Best Answers

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  VaranisArano

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  If the whole "I'm a card-carrying member of alliance A, but alliance B and C don't care" bothers you, I'd recommend finishing Coldharbor and the Main Quest line. That's because the MQ ends with the handwave reason for why Cadwell's Silver/Gold makes sense.
  
  If that doesn't bother you, and you want to experience the other two alliances before Coldharbor, then I'd pick one alliance to play through, then the other. The order doesn't really matter, since it was somewhat arbitrary even before One Tamriel. As EP, my Silver was DC, and Gold was AD. The main benefit to doing it this way is that you know all the recurring characters you meet during Coldharbor, although I don't think it will give you any additional dialogue because ZOS didnt do that with 1T.
  
  Hope that helps!

  #2

  September 2019

  Answer ✓

  1
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  starkerealm

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  VaranisArano wrote: »

  The main benefit to doing it this way is that you know all the recurring characters you meet during Coldharbor, although I don't think it will give you any additional dialogue because ZOS didnt do that with 1T.
  
  Hope that helps!

  
  It will, in fact. NPCs in Coldharbour have dialog flags that trigger off completing quest involving them in the base game zones. IIRC, these will fire even if you're from a different alliance.
  
  You don't get any special dialog for knowing multiple characters in a sequence. The example that comes to mind is the library. There's no way to have known all four NPCs before getting there originally, but any unique dialog for having prior interactions with them should be properly set when you run the place.
  
  Not sure what happens with the Cliffs of Failure. That one also has three NPCs (one from each alliance), based on your interactions with them.
  
  That said, I don't really recommend what Varanis is suggesting here. For example, the Cliffs of Failure has some very different dialog if you haven't interacted with them, and it's actually kinda interesting to see how the characters present themselves to a complete stranger, rather than someone who already knows them.
  
  Silver and Gold move counterclockwise around the map. So: Pact -> Covenant -> Dominion.
  
  After that, I'd suggest hitting zones in release order. Wrothgar -> Hews Bane -> Gold Coast -> Vvardenfell -> Clockwork City -> Summerset -> Mirkmire -> Northern Elsweyr -> Southern Elsweyr (once it's been released.)

  #3

  September 2019

  Answer ✓

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  Shadow_Akula

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  Not gonna tell one what order to do things in but I do wanna point out a cool thing I noticed:
  If you do each factions storyline before you do the final main quest uh quest, and look around the room mannimarco is in, you’ll find a lot of familiar guests instead of a bunch of empty spaces and only 2-3 familiar faces 👀 pretty cool feature imo
  P.s. extra challenge: when in the mannimarco room, push all the buttons! 😝

  #4

  September 2019

  Answer ✓

  7
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  starkerealm

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  VaranisArano wrote: »

  Nice! I've only done Coldharbor on one character since One Tamriel dropped, and IIRC she hadn't done the other alliances. So that's great to know about the dialogue changes. Thanks!

  
  There's a number of neat dialog changes as you play through the game "in order." Coldharbour is one of the biggest collections to date.
  
  I think I've written up all the potential interaction forks before, but this might be useful to someone moving forward.
  
  Wrothgar references Coldharbour (kinda.) If you skipped out on this, no big loss.
  
  Gold Coast references Eastmarch and Deshaan, and references the entire Raz arc (though, I think it's just flagging off of interacting with Raz at any point in Khenarthi's Roost, Auridon, or Reaper's March.) Additionally, there is a Greenshade flag, a Coldharbour/Craglorn flag. (This is one of the only references to Craglorn I've ever come across, and it's an entirely disposable NPC interaction in the Anvil Mage's Guild.)
  
  Gold Coast also foreshadows Vvardenfell.
  
  Vvardenfell references Gold Coast, Eastmarch, and Deshaan. None of this is main path, by the way. It's tied one of the side quests, and when I reference Vvardenfell in the future, I'm talking about connections to this side quest.
  
  Clockwork City references some recurring characters who've been in multiple zones (Deshaan, Coldharbour, Wrothgar, and Gold Coast. I'm not 100% sure, but there might be a Halls of Fabrication reference in here as a throwaway line.)
  
  Summerset references Vvardenfell and Clockwork City. (The Vvardenfell check is huge, probably one the largest dialog checks in the game, as it changes an NPC's name, and roughly 20-30% of their dialog.) It also checks Raz to see if you're an Eye of the Queen. Not sure if Riggert remembers you, I tend to avoid him, but (Deshaan, Eastmarch, Wrothgar.)
  
  Elsweyr gets weird. It checks main quest flags, checks for Wrathstone (this is the only major time dungeon quests are checked.) It checks Mage's Guild main quest, and also a Grahtwood side quest. Riggert's back, because of course he is.
  
  I'm probably forgetting stuff, and there's some connections I'm not thinking of. I've read there's a Summerset check in Mirkmire from random encounters that I never saw, for example.
  
  This gets into a weird thing, because it's kinda hard to talk about this stuff without spoiling specific plot beats and characters who pop up.
  
  Also, some dialog checks are fairly minor. The big example above is Morrowind. If you just run the Vvardenfell main quest, you won't set the flags that are really interesting in Summerset, and it's impossible to explain what's going to happen, without spoiling the hell out of everything.

  #5

  September 2019

  Answer ✓

  6