The Elder Scrolls Online

[Agito]

Now people know what I was talking about.

[Pyree]

Any other mirror of the video? >.> My expectations are pretty low now, but I'd still like to see it.

[Correction]

Any other mirror of the video? >.> My expectations are pretty low now, but I'd still like to see it.

http://vimeo.com/64004925

[Bombur]

While that 20 min video leak does have some people complimenting the game, there are a ton of people with negative criticism. Personally I feel that this video and with ZeniMax's refusal to show any actual gameplay footage (no I don't count the stuff seen since that's all designed to show the game in the best possible light) is ultimately going to do more harm than good. If ZeniMax had enough confidence in their game they would do a developer walkthrough highlighting what makes the game stand out from the crowd. That would help so much in getting people to get out of the mindset of the game being a generic WoW clone wrapped in an Elder Scrolls skin.

[Arelian]

Plain? Plain as in what?

Plain...
Simple?
Stupid?
Ugly?
Shitty?
Bland?
Average?

I managed to see the entire video before they took it off. It made me think immediately about two separate older MMOs. First off, it looks like a version of Age of Conan that has only gotten a slight upgrade. So its not super duper ugly, its only super ugly. Hell you even started on a boat and then in a desert port town. Seriously it looks fugly in both art and animation. Second, it reminded me of SWTOR. A popular established IP driven to the ground by an MMO with ugly art style, bad animation and below average combat systems.

This. So much this. Also all the definitions of plain apply. Holy crap.

[Gekii]

LOL wow, is this real life.

[ringthree]

While that 20 min video leak does have some people complimenting the game, there are a ton of people with negative criticism. Personally I feel that this video and with ZeniMax's refusal to show any actual gameplay footage (no I don't count the stuff seen since that's all designed to show the game in the best possible light) is ultimately going to do more harm than good. If ZeniMax had enough confidence in their game they would do a developer walkthrough highlighting what makes the game stand out from the crowd. That would help so much in getting people to get out of the mindset of the game being a generic WoW clone wrapped in an Elder Scrolls skin.

While that video is indeed shitty, this is the exact reason that they don't release video before the game is ready. Because we have no idea where in the development cycle that shitty video is from. Alpha is alpha. Beta is beta.

[Lucavi]

You can call it alpha, beta, delta, gamma, epsilon or omega, elder scrolls always launch with shitty combat animations. Always.

[Enkidu]

Low quality textures might be a beta thing, keeping the DL size down and performance up. Nothing looked too horrible, but there was certainly room for better textures...
The camera really looked horrible, which is something that's said to have been re-worked since. We'll see about that one.
Combat didn't look bad. It was level 1 combat and the whole "it looks bad" aspect was probably tied more to the camera then the actual combat. It's also a mage class which are generally pretty boring in starter zones.
Character animations were pretty bad, hopefully they address that.

Everything else seemed okay... Not seeing a million invisible walls/mountains everywhere made me instantly more excited to play this then ARR. I liked that starter zone mobs weren't pushovers as well.

Anyways I see a game that needs a ton of polish and the failure of Zenimax to have PR ready for a leak is just laughable. All they needed to have ready is a list of planned updates from here to release. Roadmap or whatever you want to call it... Now the shitstorm ensues, just like when they announced the game.

[Grey Jorildyn]

Well when they announced the game some staff made some pretty dumb comments about current gen mmos and how innovation was unlikely or impossible. They didn't exactly do a great job convincing you to play or even try this game lol

[Katlan]

I don't see the animations changing much. People can say its beta and all, and I understand that, but that video make it 100% obvious that they aren't using any motion capture and that characters move like 1990 action figures. That won't change from beta to retail.

I mean that is what all elder scroll animations have looked like. But then again all Elder Scroll games have been single player experiences that you are really supposed to play from a first person perspective

[Elcura]

Let's not forget that even single player ES games have pretty terrible animation. I'm not sure why anyone was expecting better, in terms of combat and animation ES games have never been amazing.

[Takiwaki]

The thing is moving from the first person perspective to third, you would think they would up the ante in the animation department.

[Elcura]

I wouldn't necessarily have thought so. The animation you got just for people walking around, talking (to you or others), fighting etc were extremely boring and simple. I don't think there's ever been a piece of animation that impressed me or even gave me pause to appreciate. Their problem isn't perspective, it's just animation.

The things that matter in a ES game luckily have nothing to do with animation though, but it's still sad to see.

[Katlan]

The thing is moving from the first person perspective to third, you would think they would up the ante in the animation department.

I have to agree w/this. If they didn't think they had to improve animations then they are more dense then SE was w/XIV 1.0. Animations have a huge impact on immersion (at least to me). It didn't bother me in the single player TES games because they are all about exploration to me and not about the combat. But an MMO has to have "feel good" combat to some extent since that's what a mmo revolves around... unlike a single player ES game where you spend 75% of the game running around and exploring stuff.

Even more important is that since this is a MMO they need to appeal to a much larger fanbase then merely the ES crowd. I mean the ES crowd may flat out not be that interested in this game because it "is" an MMO. But w/ clunky and super stuff animations it will turn a lot of people off from giving this game a second look

[Takiwaki]

That once part in the vid, where the dude was strafing around with the axe helping him kill, made me lol irl. I really really hate games that do that, you just cant strafe with a melee weapon and attack at the same freaking time and do any real dmg. Range attacks yes but there has to be some form of committed movement and rooting to melee attacks. Its just physics..

[Lucavi]

Low quality textures might be a beta thing, keeping the DL size down and performance up. Nothing looked too horrible, but there was certainly room for better textures...
The camera really looked horrible, which is something that's said to have been re-worked since. We'll see about that one.
Combat didn't look bad. It was level 1 combat and the whole "it looks bad" aspect was probably tied more to the camera then the actual combat. It's also a mage class which are generally pretty boring in starter zones.
Character animations were pretty bad, hopefully they address that.

Everything else seemed okay... Not seeing a million invisible walls/mountains everywhere made me instantly more excited to play this then ARR. I liked that starter zone mobs weren't pushovers as well.

Anyways I see a game that needs a ton of polish and the failure of Zenimax to have PR ready for a leak is just laughable. All they needed to have ready is a list of planned updates from here to release. Roadmap or whatever you want to call it... Now the shitstorm ensues, just like when they announced the game.

Invisible walls are mostly gone in ARR, bro. Just sayin'.

[Enkidu]

Invisible walls are mostly gone in ARR, bro. Just sayin'.

Last time I played there were quite a few still, near the end of phase 1. Also plenty of walls in the form of mountains, railings, etc... I just want a map that I can explore fully. It also wasn't a fun game, but that's neither here nor there. We'll see what becomes of this game, the last few weeks I moved from neutral to somewhat optimistic, but I think I'm more in the somewhat pessimistic area as of now. They still have 6-8 months to iron out kinks, we'll see what they do.

And yeah, as other posters have said, TES animations were always pretty sub-standard, but come on... These are pretty bad.

[Correction]

Low quality textures might be a beta thing, keeping the DL size down and performance up.

It's like you people have never played Oblivion or Skyrim.

[Takiwaki]

It's like you people have never played Oblivion or Skyrim.

Well I tried, I really did, but couldn't get into it =/