i am NOT a computer wiz in the least, but i was running the beta atleast on minimum settings with a POS 7 year old computer (win 7 32bit, 4 gigs of ram, an old intel quad core like 2.4ghz or some such and a nvidia 9500gt...i don't suggest running this on that ;p)...while looking for a computer to upgrade to i saw alot of people talking about how windows 8 was totally screwing up their games, whether they were right or wrong alot of them seem to have fixed it by going to windows 8.1 (which is what i'm running, not a fan of it but it works)...you could also try running it in 8.1 using the compatibility thing (just google "run program in windows 8.1 as windows 7") and see if that clears anything for you....just a thought that may or may not work but worth a whirl
good luck
I had a similar problem with a new laptop i bought a couple months ago, right down to the delay in pushing play on the patcher till the game window opened up. Turned out that the problem was a power setting (i use an adequate, but not top end, laptop.) I just had to click a button to give the video card more juice. Could be maybe you have a loose power cord, or not enough power to run your gpu? Just a thought as i went through something similar. Hope it helps.
just a quick thing id like to note that I was actually complaining about the lack of customer support I was provided by the eso team as well as my game not working but the fact it felt like no one was really concerned but it seems like the actual eso community really pulled through thanks for all the great input and ideas guys really made me feel like ill be able to get this game going with or with out their help thanks a lot
It took about 6 hours for someone to respond to a ticket I made about a bug in a quest blocking my progress in the game, but I kind of expected that since it was launch day.