The same reason that I play any game. It's fun.

When i started i was solo questing alot, but this seemed overly easily and it was getting boring. So I decided to explore other areas of the game, aroudn this time there was a bug that meant I couldn't buy the recipes i needed from the chef or brewer, so I had to join a guild and ask people. The person that responded invited me into another guild that ran trials and i was hooked, i subesquently became a guild officer and now the co-GM with that person that responded to the guildie noob of about 3mins who was aksing for a Banana surprise!

Since then the team play elements of PVE have me well and truely hooked, either helping new players get into trials, running in pugs, running guild trial events, or participating in trifecta groups it's all been great fun. Relatively recently I've also gone back to do achievement runs on dungeons with a fixed group, and thats also been great fun.

If i encounter boredom now, i try some PvP or ToT or Economy or Housing or Theorycrafting or refocus on a new role for a period of time or go back to questing for a bit, but the team PVE always come back to the centre of how I play pretty quickly, either advancing myself or helping new players into it.

Being able to play as a Werewolf.
I played a lot of Online Games, but this was a promising prospect.
Then realizing that Vampire is even more fun for me and now sticking to that route.

Couple things
- World, Lore, and Setting
- Combat is interactive and not just cooldowns
- Mobility in combat is constant + roll ability
- Graphics semi “realistic” so it feels like scrolls
- Building new characters and finding builds i like

I started playing with One Tamriel and certainly combat wasn't a reason to keep playing back then - I hated it.
I had played Oblivion in 2006 and Skyrim in 2011 and loved them but I abandoned them because I was an avid player and used to jump between many games.
ESO, I was treating it like those games and I was playing it on and off, I'd say from 2017 to 2022, with long pauses.

2022 was the year I locked in and started playing every single day up until now and looking forward - Oakensoul ring.
In 2022 I developed nerves issues and I wasn't even able to use a normal controller anymore (Xbox EU). Thanks to Oakensoul and dedicated controllers I've been able to enjoy combat and achieve great things.
Today, subclassing and scribing have added to my enjoyment of the combat.

Why I still play and plan on playing now? Two reasons:
1) This is the only game I have the ability to play efficiently while having fun, due to my condition.
2) I have invested so much in time, money and effort that every time I start another game and I see I am "poor, weak and ugly" I just prefer to close it and come back where I am in "god mode" XD

But this game offers many reasons to love it, and exploration was a strong one for sure in the beginning.
Sadly, I think the internet era ruined a lot the novelty and mistery factors. I recently talked with someone who was playing Oblivion Remaster and I said I remember curing from vampirism was so difficult in 2006, but the person replied "Oh no no, it's super easy, I followed the guide online"... Yeah, experiencing games is not the same thing these days.

I came from the single player TES games and have a focus on roleplaying, stories, lore and exploration.

The main reason I started playing ESO (in February 2016, about 9 months or so before One Tamriel) was that I wanted to see other parts of the fictional world and wanted to experience new stories with a TES lore background. I had played all TES games before that and it wasn't clear when TES6 would be released (and it's somehow unbelievable that it's still unclear now, 9 years later), so ESO looked interesting to look into.

I was really sceptical at first, because I never had any interest in MMOs, but I still decided to try it. And what made me stay was that while it's an MMO, I could still play it more or less like the singleplayer TES games and just experience stories and lore. The writing was good back then, I really enjoyed the base game zones and later Wrothgar, Morrowind, CWC and Summerset. Honestly, what I didn't enjoy much were basically the MMO aspects - like random people jumping around town (which isn't exactly immersive), town npcs just respawning after death, and also the combat. But the stories were interesting and the zones beautiful, so I could just live with that.

Now, with that focus, the factors that influence my interest most are of course the writing quality and the zone or world design. And I understand that people who play for other motivations care for entirely different factors.

When it comes to writing, one thing I often wonder about is why we don't see a return to what we got in the early years. I see polls on this forum (and other ESO-related places) all the time, asking people which chapters or dlcs they enjoyed most. And while everyone has a different taste, of course, it's usually a huge portion of the voters that vote for Morrowind or Summerset. There seems to be a certain consensus among most players that the early years were ESO's golden days in terms of storytelling.

Not sure if a return to that type of writing could renew people's interest (I know many who have lost interest for the stories because they have been disliking the writing style for years now, and many left ESO altogether - and once people leave, it's hard to convince them to return, I think, especially if they've already shifted their interest to something else in the meantime), but in any way, from my point of view, that would be a step in the right direction.

I've had Elder Scrolls Online on my radar since its release because I'm a huge fan of TES IV and V, but I actually waited until 2018 because I'm not a fan of MMOs. I played Guild Wars 1 for a while until the forced interactions with people got on my nerves. In 2018, it started to sound like ESO had enough to offer for solo players, so I started... and haven't stopped since. Especially since TES VI still seems distant on the horizon.

Guildies. We keep coming back and playing a buggy game that barely works on most days so that we can hang out with our friends.

The Alik'r desert dolmen farming, and the dark brotherhood dlc's radiant contract side quests.

I came from SP TES, and found myself staying not just for the Elder Scrolls lore and stories, but also for the diversity of activities.

I loved the fluidity and responsiveness of the combat; I loved being able to solo stuff; I loved the outfit and costume system as well as decorating my homes... And as others have said, it's so good that you can just wander around and chill.

I originally started shortly before Thieves Guild was released, pre-One Tamriel and all. I started because I'm a huge Elder Scrolls fan and stayed because I loved the writing, the immersion in the world, the roleplay opportunities. I didn't know the first thing about MMOs and didn't care to know, I was just happy with my new Elder Scrolls game, and it delivered.

Also, as others have said, the solo-ability. That's absolutely crucial for me.

That was an old account that doesn't exist anymore. In the meantime I took breaks and once quit for what I thought at the time would be forever, mainly due to an overabundance of bugs, login issues, and the writing becoming too tepid and formulaic to the point where I stopped caring.

I tried some other MMOs in the meantime, but after several smaller steps of trying the game again on and off, now on a new-ish account after finally deciding to make the jump to PC for good, I'm back to ESO as my main game and having a great time again.
I really missed the writing and am replaying a lot of old quests with the character I picked as my main, and the old zones continue to be fantastic. Great writing, great immersion, love it all. The hours fly by as soon as I log in. That's the main part. And I enjoy some of the new writing, too, though I wish more of it was on par with the old days. But e.g. Zerith-var's questline and the scribing quest line were really cool. This level of writing and lore was worth coming back for.

Combat was never my priority, but something I did miss in other games was the action combat as opposed to tab-targetting, the freedom of choice but relatively few skills one can have on the bars at any one time - making the choice meaningful and feel like my selection for this particular character. (I'm a roleplayer through and through; other people can keep their metas.) And the horizontal progression and the fact that I'm done with levelling and gear grinds at a certain point and the rest is just voluntary extras I can engage with for fun. Not being blocked off any story content by gear levels. Overall the game systems not feeling like a job. With a busy and stressful life, and with how much I love the Elder Scrolls games' classic freedom, I cannot overstress how much I appreciate that.

And again the solo-ability. Essential in past and present.

I left a few months after launch like a number of others. With the launch of One Tamriel I decided to give it another go. I am still here today, that is not to say that I haven't had issues, but not enough to drive me away.

I paid for ESO Plus...

I didn't. when I started you had to be specific levels/power to do quests or beat monsters. Main was quest - do one quest, wait until you gain 5 levels to get the next one. Got tired of being stomped on and went to play a different game.

Came back when I heard about the Level Balancing aspect. Now I can do the quests no matter what level or gear.

Much better.