This is all my opinion. Please do not assume I believe my thoughts as the majority view.

Additionally, you will notice NONE of this is positive of The Elder Scrolls Online. It is simply how it could be better. No negative feedback; I don't like that stuff.

Ok first of all, I love Bethesda. Fallout New Vegas is my favorite game and for a good reason; that game has NO limit to the amount of open world gameplay.

I decided to explore one day on Fallout New Vegas and to clear (fully) 4 buildings it took me 2 hours. If you think I am complaining, I am not. This means that I was fully enticed in the game for 2 hours, fully focused and amused. Amazing.

Fallout 3 was not very far from my thoughts and feelings. It is a great game and before I bought the DLC for both I thought it was better. But when I bought the DLC my opinion turned in favor of Fallout New Vegas as it had a lot more to explore. My aforementioned point, is even more appropriate with the likes of Old World Blues.

So, I briefly stated why I loved Fallout New Vegas; the sheer amount of gameplay.

What do I mean by this?

I mean going into a building and finding a trunk with loot. Checking every nook and cranny for hidden items, like the Vault 34 armory. The random events... yum; completely random, like they should be whilst being very rewarding.

What about Skyrim? Hell yes! ^{Side note: The only reason why Skyrim isn't my favorite is because I prefer the gunplay and world of Fallout, to The Elder Scrolls.}

The aspects of Fallout New Vegas, if not, better. The beautiful exploration, finding chests in the wilderness. But Skyrim is a lot more relevant to The Elder Scrolls Online due to the same (or similar) context.

So, lets list what is good about my top 5 games (that are predominantly open world games).

First, my top 5 games.

EDIT: So I forgot a game. Above Skyrim and Fallout 3, my soulmate, Borderlands 2.

• Fallout New Vegas + Fallout 3
• (EDIT: BORDERLANDS 2)
• Skyrim
• Red Dead Redemption
• Rift
• League of Legends

?Ok. I know what you're thinking. How on earth are Red Dead Redemption and League of Legends relevant to The Elder Scrolls Online!?!? Well, let me tell you shortly.

But on the point of RDR and LoL I will be stating how they are similar and how they are better than The Elder Scrolls Online.

Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 3

• Random Events; the sheer abundance of them and the effectiveness of them on the gameplay.
• The combat; only VATS and well positioned limb shots are the ways to kill enemies. Maybe traps. Yeah, traps.
• The expansive indoor game world; so when you look at the Capital and Mojave wasteland, they both seem small. Lets tell you why, all of its HUGE game world is indoors.
• The explorability; not a word, I know. But you understand, right? You can simply go to a random place on the map and I can guarantee you something is happening.
• The story quests; send you flying across the world, visiting all sorts of places. Not at all linear.
• Secret items and areas! You can find chests and trunks of loot across the world including notes of loot stashes around the map.

Borderlands 2

I almost forgot this one! The loot system is very complex and is something most multiplayer games should look towards. The gameplay is simple gunplay with ultimates that come in the way of abilities. Hey, its sorta like TESO?

• Talent system; similar to Rift, if not maybe a bit worse. The enhancers to their 'Ultimates' are pretty neat.
• The looting system and different levels of chests. Quite simple, the looting system is unique with simple guns that have different mix and match parts. wink wink nudge nudge. Also, the chests are really nice as they can go from white to orange.
• The difficulty; this is the only game which I can compare the difficulty to of TESO. Not a good or bad thing, but just something I took note of.

Skyrim

Like I said, similar to Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 3! But more relevant to TESO.

• The combat; hehe, not the best. But the dragon shouts provide such diversity in combat that it is impossible to call it bad. So, the dragon shouts are pretty intense.
• The outdoor game world; different to the Fallout games, it has dragons which attack you and a plethora of random things to find.
• The hidden stuffs. Indoors you can find a lot of nice hidden chests and occasional easter eggs.
• The cities; something that Fallout, of the 3 type, lacks. I really enjoyed the expansive cities, especially Markarth, Whiterun and Riften. Very fun to explore.
• The storyline; again, send you very far across Skyrim but on some occasions only across provinces.
• The Dwemer ruins. Very specific, I know! I loved these, Blackreach and its respective Dwemer ruin were fun to explore with great loots.
• The loot; finding gems and gold everywhere but not these having a major effect.

Red Dead Redemption

Random? No. My 4th favorite game and my first pick towards anything not Bethesda made. Its loot system is one that I like.

As stated, this will be compared to TESO.

• The loot system. It has a loot system which can be sort of compared to TESO as it has the junk loot. Junk loot is one of my favorite ideas and simply I think there needs to be more of it in TESO.
• Bounties. I really like this, I have not played that far into TESO so I don't know if it exists. Making these radial would be pretty nice.
• The random events. They don't really exist in TESO, that needs to be altered. I do hope something of that sort is added.
• The hunting. It is very good, with hunting grounds which should be replicated into TESO for help on the medium armor part of crafting.

Rift

My go-to MMO. I love it. This position used to go to WoW, but WoW got updated with new content like every time I escalated an IRL level. Yeah, no.

• The exploration system; the cairns and the puzzles were really fun to find and were the best ways of engaging people to explore. If it had random chests... please don't start. Please.
• Random adventure; z@m9 this is the best feature of Rift in my opinion. It is very fun and leads on to extra quests.
• The talent system; the amazing diversity and different combinations of talents make this one of the best talent systems ever.
• The combat; hell, I can't go without it! It is quite decent with abilities that get leveled up with additional points into the talent systems, all the abilities make sense and the 4 different positions.
• The UI; the UI is very nice and is one of the best parts of Rift, it is fully customizable in-game which is a very, very good thing.

League of Legends

How can I talk about this in relation to TESO? With much difficulty. But you can't tell me Bethesda didn't see one of the ultimates in the MOBAs.

As stated, this will be compared to TESO.

• The ultimates are effective.
  • Lets give some examples.
  • Trundle's Subjugate, saps health and defenses, turns a fight around.
  • Lucian's The Culling, shoots loads of bullets in a direction which deals hefty damage to enemies.
  • Lee Sin's Dragon's Rage, kicks the enemy back dealing damage to all enemies hit by the enemy.
• So what is the difference? These ultimates mean something, they are effective and turn fights. Not a pitiful banner which gives 1st degree burns on a good day.

So what to take from this. Look at what these games have done well, attempting to implement them in some cases or moulding them into the game would, in my eyes, make TESO better.

But individual points on TESO.

I know I said before, none of these are abusive towards Bethesda. They have done so well to go from no online games to an MMO in one shot. They can't have done it perfect, I only hope to make them do it slightly better; in the way a normal person can.

• The looting system and how it works on an online scale.
  • I don't know if it is because other people have looted them, but finding empty trunks or barrels isn't great. This is not good.
  • If you look at WoW, it does the same with nodes and chests, but they are so much more common and actually become more common if there is more people in an area. This should be though about.
• The combat system.
  • Power attacks, blocks and the such which are shared with Skyrim.
    • If you are using swords and axes with no shield you shouldn't be able to block, it isn't very fair and doesn't make sense.
    • Instead you can do some parry and riposte system. That would work in my eyes.
    • Power attacks are a good idea and can be good, but not in the way currently. They should be rather an ability, such as a Powershot or Powerslash with stagger effect.s
  • Ultimates.
    • As stated before with my comparison to League of legends, these should change battles and generally save you
    • The Ultimate costs are great! Keep them! But try and make it so they can be generated in ways that isn't just plain combat.
• The UI.
  • I know you tried for immersion, it is what you should do in an Elder Scrolls game, I know Bethesda knows this. But not in an MMO.
    • In MMOs people want an extremely reliant and helpful HUD. How you can do this...
      • An in-game minimap. Would be neat, you can keep the compass as I know for me I look at the compass for directions and the map for exploration.
      • Damage indicators! Like when you hit a 7 it comes up with '7'.
      • Health, mana and ultimate bars next to a character portrait.

Thanks for reading. Any more suggestions would be appreciated, please note I do this post with the best of intentions, if I wanted to gripe I wouldn't give ways to make TESO better.

First of all, Bethesda is not making the game, Zenimax Online Studios is...

And it should (obviously) take from Skyrim.

Bethesda is the publisher, not developer. Many, many people make this mistake.

I think everything is looking good so far except one HUGE downfall, and that is limiting each race to a faction in wow style. Elder scrolls is about the individual, about choice, exploration and freedom. This forces large politics on the individual and robs choice. Sure, let their be factions. But allow each character to CHOOSE the faction it joins regardless of race. Forcing us to choose a race we don't want to play so that we can group with freinds is not freedom. It's unessasry. We don't want a new wow. We want something better than Wow, and that means no horde/alliance BS.

Really enjoyed crafting potions and armor in Skyrim, so would like to see that nicely implemented in ESO.

so it just does not make sense - you can not discuss about something that is under NDA.

If you did not played ESO then how can you imagine what should be improved?

Lots of video reviews out, so one needs not discuss anything directly whilst recommending features for the upcoming release.

I think every game can learn from the amount of loot Borderlands 2 has. The reason it was such a success was because of it's loot system, often compared to Diablo 2.

I can't speak for how loot is handled in ESO, but like I said, I think every game can look at Borderlands 2 as an example of how to do loot.

My bad. I always get confused by how Bethesda is part of Zenimax.

I am not ultimately sure what you mean.

I have played TESO, got a beta key in January and you can easily say what games should take from other games. I know what you mean with the improvements if someone has not played it, but most of this post is based on the thought that you have played the game.

I agree!

So, your an Altmer in the Aldmeri Dominion and the leadership rules on something that messes with your moral compass. Maybe the dominion demands innocents be slaughtered, do you follow them with blind obedience?

so these can not be discussed because you can not give any reasons behind - why you do not discuss it on beta forums?

Is this poll a joke? Please tell me it is...

Why in the world would ESO be like Red Dead Redemption or Borderlands?! Zenimax had no business with those games!

Did you read the main bulk?

I state what these games did well; they are in the same area in the way they are open world and do my favorite part of games, loot, very well.

I thought these were the The Elder Scrolls Online forums D: I couldn't find any other beta forums.

@camzaman, your judging a game that's not even out yet. ESO is definitely going in the right way but no one really knows how the game mechanics and stuff will be unless you've played the beta.

strange, you are part of beta but have no idea about beta forum? there is a link in invitation mail and you just have access to it.

Not if you play the Beta via a Steam key. Strange you have no idea about that.

Unless you see all the locked threads all over this forum, with the mod's putting a post with links to the appropriate URLs to use for such things