Playing Elder Scrolls online beta!

Ever since I first got my Xbox 360 with The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, I have been a massive fan of the series, with Oblivion actually topping my favourite games of all time list. I’ve racked up 100’s of hours in Oblivion exploring, trying out different races & abilities and playing through the game numerous times with some play throughs being solely dedicated to completing the Dark Brotherhood quest line which was my favourite by far. I loved it because it is a game where you can do whatever you want within reason. Most places in the game are accessible, and characters react accordingly. You can break into a house and steal its contents if you don’t get caught, and if you get caught you can flee the guards or get sent to prison. Oblivion is fun at whatever level your character is and levelling up gives you satisfaction because each level means more power to your character. Skyrim followed this game and was also a great game. Abilities and spells were more organised, the interface was hugely improved, but despite this it will never replace Oblivion in my heart.

Being able to play on the Elder Scrolls Online beta has left me with nothing but excitement for this upcoming title. The game lets you join one of three factions each of which has three races, which are taken from the other games in the Elder Scrolls series. You then get a choice of 4 classes for your character each with three progression trees, which I will discuss later. Conforming to tradition the Elder Scrolls online starts you off in prison, which you proceed to escape from while learning the basic controls, picking up a weapon and learning to use it. The game then teleports your character to a location in Tamriel depending on your alliance and starts you off completing quests. The game may seem on the surface to be just like any other MMORPG however, in my opinion it is not.

Firstly the philosophy of the game seems to be completely different. My experience with other MMORPGs is that each class lets you use specific weapons and armour and that even though there are three trees you should only use one of them with very specific skill placements if you want to survive. When I played World of Warcraft as much as I wanted to like the game I found that I spent way more time online researching class trees and what armour I needed with specific stats to enable me to be able to do sufficient damage at the higher levels. I found the quests of WoW to be too similar, and even though I spent 100’s of hours playing it I still felt like a complete beginner. On the other hand, in the Elder Scrolls online each class lets you use any armour and any weapon that you want. I played the same class, Dragon Knight, with two different races and by choosing different trees I got very different play experiences that each felt just as powerful and as fun to me. With my Dark Elf I picked a more magical tree enabling me to kill my enemies with fire and by smashing them to pieces with a mace whilst protecting myself with a shield. My Orc however chose a more classic warrior tree that let me smash my enemies to pieces with a giant two handed war hammer. Each level up also lets you add 10 points to your health, magicka or stamina which further enhances how much control you have over your character.

After the tutorial I already felt at home, after my many hours spent on previous Elder Scrolls games. The game largely looks like Skyrim and is certainly the most beautiful looking MMORPG I have seen. We also still get the enchanting soundtrack that helped make the previous games so iconic. Gameplay wise I have no complaints, each quest line was interesting and unique, letting you play for hours with out the game feeling repetitive. Unfortunately some of the quests in the beta were buggy meaning that you had groups of people hanging around for an event to happen, but the people online were all really helpful and made it clear that they had been waiting so you could go off and enjoy plenty of quests that weren’t buggy.

After my weekend of playing this game, I was hooked! It returns to the excitement I had while playing Oblivion but has the updated interface and progression system. As a more casual player this is the MMORPG for me. I can play it how I want, and always have fun doing so. The only downside to the game that I can see is the price. Paying for the game and then each month has always seemed too expensive to me and as good as this game is its hard to make an exception. Hopefully this game will become cheaper after launch and then it will be a definite buy. Everyone should check this game out!