http://youtu.be/Ov3B26h12C4

I agree with alot what he Says just really dissappointed...

Being an Angry Joe anything, I would not watch it around anyone that doesn't like / can stand / should listen too swearing as a way of expression.

Well Look past the cursing atleast for me he hits nail on the Head .. But gonna give the Titel a warning about the cursing..though i dont find it That Bad but some are more sensitiv to it.

I have no issue with the cursing and while he makes good points, I have a hard time relating.  So far I have been lucky, besides being stuck for two days and endless loading screens, I have been spared what others had to go thru.

None of his points are new.  Everything was given as feedback during beta and I don't know when or if all of them are going to be addressed.

He's spot on. I cancelled my sub a week ago. Not even the promising RVR can salvage this title for me. Even if it went F2P tomorrow, I don't think I could continue playing. I do disagree on one point he made, I think the class and combat system are absolutely terrible. I am unconvinced that it will get better, they may fix the game breaking bugs and "finish" what they started, but that means it could be a year or more before some actual new content rolls out. And if that content is the limited one time only events model, good luck attracting new players.

Many people don't like AJ that much. I think it's more to the fact that many people can't take his slap in the face style honesty. I liked his reviews before, but lately they are few and far between and lower on quality. Lately he is only really reviewing "bad" games to "inform" those still on the fence (like this one) about the game or to stay far away from it. I will say this review is a bit low key for him, you can just hear the disappointment all through the video, he really wanted to love this game, and it wouldn't let him. He also didn't touch on many positives, he usually always tries his best to highlight any redeeming qualities in a game, yet he barely even mentions that he likes the Skill, Combat, and RVR system.

I watched half of this review last night and found he and megamanda made some valid points in the review.  I don't really like his review style though, I don't care about the cussing, but he isn't convincingly angry, he's just a poor showman imo.

I still don't like the whole solo story fad that MMO's seem to be doing. It doesn't work, you can't convincingly tell someone that they are a special snowflake in an environment with half a million or more other special snowflakes without turning the whole thing into a superhero comic book series.

I'm of the opinion that designers need to let go of that concept and leave it to the single player RPGs and let them retain their piece of the pie, either that or they need to find a way to make it work so that you become part of the world, not crowding around the center of it with a bunch of other so-called chosen ones.

I wouldn't put too much stock into this guy, he trashes almost everything he reviews. That's his whole gimmick.  That said ESO has it's issues, give the devs some time and a chance is all I suggest.  Yes it's been in beta for some time and some of the bugs from beta still linger. Anyone who's ever programmed anything knows, fix one bug, create 10 more, fix the 10 bugs and the first bug comes back.  Remember the game has only been live for a couple weeks now.

Everything that Don just said is spot on and I was thinking the exact same thing.   Remember there are 1/2 million people or more playing the game and the number of people complaining about it is relatively low. No game is for everyone so there will be some people that just don't like the way things work.    All MMO's go through exactly the same thing the first few months after launch.  

Some survive while others do not - but don't let the negativity stop you from enjoying the game if you do.   I can work around bugs and glitches - connectivity though will ruin the experience.  I have great connectivity with the game - both through the servers and in the world they have designed - if you know what I mean.

He's not really angry.  I've watched a few of his reviews of ESO and Wildstar when the NDAs lifted.  He's a cusser, but he does it with a smile. 

About his points, I'm starting to see what he means.  I have been fortunate when PVEing not to run into odious bugs that prevent you from completing quest.  It didn't take long to be slammed by them though.  I've had mini-bosses phase into the wall and stay there, where you can't touch them and they won't attack you.  I tried relogging, tried contacting support, only to find that the only way to fix my issue was to abandon the quest and start over.  I've had quest objects bugged to where you can't even interact with them.  And it's not like it's a simple quest.  There were three other parts that I just completed, and abandoning it means I have to redo all of them too.

And then there is the grouping and phasing.  If you group with someone, you should be able to share your quest, so that your group can help you even if they've done it already.  So idiotic of Zenimax to not consider this, as most people do not play MMOs so completely solo.  I'm not big into grouping all of the time, but when you need help, you can't even get it because you run the risk of other people being phased out of the stage you are on.

I haven't done AvA, but I thought it might be fun to do.  I'm a big DAOC fan, still play from time to time.  ESO offered my style of PVP, which is cool.  But I signed up to play ESO mainly because of the PVE.  I can play DAOC if I just wanted PVP.  I wanted a game with both, but the PVE is starting to irritate me.

I do completely agree with this review in that crafting and character development are awesome!  Combat is fun.  I'm a fan.  I think that other MMO developers would do well and heed the player reaction to these systems and implement these systems in future, better games.

I have a subscription, and I'll continue to play, but personally I'm waiting on EQNext, the DAOC facelift and Camelot Unchained before saying siyonara to ESO.

As Don points out, Angry Joe's entire purpose is to tear down games in his reviews.

He's actually a rather good source for going into a game with your eyes open - forewarned is forearmed. If there is anything in a game that will even slightly annoy you, you can bet he will find it, address it... and blow it completely out of proportion. Most game problems don't seem nearly as bad as he makes them out to be, and if he is neutral about something (or god forbid, actually praising some aspect of a game), you can bet it's probably amazing.

No game is perfect (especially an MMO in it's initial month). There's no need to blindly defend and justify any game you play and pretend it's the best game ever (even if you are effectively an investor with a subscription model). You either accept or play around the flaws, enjoying the game anyway, or you don't. I was subscribed to Warhammer Online for 2.5 years - it had so many flaws it was ridiculous, but I still had some of my favourite experiences there, and don't regret even one month of my sub time. Rift in comparison was one of the most flawless games I've ever experienced, but I'm sorry to say never really gripped me the way Warhammer did.

Angry Joe's criticisms of ESO I find are all valid, and we've all experienced many of them, but I still plan to play on regardless. Many of these flaws will eventually be fixed (realistically, some probably won't) and the promised unique potential of AvA and the crafting system of ESO is enough to keep me interested in pushing forward. The ability for every single player to hide and sneak means that AvA has the potential to bring something completely new to mass combat I never got in Warhammer, nor can get in GW2 (I wasn't around to compare with DAOC). Crafting is one of the things I really miss from when I played Rift, and is another aspect of ESO I look forward to indulging in over the crafting system in GW2.

I need to find time to go back and have a look at Angry Joe's Guild Wars 2 review. I recall with great amusement that he was really reaching to find any damning complaints about that game.

I feel the same way about ESO as I did when Warhammer Online launched, only I have more faith in ESO turning it around. For me I have not paid attention or noticed a lot of the issues he points out because I mostly do solo PvE ontent. It's just how I always do things. i only group when i have to because I randomly go afk, I like to take breaks while playing, I can get called into work at any time on my days off, etc...

I like AJ's reviews for the most part. But, I have also played with him in other games personally. As a reviewer he goes from game to game to game very fast and doesn't play any one for really a long time.

He only played to level 19 so I heard.

Some guys on reddit ESO subreddit pointed that out, saying Angry Joe is not much a real gamer rather than a show man in it for the money.  Even less of a MMO gamer.

He might be over with ESO and onto the next game, say WildStar, because he gotta do it for the money and/or the YouTube/Internet fame.

That said, bugs are bugs, but you have a choice of having faith in the ZOS dev team to fix them soon or leave the game behind.

To me, the core game is fun, that's the most important thing to me.  When the bugs are addressed in the next few months, the game will be truly amazing.  I still have faith in ESO dev team.

About core game, GW2 didn't feel fun to me, although it might have less bugs at release and the inventory/bank was a lot more convenient, but I didn't find the core game fun, so that was the ultimate deal breaker for me as far as a game is concerned.

I've watched many Angry Joe reviews.  Look beyond the swearing. Angry Joe is passionate about games.  He calls it how he sees it. He's not making up anything.  Angry Joe says it how it is, and he doesn't tear down a game without good reason.

Watch his review on GW2.  It's angry, but all praises.  That's his style.  Take his style with a grain of salt.

In Angry Joe's review of ESO, it's spot on honest and accurate.   Angry Joe praises the game's voiceovers, praises the combat system, praises spell animations, praises the crafting system, praises class customization, praises siege battles, praises PVP, praises.....  

At the same time, he doesn't ignore what's wrong with the game and what needs to be improved:   group PVE issues, Dupe bug, game crashing...   These are all good reasons to give a non 10/10 score.

Does his score of 5/10 persuade me to stop playing ESO?  NO, it does not.  ESO is new, and there is room for improvement.  The monthly sub is hard to swallow for some players.  There are bugs.  But the game also gets many things right.  For now, I am enjoying the game, and will continue supporting it by paying the monthly sub.

I wasn't around for the GW2 launch so the last MMO launch I was a part of was Rift.  As Dargron said, Rift was easily the most technically flawless launch of any MMO I've ever played at launch.

If you compare ESO's launch to that of Rift then I can see where you can come away disappointed.  But I think it's an unfair comparison for a couple of reasons.  1> Rift's mechanics are very similar to WoW.  The less you experiment with, the less bugs you have.  2> They had ALOT of customer support people at launch.  I don't think any MMO devoted as many resources to CS that Rift did at launch.

When you compare other MMO launches besides Rift though, I think ESO is pretty similar in that there are some rough edges showing in the beginning.  But I've yet to encounter a bug that was so aggravating that I wouldn't play anymore.  Now ask me again after a month or two and I may have a different answer lol.

That being said, there are some core elements to ESO that I wish they would address differently.  I can understand the reasons why they don't want to have a worldwide AH but I can't agree that the pros outweigh the huge cons to that decision.  

I do have some faith that ESO can adapt and change if only because they haven't proven yet to me that they can't.  

@Bentmer

RIFT launch was pretty smooth yes.  I joined the guild while playing RIFT, good memory.

Though you have to consider ESO is going with some design choices that are quite likely pretty challenging, like the seamless single server architecture, like the phasing on pretty much all quests, like somehow achieved low lag in large scale siege warfare.

And the quests are very well crafted, that is a thing that take a lot of resources to achieve.

ESO should be compare to SWTOR in my opinion.  Both are based on hugely popular IPs, both are hyped and hated hard.  But ESO outdone SWTOR in quite a few areas.

Just name one thing here, the single server architecture will give it much longer P2P life than SWTOR, SWTOR didn't have server transfer until more than 1 year after launch and that was what did it in.  ESO doesn't need server transfer.

Or the inability of SWTOR's game engine to handle large amount of players on the screen, which ESO handles beautifully.

» Edited on: 2014-04-22 21:53:32

I like the reviews to the extent that they provide feedback - something concrete that developers can use to improve their product.

"Tells it like it is" is too often substituted for "tells it from one point of view, substitutes profanity for content,  and if you disagree then you suck." But maybe that's because I'm getting old and cranky, and I'm less inclined nowadays to let the noisier elements of the MMO bandwagon to tell me how to think.

I'm having fun in post-launch ESO, but I level slowly, craft more than I kill, and anything shiny makes me happy, so I'm not being held back by any bugs or progress issues (apart from my own distractedness). I had fun at launch in GW2, too. I don't really compare them as they're very different games.

I'm (eventually) in it for the PvP. As long as it stays good and competitive. The game has me. I just PvE for a long time so I can gear/skill/craft for PvP. It will get better.

Anyone remember how dull, trudging and boring Vanilla WoW was in the beginning?

If people need/want to take a break, and try the game later, so be it. But, I wouldn't write this game off just yet until you get to "end-game" and experience all the 31 flavors.

I am not making excuses at all for the issues the game has. It has many. But, I also personally don't mind getting in on the ground floor of a game and helping to contribute to it's growth and change over time. Heck, I have paid for Alphas of games int he past just because I knew some of the people working on them and i trust them. Such is the case with ESO. And if I am wrong? They stop getting my money.

I watched the first half, I don't mind the whole "angry persona" but he does come off like a tool.

He has some valid points, the game does have some issues and bug but what bothered me were the inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and cherry picking in order to give him more things to be "angry" about.

Examples:

• He says multiple times you had to pay $20 to be able to play any race, any faction.  This is not true, it was a free benefit of preordering.
• He complains about the free horse you "need" to get around the "huge" zones and it's impossible to save up enough money (thus forcing you to get the $20 upgrade for a horse).  When talking about how expensive the horses are he completely disregards the 17k horse because it's "trash" and focuses on how you have to save up for the 42k horse.  Well guess what buddy, the $20 Imperial horse is the same as the "trash" 17k horse!  If the *15%* move speed bonus is so bad on the 17k horse how is it so good on the $20 horse?
• The majority of quests are group friendly, either sharing completion or allowing all members of the group to use the objectives.  He showcased the one quest I ran into in Auridon that was group unfriendly and represented it as the standard.

He had a few decent points, but think many of the issues will get fixed over time. So far most of my pve experiences have been single player so I never experienced any of the grouping problems. The biggest annoyance I share with Joe is the vast size of Cyrodil. It feels like they made Cyrodil huge just so they could make it feel epic. What is the point of vast open spaces if they are basically empty? Don't know about the rest of you, but galloping for 10 minutes between objectives gets old fast. Also, the size of Cyrodil makes large open field battles highly unlikely. Every fight I have been in so far has been at or around an objective. Every one. In an area this huge, 100 man armies can completely miss each other by simply traveling on different sides of a small hill.  

ESO has made me sound like angry Joe more than once (fortunately I am a push-to-talk guy).  To early to give up on the game. If Zenimax does not start listening and responding to the community ESO will wither away. A good start would be sorting out the official forum, what a insert angry joe word mess that is.

A special thank you to our pvp leaders for not screaming maniacally in voice chat.

My biggest gripe with the game right now is the constant crashing in AvA that i've experienced. It's made it pretty much impossible to enjoy AvA with the family.

If they can fix that issue, I will be happy. I can honestly deal with the bugged quests and such.

I'm still waiting for these oceanic servers to appear Fog, is there any news on that?  I cannot play competitive pvp with 300ms latency, it's just not cool.

Am i the only one who feels this game is amazing period?  No complaints, minor bugs that are tolerable and expected, amazing content, amazing voices, amazing music, amazing graphics, amazing story, amazing pvp, amazing gameplay, amazing combat, amazing skills, amazing zones, amazing dungeons, amazing exploration... this game is amazing... period

p.s. i think zenimax is doing a great job being transparent and listening to complaints and fixing them quickly, i just found 33k extra gold in my bag yesterday when ive never seen more than 3k since i started playing to compensate for the bank reset, i assure you thats about 15 times more than the value of what i lost

To each their own.

I don't game as much as I used to but I found ESO far better in sense of exploration, questing, maturity, immersion, and lore than GW2. From what I heard, this guy loved GW2 far better in which I wholeheartedly disagree.

I've heard much negativity every since I thought about ESO and it really dampered my decision on whether to purchase the game. Luckily I went through with this game because I find it fantastic.

Not to mention how smooth the game runs on max settings. The game is stunning and runs far better than GW2 in intensive situations.

These reviews during the first month of release always have a large amount of negative feedback with less positive. This isn't a packaged console game like the assassin creed's series, this is a full scale MMO that takes many of thousands of man hours to create so there will be bugs.

Give this game a good year and then write a full review. In my opinion, an MMO needs that time to go through the stages of being "fresh". If the game has been out a year with minimal fixes, lack of content, and lack of added features, then there is reason to discredit.

I put well over a thousand hours and GW2 in hopes of all those things, and here we are a year in a half in before the "feature patch" finally arrived, with most of the content not even being requested by a majority of players.

TL;DR: Contrary to what this guy says, he's on youtube to maximize is popularity and to get many views. Regardless of how an opinion is presented, it's still an opinion.

For the record:

I did not buy the imperial edition and I saved up for the basic horse. The horse has been far from trash and has come in use many times. I say to the stake with this review!

@Osu

I think the size of Cyrodil works well - you have transitus networks, horses, and rapid maneuvers to get around.  Once everyone (most people) get their 42k mount and have it fed up to 75% speed everything will seem much closer together anyway.

Yes, most fights will be somewhere around an objective or between two objectives but that makes sense right?  Most fights will not be perfectly equal and you always want to engage your enemy in favourable terrain right so it makes sense that you'll fall back to a location that is defensible or good to launch a counter attack from but that doesn't always mean a keep.

Large Zergs for the most part won't miss each other by passing the wrong side of a small hill - especially as we all get more experienced utilising scouts and commanders learn the terrain and predict where the other forces will be going.

On the other hand that space grants smaller groups or solo players the ability to avoid zergs and catch other small groups or solo players traveling.

One last benefit for the large distances in AvA is that it gives the transitus network strategic worth.  If everything was close then cutting your opponent's supply lines wouldn't matter, with things being a fair distance from each other some smart resource grabbing or putting a keep on fire can keep people from rezzing at or porting to keeps close to the action.

I still don't like the whole solo story fad that MMO's seem to be doing. It doesn't work, you can't convincingly tell someone that they are a special snowflake in an environment with half a million or more other special snowflakes without turning the whole thing into a superhero comic book series.

There really isn't a reason for the PvE to be an online game.  The stories make an individual the solo protagonist, and maskd them from all the other solo individuals are who are also solo protagonists on their own monitors. 

This obviously is not a complaint uniquely about ESO.  All almost all online games are designed this way now.

Regarding Cyrodil's size, I like it for now and it will give it time to fill out.  It 'm concerned that it is not overwhelmingly popular the way GW2 WvW was at release, though.

@scarydrew

I don't think you are alone and for the most parts this is a great game.  But not everyone has the same experience in the game, some are more effected by bugs than others.

When I was stopped in my progression by a bug for two days, I just jumped on an alt and had my fun there.  This is not an option for everyone, some don't want alts, others can't get in the game at all.

My biggest issue in this game was/is endless loading screens that after a while makes me just log for the night out of frustrations after the 15th time I had to alt+F4 

So I don't think we should dismiss any singles players criticism of the game, they are valid in their eyes.  When I buy a product, I have the right to expect certain functionality that enables me to use this product.  To make a stupid comparison.  If I buy a car and the engine doesn't work, then I have the right to complain about this issue without getting told that the product is only 2 weeks old, so hang in there.

All said, I enjoy the game and while I have never played any ES game, I get sucked in and still have more pro's than con's

@Scarydrew No you are not.  I love this game.  I really feel like at times that I am in the minority with this though.

Don't get me wrong, i absolutely love the game. I just wish it wouldn't crash in AVA so much :P

I found it funny how he praises GW2's storyline and how in contrast I found it almost embarrassingly bad.  I felt like I was reading some "choose your own adventure" story for like an 11 year old. And don't get me started on the sock puppet interludes between your char and the other major characters.

Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the game play of GW2 but the storyline was just bad. LOL.

Angry Joe is Angry Joe.  He's about half right, and about half wrong.  Seriously, his take on the game as being the same as single player, but MMO, is an impossibility from the start.  Then again, that is what Angry Joe does.  He takes even the most minor of flaws and rants about what they should (impossibly) be.

That is not to say there are not issues.  Many of them are simply game and/or MMO issues.  Some of them are things that will be fixed.  Find a game, much less an MMO, that released without any bugs, exploits, or issues... a game that perfectly accomplishes what it set out to do and can simply not be improved.  The simple fact is that said game does not exist.  It is the unreasonable expectations of people, not the games themselves, that creates the sense of letdown in many cases.  In the case of TESO, I think that with reasonable expectations, and the knowledge that more improvements are coming, that the game does quite well.  Especially being AvA centric in terms of what the dev was focused on, which is really a very well done system with some of the better player and ability balancing around (ok, a few abilities may need tweaks, but at least it isn't WoW flavor of the month PvP.)

I found his comments about the duping bug effecting the economy curious. I haven't seen that much in a difference in cost since a few days after launch.  For example, motifs. The cost of motifs have been pretty stable - anywhere between 900-1200. Does anyone else have any thoughts? I am looking at this strictly from the player driven economy - not prices set by Zenimax.

I think Angry Joe's videos can be entertaining but I rarely put any stock into them,  especially for MMO's, he just doesn't put enough time into a game to give an accurate review in my opinion and MMO's take the most time to accurately review.

That being said I am still enjoying ESO very much,   time will only tell how well it holds my interest,  If a game can hold my interest for over 2 months I feel it's a pretty good game, that's about as long as I have been able to stick with just 1 game for quite some time.  I am enjoying the story and the questing but I fear when that runs out I may lose interest,  there is always PvP however.

Bank buggee

Vet bugged

Quest bugged

Epic gameplay, epic content, pvp rocks.

Not had this much fun in many many years

Will be playing this game till there is no more to do in it with a smile on my face.

Its no different than the movies. I would of missed a lot of really good movies if I trusted them.

Game is fantastic despite all the hiccups.

well i wont be canceling my sub directly gonna give it 1-2 months though by then i want fixes or im out too well i love the game but i love to do questing with friends alot too and well... with the stupid instancing as it is now u cant ..also those incredivel maintnances...and bots ...unacaptabel.

I think the maintenance will settle into a normal schedule, and that they'll do something to address the bot problem. I don't anticipate them addressing the phasing issue, at least not that soon. I think for the foreseeable future it is likely you'll have to be in the same "place" in the world to quest with friends.

I just wanted to raise my hand as one of the people that is loving the game and not terribly upset about the bugs I've experienced.

As mentioned by others, the Rift launch was the exception rather than the rule in its "smoothness" and I'm more worried about designers having end game content lined up. Gamers are more savvy and level faster these days and it's not the bugs but the boredom that proves to be a death sentence in my experience.

I was also extremely impressed that they changed the initial progression of the starting quests, late in the beta game, based strictly on feedback from players. That kind of responsiveness is also promising.

I will say that I do not understand why it is so hard for MMOs not to have terrible chat interfaces right out of the gate... Hopefully excellent chat Add-Ons are on the way. ;)

 @ElizabethInAustin

Dupe bug was fixed and people that exploited it banned. Least that's what I read in the state of the game thread in News & Features

dont get me wrong, i completely respect and understand peoples differing experiences and complaints, i was just bringing the positive side to the discussion :) ive had long load screens, pvp lag, a bank reset, etc. as well, but i feel this game has done an amazing job at intertwining the great things about a single player and an mmo to the point that i overlook any issues in the early stages, then again this is the first time ive played a game very casually and those who play more hardcore or seriously will likely be more irked by phasing issues, bugs, loading times, etc. 

@Shabitz Yes that I know but did it "really" effect the economy like Joe is claiming? If you know what I mean. 

I haven't seen much impact on the economy, though maybe it is affecting it in areas where I don't participate.

I get the impression Joe read comments of doom about the economy from the official forums and just parroted what he read there without any regard as to whether it was true or not.

canceld my sub  i think ill prefer to w8 1-2 months untill everything is fixed then ill prolly join u guys again.

Still gonna hang around rc ofc.

I've never noticed the maintenances because I work during the day.  The quest bugs here and there have been a little annoying but I can usually always do the quest the next day after things have sort-of "reset". I've never had an issue with grouping either--sometimes we are in different "layers" from each other but then everyone just uses the "travel to group leader" option and we're all together.  And yes, the bots in the dungeons are annoying but I am always able to do enough damage to the boss to get completion credit for the dungeon, so no real skin off my teeth (besides the only reason they annoy us is that we can't farm the boss ourselves, right? :p).  I'm enjoying it very much and this game is so refreshing in the way that it combines immersive gameplay and mmo features together so that you get a satisfying amount of everything.

My only gripe with this game is that everyday I get up and go to work when I could be playing :)

I can not stand watching Angry Joe.  I'm evidently not his target audience and he seems to be either drunk or on something when he does his reviews and I can not respect the man.   Enough said about this fellow.

I am still very much enjoying ESO despite it not being perfect.  Yes, I was affected by the bank slot bug for a full week and although playing with the bug wasn't fun, ZOS did take care of me after they fixed the bug.  I have not been affected by any bugs that stop my characters from progressing, but I am taking my time and enjoying the quest stories and I haven't been power leveling.

I love the general game performance in Cyrodiil and I don't crash all that often.  I suffered from crashes much more often in the early days of GW2 WvW than I do in ESO AvA.

I am currently subscribed for the half year plan and I do not regret having made this subscription choice :)

Sometimes reality shows - read as Angry Joe's reviews - say what they need to say to get the hype they need to keep their ratings up.  Let's be realistic - Angry Joe wouldn't keep going if it was all kittens, rainbows, sunsets, and unicorns he spouted out of his mouth about games.  So he mostly finds the faults and digs his nails in.  He isn't just a "critic" - he is an ANGRY critic - that is his gig - enjoy him - or not - for what he is.  If anyone actually takes him as serious then that is their issue even though he does make some valid points on occasions. 

I have not experienced the difficulties that some of our family have - but in all fairness it isn't the majority that experience these issues.  I did have a bugged character and after about a week - it was resolved with a patch.  Why the bug was there - why it hit me - I have no clue.  She was still playable but I also leveled a couple of other characters during that week.  Now that her graphic bug is fixed (after the last small patch) I am happy but I never really was unhappy.  It is all a matter of perspective though - and I wish the best for everyone.

For me - the game is absolutely wonderful and I find myself just wondering the world looking at things - hunting treasure chests, lore books, and NPC's that wish to share a story.  I haven't felt this way about a game world since SWG - as long as ESO doesn't implement a Combat overhaul and do away with a class or totally change how the class is played (I was a Master Creature Handler/Master Smuggler) then I shall be content for quite a while.

I am not angry :)

Safe Journ.

Yes "some" of what is said in the video is also what I have been thinking about ESO but He is not the source I would trust and rely on for information. We have all watched a ton of YouTube videos about ESO by now and one source that I have come to appreciate has just released a post about his feelings on the current state of the game. I thought you all might want to see it here as it's a bit more focused. IMHO

http://youtu.be/nxggrfiopFg

YOU be the judge!

just my 2cp worth...

Tuz

  I wish the game like so many games churning out , didn`t make it off personal story , I hated that about SWTOR and GW2 same as this game , it makes it feel like a single player game .

I`d much rather just have a game world to play in with quest to do , but not have  a main part of the game be desgined about and req me to do a personal story .

 I`d rather be just 1 person in the game world like the old MMO`s  sure you can have quests to do places to explore etc and not have to waste half the game resources creating a personal story so everyone feels special /yawn   and req you to finish the story or you miss out on ablities etc . 

 It`s part of the reason i haven`t bought the game yet , personal story doesn`t intrest me in a MMO , being a member of the game world and just out doing my thing  intrest me more . then being forced to finish a story driven game exp or gimp my toon .

 Their chat system has to be the worest i`ve ever seen in any MMO , even EQ back in 1999 had a better chat system , their whole system makes it diffcult to invite people to a group,  and i hate that you can not even tell who is in your guild when they are standing right beside you , 

A friend of mine happens to PVP with Joe and apparently Joe is around the mid teens level wise. Plus he didn't bother to go past Auridon.  Anyone who spends about 10 hours in a game max, is not a good source for reviews - IMHO.

Joe is in it for the money and the hits.  More power to him in that realm, but I take his opinions with a grain of salt.

Personally, I take ALL reviews with a grain of salt.  I have my own tastes and wants and almost no one matches them exactly (and likely those who do are not writing reviews :P) 

First hand experience is far better imo :)

I cannot help but wonder if Angry Joe has an  ulterior motive after the whole "Angry Joe" name fiasco.  For those of you that don't follow ESO Reddit or know about the little drama here's a breakdown:

1. Another person (not this guy in the youtube videos) allegedly has gone by the "Angry Joe" moniker in other games for years. That guy logged in early in the first minutes of the early access period and was able to name his toon "Angry Joe."

2. The youtube Angry Joe goes to create a character later that day in ESO and gets upset that someone has taken the name "Angry Joe."

3. Zenimax changed the name of the first guy from "Angry Joe" to "34angryjoe69" or something like that, and gives the name to the self-proclaimed youtube star. Zenimax does not tell the first "Angry Joe" why they changed his name.

4. The first "Angry Joe" takes his case to reddit and many in the reddit community support him by protesting to Zenimax. There is some debate if the youtube Angry Joe qualifies as a public figure or pop culture person (Zenimax's TOS prohibits naming toons after such).

5. Eventually the first "Angry Joe" is given the name back by Zenimax. Youtube "Angry Joe" loses the in-game name. 

Maybe he is able to exercise personal and emotional restraint, although his videos show now such evidence of such capability, or maybe, this event pushed youtube Angry Joe to get finally over-frustrated with Zenimax and air out some of his anger.  Or , as often happens with emotions, his frustration over the name issue bled over into other game frustrations and hightened his complaints about the other issues.

Any one remember the game where at release. If you got a loot bug you would kneel. See your loot and have to wait thirty mins to pick it up. Or exit the game and lose it. :)

I have not run into any bugs or crashed at all the past couple of days. Here's to hoping those issues are gone for good, and I can start to AvA again!

Personally I'm rather enjoying myself in the game. Yeah, it still needs some spit and polish, but what game doesn't when it's so young? Sure, there's some glaringly poor design decisions made, but they're being remedied via a typical triage process.

I actually can't clearly remember the last time a game-breaking bug slowed me down, stopped me, stymied me, or frustrated my progression through the game.

There's still some fights that are disproportionately difficult to solo, that you are forced to solo, but there hasn't been one yet that I haven't figured out a roundabout way to beat through creative ability swapping and atypical approaches. Personally I kinda like that the boss fights in the main story aren't just facemash buttonfests vs. the boss but require some tactics.

I was actually kind of let down at how easy the Molag Bal fight was...I beat it first try after going in expecting to get my arse handed to me for an hour or more. But I think because I approached it so cautiously and on high alert I pulled it off. With nary a scary moment though.

Overall I'm very satisfied, there have been issues that have slowed me down cough-jump-to-the-left-suicide-cough but I can overlook all of that for the excellent experience overall.

I'm a bit miffed at how many people are posting on the official forums that expected to be VR10 by now and think it should be a handout instead of an accomplishment lol. I actually think the content was TOO short, I'm VR1 and expected that I'd still be leveling to 50 a month in. I hope it takes me another month or two to go through the Covenant and Dominion zones to reach VR10!

Overall a very satisfied and happy subscriber here. Of course, exactly how Craglorn plays out when released will play a huge role in my continued happiness. For me, a game must have decent non-pvp endgame to be a perennial hit for me. Also that endgame has to cater to me not playing an exhorbitant number of hours or being part of anything crazy like scheduled pre-formed raid teams. I rather prefer either guild random grouping or sign-up-on-the-calendar kind of events for endgame. Where I'm not going to feel like I'm letting the team down if I need to take a Friday off to go have a social life lol.

Thumbs up!

 Joe is in it for the money and the hits.  More power to him in that realm, but I take his opinions with a grain of salt.

This should apply to just about every major game reviewer whether it be on youtube, IGN or PC Gamer magazine.  MMO's are hard to truly review objectively because they take a lot of hours to truly experience as a whole.

That being said, even though I do enjoy it and try to get a daily dosage whenever possible, I'm still not sold on the product.  

PVE

The PvE is an interesting mix of solo RPG and MMO fetch and kill quests which is dolled up with some very expensive voice acting.  It still feels incredibly lonely leveling through the PvE, I feel that by going so far to create a truly immersive experience Zenimax has drifted away from what makes MMO's so darned special.

Dungeons are fun, but I am yet to experience a dungeon that has been as good as Rift or old school WoW.

Craglorn sounds interesting, but until these intermittent lag spikes and networking issues are addressed there is no way I could see myself in competitive/progression raiding.

PvP

As an Oceanic player on an NA server playing in a low populated campaign I have to say that the PvP/AvA really hasn't grabbed me at all.  There is nobody out there when I venture out there after dinner, not quite literally, but very close.  I watched an 8man group of VR10 Dominion players totally dominate Cyrodiil and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it, even at VR 1.  The disparity between ranks and gear is just too wide to bother small skirmishes, the size of the map is too large for off-peak shenanigans on an empty campaign, and the time to level VR10 is too long for me to bother even considering going to Cyrodiil before my 30 days expires.  AvA looks amazing, and seeing large scale warfare during the NA peak is exciting, but I don't live in NA and the majority of Oceanic players stacked themselves on the Dominion side in Auriels' Bow Campaign.  I feel that AvA is far too dependant on latency and time zones for me to have any enjoyment out of it.  It does not compare to GW2's Oceanic/SEA WvW at all.

I came to this game because I was told that the megaserver networking technology was going to have regional OCEANIC servers.  I wanted to test this game early because I knew that active blocking and active dodging with Oceanic latency was going to be an issue.  IT IS an issue, I predicted it, I knew it would be the case and it has turned out to be the case.  I am still wondering where these regional servers are located, or if they even exist.  If Blizzard can provide Oceanic servers physically in Australia for Diablo III, a non-subscription game, then I fail to see why Zenimax cannot do the same, especially when they charged us so much for the game (Australians paid $83.37 for the Standard DIGITAL game and $111.23USD for the DIGITAL collectors edition).  Quite frankly, Zenimax can get stuffed.

 *This is an curmudgeons review of his experience from levels 1-50*

on the other hand theres nothing better to play atm anyway so ill ujust give it 2-3 months and see then maybe gonna resuzb again ^^ still got my free time to play around with in eso anyway

ESO is the first MMO that I have played in beta and not enjoyed enough to purchase at launch. I was obsessed with Age of Conan, Warhammer, GW1 and 2, WoW, Aion and SWTOR and TSW after playing each ones beta enough to  run and pre order every one of them. ESO after playing in beta I had no desire what so ever to buy it. I guess its just not for me. I don't like the animations or the way skills are unlocked and I don't like the feel of combat at all. I even pre-ordered FFXIV 1.0 so that says a lot about what I think about ESO.

I had one issue and that was the updater issue and that was fixed easy enough. Majority of people don't have that many issues and what they do have to deal with is more irritating then game breaking. The problem comes in just like politics and religion the minority opinion tends to be the loudest. So b/c it is so loud it tends to deafen people to what is actually going on. On the same point a lot of people who don't like something tend to find every excuse to tear it down to validate their point of view etc etc...

Play the game, form your own opinion and let other people do the same. Don't force your agenda on other people.

This is my rant lol. Maybe not the best post for it but it is what came to mind while I was reading the comments about "game breaking blah blah" and "meh combat" etc.. This is why I don't write reviews let alone take anyone else's reviews seriously. There are a lot of factors involved other then the game itself that deal with the person playing it. Like having a bad day, lack of sleep, so on and so forth... ( On the flip side being a fan boy/girl or overly enthusiastic is just as bad.)

"Personal choice" means you don't have to play something you do not like.  Pretty simple. 

I do not play ESO because I do not like it, and it is not Oceanic friendly. So I play something else instead, that suits my life, timezone and gaming interests. 

But at the same time, it is important to respect the fact that GSCH eldership chose it as our subscription game chapter.  So it does not matter what Angry Joe or the dude down the road says about the game - you either jump into it and enjoy it, faults and all, or vote with your wallet and unsub, and move on. It will either meet your expectations, or it won't. Because this is a community, rather than a one game entity, you can wait til the next chapter and enter the fray again at a later date.

I like the fact that lots of GSCH love the game - that is great that they can enjoy themselves and have fun!  If you are enjoying yourselves, who cares what youtube or reddit thinks, they are not paying your sub...

I semi agree with the fact that instanced questing (aka have to have X done before you're in the same 'time' so to speak) but like today - my husband is level 13 and was doing level 18 quests, he wasn't able to kill the boss guy inside a cave (to which I was like uhm yea go back to your own level stuff silly)  BUT anyway, I jumped on my main, who is 33 and had already done the area (stopped the plague or w/e,) and while we couldn't see each other outside in the town, I WAS able to go into the cave with him and assist him to kill the boss guy.

And earlier on, when he was doing the Balrath(sp) quest in Stonefalls, the one where you enter a portal and have to kill the bone giant who heals in the lava, I was able to jump on my level 10 character who hadn't started that quest line yet, travel to player, and get into the portal to help him in there too.

Anyway, the instancing is very odd indeed, but perhaps it's worth keeping in mind that sometimes you CAN go into an instanced 'doorway' to help your friends, regardless of if you have or have not done their particular quest line. :)

I'm a little disappointed and disheartened that we still have threads like this running. I'm sorry some people didn't enjoy the game to this point, but as consumers they have the power to vote their distaste with their wallets. We are no longer even discussing the review but falling back into the same old pro and con ESO arguments that have been going on since -before- beta. 

I have up and down days with ESO. What I like and don't like has already been flogged like the proverbial dead horse. I will briefly address one point. I'm an "Oceanic" (I dislike that classification) player, and I don't have any issue with my location for gameplay. 

The he family has other games they are active on and I hope those who dislike this one so much can find a happy place on them. For me, for the cost of a hot lunch once a month, I'll happily be around gaming on ESO with the rest of you and ignoring bad gimmick reviews. 

Angry Joe's presentation doesn't make his points any less valid.

I've already canceled my subscription because it is too far away from The Elder Scrolls that I have cherished over the years.  It's not really an Elder Scrolls, unfortunately.  It's got the dressing and the makeup of Elder Scrolls, but beneath that, it is missing so many of the great elements that are Elder Scrolls.  On top of that, so many bugs, glitches, phasing issues, etc.  And to help you deal with that, extremely poor customer service.

They were smart to charge so much for the game upfront - get their monies while they can.

I have watched reviews saying that the game isn't Elder Scrolls enough and is too much like an MMO, and I have also watched reviews saying the complete opposite, and that it is too much like a Single Player Elder Scrolls game and not enough like an MMO.  I feel that it is too much like both and not enough like either.

I'm not sure how anyone would confuse it with being too much like TES.  I guess maybe in the sense that you don't really group up so most of the play is solo, but beyond that, it's difficult to imagine what elements of the game fit TES other than the world it's based in.

It's nice to see that they are going to implement things to make it more like TES.  But they also don't really include a timeline for any of that.  It's a wish-list of what they would LIKE to do, because of all the complaints and reviews they have gotten.  It seems they got it wrong by not paying attention to that element to begin with.

It also feels like a lot of the updates are merely lip-service because they have become such an issue with the player base.  I didn't hop in to the beta until January, but there were still some of the same bugs that people had been submitting since before that time, at launch!

I just get really tired and frustrated with the whole 'whatever we do is more than enough' mentality that seems to exist within the game development community.  Take the guild store, just as an example.  No seriously, TAKE the guild store!  Just take it away.  In it's launch state, it is horrendous.  How does something that needs to be extremely robust to accomplish it's purpose, not implemented with the features it needs?!  No way to search by name or property.  It boggles my mind.

Anyhow.. </rant>

I think this thread has run it's course... the good, the bad, the indifferent.