Coldharbor is a bit bizarre and the quest order made a lot more sense back before One Tamriel.

If you just need a simple Quest Order, its here: https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Coldharbour


For more directional instructions:
The library was probably the Library of Dusk, where you help out the Dunmer twins again.

Essentially, if you look at the map, you'll need to go to the left side of Coldharbor to the Lightless Oubliette to rescue the King. THen go to the right side to The Black Forge to rescue Vanus Galerion. Then the king and Vanus Galerion will kick the Fighters and Mages Guild into gear to start the invasion that will lead to over the bridge to the upper part of the map on the way to stopping the planemeld.

The Lightless Oubliette has some precursor quests. To get in, you need the help of either the lamia or the bosmer in the forest nearby, starting the quest "Into the woods". Ypu'll end up allying with one or the other and that will get you to rescuing the king.

Likewise, when you reach the Black Forge, you'll speak to a projection of Vanus Galerion to start "Vanus Unleashed" and rescue him.

Once both of them are rescued, you'll regroup in the Hollow City and start "Crossing the Chasm" which gets you to the upper part of the map.

From there, the main quest is a pretty straightforward push upward, IIRC. There are some side quests areas to the left and right of the vampire area.

If you do side quests throughout the zone, the primary benefit is that more characters show up in the Hollow City and you get a more more allies to talk to and fight alongside.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

Sigh....... figured it out. Turns out there is an umarked and unassuming entrance *next to* the bridge, which leads to Purple Guy giving the next quest. Please tell me the questing gets a bit clearer after the main quest? This entire zone is draining the soul out of me.

tophatsaur wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Coldharbor is a bit bizarre and the quest order made a lot more sense back before One Tamriel.

If you just need a simple Quest Order, its here: https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Coldharbour


For more directional instructions:
The library was probably the Library of Dusk, where you help out the Dunmer twins again.

Essentially, if you look at the map, you'll need to go to the left side of Coldharbor to the Lightless Oubliette to rescue the King. THen go to the right side to The Black Forge to rescue Vanus Galerion. Then the king and Vanus Galerion will kick the Fighters and Mages Guild into gear to start the invasion that will lead to over the bridge to the upper part of the map on the way to stopping the planemeld.

The Lightless Oubliette has some precursor quests. To get in, you need the help of either the lamia or the bosmer in the forest nearby, starting the quest "Into the woods". Ypu'll end up allying with one or the other and that will get you to rescuing the king.

Likewise, when you reach the Black Forge, you'll speak to a projection of Vanus Galerion to start "Vanus Unleashed" and rescue him.

Once both of them are rescued, you'll regroup in the Hollow City and start "Crossing the Chasm" which gets you to the upper part of the map.

From there, the main quest is a pretty straightforward push upward, IIRC. There are some side quests areas to the left and right of the vampire area.

If you do side quests throughout the zone, the primary benefit is that more characters show up in the Hollow City and you get a more more allies to talk to and fight alongside.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

I deffo did the bit with the bosmer, and I swear that was what lead to going to the library to get the crystal. How do I re-enter the Lightless place? It's surrounded by walls and the only bridge is shattered. Have I bugged it?

I did the wizard quest to fill some time so he's safe, it's just this damn king.

There's a door. Whoever you sided with should have taken you there. It may be called The Ruined Passage, and it looks something like this:

The main quest is a bit confusing when you get to Coldharbour I agree. At a certain point there is no clear direction, no quest markers telling you "go there, do that quest" or such. This part of the main quest is vague because you're supposed to go to other areas and do quests there.

Questing in other zones, expansions etc, is clearer and less vague yes. Keep in mind the main quest was written in 2014 when ESO was released. I'm unsure if it's received any changes in text or dialogue just for the sake of clarity.

Coldharbour works like this: When you and your allies are teleported into coldharbour, you get seperated. This is supposed to be chaotic, and this far in the main quest, you should know how zones/areas work. Which means you have to just complete every quest in the (side) areas to re-gain those allies. There are only two needed to move further into the zone: the king and the mage. Which are on the far east/west sides. The more quests you do, the stronger your amy, and the more lights of meridia you will have.

The best way to approach this is to walk to every mapmarker and complete it, by completing it's quest. Following the roads west and east out of town, are the best way to find quests.

There shouldn't be clear directions/notes on where to go, but there are only four exits out of the city. The top one is locked, till you do the main quest first part in coldharbour. The bottom exit is where you came from. So there is a 50% chance to pick the correct exit and find it while exploring. Since the main quest requires both the king and mage to be saved, and they are on either side, you have a 100% chance to walk into them when exploring.

When you come near a place which is show on the map, a quest marker appears. This is done really well in coldharbour. The mage and king quests show up even faster when you are near those places.

tophatsaur wrote: »

Sarannah wrote: »

Coldharbour works like this: When you and your allies are teleported into coldharbour, you get seperated. This is supposed to be chaotic, and this far in the main quest, you should know how zones/areas work.

Lmao the main quest involved me going to Michael Gambon's cave, getting teleported to some dungeon, then going back to the steps of Glenumbra to get his Force projection telling me to turn back around and do another dungeon to rescue his mates. Repeat the process half a dozen times.

Yeah, the main quest has aged really badly since the One Tamriel update. Sir Dumbledore used to show up every X levels so that the main quest was paced evenly between various stories. Now he never stops showing up at the foot of those stairs, which has new players thinking "...I literally just left your hermit cave, dude. Stop [snip] me around like this." And it then speeds them into Coldharbour, which was designed as the end game zone, before they've even finished a single starter zone.

The new player experience is god awful for this game, and in dire need of an overhaul. I've lost count of the number of friends who I've talked into giving the game a go, only for them to uninstall after a few hours of trying to deal with the god awful narrative order or the atrocious combat system. Those of us who now enjoy the game are numb to how problematic these systems are for new players - as evidenced by all the forum requests for a harder overland experience, while new players try engaging with the overland in white non-set piece gear, with 0CP, and no idea that weaving attacks before they even visually connect is a thing (because really, why on Nirn would that make sense?), then rage quit at how dull and difficult combat is, while having no idea what's going on narratively.

[Edited for Censor Bypass]

I first installed the game in 2017, but quit after a few weeks when I found out you can't really customize your build beyond choosing your class, resource (stam or magic), and weapon (but only if you're stam; otherwise, Oops! All staffs!). No chance to be, say, a magicka/stamina blend build that casts spells in one hand and uses a sword in the other... like, you know, a TES game.

I've come back to give it another shot, played through Morrowind yesterday (only took a few hours). Morrowind was... weird. Because I've played TES3, I obviously don't like Vicec/The Tribunal very much, but my character became Champion of Vivec with no choice on their part. I had to save Vicec. Where's the roleplaying? And why did the entirely of Vvardenfell look identical to how it does a thousand years in the future?

I'll do Greymoor next, but, I don't have that high hopes narratively. What encourages you to keep playing the game? Is it the gameplay, the world, the story? I'm trying my best to get invested.

Athan1 wrote: »

Just use the addon quest map to find quest giver locations. Not sure what was so confusing, if you just read what the npcs say everything makes sense.

People seem to have misunderstood the point of this thread and my confusion, but I don't believe it was invalid in any way. After completing the quest for the Bosmer, I went to do the quest in the Library of Dusk. After that, I had no active quests, meaning no markers, and no clear way of knowing how to proceed. The guides online said to do the Bosmer quest, but I'd already done that, which just furthered my confusion. Eventually I found out that the King was in the Lightless Oubliette, but I ran around the entirety of the western area and couldn't find a way inside. It took me at least an hour to figure out there is a door to the Oubliette in a somewhat hidden location besides the bridge, and that was where the next quest was. There was no indication on my map or in my quest journal to suggest this, or a marker for the door itself.

Did the bosmer mention this after their quest? Probably; but, as this is an MMO, I was trying to get this done quickly and so naturally followed the next marker (which led to the library) instead of going inside, as the quest with the bosmer was marked as complete. New player confusion over unmarked locations isn't an issue that's worth criticizing; not everyone has yet mastered the game.

tophatsaur wrote: »

I first installed the game in 2017, but quit after a few weeks when I found out you can't really customize your build beyond choosing your class, resource (stam or magic), and weapon (but only if you're stam; otherwise, Oops! All staffs!). No chance to be, say, a magicka/stamina blend build that casts spells in one hand and uses a sword in the other... like, you know, a TES game.

I've come back to give it another shot, played through Morrowind yesterday (only took a few hours). Morrowind was... weird. Because I've played TES3, I obviously don't like Vicec/The Tribunal very much, but my character became Champion of Vivec with no choice on their part. I had to save Vicec. Where's the roleplaying? And why did the entirely of Vvardenfell look identical to how it does a thousand years in the future?

I'll do Greymoor next, but, I don't have that high hopes narratively. What encourages you to keep playing the game? Is it the gameplay, the world, the story? I'm trying my best to get invested.

Ironically, what keeps me playing is what put you off originally - build customization. I've been actively posting to request a sword/spell class for years now, but no other MMO allows as much build customization as ESO already does. For a melee caster build the best classes I've found are Templars (Solar Barrage skill radiates magic damage around you for 8 seconds, and grants Empower for the duration, boosting light attack damage by 40% so even without much Stamina you get a huge boost to swinging your greatsword around) and Sorcs (passive boost to light attack damage with Bound Armaments, and Crystal Weapon is a spammable enchant for your weapon that boosts the damage of your next light attack by a colossal amount - this is a stamina build but aesthetically is very magical).

As for the Vivec issue, I think it's because the story and zone were written for us Morrowind die-hard fans. Those of us who love Vivec not so much for his character, but for being one of the most intricately written video game characters of all time. A dude you love to hate. And while there are some neat touches like seeing the cantons of Vivec under various stages of construction, the otherwise identical appearance of the island to TES3 (Seyda Neen especially) was disappointingly too much fan service imo. Same deal with Solitude in the Greymoor expansion.

That said I can't recommend Elsweyr enough for its scale and unique lore, and for handling Khajiit breeds so perfectly. Southern Elsweyr was a great DLC expansion to the zone too, and there's still more of the zone left to create. Summerset on the other hand... they tried creating the entire main island in a single Chapter-sized landmass, so it feels tiny as a result, and every city looks identical (unless you count the poor city of Dusk which is just a single tower with nothing happening there at all...). They seemed to have learned from that mistake though, and all Chapters since have been one or two cities max, so architecture and history of the cities can be fleshed out as well as they deserve. So I'm cautiously optimistic about the future of the game, provided they can sort out the performance issues with server latency, and finally get around to adding some melee magicka weapons one day