Starting out - which content/story first?

mashugana

I'm new to ESO. When I get to the main city I am offered quests which i think are DLC packs. I play ESO for the story so I want to see it all but I do not know what to do first. Dark Brotherhood? Orsinium? One of the other places people are giving me quests to go?

Thanks for any advice

leeux

If you want to get the whole picture in order, I'd recommend going to your starting city for your alliance and talk with the hooded figure there to start the main quest, and proceed through it following the quests lines (main quest, fighter's, mage's, alliance's zones etc,) and then start the DLCs afterwards.

VaranisArano

Here's my recommendation for the original order of release: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/413807/what-order-should-i-do-esos-story-arcs-a-guide

The gist is that ESO has 2 major story arcs. The Planemeld will take you from the Hooded Figure in your starter city through the Main Quest and your Alliance into the other alliances. The newer Daedric Wars arc will take you from Morrowind -> Clockwork City -> Summerset.

idk

I agree with them that start with your alliance story and complete that and the main story line (main story is with a guy called the prophet).

The side quests in each zone are less important since some of them mildly relate to what is happening but most are really just totally side quests. It is a personal choice. Some of them are pretty good but like nay MMORPG some are just fillers from when we actually needed more quests to level up.

After you finish your alliance I would suggest hitting the Morrowind and DLCs after that.

With that, get your legerdemain leveled up (google it) and you can do Theives guild and Dark Brotherhood anytime as they are really separate stories iirc. Leveling up legerdemain early on is a good source of gold when just starting. Just my random thoughts.

validifyedneb18_ESO

Green-shade and the Rift both have top notch vanilla quests IMO.

Clockwork city is a great story, and Morrowind for that matter, ESO did an amazing job of *slightly* rewriting the tribunal and making them IMO much better.

You should also consider doing the Aldmeri Dominion faction storyline, its generally considerd the best of the faction storylines. You can only do it if you have an AD character though, or have completed the main storyline and unlocked Cadwells Silver/Gold.

mashugana

You guys are awesome - thank you. I'm loving the story so much that I do not see or care about how fast I am leveling. But I do not want to miss anything - heck, even the side quests have great, tight little stories.

VaranisArano

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

Green-shade and the Rift both have top notch vanilla quests IMO.

Clockwork city is a great story, and Morrowind for that matter, ESO did an amazing job of *slightly* rewriting the tribunal and making them IMO much better.

You should also consider doing the Aldmeri Dominion faction storyline, its generally considerd the best of the faction storylines. You can only do it if you have an AD character though, or have completed the main storyline and unlocked Cadwells Silver/Gold.

Actually, you can do the AD storyline at any time, whether you are an AD character or not or whether you've unlocked Cadwell's Silver and Gold, thanks to One Tamriel. It may not make as much sense for a EP or DC character to run around all buddy-buddy with Queen Ayrenn of the Dominion without Cadwell's Silver/Gold, but you can do it.

For example, I've got an EP Altmer Stam Sorc who's running though the AD questline first. That's because roleplay-wise, he's a kinlord formerly aligned with the Veiled Heritance who was captured by the Worm Cult, sacrificed to Molag Bal, lost his memories and now works as an Eye of the Queen. But for PVP, he's Ebonheart Pact as are all my characters.

If you run the AD questline, I highly recommend doing it in the orginial order since its a very cohesive storyline. That order is: Khenarthi's Roost-> Auridon -> Grahtwood ->Greenshade ->Malabal Tor -> Reaper's March. If you do it out of order, be prepared to be very, very confused.

Sixsixsix161

@mashugana

One bit of info, you are not tied to doing one thing before the other.

So, you can do side quests and level up and get better armor/weapons before starting the main quests.

I just built a new high elf sorcerer and the game started me in Summerset. When I finished there, I got a quest to go to the psijisc island and did all their quests. Then I went to the area where the main quests begin and slowly started those. I usually do quite a few of the side quests, and bring the main story lines along slowly. I usually do one fighter and mage guild quest, then one of the prophet and queen (or king, depending what area you're in) quest, then more side quests, etc.

I was level 20 when I went to the main area to start the main quests.

Also, if you plan on becoming a thief and assassin, you can do those two to completion before starting the main quests. That way, you'll have the assassin kill skills, and thief skills, to help you plan side quests.

Good luck.

6

validifyedneb18_ESO

Sixsixsix161 wrote: »

@mashugana

One bit of info, you are not tied to doing one thing before the other.

So, you can do side quests and level up and get better armor/weapons before starting the main quests.

I just built a new high elf sorcerer and the game started me in Summerset. When I finished there, I got a quest to go to the psijisc island and did all their quests. Then I went to the area where the main quests begin and slowly started those. I usually do quite a few of the side quests, and bring the main story lines along slowly. I usually do one fighter and mage guild quest, then one of the prophet and queen (or king, depending what area you're in) quest, then more side quests, etc.

I was level 20 when I went to the main area to start the main quests.

Also, if you plan on becoming a thief and assassin, you can do those two to completion before starting the main quests. That way, you'll have the assassin kill skills, and thief skills, to help you plan side quests.

Good luck.

6

I particularly second this motion for main story. Its content gated by your level, so you can do it all at once when you're a higher level. Also not a huge fan of the planemeld story, but hey, you should do it once at anyrate and you get a snazzy rare matte black dye for your efforts.

ghastley

Just anecdotally, I find myself doing things the same way with each additional character. They do a couple of zones of their Alliance story-line, then go do the Main Quest story all the way through, before reaching Level 50. That opens up another Alliance story line through Cadwell's Silver, but usually we resume the interrupted Alliance quest, just to finish the story.

A few have decided the new Alliance story is more compelling, and did that one instead.

The first character will play differently from any subsequent one, because of the Champion Point system. Only the first grinds up through CP10 to CP160. Cadwell's Silver helps you do that, but you can equally go do a DLC story-line at that point.