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The press seems very divergent in their general assessment, and even on many specifics. I've read it all - from the mad rants of what a huge suckage this is to the equally slanted elevation of Firor and Sage to divinity.

First, I need to play more and beyond level 12 to give a worthy review, but so far there are many promising aspects on the mid-level horizon while the early game suffers as badly as any MMO from the lowbie curse. What's the lowbie curse? It's the fact that level 1-15 of an MMO simply must be utterly boring. Almost all of the 15 or so MMOs that I've tried suffers from this.

Well Angry Joe was basically reviewing TES VI. He was clearly biased from the start, and I don't think he's capable of giving it an honest review. Not just because of his apparent expectations but the rest of his talk didn't seem well researched or balanced at all. He just came off as a poor reviewer. Also his own brand of being super annoying ensures that this was the first and last time I visited his channel.

My impressions are that the game needs a lot more group content and more challenge. Also questing sucks and has taken too much inspiration from Skyrim. It's not "kill ten rats" all over, ZOS promised to get rid of that and they did, but what did they replace it with? It's "walk this straight path and click on some things along the way", Skyrim style all over again. I don't see how they thought the rail hack was a better concept for single player than the kill count quests.
There were a few exceptions though. I'm thinking of the one in Stros M'Kai where you get a treasure map and actually have to figure out the locations from a text description. It starts with "go to the top of the Starlight Port Star" and you have to figure out that . (Starlight was not the actual name of the village. I forgot the real name but nevermind.)

However, many other details look very promising so far. I'm talking about single and multiplayer combat, pacing, quality of art (visual and audial), crafting, some story aspects. Even roleplaying seems possible now that there will effectively be RP shards.

Log-on problems were a PITA, but in-game there actually was little lag, IMO. Monsters seemed horribly unbalanced - usually getting set upon by more than one monster at the same time meant pretty much insta-death, even if the monsteres were 1-2 levels below you. And this was with a heavy armour 'tank' type character... Merchants were very bugged in the last beta... (interface errors). Graphics were nice, very similar to Skyrim, and seemd fairly lore-friendly to me.

AngryNord wrote:Monsters seemed horribly unbalanced - usually getting set upon by more than one monster at the same time meant pretty much insta-death, even if the monsteres were 1-2 levels below you. And this was with a heavy armour 'tank' type character...

That's strange. Maybe an issue at some level above mine. What level was this?

I used 2-hander on a DK (about 2 health, 4 stam) with Cleave, Charge and Spiked Armour and I had little trouble with groups of 3 mobs, same level. I think it's critical to find the right tactic. I didn't give it much thought honestly but with the AoE damage from both Cleave and Spiked Armour, and my own defenses, I think it was just the right medicine. I got to about level 9 and did a few open dungeons around Daggerfall.

I also tried a resto sorc with Crystal Shard, Regeneration and Essence Drain. That was certainly tougher, certainly because of the lack of area effect.
Finally, my nightblade tank did well too. Simply blocking and Strife was enough to beat the early goblin [&@%!].
None of these two left their starter areas though (Bethnik/Bal Foyen).

I'm not too happy with my experience with the beta. First of all, I couldn't log in on my computer. XP is on the list of supported OSs, but the problem I had was not solvable under XP. I finally got to play a few hours on my brother's Mac, but first I wasted the best part of two days looking for a solution that didn't exist. I wish they would either remove XP from the requirements list or get ESO working on XP machines.

I created a female Nord dragonknight and I was quite happy with my choice. The difficulty was just fine, I enjoyed crafting (and it was useful for my character too) and I generally had no problems figuring out what to do next. But the quest design was horrible (find 4 X and come back to me, over and over again) and there was NO immersion at all. The whole gameworld felt like a playground, with items, chests and enemies spread around without any regard for logic and fully focused on supplying the players with useful loot. Not my cup of tea.

My first impressions of this was unclear. By that I mean...my exact thought was "Ooooh I'm not sure about this...." But being BETA I went with it and attempted to achieve the main things that they wanted testing. Of course I broke and had some fun and some questing. It grew on me in a really positive way and I can see myself playing TES:O a hell of a lot. Yes, there are problems and some unbalanced features. But I think most people (media and reviewers) expect way too much from the get go. This game will take time to perfect.

Personally, I would be happy to play and experience what I experienced in beta as a release. But, that's just me. I appreciate the fact that it's there and playable and fun. I try not to get up in heat if something isn't quite working right.

The negative press may put people off a purchase, but I am sure there will be a trial and I hope people decide to give it go, make up their own mind and keep an open mind.

PS. The crafting system is very, very cool!

I played several betas, an dyes there are still some bugs left. Login problem last beta were simply related to the fact it was a stress test.
One annoying little bug, i got stuck with some merchant forcing me to loggoff and login my character. So this at least only happen when you re taking time to speak to merchants so not a big issue to have to relog at that time.

Killing "one" NPC felt very easy to me, (sneak mode),attacking 2, well you kill one quickly and fight the second was more balanced.
But then the "bosses" they are tough, (it is good). They have the same strength as your character, they use skills too, summon shades, use magic, well if you re looking at an "easy" setting, there is none. Either you are able to really use your character at the best of its abilities, or you need to group to defeat some opponents.
This is different form the single player games. (I remember in skyrim, if you give the right equipment to some follower they can take out mainly any enemies for you, once you re high level even a dragon is not a "real challenge". That will not happen here.

Otherwise, you can explore, find side quest by speaking to anybody, collect materials and plants, fish, well just do about anything you like

I posted more detailed thoughts in tatortodd22's impressions thread, but I've enjoyed the beta a great deal, certainly more than other MMOs I've tried. The story and setting are very much Elder Scrolls, I rarely found any quests boring or too repetitive, and didn't have to grind at any point, though I did I have to back-track to complete earlier quests before attempting some of the harder ones. Story is a particular high-point as the war and Molag Bal's plot feel very carefully crafted together, with great characters involved with a high standard voice work throughout; the war especially is a favourite for me after Skyrim's disappointing civil war.

The settings are beautifully realised, and the game actually runs really well. Combat is mostly fun, though I'd have preferred it to be a bit more like Skyrim, albeit with the extra skills (you have to pause way too much in Skyrim to play a decent mage). That said, my biggest gripe is that the online aspect encroaches too often as harder enemies are often mobbed by players making them trivial to beat since you only have to hit them once for it to count as a kill for you too. I did actually player a few missions with a group and enjoyed myself doing it, especially some of the hardest boss battles, however I think ESO needs to use more instanced areas or spread objectives out more and sending players to different sets of objectives, rather than having them cluster around them.

I have to say I didn't discover any "lowbie curse" for the early areas. The game opens up to you pretty quickly, as even the real newbie zone (after the intro mission) has a full set of shops and crafting to do if you want, and the first proper quest can actually be largely skipped by a player choice if you've played before and want to move on quickly. So yeah, it's good for an MMO, maybe not as Elder Scrolls as it could be, but I've enjoyed it so far.

dzio wrote:But the quest design was horrible (find 4 X and come back to me, over and over again) and there was NO immersion at all.

I remember back to starting a fresh character in vanilla WoW, almost ten years ago. The dwarven starting zone outside Ironforge. The first handful of quests were:

1. Kill ten kobolds.
2. Collect three brittle bones and return them to the questgiver (that's the whole quest).
3. Find a gnomish girl in the cave and escort her back to town.

It was my first MMO, and my standards for immersion were admittedly rather low, but these type of simple quests were already immersing me fairly well into the world of Azeroth; into the struggles of each race against its natural enemies, etc.

Compare that with the first quest I did outside the Aldmeri Dominion starting town in TES:O (mostly spoiler-free):

1. Approached by the questgiver with an extensive, voice-acted dialogue describing the quest and why I should participate.
2. Another dialogue at each stage of the quest, deepening the story and building tension leading up to an eventual miniboss fight.
3. Fight through or largely avoid skeleton enemies in the area on the way to completing quest objectives.
4. Solve a simple puzzle.
5. Forced to make grey-morality decision impacting the fates of quest characters.
6. Miniboss fight, complete with environmental damage effects (as opposed to a typical tank-n-spank or DPS race).
7. Final scene wrapping up the quest, describing the emotional impact player choices had on the quest characters, providing a reward, and pointing the player toward another possible quest area.

Granted only a few of the early quests were this detailed, but after this being the first one encountered, I was feeling pretty darn immersed and eager to see what other interesting mini stories the devs had written.

In the January beta, I did end up having to grind at one point, but it didn't feel like grinding. I got stuck in a solo-instance quest. I simply left the instance, carried on with other quests and simply came back 2 levels higher and with an upgraded weapon. I think they've found a good balance with the difficulty level.

I played the last two beta sessions, sometimes in-group and sometimes solo. I've really enjoyed it so far, I just wish they'd tell you when you're about to enter a solo-only area and you're in group.

For me, it's been pretty successful, and I've found that most complaints against it have been short-sighted. People have complained about not being able to take on mob groups as a sorceror or a nightblade; that's the point, especially night blade, if any class could cope with any situation there'd be no need to team with other classes.

The issue with the terrain and quests being spread out I personally think is a) nonsense and b) a feeling only given to those that are used to MMOs that give everything to their players rather than challenge them. It is also a way of getting new players to ESO to explore, as although an inherent trait for a TES player, most MMO players I have encountered are very quest and objective driven, and rarely stray from the well beaten path.

I also disagree with the few that have felt rail-roaded by the storyline, every quest is available for you to take in your own time. If you're doing a quest, main story or not, that you're not prepared for, that's nobody's fault but yours; get out there and explore as you would any other TES game and it will reward you with exp, items, and weaponry that will help with your next venture.

The only issues I've had with the game are technical, and that's what we're here to fix