not only that, but yesterday after work I hit the ESO desktop icon and the laucher downloaded the game again. I went to log in and it went through the 'new IP' routine. I finally get into the game and see the intro cinematic. That finishes and I'm at character creation. All my characters were gone.

I figured I'd been hacked. I didn't have my launcher set to even display PTS, yet entered a Tamriel devoid of other players. It was nice not having bots behaving like daedric princes through the terrain or overhead. Nice finding resources and chests. Though I am a natural soloist I did miss seeing other players, being able to informally group with them, even missed having to turn off Zone chat....

I know now it was PTS because I saw teh FoV slider.