If your friend has never played Darkfall or Mortal Online the combat will feel very new and fresh to him. If he has, then, no, not really. But if we're not just counting the AAA MMOs, then really everything has "been done."

You are better off looking for a solid gameplay experience than just a game that does a bunch of "new" stuff. Those are rarely good at their core. Originality is overrated and a pointless endeavor for its own sake.

PS: I do think this is the first time AHs have been restricted to guilds. Could be wrong though. Also not sayng this is a good thing.

ESO is not about innovation but about mixing elements from an established franchise and putting it into a new world. all the "new" stuff in the game has been done in TES but is new to a big name mmo game.

Defiance had one to, and i found it really disturbing to be in a group charging in to kill some baddies and my teammate gets phased into another "campaign" and is now invisible to me.

Saying a game mechanic is SIMILAR to something in another game, or has one shared feature and a bunch of features that are NOT shared with the other game... does not imply that mechanic is not new or innovative.

Crafting in ESO, for instance, is not a carbon copy of ANYTHING. Yes, some aspects of it are reminiscent of things other games have done. But not all aspects, and the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Same with the skill system, combat, exploration, and everything else.

Innovation (and the quality of the whole player experience) is in the mix.

Yep TESO has something Original and its not something to be very proud of, pay extra money to play a certain race after you paid for the game+subscribtion fees wich is simply OUTRAGIOUS! By making this decision Bathesda confirmes this game will be a dasister like all other play2play MMORPG's that been released the last couple of years and just want to make as much money in the shortest time possible before the hype wears off and people actually realize this game isnt worth the monthly sub fees. After that they will quickly turn to a free2play model so they can squeeze you out some extra money in the form of microtransactions just like some many MMORPG's did once they changed from p2p to f2p. The worst part is that a LOT of people fall for this because Bethesda gives some ingame items that will be obsolete quite quickly in the game or some useless merchandise that will collecting dust on some shelf/closet....

get off the extra race train. so what if you can play it with the ce, want it? buy the ce. all this complaining is getting old. it would be like complaining about not getting to use a new race introduced in the xpac because you dont want to pay extra money. its only 20 bucks and offers a lot. this CE is a much better value than any i have seen before.

Nice first post.

I don't think the selling of a race at this time in the game was a great idea, but nowhere near the epic fail you make it out to be. It actually doesn't bother me that much at all and according to small sample polls I have seen on the boards here most other people don't care either.

It's a new heroic fantaisy game with mêle and range fighter , lot of pvp, u fight with shield and axe and bow , an amazing world to explore with an immersive background.
What else for your friend?

This is new in an Elder Scrolls game: You're not the sole protagonist anymore. THANK GOD. I grew to hate the hero worshipping you got in later titles of Elder Scrolls. It started well in Daggerfall and Morrowind where you are incognito and the NPCs are not gawping at you every second.. To Oblivion where from the get go you are the main protagonist to Skyrim where everyone gathers around you saying "oh my god the drgaonborn!..he's the dragonborn...OH MY GAWD!". Oh please. Not everyone wants to be the protagonist or at least do it a bit subtle. TESO will make you just another hero amongst heroes. i.e. an ordinary person. Just how I like to play characters in games.

And this is exactly what Bethesda wants, the ignorance of consumers and blindly buy a CE edition to play a Imperial. Just think about it for a minute and let it sink in. Ive been a MMORPG player since EQ was released back in 1999 and seen a lot of different ways over the years in different MMO's for the gamedeveloper to make some extra buck. I can understand the business model game companies use to get some extra buck by selling an exotic mount or mini pet or extra bagspace but forcing people to pay extra money for a RACE within a game is just simply STUPID. Most MMORPG's players have a soft spot for a certain race within a game and focus their characters on that specific race. Ive been a fan of Bethesda games for years and normally dont visit forums to complain or flame but this charging extra money to play a certain race has decided me not to play TESO, i wasnt really fond of the monthly sub fee for TESO because the p2p system is obsolete anno 2014 in MMORPG's but this race payment made my decision very easy ...

The problem with comments like these is that it completely misses the point of the issue. If the new race in the CE was 100% confirmed that it would be the last pay-gate ever introduced in the game then no one would be complaining at all. Introducing a pay-gate like this in both a CE and in pre-orders, before the NDA is even lifted no less, does not bode well for the game at all and it is making people worry about the future of the game. It has absolutely nothing to do with being upset that they can't play a race. By the way, if the xpac is tiered with additional non-cosmetic content you should expect to see the same type of thing again. Your xpac anology isn't directly relevant.

i would think people against it should be happy that they found out about it prior to buying the game. worried about pay gates? well now you have your proof and you can spend nothing on the game. whats funny is, if there was no in game items when they announced the CE we would see these forums flooded with people crying about that.

This falls into the category of what I call "pre-complaining". The script goes like this: "I am going to make up the most hideous possible future event I can imagine, and then I am going to get angry about it NOW as if it had already happened."

This happens all over the internet and particularly on game forums. I guess people just like being angry, and when they run out of ACTUAL things to be angry about, they have to invent hypothetical things so that they never fall below their rage threshold.

Every other CE has in-game items and they are purely cosmetic. No one has ever complained about that. There are more than two options.....

As one of those "ignorant" customers who "blindly" bought the CE edition, let me answer you.

The first MMO I played was Ultima Online where I was Guildmaster of a largish guild where all my friends were playing. This was in 1995. I first bought Daggerfall after reading about it in 1996, so shot off down to PC World and bought the only box they had on their shelves, the box was a bit tattered and was squashed in one corner, but I still paid the full price (24.99 I believe it was back then). This was in 1996.

I work long hours.

My hobbies include:

-Sports motorbikes which do the fat end of 180mph (which I have maxed out before legally on German autobahns). I'm a speed freak.

-Sports events which I attend a lot of (NFL at Wembley, Formula 1, Motorbike Grand Prix) etc. I'm a sports junky.

-Gaming. I'm a gamer.

-Gym and working out. I'm a muscle-head.

-Reading books. I'm a book worm.

-Watching movies.

-Going out.

-Wimmin

To afford all these hobbies, I work hard. Because I work hard I have very little time to share between all these hobbies. The Collectors Edition gives people like me the opportunity to enjoy themselves in as little time as possible.

I don't see why people have a problem with that to be honest.

p.s. I'm watching the Superbowl at the moment. I'm multi-tasking.

You're right in a lot of cases, but I think people have a very valid reason to be "complaining" in this case. Many of us are coming from MMOs where we have seen these warning signs before. Some people are obviously blowing it way out of proportion but it is absolutely valid reason for concern.

many CE's have xp boosts now. if they removed the race people would complain about the mount. hell people did complain about the mount. mounts are pretty much a staple give away. i dont know, if they start to pay gate content then i feel the complaints will be just. right now though its 20 bucks for additional content. very standard in mmo. this one offers a race. they offered the race that was unplayable before. people complained about it not being playable so they go and make it a ce item. should be considered a win but since gamers are so damn cheap now they will cry about it. 20 bucks, thats it. the value people can get from this game will be immense. most people dont even want to be an imperial but they will still complain. they will go on and on about how they want to be one just to try and give more meaning to their complaints.

whatever, buy it or dont. if its that bad and angers people that much then just skip the game fully.

This will devolve into which builds are better for what circumstances, so I doubt it will open up any great flexibility. I think systems like this do more harm than good. Everything is optimized and more utility abilities and spells get put on the chopping block

Well I don't think many people are complaining about the xp boosts, however I've never seen a CE for a sub game that included an xp boost. The only people that were complaining about the mount was due to poor wording, they thought the mount was faster than the default mount. I can definitely see both sides of this argument though. I think a lot of people just really want this game to do well. The fact that people who do not want to be imperial are complaining just goes back to what I was saying before. It's not about the race itself, people just don't want this to turn in to another cash-stop game

Never been done before is a fairly risky idea when talking about an mmo. However, the mega server concept, emperor in pvp, three sided pvp system, are all fairly rare in mmos. Imo, it seems to take the best idea from several different games and run with it.

That being said, I obviously have not tried the combat yet, so idea how that will play out.

some people were going on about how getting a free mount was an unfair advantage. anyway i was against the race but i am much more against the faction unlock. in the end though the CE is priced really well if you ask me. they gave people 2 full months to come up with 20 extra bucks (i assume everyone knew it would be at least 60) and if someone cant come up with 20 bucks in 2 months they dont need to be paying a sub. also there was a special going on where you could buy the CE for the cost of the regular edition. i think people are just complaining cause thats what people do

Nothing brand new, as there really is nothing new you can do with a MMO nowadays, but it's taking old concepts and arranging them in an order that's never been done before. Action style combat in a DAoC influenced PvP zone, a TES MMO, really unique and creative voice actors, the TES spirit and world exploration in a MMO.

I'm very much against the faction unlock as well, glad to see someone else agree lol

It would have to be the constant complaining of people on here with a different topic they are up in arms about every day. Honestly the game is great with some tweaks and bug fixs i can forsee myself enjoying it for a long time depending on if it goes f2p which if it does i hope its a long way down the road.

The combat is hectic (healing is crazy) the crafting is a pain in the ass but in a good cheap date kind of way , the questing is good and i am a clicker most of the time, dont read the quest just the kill x amount so for me thats saying something. Wide range of armor designs and all kinds of loot. The environment is pretty and the travel system is good it seems. All in all i think shes going to be ok minus the whiners that dont like anything.

That is not what is going to happen here. My understanding is as I posted earlier that you will still see each other, but you may both see different reactions from NPCs based on your choices or completion in quests to give the illusion of a changing world.