Launch wasn’t as bumpy as FO76, but it was still pretty bad in the sense that the gaming community realized it was another false-advertising cash grab very clearly built around a microtransaction sales model, which they switched to after the first wave of misguided subscribers realized we’d been duped. They leaned heavily on Skyrim’s success, citing things like combat having that kind of weighty feel - swing a sword into a shield and you get that rebound like two items with real mass just hit eachother. ESO didn’t even attempt to replicate that like they promised, but delivered combat animations that felt more like a bad WoW knockoff, with two models just swinging at eachother but not actually responding to the contact in any way other than the healthbar ticking down.
It’s another example of over-promising and under-delivering. If it didn’t have the Elder Scrolls stamp on it and was marked as the C-tier medieval fantasy MMO that it was, and priced accordingly, it would have been received just fine.
But their initial charge was $60 plus a $15/mo subscription AND microtransaction bs… which for the ‘Skyrim but an MMO’ experience we were sold, many of us stood ready with the wallet open. Didn’t take long at all for the gaming community to notice the difference between the brand new Lamborghini we were sold didn’t exactly match the third-hand Honda Civic we received.
Elder Scrolls enshittified. I won’t complain if they make a comeback, but I’m not holding my breath either.
Launch wasn’t as bumpy as FO76, but it was still pretty bad in the sense that the gaming community realized it was another false-advertising cash grab very clearly built around a microtransaction sales model, which they switched to after the first wave of misguided subscribers realized we’d been duped. They leaned heavily on Skyrim’s success, citing things like combat having that kind of weighty feel - swing a sword into a shield and you get that rebound like two items with real mass just hit eachother. ESO didn’t even attempt to replicate that like they promised, but delivered combat animations that felt more like a bad WoW knockoff, with two models just swinging at eachother but not actually responding to the contact in any way other than the healthbar ticking down.
It’s another example of over-promising and under-delivering. If it didn’t have the Elder Scrolls stamp on it and was marked as the C-tier medieval fantasy MMO that it was, and priced accordingly, it would have been received just fine.
But their initial charge was $60 plus a $15/mo subscription AND microtransaction bs… which for the ‘Skyrim but an MMO’ experience we were sold, many of us stood ready with the wallet open. Didn’t take long at all for the gaming community to notice the difference between the brand new Lamborghini we were sold didn’t exactly match the third-hand Honda Civic we received.
Elder Scrolls enshittified. I won’t complain if they make a comeback, but I’m not holding my breath either.
Wow. I played in the beta and for the first year and that was just not my experience with it.