Here are my Provisioner's Dozen reasons:
1. I love the artwork, graphics, animation and cinematics. The first thing that drew me to the game visually was the Breton Archer in the cinematics. While all three of the characters are great, he is flawless. The attention to detail in his armor amazing. In the game itself, I enjoy finding unusual locales that allow me to see the world from a rare perspective. Also, the designers' continual drive for improvement, such as redesigning the Orcish and Khajiit crafted armors to show more detail, and adding the mouth animations, shows it's just getting better.
2. I enjoy immersing myself in the stories of the questgivers, the races, and the alliances. While I won't always feel that I have the time to enjoy it this way, either because I'm in a group, or in an area where monsters will respawn on top of me, or I've just done it recently and don't want to repeat the dialog, the story is the bottom line of what impels me to play ESO. It defines who my characters are and the world in which they live. A different game with the same mechanics, but a completely different premise, wouldn't necessarily hold my attention. I really enjoy the fact that the developers periodically modify questlines. This helps keep them fresh for those altaholics like myself who keep coming back for more.
3. I believe that Zenimax supports the players who support Zenimax, and that keeps my subscription active. I enjoy the benefits I get as a subscriber, and use them on a daily basis. Congratulations on Nirn! It's a most bodacious creation! Not to mention your other excellent creations, like Oblivion, Aetherius… Jehannas.
4. I love the freedom of the gathering and crafting systems in ESO. It has always frustrated me in other MMOs to pass by resources unable to harvest them because the character I'm using at the time hasn't learned how to chop wood, or isn't skilled enough to chop that particular kind of wood. Being able to harvest all resources on any character makes it unnecessary for me to designate one character to pick flowers, another to pick ore, etc., along with dedicating time on each character to farm. And being able to craft your own gear immediately without spending skill points when you start the game is a great touch. The best part of the crafting system is knowing that you can craft your own set gear, and that it's actually useful. The bonuses are worthwhile, and the items are customizable enough to allow for a huge variety of looks and skills.
5. I like the fact that there are 4 classes, and all of them have the versatility to perform all roles, wear all armor and use all weapons. I've seen people wish for more classes, but when you have the basic archetypal roles who are free to morph into any combination currently available that doesn't leave a lot of room for a truly unique additional class. I have multiple veteran ranked characters on all 4 classes (except DK, I only have 1), and I've used different specs with each, so there truly is a lot of variety with only 4 classes.
6. I really like the way the Crown Store is set up. They promised it wouldn't be filled with pay-to-win items when they first opened it, and they've kept that promise. They also asked what people would be willing to pay cash for, and have listened, putting those items up for sale, and periodically adding fresh products. I like to collect the limited-release mounts, so I enjoy it when I see a new one appear. I'll admit I really laughed out loud when I saw on the PTS that they're offering Vampire and Werewolf bites on the crown store. Not that selling them is funny in itself, but thinking about the ever-present arguments in zone from people saying those bites should be free, and that people charging gold are ripping off others.
7. I don't know if they'll keep the current pace of releasing downloadable content, but I was surprised when they announced the release of Orsinium so soon after Imperial City. I'm all for it. As a subscriber I'll be in Wrothgar with the best of them, and from what I've seen on the PTS it will definitely be worth having. So for those who don't subscribe, I'd recommend shelling out some Crowns. It gives me hope though that the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild will release soon, since they discussed both on the same Twitch feed a while back with Orisinium.
8. I've traded in other games, but this is the first game I've ever had guilds specifically for trading. It probably resulted from the fact that they hadn't instituted the guild trader system when I started, and guild stores were only for members. But the community it has built up seems to have made a niche in the game. I enjoy trading, and it makes up a large part of my time and resources, but is only incidental to the game itself, and I think that's great.
9. I really like the fact that veteran dungeons (with the exception of a very few) have different bosses than their normal versions. The story progresses, and you meet the next generation of bosses, not just the same bosses with more health and an extra mechanic or two. I know they didn't follow this with the latest releases in Imperial City, but I hope they keep that model as their standard.
10. I enjoyed the release of the Dragonstar Arena. It seems like a raid built for a dungeon group, which is nice because it's a lot easier to get four people together than 12. I know they haven't been able to do it yet because they weren't designed that way initially, but I hope they eventually get to scale the Arena and the Trials. The addition of a solo arena in Wrothgar is amazing, and it scales! So I can see getting a lot of enjoyment there.
11. The Justice System! Adding that made being in town fun again. It brought the adventure within the city walls instead of having it be Tamriel's time-out corner. And some of the Legerdemain passives are indispensible.
12. Increases in our available carrying capacity have been very welcome. This includes increasing stack sizes to 200 on many items helped a lot (although I'm still waiting for them to include prepared food/drink and potions to this, since all their materials stack to 200 now). And the latest increase of bag slots purchasable from a pack merchant from 5 upgrades to 8, for a maximum capacity of 140 character bag slots (200 with a max-capacity mount). The change to account-bound mounts, pets and costumes, as well as putting them in collections instead of taking up precious bag or bank space, was a great move. (If only there was a way to do this with the disguises we pick up…) Revamping the provisioning system has to be one of the best changes they've made in the way the game operates. We've come down to 50 ingredients (51 now with the addition of Perfect Roe) from what, about infintity? It actually is possible for a character to have all ingredients now, which wasn't possible before. While I still miss some of the recipes, which I felt gave each race and alliance some of their unique charm (Fried Worms, for example), the new system is a huge improvement.
13. Last but not least, the best reason to play any MMO: the friends and guildies who play with me, making bad times good, and good times great.
patrickgraf25ub17_ESO wrote: »At the start when I first downloaded the beta version of the game, it was because I have been a TES fan for a very long time. But then it was just the immersiveness i felt when doing a dungeon in comparison to other games. I recall one of the beta weekends were counting down to its closing It was my first time running Fungal Grotto, and we were three manning it not sure what the hell we were doing. And we are on First boss the only person with a heal dies, it is at 1min from closing game.... then it is just I, stamina nightblade at the time, and another a dk with a bow I believe. He is taunting boss and shooting from a range I am building up ultimate and weaving. he goes down 13 seconds left boss is at below 20% but so am I. My Health pot comes off cooldown as soon as a boss does a heavy hit, I roll left pop potion roll back to his right hit deathstroke and follow in to execute(killing blades I believe).. 15 seconds left the group is cheering for me to bring the sucker down... I am smiling from ear to ear with anxious excitement, and I am spamming the heck out of my execute.... he is at 8 percent, time hits 10 seconds, he is at 5 percent, it hits 6 seconds, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 He is at 0 percent and I can honestly say I feel like a champ. Game closes was never able to say goodbye to that templar and german guy that ran bow. But They know and I know we rocked that day 3 manning fungal grotto.