Which year was your 'golden' year at ESO?

moderatelyfatman

Which year do you have your best memories of the game? Please share them below.

moderatelyfatman

2021 Waking the Flame and Rockin the Grove (Blackwood)

I came into the game at the start of 2020 when everyone was otherwise at home most of the time. For me, the best years can be divided into PvP years and PvE year.

My best PvP years were mid 2020 to mid 2021. Those of us who were still working could not go out and celebrate on Friday and Saturday nights so we did in on line.... in Cyrodiil.... in a 24 group party... with mostly drunken Aussie PvPers reenacting the viking raids of medieval britain.
The mayhem that resulted from our party that wasn't a ball group or a zerg but more of an Giant Amoeba that would periodically break off parts of itself as players got lost or ran off to chase random enemies (including 10 minutes running around Alessia bridge looking for a nightblade that one player swears they saw but probably didn't exist). The random players in our faction who would join us in a desire to zerg must have been pretty confused at times to see us run past keeps to capture villages or swarm into delves for no apparent reason!

TheDarkRuler

2020 Digging up stuff with the Dovahkiin (Skyrim)

I have played ESO ever since beta and had two "golden" years where I had most fun.
1st was during the Wrothgar/Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood era where tons and tons of new mechanics made it into the game. 2nd was during Greymoor because I loved coming back to Skyrim and the overall vibes of this province. I dont dislike Gold Road and stuff but they just could not catch on.

Rkindaleft

2019 Necro spanking the dragon (Elswher)

2017-2020 were the best years content wise. Summerset and Elsweyr were probably the best expansions in terms of storytelling and Greymoor brought antiquities which were a net positive for tons of people, PvE/PvPers use the mythics and housing players like it because of the furnishings.

I don't think particularly highly of Necrom and Gold Road years due to declining server performance and releasing chapters with less content (in combination with the fact there's no more Q3 and Q4 dungeon and zone updates). Having less to do during the year is never a good thing.

SeaGtGruff

2017 When the Warden was last good.(Morrowind)

I started playing ESO at the end of August, 2017, and those first four months at the end of 2017 were magical. To me, ESO is just getting better and better each year, because each year adds more, plus there's everything from the years before. But my most memorable moments in ESO were those first four months at the end of 2017, when I had no idea what I was doing and just ran around trying to see and do everythng all at once.

Destai

2021 Waking the Flame and Rockin the Grove (Blackwood)

Summerset era and before were great, and certainly have some nostalgia for those years. But blackwood era is where I really felt like I started to understand the game. Combat right before U35 was genuinely fun, I remember cruising through the game when ice wardens became a thing. Sure, I learned more since, but I think that was my golden era.

moderatelyfatman

2021 Waking the Flame and Rockin the Grove (Blackwood)

Destai wrote: »

Summerset era and before were great, and certainly have some nostalgia for those years. But blackwood era is where I really felt like I started to understand the game. Combat right before U35 was genuinely fun, I remember cruising through the game when ice wardens became a thing. Sure, I learned more since, but I think that was my golden era.

Yeah, I started really getting into trials during Blackwood. I mained on a stamden which wasn't meta at the time but I could still get 3rd or 4th on the dps list in my prog group if I had a good run. This, of course, ended with U35 and PvE has never been the same since.

MasterSpatula

2018 Playing join the dots on the world map for the Psijic order. (Summerset)

2018. What can I say? I genuinely miss Wrobel's vision for what the game should be.

lardvader

Pre 2017, before the Dwemer had left Tamriel. (Everything else).

MasterSpatula wrote: »

2018. What can I say? I genuinely miss Wrobel's vision for what the game should be.

Calastir

2021 Waking the Flame and Rockin the Grove (Blackwood)

My introduction year was when I created most of my characters, and still my best memory was entering a desperate mass attack on a subterranean Harrowstorm with my just completed first healer build and watch what seemed like an ocean of green life counters rise up from the crowd...and winning that event with a fully healed group.

LunaFlora

2024 Still Golden for me, baby! (Gold Road)

2024 as it's the present year with all of the updates so far and their many additions.
And in 28 days 2025 will be the golden year to me.

Every year adds more to the game and i cannot think of a past year as my 'golden' year as it isn't that year anymore.

SirGabenOfSteamia

2018 Playing join the dots on the world map for the Psijic order. (Summerset)

2018, remember grinding abyssal geysers right as the chapter came out for about a week straight for the psijic motifs. Made my first million gold off of them and bought the Alinor townhouse which I used for years. Got a newfound love for grinding because the gold i made from it was all put towards furnishing the house. Good times.

TaSheen

All of them.

AzuraFan

2017 When the Warden was last good.(Morrowind)

I have good memories for all of them, but given that I love wardens and Morrowind was what got me regularly playing, I went with 2017.

sarahthes

2021 Waking the Flame and Rockin the Grove (Blackwood)

Rockgroooooove!

https://youtu.be/SsfCmadRHIA?si=mGlEWilGkXIf2fOl

LadyGP

2017 When the Warden was last good.(Morrowind)

2017-2018 was ESO at its prime. Since then a lot of questionable decisions have been made and communication has gone down hill even more.

IMO eso is just a crown store crash grab game at this point - and it hurts me to type that out. I loved this game.

Zodiarkslayer

2022 Arrghh....pirate's life for me! (High Isle)

I think with everything considered U34 was ESO at its best.

And then came U35 and ... well ... you probably know. 🤦‍♂️

joergino

2018 Playing join the dots on the world map for the Psijic order. (Summerset)

Well, the year when I started playing definitely was the best. In a way it's been downhill ever since which can be seen from the fact that now the last remaining friend from those days only logs in every other week or so while most other people haven't been online for several months by now.
The small time streamer we used to play with doesn't know if she will even return for next year's chapter. The last couple of years she at least played through the chapter story and did the two new dungeon quests. But it was quite obvious that her excitement for the game had vanished.

SilverIce58

2019 Necro spanking the dragon (Elswher)

My favorite time was Murkmire and then right after both North and South Elsweyr. Beast races ate very good that year. Also Dragons and a lunar dragon cult too? Plus the free house they gave us that had wings based on one of each set of dungeons and the final dlc. THAT was how you do a year long story and tie everything together.

Soarora

2019, but before Elsweyr came out. I was new and didn’t have any of the problems I do now. I enjoyed overland questing.

Jaimeh

2018 Playing join the dots on the world map for the Psijic order. (Summerset)

When I read the title, before clicking to see the poll options, the thing that first jumped to my mind was fighting Yolnahkriin on a stamcro while progressing vet Sunspire, so I found it really funny how you mentioned exactly that OP! Those were indeed the days! In terms of stories though, nothing beats the CWC/Summerset arc for me. It was great writing, zone design, visuals, voice acting... and I think jewellery crafting was one of the most game changing systems we've had so far as well. I do love Orsinium, Morrowind, and Elsweyr though, and I think Murkmire, Markarth and Necrom were also very well done. But overall Summerset is still ESO's crown jewel for me.

Desiato

Pre 2017, before the Dwemer had left Tamriel. (Everything else).

The introduction of Imperial City in ESO 2.1 followed by Orsinium in 2.2 represented peak ESO for me. It was a completely different game back then.

After 2.2, I was extremely hopeful for the future of ESO.

However, they seemed to give up on the core gaming audience after it was introduced and started, in earnest, the effort to "raise the floor and lower the ceiling" which still continues today.

madman65

2022 Arrghh....pirate's life for me! (High Isle)

U35 Just destroyed my DPS, WAS fun up until that day on August 22 2022. Got my 103K parse, first time over 100k and was so happy. Now I haven`t been able to get to 100K so oh well, right ESO.

StarOfElyon

2019 Necro spanking the dragon (Elswher)

Somewhere between 2019 and 2020 I was enjoying making hybrid characters. Hybridization went too far when skills started scaling with the highest resource and it ruined the niche of hybrid play, as well as making builds homogeneous.

Juomuuri

Pre 2017, before the Dwemer had left Tamriel. (Everything else).

I started ESO at 30.11.2016 and I have my very personal reasons why this time was the best. I can't share them but I wish I could go back...

the1andonlyskwex

2019 Necro spanking the dragon (Elswher)

Elsweyr was definitely the era I enjoyed the most. The worst era, on the other hand, was Morrowind, because Morrowind made the game virtually unplayable on a base PS4, and PS4 Pro wasn't available yet.

Syldras

2018 Playing join the dots on the world map for the Psijic order. (Summerset)

I know there are often agitated debates in the forum whether there is a quality decline in content or not - and I don't want to start that here again - but I do find it interesting that there's a visible tendency that more people were content with ESO in the earlier years than in the later ones (with things going slightly uphill again now).

opaj

2024 Still Golden for me, baby! (Gold Road)

The first year of DLCs, from Imperial City to Dark Brotherhood, was pretty magnificent.

2018 gave us Summerset and Murkmire, two of my favorite DLC in terms of the writing.

But this is the year in which ESO finally let me craft spells again, which is one of my core core core Elder Scrolls fantasies. A fantasy that the franchise hasn't let us engage in since Oblivion back in 2006. So this year gets my vote.

Quackery

Pre 2017, before the Dwemer had left Tamriel. (Everything else).

I miss the time where we had MASSIVE fights in Cyrodiil. It's become a ghost town as of late.

DreamyLu

I can't vote because my best memory of the game doesn't match with the year given for it, as I started playing ESO later than that.
For me, best moment ever was when I discovered Summerset. I was stunned at how beautiful it is and will always remember how I was standing there, watching around with plate eyes and open mouth: WOW! That was in 2022 in my case (not in the real download year 2018)... Sorry!

Tryxus

2017 When the Warden was last good.(Morrowind)

- Morrowind nostalgia
- Warden class, best class
- I joined an awesome PvE guild and learned the ways of the healer with my new Warden

Good times