The Elder Scrolls Online Beta Non Disclosure Agreement has been lifted.
Here is what I encountered. Will repeat a few points from my first post.
So, as I am under a gag (non disclosure agreement) I won't write about specifics. I will offer my general thoughts on the game.
1. It is no Skyrim. For the tutorial, the game feels very lineal. I am told it gets 'sandbox-ish' pretty quickly, so there's hope!
2. It loos very good. I play it on ULTRA HIGH. The game was very smooth and looked pretty nice, but NOT ridiculously awesome (like... ehem Skyrim with user made texture packs).
3. There is an option for ADD-ONS. So, dudes and dudettes, that means users will be able to make add-ons for the game!
4. It is an MMO. That means that there is no level scaling like Skyrim. You'll have to go to particular zones for particular levels.
5. Armor isn't simply skins. The changes are both in form as well as texture.
6. The leveling system is confusing. Like Skyrim, you gain levels as you train your skills in the world and as you do quests. The part that gets weird is the skill distributions. You use points to increase all manner of special abilities. Unlike Skyrim, you don't get a tree detailing what's up on the ladder. Thus, I will personally be looking about on the web for leveling up explanations and such.
7. I did NOT find a player trading hub (Auction House, Market, etc). That's not something that makes me very happy.
8. I did NOT find a tool or interface that facilitated finding a group.
9. The Chat box does NOT have an opacity setting to darken it for easier reading.
10. I did NOT find any tool to that lowered a higher level player to match a lower level player for grouping or one that partially elevated a lower level player to match a higher level player for grouping. IE: No mentoring.
11. Gathering materials is simple. It's point and click. Gathering tools materialize out of thin air. Click on a mining node, a pick appears. Click on a herb node, a knife appears. Click on a rune crystal (Item for enchanting) you are able to pull it out. Click on a wood node, an axe appears. Click on a fishing node, a fishing pole appears. Not sure if this is good or bad. I find it a little too easy for my taste, but to each their own.
12. You have to AIM to hit with both magic and arrows. Aiming consists on keeping your cross-hairs on the target. If your cross-hairs is NOT on the target: miss. I personally like the difficulty, but that's a personal opinion.
13. The fauna seems lacking. Very little background life that aren't mobs to fight. I think we'll need to find a player add-on for this one.
14. People CAN steal your chests. If you run to a chest, and begin the pick process, you sometimes get kicked out of the looting interface, so someone else can click, grab and run. (Might have been bug)
15. Community was cut-throat. I did not see a lot of friendly banter. Not like Lord of The Rings Online, where people are kind of friendly and helpful.
16. CRAFTING: As I only did some smithing I can only provide you details about that one. The interface takes a little getting used to. Is not particularly user friendly. Armor is divided by race and requires particular materials that have to be purchased from a merchant, or found adventuring. Example: If you have iron ore, you go to smithing station and fiddle around until you're able to smelt it into bars. Once smelted, you are given choices to create iron items. If you want a particular look, you need to purchase/have the ORE of the particular racial armor look you're looking for. Now, it seems crafting is fairly easy at starting levels. This might be completely different later on.
17. The game was, at the time, fairly buggy. You can get stuck on the map and even get stuck in conversations and crafting windows. If you use the /stuck command you DIE. So use the /resetui command instead.
18. Like skyrim there is a compass bar on top of your screen with similar red dots for enemies appearing on it.
19. When in a group, you DO NOT see your groupmate (blue dot) on the compass. You have to find them on the map.
20. If your groupmate is too far away, he/she won't appear on the map at all. Thus, the lack of group tools make it difficult to find a groupmate, and when you DO find one, you have difficulty physically locating your groupmate in relation to your own character.
21. The groupleader interface is only reachable via the dedicated link on the permanent command bar. You won't find a shortcut button next to the groupleader name.
22. The monsters are fairly interesting. Some have really odd shapes.
23. Items can be linked to the chat window to display stats.
24. Quest specific items have their own inventory area so as to not mix them up with the rest of the junk.
25. There IS a personal bank to store stuff in.
26. There IS space on the bank for CROSS CHARACTER item transfers. Thus, you can easily make character mules.
Alright, that's all I can remember off the top of my head.
I am going to play some Star Traders now and rant at the cargo/time change rules
.
rabid