I'm not really excited or looking forward to anything to be honest. Maybe it's burnout from the game or just being too used to disappointment after disappointment these past few years, but none of what was shown looked interesting at all.

I mostly only do group pve content so all of the story and overland content is completely obsolete to me. Especially since ESO's writing and overland gameplay has been terrible for years. Now, this could be a chance for you to convince me to give overland a shot, but you've not really given me a reason to do so.

You did mention that you were gonna try and make Winterhold feel more like Skyrim with a bigger emphasis on exploration, but to me exploration feels pointless if there's nothing to find. Considering this will be overland content, I don't expect any of the gear to be relevant and since this is the only thing for me to go for as a veteran player (I already have every mount and outfit I want so cosmetics are meaningless to me), Winterhold will remain completely unexplored. Just like Solstice, Gold Road, Necrom, Galen, and High Isle. And no, farming mythics doesn't count. That's not exploration, that's looking up where the lead is dropped on UESP and then mindlessly farming it.

It's also a bit weird to me that you chose Winterhold in particular instead of a zone that we've never had in a TES game before. All you're doing imo is inviting unfavorable comparisons to Skyrim, because ESO's exploration and writing will never match Skyrim's. And yes, I know Skyrim's writing isn't considered to be that great. And I fully expect ESO's version of Winterhold to be even worse that Skyrim's in terms of writing. But I digress.

As for the Thieve's Guild MK2, it just sounded kinda boring tbh. Yay, we get to interact with the thieveing system. In ESO. A game that was never designed around it. And where a combination of Night Mother's Embrace + Night Terror/Khajiit race makes every sneaking mechanic obsolete and just turns the entire Thieves Guild questline into a slow walking simulator. Like, what even is the point?

The Sheogorath one also sounds kinda boring. I don't really have much else to say about it honestly. I find Sheogorath in ESO to be extremely annoying and the premise of his quest doesn't really compel me to suffer his presence.

You also seem to be trying to focus on expanding the things we can do in the overland with more emphasis on puzzles and mini games. Personally, if I wanted to do puzzles I'd play a puzzle game. I hate puzzles in these types of games and ESO's ones have historically been terrible imo. The only purpose they serve is to slow the pace of the game down to a crawl. So the Sage's Vault will remain unexplored by me as well.

There was some new group content that was also shown, like the night market and the new trial. This should be the exact type of content I'd be interested in, but again, just like what I said about exploration, if there isn't anything for me to actually work towards then this is just obsolete content. We already saw the night market sets on the pts and there was nothing I wanted. Meaning there's no reason for me to waste my time with it. Especially since you seem to be forced to do stupid mini games to progress in it. As for the trial, I don't know what gear sets will be sourced from it, but if there's nothing I want then that will be left incomplete, much like Ossein Cage.

In closing, I personally think you should've focused on making the core of ESO's gameplay loop more fun first before trying to add more gameplay elements.

Looked ok... waiting 9 Months for a zone update? Particularly when we were told seasons wouldn't mean less content isn't a great look. Bear in mind we already lost out on a Q1 update this year so only get 3 updates in 2026 not 4.

Decent amount of other content and some looks interesting. "Hard Mode Basepop" that we've apparently been asking for? I have zero idea what that even means.

I used to book my holiday for the big chapter release... seems like there will be no need to do that this year, but gonna be burning through my holiday in Jan next year... definitely a issue for me, would rather be taking time off later in year.

I further wanted to add the appreciation towards the rumor system. I appreciate that they are respecting the audience to be able to actually engage in a world-setting and figure things out, rather than just sprint to the carrot on the stick quest marker.

I just hope the actual clues are reliable and appropriate. And that the range of locating a thing is also appropriate to match what is humanly visible on our screens, rather than making our characters stand right on top of something before "solving" it.

I turned quest markers off for myself for awhile, and while some NPCs would say something with clues like "You'll find him at the ruins just North of here", sometimes nothing about direction is said... which is fine when there are systems in place to appropriately explore. Things like asking random/any NPCs where a building is in town, looking for context clues in the environment, relying on prior travel experiences in the area (which usually doesn't develop because of the non-exploration factor in the game), or even just having aspects which rewards getting lost and having fun finding something else you weren't expecting. But since these elements lack, it felt like I was just wasting my own time.
I felt I had to turn the quest markers back on to not just be wondering through absolutely pointless areas that have no true environmental engagement, just to do a scripted quest step for something like finding a piece of paper on the ground which causes an NPC to spawn three meters away from me after I click it.

Hopefully Winterholds improved exploration will help with some of this.

I really enjoyed the stream, and have voted accordingly.

I also claimed 9 drops on all but one of my six accounts. On that one account, I had multiple Twitch errors and ended up being at 98% of 45 minutes when the drops cut off early, so I could only claim 4. I received 9 drops on three accounts, 6 drops (I'm guessing somehow I got the 5-crate and the 1-crate, but not the 3-crate) on two accounts, and the expected 4 drops on the last account.

There's a whole thread about the issues with drops not showing up in accordance with the claimed numbers. Something clearly went wrong with them this time.

ZOS_JasonBarnes wrote: »

Aliyavana wrote: »

ZOS_JasonBarnes wrote: »

Aliyavana wrote: »

I see Sage Voernet was mentioned, but since I saw an icon for future content which I assume is for Sage’s Vault last stream where the city of Moonguard would be in-universe in Glenumbra, I’m curious if it was intended to be Sage Gyron Vardengroet instead? I will see when PTS comes eventually.

Edit: looks like other sites are misspelling Voernet as Varnet https://wccftech.com/elder-scrolls-online-seasons-2026-overview/

I think the stream misspelled it as well

Hi Aliyavana! I'm not sure what icon you saw, but the Sage's Vault is not an icon that's represented on the map! You'll learn more about it with the TG Storyline and how to get there. It might have been one of the new Dynamic Encounter/World Event icons?

Referring to the one i circled in red in the previous stream at 32 minutes in.

Yup, I just confirmed. That's one of the icons for our new Dynamic World Event/Encounters!

ah ok. thank you for confirming jason.

last question, is it varnet like the stream stated,


or voernet like https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Voernet

ZOS_JasonBarnes wrote: »

Aliyavana wrote: »

ZOS_JasonBarnes wrote: »

Aliyavana wrote: »

ZOS_JasonBarnes wrote: »

Aliyavana wrote: »

I see Sage Voernet was mentioned, but since I saw an icon for future content which I assume is for Sage’s Vault last stream where the city of Moonguard would be in-universe in Glenumbra, I’m curious if it was intended to be Sage Gyron Vardengroet instead? I will see when PTS comes eventually.

Edit: looks like other sites are misspelling Voernet as Varnet https://wccftech.com/elder-scrolls-online-seasons-2026-overview/

I think the stream misspelled it as well

Hi Aliyavana! I'm not sure what icon you saw, but the Sage's Vault is not an icon that's represented on the map! You'll learn more about it with the TG Storyline and how to get there. It might have been one of the new Dynamic Encounter/World Event icons?

Referring to the one i circled in red in the previous stream at 32 minutes in.

Yup, I just confirmed. That's one of the icons for our new Dynamic World Event/Encounters!

ah ok. thank you for confirming jason.

last question, is it varnet like the stream stated,


or voernet like https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Voernet

Voernet. That was a subtitle typo!

Thank you for confirming. Excited for new breton/breton adjacent content

I just want to say: you guys really, really cooked. I'm so excited for this year.

I love favors, rumors and dynamic encounters - I've never really been into the "follow the marker through the rat maze" model of things, which is far from unique to ESO but is very present here, and giving players something that actually makes them think is really awesome. Rumors reminds me of the card clues from Tales of Tribute, where you could actually figure out where things were just by reading. And the treasure maps too, of course. I love those moments. I would also love more different kinds of puzzles and it sounds like that might be happening as well with the Sage's Vault.

I love the class mastery system. Even though I'm a huge fan of subclassing, I also think it's a great way to support single-class players.

Been loving the class changes you've been making, and the weapon changes as well. The only thing here that I would like to request is additional weapon styles which don't use new weapons/art, like one-hand with a magical off-hand, martial staff, etc.

All of the coming sea-based content looks super cool too, love the new Thieves' Guild stuff as that was one of my favorite questlines...but most importantly for me is Overland Difficulty which will finally make that part of the game fun for me to play. I really can't stress enough how much this means to me. It's the reason I'm here on the forum. So thank you. And related to that, solo dungeons are also quite welcome! It always bugged me that I could never really get a handle on the story if I was in the group.

You guys killed it today!

The variety and speed of new content is almost overwhelming. I'm excited for all of it, but feel like I have to focus on the next thing (Night Market) to keep my head above water, lol.

Erickson9610 wrote: »

I was disappointed that Werewolf wasn't talked about at all, and that they talked about Warden instead (which gets its refresh the update after Werewolf does). Why wasn't Werewolf mentioned at all? There are whole communities who care about Werewolf, and it's disheartening to see ZOS not even acknowledge it. Werewolf is important, too.

I get that Warden "deserves" to be talked about more than Werewolf does. Warden is a Class with three skill lines, while Werewolf is a single skill line that fewer people play or care about... but it should've at least been mentioned, logically speaking.

pretty sure wardens would very happily swap getting their rework in update 50 and not being talked about before hand.
just saying.

The High Seas of Tamriel looks really interesting and different. If it's done well I think it could be amazing. Naval combat can be very hit-and-miss I think, it doesn't have to be overly complicated to be engaging. An example of simple-but-really-fun naval combat I feel is Assassin's Creed (Odyssey) naval combat, an example of naval combat that really misses the mark I feel is Black Desert Online.
The unique environment of underwater combat could really be exploited to make this kind of combat interesting and novel.

Rumours also sound interesting, and generally, more puzzle content is always great idea. There is absolutely nothing wrong with inviting and challenging players to really critically think about puzzles and quests and what the next step is, there isn't enough of this in MMOs these days. And of course there will be 101 different guides et cetera that come out for those that don't enjoy such, or get stuck, or just want to get it done, and so forth.With Tamriel's rich history and lore, there are so many opportunities here available. Looking forward to what the development team give us.

Dynamic World Bosses initially sounded to me like they're similar to events you come across in GW2. If they are as well refined and diverse in ESO as they are in GW2, they'll absolutely be a great bonus to the game.

Like anything I guess; if what has been revealed is implemented well they'll all be wonderful additions. Fingers-crossed they are.

PvP – I don’t participate in this activity at all (only when I have to, for a reward or something like that), so I’m not interested in anything related to PvP

Night Market – I haven’t played PTS but I’m curious to see what it’ll be like; this looks fun, but I’m worried about the difficulty (I’ve seen comments on the forum like “way too hard” and so on). I don’t mind a higher difficulty level, but I also don’t want to play something like hard mode or a game where every mistake is fatal, yknow. I also hope it’ll have a way to search for other players like it does now in dungeon queue (select what I am—DPS, tank, or healer—and just wait for a group to form). If I have to manually put a group together, I’ll probably only play it on rare occasions...

I also don’t like puzzles and riddles, and I was pretty disappointed that they were mentioned quite often, so if the content has too many puzzles, riddles etc, that will be big no thanks from me.
Well, we’ll see…

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Wardens were a topic of discussion? I recall wardens being casually mentioned in passing. And even then it was glommed in with "or any other class that gets it next". Did I miss something?

Honest question, because admittedly my interest did fade during the round tables.

During the second round table discussion, Warden was brought up several times. Notably at 55:08, 49:38, and 51:13 in the VOD on YouTube.

i did like the stream-not sure about pvp section -wait and see i guess

not bad at all ,im kinda exited tbh

ps: plz ZOS do something about the surveys ,they are overflowing my inventory the store crates and my toons
how i supposed to play when i spend hours digging and go back and forth to reset ?
put an assistant in store and a price and ill get them- 2 actually ,NA acc have same probs ,ty

Some features sound nice on paper, but I'll need more concrete information, and this wasn't enough to reignite the excitement or bring me on board with the new game model. I'm still wondering about the future of the game.
I do like that stories and quests got featured at last, I'm mildly curious about the rumours feature, and anything sea- or naval-based has at least my interest. It's just still very little new for this year for my playstyle.

The actually interesting part for me was the short hint about next year - with a big caveat. I would love to see Winterhold, I would love to have a game experience that's closer to Skyrim (or any of the classic TES games) again, and I've been wanting more zones and exploration and immersion for a long time. But this being labelled as a particular new type of zone made me more sceptical than I was before this announcement. I realise the powers-that-be don't want to share much yet, but if you have got any further information at all that you can share on what this kind of zone will be, that would be very appreciated.
As for my part, I really want a classic ESO zone with a map and its own quests, with a main quest and side quests, solo PVE content. No forced grouping, no forced PVP, no time limits or seasonal-only availability, etc. I'm really willing to give this a chance, but Winterhold will be the make-or-break for me, and I'd like any info on whether to get my hopes up. So if you could nag someone for more (and hopefully reassuring) info, that'd be great.

If Winterhold was something to truly look forward to, and a return to form, that would also be an incentive to invest some time in the game this year and check on some of the seasonal activities this year. I could consider this year as something equivalent to a slow patch season in other games. But I'd like to know the direction this is heading.