I have had very limited experience with ESO, so take this with that much of a grain of salt.
I’ve found it to be an interesting game with, and the importance of this is a me thing, a bunch of pretty things in it. It has player housing like I wish WoW did, as well as cross-faction communication and grouping.
It also makes a lot of use of a microtransaction currency. But if you subscribe, for the same price as WoW last I checked, you apparently get a monthly allotment of microtransaction monies to spend on the costumes, houses, mounts, etc that are in the Crown store.
One of the things that I loved most about ESO really was the emotes. You can lean on a wall. You can faint. You can play musical instruments.
I’m also beginning to feel the twinges. I’m not going to unsubscribe tonight (thought about it for a second this evening, for reasons that may ultimately be silly), but I’ve been looking for options to move to in the event that I do. There doesn’t really seem to be anything out there that’s quite like WoW; ESO, however, while I gather it has its failings, also has several things that I wish WoW did.
I got a spot on Balmung, and I don’t think I woke up -too- early. You can probably get a spot there at 10AM EST, and the other RP server should be easier. I’m told the other one has a healthier economy because it isn’t as overpopulated as Balmung.
Thanks for the suggestion. How does that work, out of curiousity? Is it dependent on how many characters that -exist- on a server? How many are online? Can characters be moved between servers if the latter?
Best time to get on Balmung is right after a server reset or just wait until paid character transfers open up again. That said, Mateus is pretty lively and is basically comparable to MG vs. WrA here nowadays.
I’ve probably RPed more in like a month of FFXIV than I have in the past few years here. Player housing, a regular calendar of events, and the customization of settings/clothes really goes a long way that I didn’t realize until i really got into playing again. Hell, there’s even a Blitzball season going on right now, which is as crazy and interesting as it sounds with set teams and everything each week.
I really like FFXIV
Straight-up making a new character is based on the amount of people on at any time. Because FFXIV does not auto-log for AFK, Balmung is almost always populated to the point where it’s very hard unless there’s a force log-off (i.e. server maintenance).
Transfers on congested servers are a little more difficult to guess. They have the server locked at the moment and will presumably open it again when the population leaving can keep up with the pop entering. Because congested servers get free transfers and lots of goodies for leaving, there is incentive, and they’re changing up the realm structure that will make it more alluring when Stormbringers comes out.
I didn’t think they’d have something like that in 14, since each game is its own universe - but, uh… that makes me absurdly happy. 10 was the game that got me into Final Fantasy and I could not care less what anyone says about Tidus’ laugh, it’ll always hold a special place in my heart.
It’s a weird thing because while the games are their own universes, the MMO is essentially a love letter to the franchise, so anything could go really. There’s even references that Mog the Moogle was a canon hero of lore.
I think they’ve got a semi-permanent lock on Balmung that prevents accounts that don’t have a pre-existing character on the server from creating a new one. The lock seems to get lifted like clockwork once daily sometime after 2AM and restored sometime after. Tried staying up at first but gave up after 3AM.
This can be refreshed to tell you roughly when the server is open, though if you wait too long you may miss the opportunity for the day:
Good to know. I’ll just have to lurk until it lets me put her on one of the two RP servers. Which one would you both recommend?
–> Oh, and having to wait to create the character isn’t an issue. I work graveyard shifts, so I can literally be awake at any time of the day and/or night.
I’m on Balmung, but like I said, Mateus is active and growing. Supposedly it’s even more RP-oriented because Balmung originally started as a big launch raid server that RPers just adopted. Mateus, mostly, is people that left Balmung specifically for RP overflow. Either one is great.
If you need to RP like right now, transfers to Mateus have always been open and it’s easy to make a character after peak hours. Only Balmung is completely locked to all transfers and new characters.
I don’t know if it’s good, it’s in some sort of alpha, but a guy at work has told me a lot about Crowfall. No quests, no dungeons, no raids - just gathering, crafting and pvp.
He said he has a human cleric and will do something with a high elf, like have a friend kill and bury it, then raise the elf from the dead and inhabit its body as a vessle because high elves can’t be clerics so in pvp it will be like uh… a stealth cleric… and I was like “you had me at necromancy”.
Elder Scrolls Online shill here. The Murkmire DLC and continuous events they’ve been putting out lately have been awesome, I wish I had more time for both.
This is exactly what I tell people who want to give FFXIV a try. It’s a great MMO if you want something story-driven, but you’ll have to put in some work to get to the good stuff.
To be fair, though, that’s basically how any MMO works. The first 15-20 levels are boring and suck.
Mateus is a good server, there’s a very lively RP scene. Some folks have turned their personal/guild houses into RP hubs (bars, brothels, etc).
![:stuck_out_tongue:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue:")