Tag Archives: Elder Scrolls

Gaming Round-Up: How MMOs Changed Me, The Division, ESO, and More

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With my goals in SWTOR complete, I’ve spent the last month or so bouncing between various different titles, which means it’s time for another gaming round-up post.

The Wrothgar zone in Elder Scrolls OnlineLong Division:

Around the holidays, I started poking back into The Division. I had trouble articulating why I gave up on the game before, and I’m even less clear on why I returned, but over a few weeks of sporadic play, I’ve managed to complete the main story and explore all of the launch zones.

I managed to solo the main story missions by simply outleveling or over-gearing them. It involved a bit of frustration at first, but once I was ahead of the curve, it was pretty easy to stay ahead of the curve, and I settled into a good rhythm of play as I cleared out zone after zone.

I had only one speed bump, when I hit max level. See, The Division has these things called World Tiers that scale up the difficulty and rewards of everything in the game to keep everything relevant no matter how geared you get.

Which is actually a great idea, except for the part where you’re automatically upgraded to the first World Tier (with no option to downgrade) as soon as you hit level cap, meaning you’ll be facing roughly twice as many enemies at roughly twice the strength while still in your crappy leveling gear.

The increased rewards allowed me to gear up very quickly, and soon the game was easier than ever, but it was a little bit of a baptism by fire.

My character in The DivisionThe World Tiers do damage the game’s ambiance a little bit, too. For most of the game, The Division has a relatively scarcity of both mobs and loot, and that helps sell the loneliness and privation of the setting. But then you hit max level, and suddenly it’s Diablo: Enemies are swarming everywhere, and loot is raining from the sky.

On a more positive note, the main story did get a lot more interesting by the end. For most of the game, it’s just a lot of shooting random criminals (many of whom are shockingly racist stereotypes), but the later legs delve a lot more into realms of conspiracy and intrigue, and it’s a lot more enjoyable.

The ending leaves some tantalizing loose ends, too. There’s definitely room for story DLC or even a Division 2, and I’m invested enough that I’d shell out money for either.

Overall, though, the most memorable parts of The Division will probably still be the smaller, more personal stories revealed through cell phone recordings, other lore pick-ups, and environmental storytelling. I was particularly invested in the ongoing trials of April Kelleher, a character you’ll follow through the entire game without ever actually meeting in person, and I became quite an avid listener to Rick Valassi’s “pirate radio podcast for paranoid insomniacs.”

The Division remains a game with more than a few hiccups, but I’m glad I came back and finished it. It’s got a real charm to it, despite its flaws.

Charles Bliss in The DivisionBoresinium:

I’ve also dabbled with a little Elder Scrolls Online in the past weeks. I bought the Orsinium DLC on sale ages ago, and this seemed like a good time to finally play it.

Despite Orsinium’s near-universal praise, I was concerned going in because my experience to date has been that Elder Scrolls Orcs are very boring. They seemed to just be the bog standard stereotype of, “Me Orc. Me hit things and eat bugs.”

Unfortunately, Orsinium did nothing to change this perception. I found the story so dull I struggled badly to find the motivation to even finish the DLC.

There are a few silver linings. One is that Wrothgar is a gorgeous zone. Man, why do all the best looking zones in this game belong to the most boring races?

Another is that Orcs have surprisingly bad security, and I never feel bad for robbing them. I made a lot of gold in that DLC.

Finally, I did enjoy Eveli. Yes, I liked the quirky Elf girl. I’m sure you’re all shocked by this unforeseeable turn of events.

My Bosmer sorcerer looking stylish in Elder Scrolls OnlineWhat was a more positive experience was the ESO Plus free trial, which gave everyone subscriber perks for a week. I’ve long been of the view a subscription in ESO is not worth it, but this may have changed my mind, at least a little. There’s a lot of very nice quality of life perks.

One of the biggest is the ability to freely dye costumes, which makes much more of a difference than I would have expected. Some of the costumes have a totally different feel with better dye jobs, and I’m now using them a lot more.

Also, rented access to all DLC is nice for one reason: A lot of DLC give you rewards just for zoning into the new area, and you’ll keep those rewards even if you let your sub lapse. I got a great assassin personality just for taking the thirty seconds to teleport to the Gold Coast.

I had hoped to play through the Imperial City DLC during the free week, as it is ostensibly the conclusion to the game’s “main” story about Molag Bal, but that proved untenable. Going in, I was worried about the open PvP nature of the Imperial City, but I never got ganked once. Instead, I was simply unable to solo the boss at the end of the first quest.

The Molag Bal story is actually fairly dull, so never seeing the conclusion isn’t the end of the world, but on principle, I dislike it when MMOs suddenly require groups to see the end of an otherwise soloable story. It’s one of the genre’s worst habits.

My sorcerer's latest new look in Elder Scrolls OnlineAlso, I was underwhelmed by the environmental design of the Imperial City. After hearing about it all game, I was expecting something amazing, but it’s just the standard Imperial architecture you see elsewhere, but with more holes.

Oh, and as you can see, I have changed my character’s look yet again. In my defense, this was the hairstyle I had in mind when I revamped her the first time; it just wasn’t available yet.

…And then I got her some new tattoos because I had some crowns leftover. On the plus side, these tattoos cover so much more skin that I can head canon these are genuinely new tattoos, rather than a “retcon” of her appearance.

Free mediocrity:

When the release date for the Age of Empires remaster got pushed back, everyone who’d pre-ordered got a free copy of a game called Rise of Nations. Recently I had the flu, and a slow-paced strategy game seemed like the way to go, so I loaded up RoN.

It’s definitely in a similar vein to the Age franchise, but it’s even slower, and feels kind of clunky and dull overall. It’s actually a lot closer to Empire Earth, the massively over-ambitious and deeply unsatisfying attempt to one-up Age of Empires.

A Korean town in Rise of Nations: Extended EditionThe strangest thing about it is how drunk on upgrades RoN is. I mean, AoE always had tons of upgrades, but RoN is on a whole other level. It feels like you spend all your time researching upgrades. There are literally upgrades for your upgrades.

So yeah, I didn’t last long in Rise of Nations. The one thing I can say is that the graphics hold up really well for what’s clearly an older game. It’s kind of like an impressionist painting, and the towns just look so pretty.

The music was nice, too.

New articles:

Finally, I’ve had a few more articles published at MMO Bro. One of my favourite articles that I’ve gotten to write in a long time discusses how playing MMOs has changed me as a gamer and altered my approach to gaming as a hobby. Surprisingly, it’s almost all good things.

I also go old school and rant about how subscriptions suck — something I did a lot of in the early years of this blog — and discuss how I believe the future of the genre lies with niche MMOs.

Gaming: The Unblogables

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Over the years, I’ve mostly been consistent about blogging on every game I’ve played, but there are exceptions. Usually games that I didn’t play for very long. I don’t have enough to say about each one to fill a whole post, but I thought it might be interesting to collect them together into one quick list. Today, the unblogables will come to light (all right).

The Inn of the Prancing Pony in Lord of the Rings OnlineThis isn’t necessarily an exhaustive list of games I’ve played but not blogged about, but these are the more noteworthy ones.

WildStar

I played WildStar during its open beta, and I actually wrote up a fairly extensive impressions piece for a paying client. Unfortunately, due to circumstances outside my control, the article never saw the light of day.

The fact that I never returned to WildStar after the beta should give you some idea of what I thought of it. I did like the housing, at least. Every MMO on the market should be rushing to steal WildStar’s housing system wholesale.

The combat was also pretty fun solo, though it turned into an incomprehensible rainbow spew in a group setting. And the environment art grew on me — like playing a Dr. Seuss MMO — but I never did learn to like the character models.

Overall, though, I found the glacial pacing, grindy gameplay, and obnoxious forced humour were enough to turn me off the game pretty fast.

I regret that my article never saw the light of day, because I feel like I was one of the few who predicted WildStar’s collapse early on (if anything I underestimated how badly it would crash and burn). But now I can’t prove that, so my opportunity to gloat has been denied.

A space mission in WildStarI could just see that this was a game that didn’t know who its audience was. It has a deep backstory, but Twitter-style word count limits on quest text. Its constant humour and silliness screams casual game, but the actual gameplay is a brutally grindy homage to the days when MMOs were more like second jobs.

Skyrim

I can definitely see how Skyrim could be an amazing experience for a certain kind of gamer.

I’m not that kind of gamer.

Really my gripe is that it’s mislabeled. It gets classified as an action RPG, but it’s not. It strikes me as more of an exploration sandbox/kleptomania simulator. And again, that’s fine, and they do it well enough, but it’s just not what I’m looking for in a game. The phrase “a mile wide and an inch deep” does come to mind.

EVE Online

I thought it’d be the infamously cruel and ruthless community that drove me away from EVE — I did love how the very first thing the tutorial tells you is “don’t trust the other players” — but actually it was the clunky UI and stiff gameplay that I couldn’t get over. After a couple hours, it was just making my brain hurt, and not in a fun TSW kind of way.

Lord of the Rings Online

A screenshot from Lord of the Rings OnlineAs a big fan of both Lord of the Rings and MMOs, LotRO seems like a game I should love. But when I finally got around to trying it, I barely lasted an hour.

It’s the same old story: It’s a WoW clone, through and through. When I want to play WoW, I’ll just play WoW.

And more importantly, if there’s one setting that doesn’t belong in that mould, it’s Lord of the Rings. In a Lord of the Rings game, I do not want to be doing meaningless kill ten rats quests for faceless NPCs. I do not want to be an overpowered god who can one-shot any foe with a dirty look. I want to feel the texture of the world’s history and challenge myself against epic foes.

Give me The Secret World: Middle-Earth Edition, and we’ll talk. I’d also settle for Elder Scrolls Online: Middle-Earth Edition.

I also found it a profoundly unappealing game from a visual perspective. I know Lord of the Rings Online is considered one of the most beautiful MMOs out there, but for the life of me, I’ll never understand why. It’s not just that it hasn’t aged well (although it definitely hasn’t aged well), but the fundamental art style is just unpleasant. Everything is muddy and dull and bland and just… ugh.

Ironically, the character models — the one aspect of the graphics that does usually garner complaints — was one aspect of the graphics I didn’t mind. They’re not great, but they’ll do.

MY Elven hunter in Lord of the Rings OnlineI will grant that getting to visit the Inn of the Prancing Pony was really neat, and I am often tempted to give it another try. Maybe I’d like it better with a different class (I was a hunter), but the only other one that strongly appeals to me on paper is warden, and you have to pay for that.

Pay-gating classes is a really good way to make sure I won’t play your game.

I suppose if any LotRO players out there want to suggest a (free) class they think I might like, I’ll take it under advisement. Despite how my above ranting may come across, it’s a game I want to like.

Viking: Battle for Asgard

This was some no-name title I picked up dirt cheap on a Steam sale just because Vikings.

I actually made it pretty far in the game before I called it quits. It’s very mindless and has no real plot, but the combat was delightfully brutal, and it was enjoyable in a simplistic sort of way. I was also impressed by some of the huge battles you can participate in; it’s surprisingly rare to find games where you can participate in large scale battles as one of the boots on the ground.

The main problem was for some reason the developers decided to stick a bunch of mandatory stealth missions throughout the game. They felt totally out of place compared to the rest of the game, they were very frustrating, and after a while I just couldn’t be bothered anymore.

A screenshot from Viking: Battle for AsgardThe Witcher

I didn’t like the combat.

That’s pretty much all there is to say. I gave up after about an hour because the core gameplay was just too unpleasant for me.

I know everyone’s over the moon about Wild Hunt these days, but having seen Moiren stream some of it, I’m not getting what the fuss is about. Seems like a very standard open world fantasy game to me. It certainly doesn’t look bad or anything, but I also feel confident that I’m not missing much.

Transistor

I think the surest sign video games are now being taken seriously as an art form is that, as in all art forms, there are now emperor’s new clothes situations where incomprehensible titles are praised simply for being incomprehensible. Enter Transistor.

They just sort of dump you into the game with little to no explanation of the controls, the game mechanics, the story, the characters, the setting, or much of anything else. You’re just left to fumble blindly and hope for the best. I feel like it might have been an interesting story if I’d had the faintest clue what was going on, but I didn’t.

Art from TransistorAs frustrating as that was, it was losing abilities upon death that soured me on the game permanently. That’s a strong contender for the worst design decision I’ve ever seen in a game. It’s the traditional RPG formula in reverse: Every time you fail, it gets progressively harder. It makes for the most unbelievably miserable experience.

I did like the artwork. I’ll give it that.