Things you should do right away:

• Join the Fighters Guild. You advance in that skill line by killing stuff, but only after you join.
• Getting certified for crafting writs. You'll want to have done that some day, and you'll get decent experience points for doing it immediately. (That can be done in Alinor in Summerset, Daggerfall in Glenumbra, Vulkhel Guard in Auridon, or the city whose name I'm forgetting in Stonefalls.)
• Do the quest with the "benefactor", "hooded figure", etc. That starts the main story, and also gets you a quick 1 1/3 skill points.
• Do the immediate sequel to that quest. You get a skill point and a lot of XP just for a walk-and-talk that advances your knowledge of the lore.

Beyond that, there are five alternatives for where you start the story -- the three alliances, Vvardenfell, or Summerset. I'd recommend the Daggerfall Covenant or Summerset; some other people might recommend the Aldmeri Dominion; almost nobody will recommend the other two options.

• If you choose the DC, then the main regional quest on Stros M'Kai is fun but inessential. (But you meet a bunch of recurring NPCs.) The optional continuation on Betnikh is blah. The quest line started by the barking dog near the bank in Daggerfall is good and gives a skill point. The next skill point quest line is fast but blah. The one after that is really good, and introduces you to an important NPC. The one after that is pretty good too.
• If you choose Summerset, pay attention to the blast-from-the-past discussion between Vanus Galerion and Mannimarko in the delve on Artaeum. A disadvantage of this choice is the quest line involves the "important NPC" I mentioned in the previous point.
• If you choose Aldmeri Dominion, definitely go to Khenarthi's Roost and do the diplomatic quest in the city of Mistral. The rest of the island is optional.

With a refund. You're welcome!

And there is always @Dottzgaming extensive guide (with time stamps)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omwKCyjejd4

You'll start in the latest chapter you own.

Chapter starting locations are a bad place to start, there are no mundus stones. Just leave the starting location and find your way to your factions starting zone, you'll get more skill points and a mundus that way.

Agreed with most, start in your basegame starting area and do the game in "order" to follow the actual story....and make sense of the world around you.

I see you were a beta tester. Welcome back!



I always start with the base game, not the Chapters. As someone else said, everyone should start in the Wailing Prison. It is the least confusing place to start this game. ZOS likes to do the new tutorials each time, and that is wonderful, but the new tutorials also introduce this confusion. It is like reading a book by picking a random page in the middle.

To get to that story, all you have to do is head to a starting Alliance city (I usually go to Devon's Watch) and a hooded figure will run up to you and ask you to meet an important person. Before long, you will be on your way.

You'll see a hooded human woman approach you when you go through a wayshrine. She'll start you on a quest where you go see "the benefactor." This is the launch of the main story-line.

After that quest, it will dump you in either Khenarthi's Roost, Bleakrock or Stros M'Kai depending on your alliance, so there's no point in doing those islands before you do the benefactor quest, because you'll just end up back on the starter island anyway.

Those three islands are the easiest content in the game, though, and are great for leveling your skills up a bit.

if you are new to the game but want to skip to Summerset, you could at least read up on the lore/story that has happened

if you are open to other starting locations, I suggest you start in your faction's location as said above, and embark on the main quest, the one with the hooded figure, because everything story related revolves around the fact that you have no soul, and you will find out why by doing the main quest, which is decent story, I liked it.

In parallel, join Mages and Fighters guild, and enable its perks, persuasion and intimidation, which will save you time during quests.

Decide early which type of char do you want to play - magicka or stamina. It will help you improve your combat style faster, because hybrid builds are not efficient as a new char.

Try working on crafting very early if you care about making/improving your gear, and if you want to make gold later. Join a guild and ask for research trait items, to save a lot of time later when you figure out that it would have been nice to do this from the beginning

Try doing some story quests because they give skill points which are quite useful, also once you have a horse, each day visit a stable to upgrade it (it takes 180 real days to upgrade it fully, 2 months to get it to full speed)

Unlock at least a free inn room, to have a free teleport to your home

Because all this is overwhelming, try setting short term goals which are fun to you, like when I was new, I wanted to finish the Fighter's Guild story for title and dye.