What order did you follow going through the zones?

Sophocles1

I’ve been playing for a few weeks and because I have ESO plus I can pretty much go anywhere it seems. But I feel like I should follow whatever the normal plot is for the alliance and then some other pattern after? Currently I am Altmer Having finished auridon. I don’t even know what the natural next places are for High elves.
What would you recommend? What did you enjoy as an order?

Taleof2Cities

The original story goes to Grahtwood next ... then Greenshade, Malabal Tor, and Reapers March.

That said, you can do the zones in any way you like.

You can even hit the DLC zones if you want to do those storylines.

Tasear

Ported the friends or in guild roster, so as such went with the flow.

JamuThatsWho

The next area for Altmer if you're following the Alliance story is Grahtwood.

I tend to like doing all 3 starter islands, then my 5 Alliance zones, then the DLCs (usually DB or TG first), then Morrowind.

Ilithyania

I did Ebenhart pact zones, then Daggerfall Cov, then Aldemeri (also known as Cadwells silver/gold )

Then

Wrothgar DLC
Thieves DLC
DArk Brotherhood DLC
Morrowind Chapter
Clockwork DLC
Summerset Chapter

MaleAmazon

What would you recommend? What did you enjoy as an order?

I strongly recommend following the main questline for your home faction, which would be Khenarthi´s roost for AD (it introduces characters also). Google it so you follow the quests (which start in Auridon which you´ve done) in order - it should autoswitch but sometimes it doesn´t, I think, also sometimes to get the next quest you have to talk to someone near where the last quest ended. Mix in the main quest when you feel like it.

Reason for this is that if you skip around, the story can be hard to follow and you´ll get people talking to you like you´ve met before, etc (you´ll probably get this anyway but at least this way it makes more sense).

I prefer to play one storyline at a time, and alternate it with dungeons, maybe an occasional short grind, PvP or something. I tend to get distracted anyway, but I enjoy it much more when I do one zone at a time. Not just for the story, I make sure I´ve vacuumed it for skillpoints also; every zone has 3 skillpoints from the Alliance questline, usually like 6 from skyshards and 1 from the public dungeon hidden event. If you do one at a time you don´t have to go back.

Jumping around has its uses, but I´d recommend taking it slowly.

Danikat

Each zone has a main quest which will lead you through the map and then the last one will send you to the next map in order. There's nothing obvious to tell you which are the main quests, apart from the fact that they link up (when you finish one you'll either start the next one immediately or the person you get it from will be right in front of you) whereas side quests will either be one-off or short chains.

If you're doing all the quests you come across you'll almost certainly pick up the main quests and can follow them, but if you want to skip the side quests you may need to look up a guide to find out which ones to do.

The full order, for someone starting with the Aldmeri Dominion is:
Tutorial
Khenarthi's Roost (small 'starter' island)
Auridon
Grahtwood
Greenshade
Malabar Tor
Reaper's March

And while you're doing those you want to do the Main Story quests and the Fighter's and Mage's guild quests. Then all 4 (your Alliance story, the main story and the 2 guilds) come together when you go to Coldharbour.

After that you visit the other Alliances via 2 quests known as Cadwell's Silver & Gold. Dominion characters go to the Ebonheart Pact first, going through all the zones in order:
Bleakrock Isle
Bal Foyen
Stonefalls
Deshaan
Shadowfen
Eastmarch
The Rift

Then the Daggerfall Covenant:
Stros M'kai
Betnikh
Glenumbra
Stormhaven
Rivenspire
Alik'r Desert
Bangkorai

Then it's the DLC and chapters which sort-of fit together in release order, although the dungeon DLC doesn't really tie into the main story so those can be done at any time.
Imperial City
Orsinimum
Thieves Guild
Dark Brotherhood
Morrowind
Clockwork City
Summerset

By the way, ESO+ gives you access to all the DLCs without having to buy them separately but it's not the reason you're able to play maps in any order - that's something everyone can do. Basically everyone and everything in the game is scaled up to level 50 and 160 champion points so everyone can do all the content in any order they like. It gives you a lot more freedom and is useful for things like festival events which will send you all over the world, but it can make it different to work out the intended order for content.

PlagueSD

I tend to do a faction questline completely. I'll get all lorebooks and skyshards while I'm running around. I won't leave a zone until I get the quest achievement. Skipping around will mess you up if you like the lore/continuity of questing. Same with Caldwell's silver/gold. Next faction I do the same thing. If I want a break, I'll hit up one of the DLC areas.

SugaComa

Look for Caldwell's gold or silver quest lines and follow that through your own area ... This helps the storey unfold now you can do this two ways

First is do the three factions seperate to each other, second is do all three factions together buy doing each stage after each other ... This way it's like mini series

I leave all the side quests till the end

I also do the harbourage quest once I'm level 40 that way it's a nice run through to get the whole story no interruption

phobossion

There's a guide for just that on these forums: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/413807/what-order-should-i-do-esos-story-arcs-a-guide

EvilAutoTech

The UESP wiki is a great resource. It lists quests in order for each zone and has walkthroughs if you would like. It can make it a lot easier to make sure you don't miss anything while working a zone.

Sophocles1

Thanks so much this is GREAT! I had this feeling that I had to rush through to catch up so as not to be too far behind but I can see now that that is totally the wrong way to think about it.

ArchMikem

Pact:
Bleakrock -> Bal Foyen -> Stonefalls -> Deshaan -> Shadowfen -> Eastmarch -> The Rift

Covenant:
Stros M'kai -> Betnikh -> Glenumbra -> Stormhaven -> Rivinspire -> Alik'r -> Bangkorai

Dominion:
Khenarthi's Roost -> Auridon -> Grahtwood -> Greenshade -> Malabal Tor -> Reaper's March

I always do them in the Chronological order of the main Questline.

Avalon

My first few characters, I did everything, in order, etc.

But, after One Tamriel? Now, I do Stros, Betnikh, Bleakrock, Bal Foyen, then the newbie isle of the Aldmeri (cannot recall the name right now), then Thieve's Guild, then Dark Brotherhood, at that point, I'm 50, and I ignore the rest of the basic quests in zones. I do the main storyline, the fighter's guild, the mage's guild. But, why do the basic quests? The loot sucks, the skill points really are not that useful and can get plenty in better ways.

fgoron2000

At the end of the Auridon questline in Firsthold, Queen Ayrenn would be able to give you the next quest, which directs you to Eldon Root in Grahtwood. It may not be an automatic next quest pickup, and you may need to speak with Raz first in order to get the quest from Ayrenn, but she should be right there with everyone else at the end of the last Auridon quest, and will give you the next quest if you speak with her. One of them should have a quest giver arrow hovering above them. That is the vanilla built-in process to continue the story to the next zone, but as others have said above, it's not necessary, you can go there yourself, by wayshrine, or travelling to guildies/friends, etc.

Lysette

Sophocles1 wrote: »

Thanks so much this is GREAT! I had this feeling that I had to rush through to catch up so as not to be too far behind but I can see now that that is totally the wrong way to think about it.

IMO neither rushing through nor doing it zone by zone is a really good idea. For example to buy stuff from guild stores it is good to have visited all the major cities in Tamriel and you might find as well, that there are quite cheap or reasonably priced guild stores in some more remote areas as well. So to have visited most of the zones before can be quite helpful, not even doing quests there, but just to get an idea what is where and which zone is good for what purpose. You might find skyshards and lore books while looking around, and of course discovery itself gives XP as well.

After you have done that, you can start with doing it as you like, zone by zone or not, it does not really matter where your XP come from - just go where you have the most fun with. That is at least what I am doing.

SilverIce58

Something Ive been doing is going about and doing every zone and then doing the main questline/Coldharbour bc when you first go to Coldharbour, there's a bunch of characters from the other zones and factions who you really don't know

Aela Earth-Turner for one, she gets sent there after her questline in the rift

It's mostly for my characters to have that connection of knowing all these people