ESO has various issues which I think gaming sites who are pre-disposed to hate on it will do so using the following criticism....

1) It's not "finished", no justice system, thieving, brotherhood. (It's an MMO, they're never finished)

2) Non-traditional End Game: General impression that end-game is PvP. Adventure zone concept is confusing. Like the Wii U debacle, where people thought it was an accesory for your Wii ---- people being confused about your product is never in your favor. Zenimax should've released video of Craglorn.

3) Major feature Anchors is like a rift in RIFT. Response: So what? It's a story element.

4) Skill bar/Menu condensed for consoles: True, but reality is not everyone wants to have 80 keybinds and 50 bars on their screen to enjoy a game. 12 abilities plus the heavy/light/block/dodge is good enough for me to master, while not making it a job.

5) Group phasing: This is a very legitimate gripe, IMO.

6) It's not like Skyrim: Can't pick up everything, shout at angry bears and make them fly off mountains. Never seen so much general, unreasonable hate at something so unworthy of it.

Problem is they just wont look it what it can be, will ignore the ridiculous amounts of polish the game has and instead will cherry pick criticisms and give it a 7ish, IMO. While rehashed Mario Bros 43, Japanese 90s RPG rehash 15 and Pokemon Fuscia all will get 9.5.

84

I'm gonna go with 7.

75-78 critics

65-70 users

"What's Metacritic" option.

EA games

Critics: 9/10

Users: 5/10

I think about burning their building down every time I drive past them to work

But then the police will arrest you. We don't need EA making more victims.

7+ is a distinct possibility.

the user score is not relevant to me. Too much hate, praise and knee jerk, too many 0's and 10's. The professional reviewers are more responsible.

Perfect example today. Sub-par (by all accounts) Platforming Nintendo game.... 7.9. Will probably be rated higher than ESO.

http://www.ign.com/videos/2014/03/13/yoshis-new-island-video-review

Whoever rated it a 10 needs to put down the pipe. This game is good but not that good. =)

it really depends on how much zeni is going to pay them.

and also they gave Rom2:totalwar 9/10 or something like that and we all know that it was basically a half-finished game so i can`t care less about their score

Metacritic is far less known in my country than The Elder Scrolls, in fact every time I mentioned Metacritic or a score from them it ended the conversation, nearly no one knows it here.

7.5 in previous current beta state. 8.8 when new patch hits with new features/fixes (already has I believe).

Users: 9

Metacritic is a bad place to go to look for review scores, use PC Gamer, IGN and the various other "good" reviewers that are out there.

I don't buy the whole they get paid for the scores. Look at the new Thief. It's a classic, universally loved game by old school PCers. Ubi spent wadloads of cash on advertising all over many of the major sites and it got a 6.9 aggregate. Bad. If it was a Metroid game it would've gotten at least a 8, even though it had it's issues.

Frankly, the issue with most major gaming sites is that a lot of the people who want to work on gaming journalism are Japanese slanted. Look at their favorite game lists of the IGN crew. Maybe 2 of the editors are PC gamers, the rest had a PS/Nintendo youth. Heck, the fact that I have yet to see a favorite game list with someone mentioning Ultima 7: The Black Gate is a sign that game review sites are not true gamers.

Yeah, Im usuaully a IGN / Gamespot reader. Metacritic is an aggregate scoring site, takes all the reviews and makes an average. Useful.

76 is my best guess.

I give it 8 because I was very pleasantly surprised and believe this game can grow to a point where it could earn a 9 if they keep up the good work..but it also could move towards 6 or 7 if bad decisions are made in the future

At launch, probably around an 8. I'd score it a bit higher myself though.

I also predict lots of negative reviews composed entirely of rants about the monthly fee.

Metacritic = trolls and young rager unite

I predict they will give 0 out of 10 because on launch day there will be hic-ups like every mmo that launched. Another point that everyone will bring is subscription fee.

With that said i love eso and give it myself a solid 9.5/10

While I chose a 7 as to what I think they will score it, I've never been a fan or believed in arbitrary scoring systems like this; so I'll give the game three ducks, a four legged ant and a green sail boat.

Seriously, I wish more reviewers would just come out and say things like "This game is worth buying. I had loads of fun with it and didn't put it down, even after more than a hundred hours invested."

In really depends on the launch. People will base their initial ratings off of technical issues, so even if people "love" the game, a rocky launch will result in a superficially lower metacritic score.

I do agree on the confusion point though. Single-player TES fans will give it a bad rating because it is an MMO. MMO fans will give it a bad rating, because it is overly concerned about things they don't care about (immersion over intrusive UI's, etc.). Some will give it a bad rating because they don't want to pay a sub-fee in 2014. Some will give it a bad rating because it isn't fully fleshed out as other games that have been out for years.

Most of the reviews I've read were based off the old build with all it's hiccups. Zenimax gets one more chance, with tomorrows beta, to show many players that they are ready for release.

Finally, so many reviewers are stuck on the $15 subscription price point. Doesn't matter HOW good the game is to them, because they don't believe subscription-based games are worth their weight. So many will simply chalk it off and give it a low score for that reason alone.