The fact that I can play it for free is quite nice. The fact that I don't even bother playing it even though I have access to it for free says much about the state of the game, though.
It's very beautiful and true to Skyrim. The music is just creepy enough in atmosphere and Solitude is fabulous. The creatures are really well done and a lot of general attention to detail.
The music and atmosphere of the two zones is really immersive! I can see myself spending alot of time down in Blackreach, the combined space of both Western Skyrim and Blackreach is as large as a normal chapter would be (Its hard to do a 1:1 comparison with how the maps are laid out). I definitely am going to spend most of my overland time in these zones!
Pros:
+ WW changes.
+ Vamp changes (for me, some people dislike them).
+ Balance changes.
+ Set changes (I Tormentor taunt)
+ Performance changes (not server, but FPS) new anti-aliasing is great.
+ Antiquities system.
+ Mythic Items.
Cons:
- vMA & vDA sets drama.
Anyway, best patch since a year. In fact best patch since new combat team took over. If not the weird decision about those vMA/ vDA stuff it would be probably 10/10. But it still gets solid 8,5 /10. A little bit shame we have not seen some NB buffs / changes, but it was a "performance" mainly patch.
In size i would say its a bit bigger than Southern Elswyr. Maybe 125% of the size. That is above ground. I havent been below ground yet. I havent played enough to have a favorite and with all the issues it is hard to get a true feel for the zone.
Antiquities seems interesting. Ive messed with it a bit. Ive found a purple and gold lead in addition to what you start with without a lot of effort. They were mob drops in Skyrim itself. It seems lead drops will be quite common even high quality ones( that is a bit disappointing).
I started the quest which seems of usual ESO quality. Solitude feels smaller than other chapter cities. More compact. Its basically a Y shape which actually makes it quite efficient. It looks similar enough to Skyrim to be recognizable just being in the city but not enough to feel like they just copied the Skyrim version so i thought they did a good job on that.
I havent tried harrowstorms or any serious combat as the issues can make it difficult to take on more than a couple of trash mobs at a time.
That ZOS has set a record in necessary maintenances in the least number of days.
That I can get Rimmen and Craglorn almost all to myself by all appearances, never seen those two places this dead, so I can do writs and farm nodes in peace.
My own question is how large a zone is it compared to other zones?
Not really large. Lot of wayshrines though, and it feels good from usual DLC wayshrine amount!
The zone itself looks like Eastmarch combined with Wrothgar (I mean the landscape, not size). It's okay, I love all the snowy areas (especially when it's snow storm there sometimes).
what everyone's favorite things are about Greymoor?
Well, in this whole patch I absolutely love one thing. They've finally added Jewelry crafting station to my home city... If only it happened earlier, rather then a bit more than 2 years since my first report about the missing Jewelry station there
New character selection screen is really great, I was so tired of old screens. But I wish we could select them at will, cause with next chapter it will be changed again, I think.
Face and body markings (and the bat pet) which we get from pre-order crate were nice. Without this crate, I wouldn't specifically buy the pet, but I would buy these markings - so at least some of Greymoor bonus stuff is of value to me.
I used the new face paint, and the head accessory from Thane outfit (it's golden part matches the golden chin piecing) - it looks refreshing on my black "ninja" khajiit
Oh, and now I can read books (including bookshelves) without dismounting - also nice little change. I was peacefully reading the book on my mount (naturally using Shadow Rider passive), while mobs were walking around and not caring. It adds to the utility of ESO mounts, and removes the reason for yet another unnecessary dismount (mount utility is crucial and I want to have more nice mount utility additions in future). My Skyscale set the utility bar very high
The creatures are really well done and a lot of general attention to detail.
I wonder if it's a bug or intentional, but there is one little detail... Instead of using pre-existing boar voice for black-and-white Bristleback boars, they used bear voice for them. They fiercely roar and growl
...I would even be glad if they changed the disgusting voice of my Death Hound to bear voice, so I could at least sometimes use the mount I paid for
And now we can steal mushrooms (for crafting) from NPC houses. I liked this detail.