I can try to address some of the questions.

1. Wander whenever you like. Play however you like. especially with one tamriel since every zone is available to you automatically. Quest givers might approach you and be a little frantic, but this is just so you can better see where there are missions. Feel free to ignore them, and feel free to abandon any quest you pick up but don't want to do right now. Feel free to ignore the prophet...he will alert you every ten levels that there's a harborage quest, but you can complete these whenever you like. Do them at champion rank if you want, or even champion 561. The game is designed so that you could play to end game and never do any particular quest.

When I started I wandered for a month before starting the storylines. The game has amazing scope and diversity...just take off if you want.

2. Your journal, specifically the achievements section, is a good guide to the sort of stuff there is to do. As you wander, check this out. It might point you to the sort of content you enjoy playing. For example, plenty of people decide that they are fishermen, not fighters. I've met people who play nothing but crafting and banking.

3. "Area clear" refers to accomplishing some specific goal with anything appearing as an icon on your map. When an icon is black, it means there is something there to do in order to "clear it," and when you clear it you usually get some sort of lump xp bonus. You have no obligation in the game to clear areas...this system just alerts you to where there is content for you. Some clears are simple - dolmens clear the first time you assist in closing one. Delves clear by defeating the main boss. Other areas might have quests - either a side quest or alliance storyline quest. The alliance storyline features series of quests that award skill points for major area clears (about 5 per zone). This is the only significant reward to playing these...but you can certainly get skill points elsewhere. Play whichever areas you like...your map will track where there's stuff outstanding to do.

4. Social: the game used to be a bit more social...it's aging and there are fewer dedicated players now, but there is still a highly social aspect to the game. Make sure to turn on area chat. It also helps to have text chat displayed...a lot of players use this now. People tend to congregate in specific areas - rawlkha, elden root, wayrest, mourhold are a few. Pvp is still very social, as are the undaunted 4-player dailies and trials. It also helps if you join a couple of active guilds - there's a section of the forums where you can find guilds on your platform. If you join three large guilds with active players and turn text chat on, the game will get way more social for you. But if you want to chat, make friends, learn, etc, pvp is your best bet. Gear up during a busy time and go to cyrodiil then put out a zone text ("newbie looking for laid back group"). You'll get invites and probably meet some cool people who will also know a lot about other aspects of the game.

5. Mechanics/systems: yep, there are a lot in ESO. That's part of what makes it so immersive. You won't get a lot of in-game help, but there are endless online resources. ESOacademy.com and TamrielFoundry.com are great sites for the mechanics. There is a massive wikimthat will assist with a lost any quest. And specific question in these forums usually get answers.

The game is designed to introduce you to the existence of a skill line or mechanic, then to allow you to pursue it or ignore it however you like. For example, it will let you know that enchanting exists as a thing. If you like doing it, you can either mess around with it in-game and learn it, or read an online primer. If you hate it, you can avoid it. My suggestion is to focus on what seems immediately interesting to you...it's a little hard to learn and do everything at once. If you decide you want to craft armor, focus on collecting gear while questing and deconstructing it to level your lines, and learn the mechanics of wood, cloth and smithing. If this is utterly boring for you, skip it and try provisioning, alchemy and enchanting. No? The consider if you want to work up your fighters guild, make guild, thieves, darkmbortherhood or undaunted skill lines. If one seems intriguing learn how it levels and go work on that. And if all also fails, go fight stuff...that always levels your character and helps you learn how things work, ha.

6. Collecting: managing your acquisitions can be tough. Right now, C160 gear is max level in the game. Anything under this is virtually worthless...feel free to deconstruct/sell anything you don't want to immediately use. Materials are a bit tougher to say...some are useful, others aren't. If you're an ESO plus member this all goes into your craft bag and you don't need to worry about it. If not, as a general rule it's helpful to save runes, alchemy agents, food items, and gear mats. This will of course pile up in your bank and inventory.

So, as arduous as this might sound, it's very helpful to use the extra character slots on your account to create holding toons. For the first eight months I played, I had a character holding smith, wood and cloth, another holding runes/enchanting and another holding food/alchemy. This worked well...it allows you to hold almost unlimited mats. And I used these holding characters to become crafters in those areas - the toon holding my food and alchemy items worked up those skill lines, and now makes my food, potions and poisons. My rune holder worked up enchanting and makes my glyphs. By spreading out the crafting skills, you don't have to go find a bazillion skill points with one character. You can make your main a crafter in every line...but it will mean hunting down every sky shard and completing all the skill point quests.

If you create additional characters for holding, I advise creating toons you might want to someday play. for example, if you think you might want to someday play a magic sorc, create a really cool altmer sorc to be a holding character. If he's only ever a holder, fine, but if you ever want to play him he'll be rolled and ready. And you can feed your holding characters' mounts daily, so in a few months if you play them they're not so slow. If you think you might some day want to be a gear crafter, I'd also advise starting research early. It's the only truly long grind in the game (it takes a full year to become a nine trait crafter in everything...yikes).

Hopefully this helps. Feel free to ask me specific questions if there's anything I missed. Use @davey1107 in the post so that it pings me and I see it.