Questions about Cadwell's Silver/Gold:

Mortuus126

1. Does the quest still instance you after 1T? I've read in numerous old posts that pre-1T, you would be in an instance with only other players from the same faction who were also doing Silver/Gold, and that it made the world seem dead. I don't want to do the quest if it's going to make my zones dead.

2. Can't I just go do the zone quests without Cadwell's Silver/Gold now? What happens if I do that? Do I miss out on any potential rewards for completing Silver/Gold, or can I retroactively turn it in?

3. Cadwell ominously declares "But fair warning - you will no longer be seen as a great champion. Even familiar faces will see you as a soulless drifter, lost in a an unfamiliar land." Will this affect how my primary faction's (Ebonheart) NPCs see me? What about recurring quest NPCs who are not associated with a faction? Will all the Ebonheart and factionless NPCs forget me? Cadwell's description seems to imply so. This one is kind of important to me because I took an extended break from the game, and having that extra dialogue from NPCs I have interacted with before helps remind me what I have done, and I really don't wanna lose that. I like knowing who I've done quests for/with because there's no way in hell I can remember them all on my own.

I've been searching high and low all week for answers to these questions and not finding anything conclusive. If this is TL;DR, #3 is the most important one for me to receive an answer to. Big thank you to anyone who is able to help clear these up for me!

lolo_01b16_ESO

1. No, doesn't happen anymore. Now everyone can play together outside of PvP, no matter which alliance they chose.
2. I'm pretty sure you don't miss anything important. There might be some small quests that you might miss (like: go to place X and accept a quest from person Y), but the reward for those quests is generally just a handful of xp and some gold or a useless item.
3. People that you meet inside Ebonheart zones will still behave the same towards you. But if you meet a person you already know again, in the other zones, they behave as if they didn't know you. E.g. If you are at the point where you start Caldwells silver, then you should have already spoken to the Daggerfall king and Aldmeri queen as well as some agents of their secret service during some negotiations. Obviously when you meet them again in their home territory, they can't know you as part of the Ebonheart pact, otherwise it wouldn't make sense that they trust you to complete their quests.

VaranisArano

1. You will not be instanced for most quests. There will be a few areas where a quest area dramatically changes like where you have to free a city or fort where it will be partially instanced. I recall going to Elden Root pre-One Tamriel, and the place was practically empty. That doesn't happen anymore - hubs are busy places with members of all levels and alliances, and the last time I did a main quest in Malabal Tor, there were a couple players on the same stage as me.

2. You can do the quests now and get the rewards retroactively. Reading back from past threads, it seems that Cadwell will not offer Gold until you've completed Silver, so it may require two dialogues with him to get both quest completions recognized. In addition, I see a comment suggesting it's better to hold off on fully completing Gold until you've turned in Silver, but it's only the one comment so YMMV.

3. There are no repercussions as to how your alliance sees you in PVE areas. Basically, what Cadwell means is that DC will see you as if you rolled DC, AD will see you as if you rolled AD, and EP will see you as if you rolled EP. This is functionally no different from how the game currently works. Recurring NPCs in the base game will probably not remember things you did for them in the other alliances' questlines or if you already did stuff for them in DLC zones since ZOS didn't re-record a ton of voice lines for that crossover. However, it shouldn't be a big deal.

If you'd like a joke about how Cadwell's Silver/Gold/One Tamriel works with Alliances, it's a little like this:

Artist: Isriana, https://www.deviantart.com/isriana/art/TESO-Not-The-Soldier-They-Were-Looking-For-655446253

Mortuus126

Thank you for the replies! Very helpful and knowledgeable. Tried asking a couple other places as well, and I was met with condescension, trolling, and people who simply didn't even bother to take the time to read what I typed before answering a question I never even asked. Thank you for making my first ESO forum experience a positive one.