Updating my old review of this game.
Where to start…
1st of all, I’m ex-progression raider for other MMOs before I started to lack time (studies+work=rip no lifing) so if you are hard core PvE player I’d suggest to move along and not bother. Game has really casual PvE – you can craft top gear to get yourself through Veteran dungeons (4 man) where you will get required gear to finish trials (12 man raids) and there (in story mode) you will get enough gear to do veteran trials. The main challenge is leveling – you need champion points after level 50. The more you have the more damage/healing you can do and more survivability you have. Also they recently introduced transmutation – you can change traits on gear which killed the point to grind gear pieces with correct traits. And they are bringing jewelry craftsmanship, which will make the game even more casual due to removal of requirement for players to farm gold rings/necks in vet trials. There are a TON of casual vet. Dungeons and only few that has a challenge. Veteran trials might seem fun but won't last long. So why I’m giving this game a positive review and have few k hours in it? Simple. My real life made me a casual player and I’m really happy that such game exists. I don’t need to spend weeks to gear up to raid, farm endless dailies and materials etc. I can just hang out here in weekends, running dungeons and trials even in my crafted gear, level up new toons, farm new titles and enjoy the story. Because I simply can’t give up on my MMO life<3
Talking about the story – game base story has 3 fractions each has unique and quite long story + ton of side quests. Game is packed with small and big DLCs which you can check out by buying them or subscribing to game (~13eur/month). Atm TESO had 1 huge expansion – Morrowind, and second one incoming in the end of May – Summerset. You need to buy them but they are worth every penny. If you enjoy TES lore I suggest you to try this game!
Can’t say much about PvP aspect but here’s basic stuff – the main PvP action is happening in Cyrodiil (huge open world pvp map) and mainly consists of classic castle sieging, zerging, small/local pvp battles of guilds. Unless you enjoy waiting in stealth (for solo wanderers and casual players who came here to do quests ) and ganking those poor loners there won’t be much fun for you if you enjoy solo PvP. All the fun in happening in group battles, so I suggest you to find a PvP guild that organizes raids there. Last year they introduced Battlegrounds – pretty much simple arenas with good ol’ fashion mechanics of capture the flag, deathmatch, chaoseball and crazy king (capture random flag that spawns all over the place). 10-50 tier has good pops but 50+ Battlegrounds mainly pop only on Fridays-Sundays.
What I still dislike, after few k hours, about this game are achievement system. It’s not account wide (thank god champion system and collections are). Each character has his own achievement progression which means I’m locked to one “main” char to get them all (I’m achievement grinder so it bothers me).
To sum up:
>If you don’t have a lot of time to gear up and farm stuff – buy this game.
>If you are casual player who enjoys a bit of challenge (DLC dungeons+vet trials) buy this game.
>If you love TES lore and story – buy this game.
>If you are hardcore player which loves a challenge and grindfest – try something else.