The explanation for that would be that Cadwell tells you: "How do you think the story would have gone if you stranded somewhere else. But be careful no one will remember your previous achievements." Well at least thats close to what he says.

Back in the day that would have been the only way to get to the other alliances territories.

More "try this out instead of rolling an alt or leaving, 'cos we're a bit short of more content today"
(which was the 4.5 years ago)

Long before (the now very nerfed) Craglorn or even champion points, let alone One Tamriel

Owondyah wrote: »

it just makes 0 sense and ruins immersion...

These new mmos just don't care about the FEEL... it's just lets "catter to everyone and everything"

That would be what happens when you do everything out of order, yes.

Mind you, the alternative wasn't that great. Before One Tamriel, you could expect to be railroaded through the Covenant questline with level locked quests, then railroaded through the other faction quests thanks to the handwave when you finished the main quest. You couldn't ever quest with your friend's character on a different faction, zones you outleveled were pointless, and woe betide you if you were higher level than your friend or you played the DLCs before you finished the base game because then you'd outlevel your quests.

Pre One Tamriel was immersive...and also a pain in a lot of ways.

If you want things to make sense, your best bet is to just play in chronological order. You can still do that.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Owondyah wrote: »

it just makes 0 sense and ruins immersion...

These new mmos just don't care about the FEEL... it's just lets "catter to everyone and everything"

That would be what happens when you do everything out of order, yes.

Mind you, the alternative wasn't that great. Before One Tamriel, you could expect to be railroaded through the Covenant questline with level locked quests, then railroaded through the other faction quests thanks to the handwave when you finished the main quest. You couldn't ever quest with your friend's character on a different faction, zones you outleveled were pointless, and woe betide you if you were higher level than your friend or you played the DLCs before you finished the base game because then you'd outlevel your quests.

Pre One Tamriel was immersive...and also a pain in a lot of ways.

If you want things to make sense, your best bet is to just play in chronological order. You can still do that.

Or they could throw out a small bone regarding this issue. I've reposted it many times, but suffice to say without reposting it again: they could have a mysterious voice telling you that you have strayed into enemy lands but that an interested greater power is shielding your identity. If you ever make it to the Cadwell's Silver prompt you figure out who that mysterious benefactor is.

Clearly you've never walked up to an army base in a foreign country during wartime and tried to introduce yourself as a fellow patriot of whatever country the army base was from, because I'm pretty sure they wouldn't believe you unless they'd already received a dispatch from headquarters telling them to expect you. Okay, I've never done that, either-- which is perhaps why I'm still alive to tell you that-- but I'm pretty sure that's how it would work. And if you're actually going to be recruited by an enemy alliance and talked into going on the offensive against your own alliance-- well, your loyalties are obviously questionable. It's not mental gymnastics to try to make sense of things, it's actually pretty reasonable as it is.

Some of my characters started in Vvardenfell, Summerset, or Elsweyr, they hold no allegiance to any faction. So they are mercenaries and will help anyone, for a price. Even if they run through the MQ, they don't care for your faction loyalty.

I actually like the freedom of one Tam, I started a guild when game launched and we were AD but then we started getting more DC and wanted to try and accommodate as many people as we could so then I had to roll a DC alt, then eventually same happened with EP (though I ended up leaving by that point) I had ran every single questline so many times I could nearly recite the dialogue. It made repeating content painful and tedious, not to mention all the practical issues like overleveling etc etc. Now when I roll a character I decide their faction (for purely pvp reasons) then build out a character and then do the quests in any order or location I want as suits each individual character. It's like a choose your own adventure story, once you hit DLC/Chapter zones no one really cares about your faction which further facilitates this new approach. I've even found that characters you meet that show up in other parts of the game will recall you (at least in the newer chapters, not sure about old content).

I would imagine that there isn't much incentive for zos to go back and rework the old content just for the sake of immursion. That said, I have always wanted them to do a second pass of the vanilla game's zone quests with new story or a "sequel" of sorts to tell us what happened after we came through the last time, with some tweaks to what mobs are around the game, maybe some wrecked areas being restored to their former glory (looking at you bleakrock). It's content I'd be totally willing to pay for if it meant more stories to experience and getting to reconnect with characters that were fun and we only got to see them once.

Owondyah wrote: »

ok... thats all fine and what not...

I own the game up to morrowind expansion... + imperial city dlc.

WHY am I starting in morrowind when its in the MIDDLE of current order of events??

I mean... how do you defend THAT stupidity lol?

From a marketing perspective, putting players into the latest Chapter they own is a great way of letting them immediately play the content they paid cash for and hinting that ESO isn't like other MMOs where you have to grind up through old story to experience the latest expansion.

From a gameplay perspective, it lets ZOS update the gameplay tutorial. I dislike the concept of starting in Elsweyr, but I have to admit that the Elsweyr tutorial was the best at explaining the basics of combat so far and actually superior to the original tutorial in that regard.

From a storytelling perspective where you want a coherent storyline, its silly. It was worse with Summerset, when new players started with Part 3 of the Daedric Wars arc.


Some new players are happy to start in the new chapter. If you aren't, the usual method is to wayshrine to your alliance's starter city and talk to the Hooded Figure to start of the Main Quest, which will take you through the original opening sequence.

I would like to see the timeline progress and the alliance war end. Leave it as a vestigial feature for Cyrodiil and IC. I never liked the idea of the war to begin with, and 1T for all its flaws allowed me more freedom to do as I please. None of those things will happen, of course.