When I played during beta and the first year much of these inconsistencies with the story didn't exist, it's all added content. You can excuse a new game for having some issues, which at the time it had many. This is now seven years old, starting area's should be perfect. It just needs some house cleaning.

Also, on a personal level I really don't care all that much. I just like to fight things, I'll be in PVP soon enough. But it's not a great starting experience, it was my observation. If you want to show me all the new players joining that are happy with things the way they are then go for it. I didn't see any though, all I saw was vets running around.... and farmers!

I'd like to see this game flourish, be good and attract millions of people even if I'm not part of it, as I have an invested interest in all things TES. When your first experience is one of confusion it's not great. When mmo games fail to attract new players they inevitably die. I have a unique perspective, as someone who knows the game, but is also experiencing it like a new player would.

After writing my own post I had a little look through some other post's and at least three other people have said more or less the same things just today, so I'm not on my own.

I've been playing ESO for just over 4 years now, and my first character never noticed any confusions because he never left Vvardenfell before I decided to give up on him and roll a different character.

My second character-- who is now my primary main, meaning my main on my primary server-- had an absolute blast once he left Vvardenfell, running around without a plan of any kind and doing quests all out of sequence because he didn't know any better. But even though I had a lot of fun playing that way, I decided that I really "should" have played through the quests in proper sequence.

My alternate main-- that is, my main on the other server-- has been progressing through the zones in order, except for doing enough of the zone questlines in certain zones to open up the repeatable daily quests for events in those zones. He's made it about halfway through Cadwell's Gold, and it's been great being able to experience the quests and NPCs in the "correct" order, but it's also a bit of a drag putting off doing most of the content for the DLC and chapter zones because it isn't the "proper" time for doing them yet.

I've also got several alternate characters on both servers, and I've been trying to do the content in the "proper" order on them, although I'm not devoting the same anount of time on them as I do on my two mains.

Based on my experiences with my two mains, I would encourage players to have at least two characters for playing through the content-- one who is allowed the freedom to play any content at any time, without any consideration to the "proper" order; and another who is more or less restricted to playing the content in the "proper" order. And don't be surprised if you find out that it's actually more fun to play the content out of order, even if it's less confusing storywise to play the content in order.

Also, if you hate characters standing on top of each other when talking to a banker, you can pick a slightly less convenient city as your main base of operations. Alinor in Summerset is beautiful and fairly convenient, and not as crowded as the scruffy but even more convenient Vivec City. Rawl'kha is somewhere inbetween. Clockwork City isn't crowded at all. Etc.

Tannakaobi wrote: »

I can't say I'm not disappointed.

It's been a while, I don't remember much in terms of the story or mechanics so I feel almost like a new player. I have a general gist of how things work in ESO and I've played many an mmo anyway. I though I'd start a fresh new character, but first I wanted to experiment with a couple of different classes. Having gone through levels 1-16 twice I noticed a couple of things...

It's such a poor introduction to the game. Nothing makes any sense.
I skipped the Introduction, to be met instantly by some woman going on about her benefactor. As most of you know this questline puts you straight into the introduction. OK! whatever...
Anyway I've noticed a couple of issues which are just silly and give a really bad first impression.

I had someone calling me soulless before I even started the main quest. Skyshards don't make much sense if you haven't started the main questline (and lot's of small things like this).
Also, I feel like I'm being harassed every time I go into a city. I'm being treated like some kind of world renown hero. Everyone want's a piece of me, dragging me all over the continent and I'm just trying to work out how to organise my inventory and learn some skills. I have people claiming that only I can save the fate of all Tamriel and I'm thinking, any one of these guards could kick my arse and there only NPC's...

Also, why is it that no matter where I take myself, I feel like other players are standing on top of me. No matter what quest, Delve or even just random mobs I am trying to fight/complete another character/player comes steamrolling in, ignoring mobs but causing a train of them to follow then kills the boss/loots the chest and does one. With not so much as a sly wink my way. It's not fun waiting around for things to respawn. I thought by now some of the area's would be empty. I really like the combat system in ESO, The story seems interesting, but it's ruined by poor design.

Can I have my own server until I catch up a bit?

Yeah the story continuity is pretty bad atm. That new tutorial was lame imo. I preferred the cold harbor intro. Then there's all these npcs that appear that you've never met but they know you because the dlc's also have no sense of continuityand zos assumes you've met them in the base game.

They really need to work on the story having some semblance of order.

I think the easiest solution to the continuity of the quest lines is to get rid of all the messengers and introduce a message board. A place a player can go to look for quests. It's simple, it's useful and it's lore friendly. It would also tidy things up a little and the mechanics already exist in the game. It could also offer some insight into who the quests are for and how it all fits together.

I would force the player into the main quest. This would tidy up the issue of being soulless, or more to point, not. But still referred to as such. That really is poor, and it walks hand in hand with Skyshards, it's not so much that you have to collect them without explanation. It's the fact that the main quest when you eventually do it explains why you collect them and if you've already collected over one hundred or even just one it breaks the lore in a seriously obvious way.

Nanfoodle wrote: »

Sounds like most of your problems is your not used to playing an MMO. It'd standard in RPGs you are the hero to save the world. So NPCs are always looking for your help.

Everyone in an MMO are fighting for the same crafting nodes, NPCs to kill. Or the same banker or vendor to get what you need done.

No, I've played many mmo's and it's simply not true that most make you the hero of the world before you earn it. The opposite is true, usually you are a hero rather than the hero and you have to go looking for quests. Often having to prove your worth before you get more interesting quests. It's weird that I'm treated as a hero before I've even done anything in the game. I can't think of another mmo that does that.

As for 'fighting for the same crafting nodes, NPCs to kill. Or the same banker or vendor to get what you need done'.
It's really not what I meant. I'm talking about bosses, or even just crucial mobs in the story of quests.
As an example, I did a quest last night and they were building up the danger for hours and at the end, the panicle of the entire map, countless quests in, the final boss in what felt like a full chapter of the story. I roll into a town that is under siege, I can't find any mobs to kill, but continue forward only to eventually find the big bad boss I've been chasing down for hours already engaged in combat and almost dead. I manage to get a hit in before she dies. I'm then treated like I'm the hero that saved the world.... That's just not good.
I will concede that ESO is not the only mmo to have this problem. But it is among the worst for it in my opinion. There is just something about the mega server that makes it worse because people are everywhere. Every quest has other people doing the same thing at the same time. Based on my experience questing I'd think there are more people playing ESO than any other game. I hope I feel like that when I move on to PVP and I actually want to be surrounded by other players all the time.

Anyway, I sound like I'm unhappy with the game and I'm really not. But I can see why someone who is more focused on story would be disappointed and this is a TES game after all.