I think your issue here is immersion (or lack of it).
Immersion is used to describe the abillity to get pulled into a story. This can be a book, a video game or a movie. But this story is brought to you by a medium. For example. when you read a book, it may feel very real and vibrant, but you are just reading letters on paper. When watching a movie, it is a projected image on a flat screen.

Video games have the same thing. It is not real and can never be real. there are some barriers impossible to cope with.
A big one in MMO's is that not everyone is playing the game at the same moment. This is solved by freezing maps in time.
So whenever you enter deshaan. it is a later date then whenever you enter stonefalls. You are considered to have done and seen everything there is in stonefalls, even if you did not. This also means that if you defeat Molag Bal and then go to the next alliance, you are sent back in time. Basically we are all timetravellers when we change zone.

A second phenomena is what is famous specially in ESO and called a dragon break. The most famous one is the one in daggerfall. several possible outcomes and the player had to choose. Each choice would have had huge consequences for Tamriel. But that is impossible in future games. So they used the dragon break to create the warp in the west. This means that all those possible outcomes happened.

This is also true for ESO. There are three alliance storylines, and all three happened (wether or not you do them). In all three you are the hero that saves that alliance and they all happen at the same time.

So what happens when for example orsinium and other zones in skyrim open up and you can walk from bangkorai to the eastmarch?. In bangkorai you are in the daggefallconvenant in the timeframe of the 5th map. Once you enter orsinium you travel in time to a time after you stopped Molag Bal's plans (in all three stories) and this continue through the new maps in skyrim till you enter the eastmarch where you travel back to the timeframe of the 4th map.

This kind of lack of immersion happens that a videogame looks so real.

Riko_Futatabi wrote: »

I thought it over while reading your post. For me the root of the problem is the forcing of a player into a Faction and having these Factions split into 3 separate instances. Your initial Faction areas and Cyrodiil are the only areas I feel work.

I can live with the current story, but I find it frustrating when I see a better way to go about some things and great opportunities missed.

Thing is they are different factions and isntances.
Basically, the dragonbreak gives the opportunity to experience all three factions without creating a new character. It makes much more sense then letting you play all three factions without any explanation why you are suddenly supporting your mortal enemies. The way it is now is that you become hero of your faction. then find out there are bigger and more important things then fighting for you faction, like destroying molag bal and then you are tasked to see the world through your enemy's eyes and how they are not that different or evil. makes totally sense to me.

Ranique wrote: »

Riko_Futatabi wrote: »

I thought it over while reading your post. For me the root of the problem is the forcing of a player into a Faction and having these Factions split into 3 separate instances. Your initial Faction areas and Cyrodiil are the only areas I feel work.

I can live with the current story, but I find it frustrating when I see a better way to go about some things and great opportunities missed.

Thing is they are different factions and isntances.
Basically, the dragonbreak gives the opportunity to experience all three factions without creating a new character. It makes much more sense then letting you play all three factions without any explanation why you are suddenly supporting your mortal enemies. The way it is now is that you become hero of your faction. then find out there are bigger and more important things then fighting for you faction, like destroying molag bal and then you are tasked to see the world through your enemy's eyes and how they are not that different or evil. makes totally sense to me.

Ah but, one of my things that I feel they could have done better would have been for the player to not pick a faction ever but be somewhat of an eternal mercenary depending on what territory they would be in. It'd make the story in any form easier to tie in. And on a personal note, I don't feel attached like some do to the faction they pick. I only picked a certain faction because I was more curious as to what that landscape looked like.

Riko_Futatabi wrote: »

Ranique wrote: »

Riko_Futatabi wrote: »

I thought it over while reading your post. For me the root of the problem is the forcing of a player into a Faction and having these Factions split into 3 separate instances. Your initial Faction areas and Cyrodiil are the only areas I feel work.

I can live with the current story, but I find it frustrating when I see a better way to go about some things and great opportunities missed.

Thing is they are different factions and isntances.
Basically, the dragonbreak gives the opportunity to experience all three factions without creating a new character. It makes much more sense then letting you play all three factions without any explanation why you are suddenly supporting your mortal enemies. The way it is now is that you become hero of your faction. then find out there are bigger and more important things then fighting for you faction, like destroying molag bal and then you are tasked to see the world through your enemy's eyes and how they are not that different or evil. makes totally sense to me.

Ah but, one of my things that I feel they could have done better would have been for the player to not pick a faction ever but be somewhat of an eternal mercenary depending on what territory they would be in. It'd make the story in any form easier to tie in. And on a personal note, I don't feel attached like some do to the faction they pick. I only picked a certain faction because I was more curious as to what that landscape looked like.

From a lore perspective, you are not picking your alliance at all.
the exit out of coldharbour you take leads to a random spot in tamriel. It is just pure luck in what faction you land, but in all three cases you are landing in sea and are rescued by some nice people from an alliance you start helping for that reason. The pick of a faction is done during the character selection and is not part of the story.
How you apprach this from then on (role play) is up to you, but thats how it is set up. I like how this gives a lot of freedom to play any role you want without pushing it too much into set choices.