Recently I got Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited on PS4 (shaunh22 add me!) and so far I have been loving it. It's great to see new parts of Tamriel that's never been seen before and get new and existing lore fleshed out especially about the races that normally don't get as much love. The crafting and character building is crazy and you can get super in depth with it if you really want. I know ESO had a pretty shaky start but since then they have made some significant improvements to the point many consider it one of the best games in it's genre and it's only getting bigger.
With that all being said many people are still reluctant to jump in and give it a go. Why is that? If you are one of these people what is turning you off from ESO and what would it take for you to give it a go? If you game interests you at all I really suggest checking it out!
"Your Alliance Needs You!"
I jumped and gave it a go at launch. Actually 5 days pre-launch access. That was April last year. I ended up playing through the free month and that was it.
What turned me off? Well, in PvE terms, the endgame was stupid, forcing you to play the questlines of the other fractions that you're supposed to hate. After all, if I want to try other factions I'll just roll another character, right? So in that aspect, after finishing the main story/faction story and then the final quest to "kill" Molag Bal, there was nothing interersting to do. As for PvP - it was exciting at the beginning when everyone was mostly low level, than people started levelgrinding, "immortal" vampires started to appear and suddenly the fun was gone. Crafting was good, well done, however awful trading system made it a bit obsolete for moneymaking.
I was put off buying purely because of Witcher 3. Indeed, the soul reason I bought the Xbox One last year was for ESO but by the time it actually came to console I was on an Elder Scrolls break and The Witcher 3 was my priority game. Now I've got it a few months after release at a really good rrp too (in UK games still cost a lot of money) of just £30 I'm having a great time.
I see a few mentions of it being slow paced but I think it's the opposite of that. As a MMO it is always giving the player things to do because it lacks that calm feeling of a traditional ES game. Where Skyrim makes you pause to check out the view or get into a character's roleplay and take the world at your own pace, ESO realises that is not so easy when all around you are other players jumping around or otherwise acting the goat. So to compensate it seems the game made sure my quest log was always full to keep me moving.
The other players are an annoyance, especially at hubs where it's just a chaotic mess, but that diffuses nicely once quests start opening up. All those players are then nicely spread across the map and that traditional feeling of the world existing just for you returns.
As for the setting and lore I have absolutely no issues. I've experienced two areas now and I love the attention to detail, not necessarily in the exterior environments which are pretty but lack Skyrim's draw distance, but the inside of buildings and general architecture is stunning. An Ayleid ruin has never looked so beautiful. The lore just adds to everything we already know and that is an exciting prospect no matter what way you look at it.
My biggest annoyance is and will continue to be other players as I'm not a very social person. Hearing conversations in towns like "anyone want to buy some..." in a nasal scouse accent tends to wind me up. However that problem takes care of itself as the population diffuses over the map or congregates around a Dark Anchor which are just cluster fucks of confusion.The other bugbear I have is how some events won't happen if other players are around. In one quest, for example, I had to use a disguise to get close to an enemy in order to kill an npc. I put on the disguise but the npc never spawned because any player in the vicinity not wearing the disguise seemed to prevent the spawn. That was a long wait.
All that said, I've found myself in a couple of situations in which taking down a boss enemy has been challenging and I've really appreciated the support of the occasional other player I ran across. I can imagine this game would be an absolute treat with a few friends to share it with and assuming voice chat can be restricted to party only.
I can't recommend the game highly enough. It's similar enough to a regular TES experience that I can accept the stuff I don't like as much, which in themselves are less limitations and more possibilities, and instead focus on what is really well done such as the voice acting variety of things to do.
I like a lot of people commenting based on ye olde beta test. Even on release ESO was better then that (A few unfortunate bugs plagued my game...but they got patched rather quickly). Since beta ESO has improved in so many ways, combat is better, there's more to explore and the game works a lot more smoothly.
At the moment the only thing keeping me away is too much customization. I'm constantly plagued with restartitis and ESO has so many options that I don't have the time to wrap my head around....I've never said this but it gives me too many options.