Well if you compare it to the other single player games it obviously won't be as detailed since its an mmo. There's some give and take there. Some things have to be sacrificed for that massively multiplayer experience. Just like multiplayer has to be sacrificed for that single player experience. I don't know if I'd call that a step back though, or just a different type of game. I can understand not wanting to pay for it though. Like I said that was my opinion only last week. I guess I just feel like an mmo can pretty easily bring you $15 worth of gameplay a month, and $15 doesn't really bleed my wallet compared to paying for rent, electricity, internet, phone, etc. Remains to be seen if ESO will be worth it, but I'll give it a chance.