so... now what?

Archimedean

got into the game, gotten through the first island, and now there's all this open world... and i have no idea what i'm doing.

i understand the *mechanics* of the game, how to do various things and so on, but i don't really know what i'm *meant* to be doing. what do people do in the earlygame to get to the mid/lategame and get ready to actually play? do you progress the story? run dolmens to grind levels? complete each map's lists? grind your world and craft skills? W H A T? i've taken a look at the beginner guides, but they seem to only explain the mechanics too, not what to actually *do* as a beginner, and the guild i joined is pretty inactive too, so not getting much help there

Hämähäkki

That is what open world games are about. You can do what you want. Do Quests, grind, dungeons, pvp, dolmen, worldbosses just do what you like. If that is nothing for you, you're in the wrong game.

Go check youtube lets plays or something, look how other people started

VaranisArano

Personally, I quest. If you want to do the quests in their original order, heres the chronological order: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/413807/what-order-should-i-do-esos-story-arcs-a-guide

On the other hand, if you want to do group content, I like to level new characters by doing group dungeons. I like to tank and heal, so as long as I have one hand and shield (for the taunt) or a resto staff (for the heals) any class can tank or heal. I use the dropped gear to keep my gear close to my level, so it works pretty well!

If you want to jump into PVP, low level Battlegrounds can be fun. I will usually try to run the Daily Random BG for the extra exp.

Kaymorolis

Archimedean wrote: »

got into the game, gotten through the first island, and now there's all this open world... and i have no idea what i'm doing.

i understand the *mechanics* of the game, how to do various things and so on, but i don't really know what i'm *meant* to be doing.

For a first character I would say follow the story for your Alliance. Once you are done with the starter island you should have been given a quest to go to a new zone (probably by boat) and talk to someone.

If you are lost on what that quest is or just need something to help guide you where to go, there is a Wiki that has pages for each alliance that shows a very nice flowchart of the main story quests for that alliance. For example, this is the page for the Daggerfall Covenant:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Daggerfall_Covenant

Occasionally I will finish a quest and not know where to go from there. Those alliance pages are very helpful in finding the quest giver to keep you progressing.

Other than that there is the Harborage quest line that you should pick up automatically (the Prophet just appears and gives you a quest) once you hit the first city after the starter island.

There is a ton of content out there. If you follow your alliance story line and do a few side quests along the way, you should hit max level before finishing Coldharbor. And that's if you ignore the fighter/mage guild quests, dungeons (don't ignore them, they are fun), dolmen grinds, and the old Chapter zones (Vvardenfell / Summerset).

Have fun!

edit: I also want to add that a good guild is easy to find. Once you hit the first zone just ask (in zone chat) if there are any new-player friendly social guilds recruiting. I'd bet you will get multiple reply's. You can be in five guilds so you can always try a few out and see which are better.