ESO Launch and First Impressions

The Elder Scrolls Online officially launched on April 4th, but I've been playing since March 31st with 5-day early access. My initial impressions were positive: I saw a great many players roaming Tamriel with their pre-order bonus vanity pets and Imperial Horse mounts. Last minute changes to the starting zones were frustrating to some story-centric players, but as someone who participated in several beta tests I found the opportunity to skip ahead of much of what I had already experienced to be a pleasant surprise. All in all the launch for both the 5-day and the 3-day early access went very smoothly.

With the true launch of the game on April 4th, some new problems came up. While the game itself is far from bug-free, the bigger troubles came from policies and systems external to the game. With the end of the early access periods and the beginning of subscription-based play-time, players were required to use their 30-day pass (included with the game) as a sort of registration key before they were prompted to select a subscription plan. The failure or inability to do either of these things meant being locked out of the game. This frustrated players who wanted to use their 30 days before deciding whether to subscribe for longer, but more egregiously those who had not received their codes were left helpless. In response to this, a grace period for submitting the code was extended through part of Sunday.The problem was that deliveries aren't made on Sundays, so some players were unable to play the game until their codes were delivered on Monday. This is what happened to me and, as someone who paid for the Physical Imperial Edition (the expensive one), it was disappointing to not be treated as a valued customer.

But when I think about judging a game's launch, what is happening in the game is far more important. If I'm delayed a few hours for some server downtime or a day for a delivery to be made, I would still be more frustrated by the game itself not working for me. In that respect, bugs are still popping up in spite of the lengthy beta testing phase and relogging to fix small glitches is disruptive to the experience. If the Elder Scrolls universe was not one which I loved, I would feel more inclined to recommend it to MMO players. As it is now, I would say the game better serves Elder Scrolls fans as the atmosphere is true to the game's predecessors and knowledge of the world-lore adds depth in the world which is otherwise easily skipped over. It might be more effective if ESO served as a bridge for MMO players into the Elder Scrolls universe enabling the Elder Scrolls fandom to grow, but the opposite is true and I see ESO bringing Elder Scrolls fans towards the bewildering landscape that is MMO gaming in this Free-to-Play, Pay-to-Win era.

Speaking as an Elder Scrolls fan, what I want most from ESO is for it to bring on an expansion of the franchise, not just internally through the game's lore, but externally as well as the fandom grows and more people take notice and take an interest in the game.

To that end, I'm already finding amazing things. For example, ShoddyCast, a YouTube channel, has been publishing an Elder Scrolls Lore Series:



And there are a lot more things coming from ESO, like these gamplay walkthroughs from YouTube channel IFreeMZ:



In my opinion, though, one of the best things coming from ESO are these trailers from Bethesda Softworks themselves:


Overall, ESO's launch certainly hasn't been perfect, but they have avoided some of the bigger pitfalls that other games have fallen victim to (like entirely halting digital sales of the game, FFXIV). The game itself is satisfying to Elder Scrolls fans like myself, and as long as we keep talking about it the game's popularity is sure to grow. The game needs to continue to grow as well, in patching up its bugs and glitches and in providing players more and more story to delve into. We are adventurers, after all, and we're going to need a steady supply of mysterious dungeons, caves, and keeps to hold our interest.

Gaming Playlists: Game On, Game Hard

I've been assembling and refining a few gaming playlists on YouTube over the last few weeks. Having dual monitors is great for this; I fullscreen the playlist on the smaller monitor and game on the larger one. I do the same thing with Netflix sometimes, but splitting my attention isn't always a good idea. Many of these songs are music videos, others are lyrics videos, but in either case you can stay focused on fragging. 

Don't forget to shuffle.

Here are the links:

This playlist is for fast-paced gaming. The songs tend to be louder and have a faster tempo. I use it when I play competitive game because they are the kinds of songs I'd set montages to.

Play it loud. Game Hard.




This playlist is for longer gaming sessions. The songs are generally longer and are better for playing in the background. I use this playlist for MMOs and casual games like SolForge.

 Play it long. Game On.




This playlist combines the previous two. As a result, the music is of a wider variety and there are about twice as many songs as the other two playlists. This playlist is best if you don't want to hear the same thing twice.




Finally, here is a link to a Pandora station I've used for a few years. If Pandora is more your thing, Castlevania Radio is a personal favorite.

Edit: Here's another Pandora link that a friend of mine suggested. It's based on Pretty Lights, but brings in rockier stuff as well. I like it for longer, chiller sessions.