
thanks for the future reply

In the current build there were two options:

1. Respawn at last activated wayshrine (no penalty)
2. Respawn at current position (small XP penalty, a couple % of level at level 5)

When you respawn after death you are an invulnerable "ghost" for 10-20 seconds or perhaps until you are in a "safe" area where you won't be attacked. I seem to recall a dev mentioning they were looking at fine tuning the death respawning.

[Velvet LeChance]

Well that's slightly disappointing. (However the talk of fine tuning the system does give me some hope that we might see something better.)

As an invulnerable 'ghost' I assume you couldn't attack anyone or anything. Would be kinda game breaking, particularly in the middle of a battle