My Time With the Evolve Big Alpha Weekend [Part II]

Welcome to Part II of my exceedingly late posted experience with Turtle Rock Studios and 2K's #BigAlpha test weekend for the upcoming FPS MMO monster hunting game, Evolve.

Before I get into the actual gameplay, I will say that Saturday of the alpha weekend was spent exactly like Friday: trying to see if the game would start and being greeted with the Steam Service Component and Bootstrapping windows.  It was not until Sunday afternoon, right after I had put some chicken in the fridge to marinate for an hour, that the game booted up and I was able to play, so let the game begin!

For my first game, I was with two other human teammates (and one computer controlled teammate) playing against a human controlled monster in "The Dam" setting which was randomly selected.  I played the Tank (TF2: The Heavy).  Prior to actually being thrust into a game, I was given a brief video only tutorial on Markov's abilities, gun options, jump/boost jump and how to work with my teammates.  This I found to be very useful considering everyone I was teamed up with was above a 1, which is the level that I was at as I had yet to play the game.  Theoretically, I was teamed up with people who were at a similar skill level, so I'm not what that said about the people I played with, but ah well.

I'm not sure what the flying guy counter in the upper left is all about.

First off, the biggest issue I had while playing was lag with two possible causes.  The first cause being that computer was not up to snuff for the minimum requirements for the game.

• CPU
• Intel Pentium D 3GHz or higher
• AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual Core 6400 2.4 GHz or higher
• RAM: 4GB
• GPU:
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 or higher
• AMD Radeon 5770 or higher
• HDD: 15 GB install
• OS: Windows 7 64 bit

I will just say that my processor is old by today's processors standards, which is probably the main reason my the game jumped/lagged/skipped very frequently.  To note a 1.7GHz processor vs. a 2.4GHz.  Apparently those .7 GHz are very important.  The other possible cause was that our internet connection was lacking for a came/build of this caliber.  

For this reason, I often felt that I was behind the other players in my team.  I did manage to catch up with everyone and helped in the loosest sense of the word to take down the Monster.  I will say though that it was very difficult to lock on a shoot at an angry moving target while playing at something like 10 frames per second, maybe less.  After the match, I was shown the amount of damage I did with each weapon as well as a comparison to the rest of the world's average for playing as Markov as well as player/weapon mastery/progression.

As you can tell, I was not a very productive member of society for this particular match.

The next game, after "helping" to take down the Monster, I spent as the monster.  

Prior to playing as Goliath, I was shown another tutorial video about how to control the Monster, their special abilities and how to generally delay death.  I started off with three skill points that I could put into any four abilities: Fire Breath, Charge, Leap Smash and Rock Throw.  I recall putting two points in Fire Breath, one in Rock Throw.

In that first battle/hunt, I was unable to use Rock Throw to deal any damage as the Hunters were too quick.  I was able to breath some firey death upon the Hunters though.  And by "death" I mean some first and maybe second degree burns.  Sadly, no one died.

Unlike playing as one of the Hunters, playing as the Monster was in 3rd person, which was fine by me, but I could understand if some people were offput by this perspective considering that the rest of the game was in first person.  Additionally, despite being so much larger than the Hunters and being able to cover more ground at a faster speed, I was still hunted down like the proverbial rabid dog the Hunters saw me as.  It probably also did not help that I was unfamiliar with the setting as this time around I was playing not in The Dam but in the Fusion Plant.

Things did not pan out for me in that round, that very short round.  I lasted less than three minutes and had nothing to do with the pictures I was trying to take.  The second game (third overall and last game before I had to go and cook the chicken for dinner) lasted just over four minutes.  That game (of which no pictures exist from) went a little bit better.  I was able to hunt down some of the smaller wildlife and consumed them to build up my defense capabilities and heal some damage caused by the Hunters.

As was the case with playing as Markov, playing as Goliath resulted in the same graphical issues that I experienced.  Granted the graphics look great in the pictures that I was able to take, even with the video settings at their lowest possible settings the game still had significant troubles on my computer.  Enough so that I would not be buying the game unless I were to play a demo and found out that I could play the game in a playable capacity.

The word from Turtle Rock Studios is that the game that was available for the Big Alpha Weekend was only a single gameplay-type compared to what will be available in the official release.  I have read a bit on the Steam forums for Evolve that some people are concerned about the amount of content with the game running around $60.  I will admit that even with promised added maps, character skills and whatnot available upon release, I would be a little leary about spending that much for a multiplayer coop game.  The impression that I got was that it was like a coop game of Left 4 Dead 2 with no associated single player campaign option.  Maybe that will be part of the official release in February (10th to be specific), but for me, it may not be enough to warrant a release day purchase; even if my computer could handle the game without skipping.

Thanks for trudging through these last two posts, regular nonsense will commence on Wednesday with another MIDI Week Singles along with whatever Dr. Potts and I decided to babble about.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Did You Lose It In A Hateful Fight?

P.S.

In case you wanted a reason to buy Evolve, here are a lot of places/awards telling you that you should buy the game, which was a screen/advertisement of sorts after quitting the game.  So if you're one of those people who only buy popular games, I believe this one classifies.

My Time With the Evolve Big Alpha Weekend [Part I]

What follows is Part I of my foray into Turtle Rock Studios and 2K's Big Alpha release testing of their still in development game Evolve.

So the #BiGaLpHa weekend started out alright.  I downloaded the 14.8Gig file  over night from Thursday to Friday (of last week).  The game opened at 9am PST although I figured the servers would be flooded with people a la Elder Scrolls Online's beta weekend.  Around 11am I gave the game a go, and was greeted with a Steam pop up window showing me how far along my installation process was?

After a few seconds of looking at this window, I became disappointed as I was then greeted with another Steam pop up window telling me that I had to download some service something-or-other first.

"Okay, since this is from Steam, I'll take it as legit," is what my brain told me.  So I thought I would install whatever service I was apparently now missing, but then this happened:

That damn Bootstrapper again!  So I had to close down Steam, but thankfully the previous result with the Bootstrapper did not happen again.  Whew!

An hour or so later, I tried again, just for shits and giggles.  This time the installation window that popped up started at 1%, then progressed to 24%, 30%, 62% and all the way up to 100%.  And the game started.  Whew!!

I was excited if you couldn't tell from the extra exclamation mark.  The game, or at least the menu was running smoothly with the monster in the background, breathing with its mandibles occasionally reaching out away from it's mouth in a way that implies smooth movement (having already used "smooth" earlier in the sentence).  I went into the options, did the obligatory switching of the axis for the mouse/y-axis, changed the video settings from "High" down to "Low" as I was 99% sure that my little laptop wouldn't be able to handle graphics of this potential caliber.  Then I clicked "Play" and was brought to the character selection screen.

I wasn't really sure what the jobs meant, aside from Assault (Tank) and Medic (Medic) and those were roles that I wasn't comfortable playing on my first playthrough.  My thought process was that playing a role that I wasn't familiar with would be excusable if I were to fuck up the rest of the people I was playing with.  So I clicked "Accept" and patiently waited to be put into a group.

After 20 minutes I was kicked out for "inactivity."  I thought, maybe it was because I actually didn't touch my computer in those 20 minutes of waiting (and reading a textbook).  So, I re-entered the waiting queue room place:

Another 25 minutes later I was kicked out of the waiting room due to inactivity, although this time I was sure to move my mouse around every 5 minutes (I had a timer running).  I know that I could have just clicked the "Back" button every so often to try and reset the waiting room, but I figured that since Turtle Rock and 2K were testing server capacity, that I would just let the game try and find a group for me.  Testing doesn't always mean being able to play a functioning product and my time with The Elder Scrolls Online beta test taught me this.

In total, I waited 1 hour 18 minutes and was kicked out three times (once was because the phone rang and temporarily killed our internet connection).  After that first taste of what was to be Evolve, I tried multiple times to log back into the game, but each time I was greeted with the first "Completing Installation. . . 1%" before being told that I needed to download the Steam service component whereby I can either hit "cancel" and I could forget about playing or click "Download" and have the bootstrapping error come up, and forget about playing.

The #BigAlpha weekend lasted from Friday October 31st until Sunday November 2nd and the article for Monday will include the 30 minutes I was able to spend actually playing the game.

Have a wonderful weekend.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

We Bring Forth Monstrous Birth

Monthly Update: June 2014

Happy June everyone.  I come to you from the past, specifically Saturday May 31st, 2014, but as you will be reading this on or after June 2nd, 2014, it will all be kosher.  I am join you with Joey Mjölnir Explosion (the cat) patrolling around my feet and a bourbon with Pepsi in my hand.  Well, it was in my hand before I started typing.  And now JME is attempting to eat my pizza on a plate across the room.  

May has been a pretty standard month, except that it hasn't.  Unemployment aside, I have had some time to spend on reading, playing video games and contacting lawyers (more on that after everything has been settled).

I have been playing quite a lot of Elder Scrolls Online and as previously mentioned, I am doing a very good job of playing an MMO like a good introvert: solo.  I might have around 40 hours clocked in the game (just an estimate) and I still have yet to figure out how to use the chat window to talk to other players.  It is not very high on my priority list of things to do in the game.  I frequently have my ass handed to me when I try to take on groups (read 3-4) of enemies whose level is on par with my own.  I have been invited to join three groups and have turned them all down as politely as pressing "X" can be.

One interesting thing I noticed about the ESO is that your character never sleeps.  Time passes in the game, about the same rate as it does in Skyrim, but sleeping and Inns are not a thing.  This first struck me as very odd, but then I quickly realized that that sleeping in an MMO game would be hard to do as everyone, at least in North  America , is on the same server to time jumping in-game would be a bit difficult to manage, quantum physics aside.  So I just imagine that my character hates me while I have him adventuring for five in-game-days straight then sleeps for a couple of weeks when I am not playing.

There is another MMO that I just started a couple of days ago although this one is a MOBA (Massive Online Battle Arena) in the form of the Dead Island: Epidemic closed beta.  I thought it an interesting idea coming from only having played the first Dead Island which is an FPSRPG.  The drastic transition of formats is like the difference between The Legend of Zeldas top down versus The Adventure of Links top down and side scrolling with levelling RPG elements.  The game actually reminds me a lot of Torchlight, although I have not played Torchlight co-op, so maybe it is nothing like that.  But  in  DI:E, you pick one of four characters with their own set of abilities and go from point A to point B and kill a shit ton of zombies/walkers along the way, usually culmination with a boss battle.  The 40 minutes that I have put in it, I did enjoy.  Maybe more on that later this month.

I am also in process of internally debating how much more aggravation I want to put into Assassin's Creed as I have hit a wall that I do not feel prepared enough to break through.  It seems to be one of those points in the game that you should feel comfortable completing but I think I may have missed a training session or skill set along the way.  I have no Yoda to help me this time.

Lastly, I broke down a couple of days ago and paid (albeit not as much as would have liked, but I am unemployed) for the Humble Weekly Bundle featuring RPG Maker VX Ace and a whole lotta DLC (6 DLC just for VX Ace alone).  As Dr. Potts recently postulated, I too have stories to tell, both in written and video game form; and in D&D module form for that matter!  I also have music to write and creating my own "game" just might be the kick in the tuchas that I need.  With the help/advice from a good many episodes of Extra Credits, I am in the process of writing a story before I get down to the creating part although I plan on tinkering around a bit before the story is finished so that I am aware of the limitations of the program.  A nightmare would be to find out that the program is incapable of doing storywise what I want it to do and I have been down that road before the the authoring tools in Neverwinter Nights.  I am also very tempted to take existing Ravenloft modules and turn those into games, but that might be in the future. 

So in the meantime, I am doing research for my story and hopefully the NSA reads this before looking over my cache and browser history and decides that I am a person of interest.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Whispering the Words You Never Should Have Learned

First Impressions: The Elder Scrolls Online (PC)

I really wish that there was a game stats screen  in The Elder Scrolls Online, similar to what you would find in Skyrim and Oblivion, that way I would know how much time I have put into ESO in the three weeks and change that I have spent playing the game since its early access release on March 30th.  I would not say that I have been dumping truck loads of time into ESO at this point, but I have been neglecting some of the other games that I had been working on before (Assassin's Creed, Bioshock 2, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Papo y Yo, Final Fantasy VII, et cetera) and I think that part of that is that since I have paid for the game and am on a monthly subscription, I want to feel that I am getting the most out of the game for the money I have and currently am putting into it.

However, that argument will not be valid until, I believe, May 6th, which is when the 30 day free period for my account ends and the paid subscription starts.

But enough of that, what about the game?  How does it compare to the beta test?  How buggy is it, even after just under a year of beta testing? How have the early access perks given you an advantage over the regular players?  What are the quests like?  Does it feel like an Elder Scrolls game?  You know, the usual.

To answer, what I feel is the most important question: yes, The Elder Scrolls Online does feel like it belongs with the rest of the games in The Elder Scroll series.  Like every game in the series, you start out as a prisoner (this time finding out how and why you are in prison), you escape by going through a tutorial level and are then plunged into the larger world with a brief hint that something larger that does not involve (or maybe it does and I just don't know about it yet) the war in Cyrodiil between the three factions.

One aspect that has been retained, to a certain extent, from the Elder Scroll series has been the inclusion of books and reading about the lore of Tamriel throughout the various eras.  While in previous Elder Scrolls games you could read individual books on a bookshelf/table/floor/cauldron, in ESO, you can only read from a bookshelf.  This initially made me sad that I could only read one randomly (?) selected book from a bookshelf full of books.  Once I realized that this was how the game was going to operate, then I grew to accept it as is.  As in the other Elder Scrolls games, you still learn skills and can gain quests by reading books.

I do greatly appreciate though that Bethesda still maintains the level of quality of the books in ESO that the community has come to expect.

While you can simply run up to a bookshelf, click to open a book, see that you've gained a level in your Heavy Armor skill then run away without reading a word, I love that I can crack open a tome and read two and-a-half pages of text.  I know this isn't for everyone, but for me, it's a key component for immersion and I love its inclusion in an MMO game.

Another Elder Scrolls staple is the quality of the voice acting, which so far has been very well executed.  Bethesda has reused a lot of the voice actors from their previous games and the have even brought on a fair amount of "Hollywood talent" to voice both main and minor characters.  Most notably has been Michael Gambon (Sleepy Hollow, Harry Potter) as the character of "The Prophet," whose reading of "Let the will of Molag Bal be denied!" is chilling.  Kudos as well to the script writers.

I have noticed a few changes between the released game and the beta tests, the most notable is that I have only experienced one real bug that impeded my progress:

One other bug was similar to the "MISSING" box bug that I encountered during the January beta test, just something else that went missing in a different location.  Other minor bugs have been missing dialogue to text, but those come across as purely cosmetic.  I have, however, seen other people bring ask about potentially broken quests, but I personally have yet to encounter a broken quest so I do not know if I should count myself fortunate or maybe I am simply progressing slowly enough that the bugs are being fixed by the time I reach the formally broken quest.

I have noticed that the combat feels more "real," which was one of the biggest complaints that I kept seeing creep up during the beta test.  It is a hard thing to explain, that when you attack someone that it should feel like your hits are connecting.  Without a rumble feature, this has to come across visually and whatever was done between the middle of March and release has been a great improvement.  I no longer feel like my weapons are simply passing through the enemies, but are coming into contact with them, it is very satisfying.

Personally, when I think of MMOs, I tend to have a mental image of some crowded plaza in World of Warcraft and to date, the greatest number of people I have seen congregate anywhere was at the bank, where you can store items to use between characters, group members and guild members.

There is also a lot of grouping around crafting stations, where you can craft your own armor (heavy, medium and light), enchanting, woodworking (shields, bows, staffs) et cetera, but the nice thing is that you do not have to wait for the station to be free for it to be used.

So far, I have been playing solo and without grouping or questing with others.  There have been certain events such as when Dark Anchors (portals that lead into Oblivion) start depositing beasts of all sorts into the world.  These events, which happen pretty frequently usually draw about 10 other players and a decent sized battle en mass commences against the forces of darkness.

While it is possible to approach the above Dark Anchor or certain quests solo, these are events/instances that are specifically designed to be taken on by a group of people.  I have tried, accidentally to take on a Flesh Atronach (flesh golem) who was supported by two skeletons alone and quickly found myself dead.

This battle was not on purpose either.  I was approaching the two skeletons and right as I "killed" the one, the Flesh Atronach came through a portal as the skeleton archer backed up.  Let it be known that I died with honor.

There are plenty of aspects to The Elder Scrolls Online that I know I have not covered, most importantly the PvP area in Cyrodiil that deals with siege engines and storming castles.  I also did not mention anything about the lack of lag, even in areas that appear to be heavily populated by both PCs and NPCs.  There is just too much information to convey.  I also have not even mentioned the music, but that I will cover in Friday's post (so come back for that if music is your thing).

I will say in closing for today that I am having a lot of fun with the game and, presently at least, I feel that the cost of the game plus the $15/month subscription fee has been and will be worth the experience contained within.


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
The Skies of Hell Unfell to Earth

Misc Mid Month March Update

I don't have much to say today, so I thought I'd include some silly and neat fan art that I lifted from J.Bruneau's Tumblr.  He is very prolific and it's always easy to find something really interesting or beautiful at that Tumblr.  In fact, the image I chose wasn't the most eye-catching I saw today, but it has a certain sweetness that I really enjoy.  

I'm not playing anything but Zelda Classic right now.  Sorting through some of my older posts, I don't have anything that's ready, but in reviewing some of my older ideas, I did get a glimpse at the limitations of Zelda Classic.  Primarily, the Zelda engine doesn't allow for a few things, namely:  multi-player, heavy dialogue, extended screens and more.

However, there is a scripting language that allows people to bend and break the rules of Zelda Classic.  Quest Designers have built 2d sidescrollers, Megaman themes, Metroid, a bullet hell shooting level?  So, there's definitely room for growth with Zelda Classic.  On the other hand, I am fine with the limitations of the Zelda engine, and I'd like to plan for those limitations and recognize that every one of the game ideas I've had for the last twenty years doesn't necessarily have to work in ZC (Zelda Classic).  

Oh, did I ever mention that Zelda Classic is free?  That's pretty important.  I suppose it has to be free, for copyright infringement reasons.  I think it would go pretty deep too, because even if you replaced every image with a non-Zelda image, you would still be using the Zelda engine. 

Still... how about a Zelda MMO, maybe?   Nah.

Steam just pitched to me a new MMO called Pixel Piracy.  It actually looks pretty neat!  I'm really surprised I hadn't heard of a Pirate themed MMO up to this point, but watching the video, the themes of cannon battles, plundering and island hopping are compelling.  It doesn't hurt that it's in a retro-style.  I'm afraid this game falls into the category of 'a neat looking game that I might never play,'  (so many games end up there) but I hope to hear good things about it soon.  

I'll leave you with a picture.

-D

The Mighty Quest For Epic Loot: Chapter I: The Before

First, this is an awesome title for a game.  It'd even work well for a board game.  I feel like The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot is advertising that knows what kind of game it is and knows what their target audience is looking for.  The title conjures up the image of a game of Diablo mixed with Gauntlet, but with an even greater sense of humor.

And the game is free.  That can either be a boon or a giant warning sign to stay away.  At least that's what I hear about free to play MMOs.  Sort of anyway, I don't know what I'm talking about as I've only played The Elder Scrolls Online (Beta) and a little bit of Neverwinter (which I will talk about at a future date).

Okay, back on topic.  TMQfEL (which seems more work than typing out the full title).  After watching the trailer for the open beta, I developed a slightly different view of the game.  Now, based off of the information from the trailer, the game still looks somewhat fun with a healthy portion of "Oh what the hell god damnit it you asshat."  TMQfEL, again based off of the trailer, looks to be a game where you create your own castle, wonderfully portrayed as floating castles, that you fill with x amount of loot wherein you build traps to protect that loot.

Logic would dictate that when you begin the game, you start out with a set amount of money, presumably "gold," to build and furnish your castle with traps, hazards and other golf-titled pitfalls to protect the aforementioned loot from the rest of the online community.  In order to get more gold to build more castle and better traps, you have to raid other castles.  I do not know if your character is able to level up, which would make sense on one level in that you would need additional HP in order to make it through elaborate castles filled with elaborate traps; that is unless all traps are considered one hit kills.  I also do not know if you would be able to keep any gold you found along the way if you are unable to make it out alive; again assuming that you find loot throughout the castle and not just in the final treasure vault room.  The downside though is that someone who has a character built up would be able to ransack and destroy other community castles that are just starting off.  The way around this is to only allow the players attack/raid/ransack/pillage/lay waste other castles within a certain range of levels that are close to their own.

Again, this is what I presume the game to be.

What I would be afraid of is people not creating castles to be clever, but to be total assholes.  I feel like a game that is created by a person to be as difficult as possible is no longer creating a game/stage/level to be fun, but to be a dick to the rest of the gaming community.  But sure, I recognize that there is a percentage of the population that enjoys a rigorous challenge (meaning the people who have beaten Super Meat Boy), I just happen to not be a part of that particular group.

Not my idea of fun.

So, with all that, I will now give The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot  a try and report back next week with how my hypothesis compares to the actual game in "Chapter II: The After."


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I Want to Reconcile the Violence in Your Heart

My Time With The Elder Scrolls Online Beta Testing (PC)

Now that Bethesda and Zenimax have officially lifted the Non-Disclosure Agreement, I am now able to babble to my hearts content.  Keep in mind though that this will end up being a longer post than usual as I will be blabbing about experiences from three different beta tests going back to November of 2013.

With that in mind, I present to you:

The first of many loading screens, since updated.

First off, I am not exactly sure how many beta tests Bethesda/Zenimax have run, but I was able to take part in the last three (November 2013, January & February 2014).  The current word is that there will be one last beta test before the game is released on April 4th of this year.  My experience that I will relate to you in frustratingly bad detail will be from only those three beta tests.

Secondly, before November 2013, I had never played an MMO of any kind.  I never played World of Warcraft at any point even though I loved Warcraft I and II (still sad that I never played III).  I never played Final Fantasy XI despite my general love of the Final Fantasy franchise, although that love began to wain with Final Fantasy's VII, VIII and X, so it's no surprise that I didn't do anything with XI.  With all of this in mind, it will be pretty obvious that I am not hep with all of the lingo and understanding of acronyms and verbiage.  During the post play survey, I had to look up what LFG meant and I am still not 100% on what "aggro" means in the context of a battle and how it works.  Maybe I do know but I don't know it.  Even though I find it hilarious, this rant that I first saw as a flash back in 2006 doesn't mean a whole lot to me.

Thirdly, with the exception of the last beta test, each session was over a weekend that I had to work. At least two of the days of the test.  In November, I didn't work the first day, but the test did not start until 12pm PST, but as to be expected during a stress test, the server was overloaded at many stages.  The above picture I took after I had logged on.  The progress bar got about as far as the circular band before if froze and I had to restart.  Three hours in I was finally able to make it to the character generation portion, but I was booted out a handful of times before I could create my character:

Bosmer Nightblade, part of the Aldmeri Dominion (November)

In the forums (where the majority of people were very cool with not everyone coming from an MMO background), a lot of people were coming up with names that would be based on the race of character they were playing while I chose a name that people might recognize me by as opposed to a name that would blend in with the world.  So, I chose to be a male Bosmer (Wood Elf) and I was immediately excited that the heights of the races was restored to something more similar to their respective heights in Morrowind; that Orsimer (Orcs) are larger than Humans who are larger than Dunmer (Dark Elves) who are larger than Bosmer, et cetera.  While I am usually not a fan of tattooing my characters, I early on decided that I would give all of my characters the same tattoo pattern, just because.

Because I am lame, I didn't take any pictures during the character creation process, but I will say that it is somewhat similar to the process in Skyrim, but different in other ways.  For instance, you are able to change the general shape/look of the body to be muscular, large or thin and the face to be soft, heroic or angular.  The video put out by Zenimax Online does a good quick job of describing the process.

Moving onto the beta test.  While playing each time, I always had the fact in the back of my mind that what I was playing was not a finished product.  There were going to be errors, which was the whole point of the beta existing.  We were there to find bugs, problems, glitches and whatnot with the game so that it would be as bug-free as possible come launch day.  

My first time though, I initially felt that the controls (keyboard & mouse) felt very loose, almost as if I wasn't totally in control of my character.  Granted I was coming from playing Morrowind which has somewhat sluggish controls and your player does run pretty slowly, even when sprinting, but after a while, I became used to how the character moved/ran/interacted with the environment.

Battles/Fighting in the game is something that I have not noticed any changes to since November.  The fighting has seemed, for lack of a better adjective, weak.  Yes, when you swing your weapon and it comes into contact with an enemy damage is done, except that the contact part does not feel real.  I know that is an odd sentence but I cannot find an easier way to explain what it is that I am trying to say.  Here's another go: when your sword (or your weapon of choice) comes into contact with an enemy, the weapon passes through them as if they were not there, but damage is still done, but the feeling that you have inflicted damage is not there.

My first playthrough, I encountered a number of animation glitches while trying to draw my bow back.  I don't have any pictures or a capture card, but my character would draw the arrow and then begin to rotate very rapidly in a 90 degree arc.  When I released the arrow I would hit my mark, but the character was still wigging out.  In the last beta test, the main animation glitch was that my character would use a long range attack and the animation would stick at the end with the last bit of sound effect that accompanied so the effect sounded like buzzing tin foil.

The most frequent bug that I came across was that while exiting out of a conversation with an NPC, the dialogue options would be gone (as they were supposed to be), but I would be stuck in the same frame, unable to move, re-establish dialogue.  My only option at that point was to submit a bug report (by typing /bug in the chat window) and then killing myself (/stuck) so that I could respawn at a "wayshrine."  A random bug/glitch/error that I encountered and that I actually took a picture of was during the January beta test.  I was playing as a Breton Templar (Cleric) and running around part of the island and came across a missing graphic:

Just in case one "Missing" didn't get the point across.

Mainly because this didn't turn out to be the Dwarven Part that I was searching for, I thought this was pretty funny.

The last bug that I encountered with my Breton Templar, which was a game killing bug, was that I accidentally did a quest in a closed off area out of order and as a result, I was unable to leave the area or proceed with the quest line.

How many Orsimer does it take to kill an invisible prisoner?

What is going on here, is that you are in a memory.  The Orc with the arrow above his head should be standing next to a prisoner.  Upon talking to the Orc he states the prisoners crimes and you decide if they should live or die.  Being an Orc (in the memory I was an Orc), I felt that the prisoners should die, so I found four prisoners and had them all killed.  Only after the fact did I talk to the person who gave me the quest for the area.  The arrows above the specific Orcs appeared but the prisoners remained dead.  I was unable to reload the quest and even after I killed myself (/stuck) I was permanently stuck.  I submitted my /bug report but I was unable to use this character for the remainder of the beta test.

Over the course of the three beta tests, I did see some changes.  First there was a sound effect of coins dropping after purchasing or selling an item that was not present in the November test.  The second was the inclusion of two enemies that greatly expanded the first tutorial area, but I won't say anymore to prevent spoilers, of which I am trying to be somewhat vigilant.

The music!  I just realized I haven't said anything about the music.  From what I can tell, based on the music in the menus and in game music, Jeremy Soule is still the composer for the Elder Scrolls Online, although that is not confirmed.  The credits in the game consists of "Credits Text 1" through "Credits Text 3."  After listening to the music, I do believe that Jeremy Soule is still the composer.  At some point between the January and February beta tests, a lot of the menu music changed and while it does sound less dark than the previous versions, there is a lot more use of a choir, which in my book is very rarely a bad thing.  

And while we are on the topic of sound, Bethesda and Zenimax have gathered quite a cast to handle some of the voice acting.  The "only" voices that I came across, due to my inability to reach Level 10, was that of Michael Gambon and John Cleese.  Again, I will not say in what capacity they offered their vocal talents, but I will say that they were used very well.  I am told that this cast also includes Bill Nighy, Kate Beckinsale, Alfred Molina, Malcolm McDowell and Lynda Carter.  Not that just because the vocal cast is notable will make the writing any good, but the vocal notables do do a great job with the material that they have been given.

That being said, there was not as much reading material as one might have found in any of the previous Elder Scrolls games.  Books were few and far between and when you were able to read a book, it most likely came from a bookshelf full of books rather than a single volume.  This is something that saddened me greatly during all of the beta tests.    Because The Elder Scrolls Online takes place in an era that has, as of yet, been unplayable (ie the Second Era), I never really felt that I was playing roughly 700 years before the events in The Elder Scrolls: The Arena begin or nearly 900 years before the events in Skyrim.  Reading books is what helped me solidify my immersion in the Elder Scrolls games so I was a little sad to find out that, at least, as of the February test, literature would be somewhat scarce.  Or, maybe I am just not looking hard enough, which is always a possibility.

There is a lot that I have not touched on that is present in The Elder Scrolls Online.  There is a crafting system where you can create items related to your specific ethnicity and learn those of other groups as well.  I did not do anything in the way of crafting as I tried to spend the majority of my time doing story and side quests to raise levels.  There are group dungeons that you can only explore with three other people.  I am sure that voice chat is a thing, but I never looked into it as I primarily played by myself and didn't bother with anyone else.  And finally, there is the whole of the mass battles in the PvP area of Cyrodiil.  As briefly stated somewhere up there in all those words, I said that I never made it to level 10 (to note, level 17 was the goal and max for the last three beta tests) which is the minimum level required to enter Cyrodiil and the massive PvP areas.  I did not.  I also do not know about controller support for the PC as I only played with keyboard & mouse.  It would seem like controller support of PC should be a thing as there are plenty of people who simply prefer this way of playing a video game.  I guess these will all just be wait and see.

In closing (because it's late for me and I still need to sleep, as of the writing of this), I will say that I have (so far) enjoyed my time with the Elder Scrolls Online beta tests.  There have been a number of bugs/glitches that have hampered progress and some occurred frequently enough to make me turn the game off because of having to kill myself to become "unstuck."  The beginning areas, which act as tutorials were very linear, almost annoyingly so when compared to other games in the series, but I figure that they are simply that, tutorial areas, for you to become used to your character and to build their levels and abilities up a bit before putting you out in the big bad scary world of people yelling over the internet.

To date, I have had a very fun time playing, despite all the bugs/glitches that I would expect to be present in a beta test and I know that both Conklederp and myself are looking forward to the end of March when the game will launch for pre-orders and April for the rest of the PC market.


~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
People Running 'round, It's Five O'Clock


P.S.
I wanted to share some of the other pictures I took during the three beta sessions.  Sadly though, I did not take many pictures of bugs that occurred during game play as most were either based around animations that would not translate to pictures or because the glitch would not have looked interesting in picture form.  So here are some others which you may or may not be interested in.

Breton Templar, part of the Daggerfall Covenant (January)

Dunmer Kightblade (Theif) as part of the Ebonheart Pact (February)

Mudcrabs feasting on a washed up corpse of an NPC.

It's never a good thing to see and/or be near a portal that leads to Oblivion.

Currently Playing 2: Realm of the Mad God

This game is great.  It's free, simple, original, quick to pick up, and it has some depth.  The learning curve is not too harsh, the reward system is steady and it expands the game.  This game is a "hardcore" game, by Diablo standards - which means that when your character dies - he's dead.  No resurrection, no saving, just dead as a doornail.  I think that's actually pretty cool, and rare in games.  In addition, when you start a new class, you start over from level 1, so the player is regularly going through the learning curve, and the game becomes easier to progress through, easier to set goals and achieve them.

The game is basically a non-stop level and loot fix.  In addition to the loot fix, the goal system is a big part of the appeal.  There are about a dozen different classes, and each one is opened by playing an existing class.  It goes: wizard, priest, archer, thief, knight... and so on (that's as far as I've gotten).  These classes are opened up when you get to level 10 on the previous class in the order, so level 10 priest gets you archer, level 10 archer gets you thief, and so on.  And while you are playing through as one class, you will encounter equipment drops for other classes that you have yet to play as. This is encouraging:  I want to know what a sorcerer plays like, or an assassin.  I believe he gets to carry a skull, which is cool.

The game is also co operative.  I haven't had much experience with this element, but I'm getting the drift that it may be the way to go.  Possibly the next step on the learning curve.  Because this is how it works:  You don't party up in any formal sense, but player share experience for enemies killed in the same vicinity.  So it is in everyone's best interest to work together.  I think it may be the key to the higher levels (I've capped out at level 12).  

So, cooperation is a level of depth I haven't yet reached in this game, and I am eager to see how it contributes to gameplay.  Human beings are always an interesting addition to any game dynamic.  There are rules about loot acquisition, and I've witnessed some real tantrums about loot theft.  On the other hand, I've also had a level 15 guy stop my little level 1 character and just hand him a bunch of great equipment.  That was totally rad- refreshed my faith in humanity.  You are able to save up to 8 items in a vault from one game to the next, and thus share your with your other classes, or, if you want, other players.  

Realm of the Mad God.  Came out of nowhere, free to play, mouse and keyboard and you can play it in your browser.  Rating:  Highly Recommended.