Elder Scrolls Online:Not quite there, but certainly getting closer.

After the last 2 beta weekends before launch I feel comfortable putting my thoughts on Elder Scrolls online out there.

First things first: This is based on the beta events. There is a chance that things might still change before the game goes live. Even after that MMO's often go trough many changes over their lifetime

There is a pretty well worked out Elder Scrolls atmosphere in this title. The world design is decent, and so are the enemies.

Now those are big mushrooms!

The game also looks good. Initial screenshots etc do not really do it justice. It has a proper day/night cycle, and weather effects. (Although ff14 ARR does thunderstorms, and rain better imho.)

Taking my summon for a walk :-)

Even the story/quests are interesting. There are enough varied side quests, and choices offered to you. This ranges from direct dialogue choices, or optional actions, and alternate paths.

The 3 factions have their own starting areas that each have their own quests, look, and feel.
This makes trying alternate characters more interesting, since you won't be doing the exact same thing every time. (Apart from the initial tutorial segment, and the overlap in main story/guilds)

The voice acting is also quite good, and the same goes for the general sound design. As usual a larger voice cast would have been nice, and they probably could have had some interns etc do minor npcs.

Where things start going wrong is with how the MMO aspects are handled. For starters you have shared loot, and quest objectives. For example: There will be quests that have you gathering a specific herb, but so will several other players. As a result everyone will be "fighting" over the same harvesting points. The same will happen with quest vital npcs, and mobs.
 Now this isn't a new problem as such, but given other games have solved this issue with personalized loot/drops there is no good excuse to do it this way anymore.

Everyone waiting on a boss respawn

The party system still needs some serious work. There is no real party based quest progress. In other words every member only tracks their own current objective/progress. In the covenant starting area for example there is a side quest that has players follow directions on a treasure map. This could have been handled a lot better by showing the next objective for everyone in the party once one of us found that spot.

For me random other players aren't really providing that living world feel. Mostly everyone is just doing their own thing, but you aren't working together towards completing common goals.
Maybe I have been spoiled by FF14, Guild Wars 2, and other games with dynamic events/fates etc. 

Another major bugbear for me was no collision with mobs. In other words you'd clip trough enemies, and they went trough you. This made melee combat in first person view tricky, and outright annoying at times.
 Thankfully they seem to be fixing this. You cannot just walk trough enemies anymore, but there is still some clipping.

On a more personal level I feel there are not enough classes. I myself rather missed a ranger/non magic ranged class. Universal quick potion keys would also make things easier. Currently ESO offers just one universal consumable quickbar slot. That interface could have been better as well by simply offering drag&drop functionality. (Now you have to open a special tab in your inventory, but this game already has a context menu that just lacks the quickslot option outside that one specific tab.)

Elder Scrolls Online also suffers from the usual money sinks: Fees for fast travel, degrading gear with high repair costs, even faster gear degradation on death, and absolutely absurdly low returns for selling to npc vendors.
Especially early on your best option is junking any damaged gear, and replacing it with random drops.

Reviving others is also made needlessly annoying. You need specific items to revive, and as such nobody will revive a random stranger in the field. This is a bad system. You want people helping each other out. Apart from everything else this generates a more pleasant atmosphere, and players are more inclined to take a risk helping others.
As it is now random players just get in your way, and are a possible source of annoyance that keep you from finishing your quest.

I'm also not a impressed with the chosen payment model. Between full game price, sub fees, CE/preorder bonuses, AND a rumoured cash shop Bethesda is rather overdoing it on the cashing in front.
Locking an entire race behind a special edition, is also just outright disgusting.

I would have been a lot more tempted by this game had it either gone the GW1/2 route (Base game+cash shop/expansions, but no subs), or the current ff14 ARR model (Game costs little more than a month sub fee).

In the end I had fun playing the beta. It was nice seeing all the fixes, and general improvements between versions. The Elder Scrolls Online is a pretty solid game, but it's current business model very much puts me off. One could also argue that it would make a better sp/coop game, than an mmo.