Small, and honestly potentially cringe upon future reflection but who cares, appreciation post. Just wanted to say.

So yeah, new-ish player. Returning from when I played in 2024. I've really only played for like a total of 3 months probably, and just a few weeks currently so far. The game's good what can I say. I think once, many years ago, I guess I was a "Elder scrolls snob" who looked down on ESO for streamlining/simplifying Elder Scrolls too much and for not adhering to the setting well enough - like it wasn't "Orthodox Elderscrolls" enough. That's the easiest way I can think of explaining it. Like it didn't live up to the name or something.

That's how every new game in the series goes though. Skyrim, simpler than Oblivion. And Oblivion, simpler than Morrowind. And even then, Morrowind is simpler than Daggerfall. And those early games - simpler than the table top RPGs that inspired them. And those TTRPGs are yet more simpler than just a good fantasy novel- Tolkein which inspired DND.

But there's a lot to love here. What ESO might lack in terms of gameplay mechanics compared to the other games, it makes up for in quantity of things to do. As a new player, it is quite simply insane how much there is to do. I'm not saying "Don't add more, you're good now ZOS" because who knows how long it'll actually take to experience it, or for me to discover which parts I don't want to participate in (like Cyrodiil pvp). But I am saying that it feels like so so much.

Here's the crux of the matter, okay? These story lines that I'm playing are actually interesting. The fact that there's an entire story line for the Altmer where there's political tension regarding the new queen and how do they want to proceed as a nation - do they continue to be isolationists or is it okay to ally with the Bosmer and Khajiit. And that these groups, both of them, lie cheat slander and murder, to get their way - That's realistic. That's engaging.

Listen, I have been fed surface-layer morality peddling from Blizzard for years, I'm not hard to please with this stuff if you just TRY a little bit. And ESO tries. I think it knows that. It knows that story telling is its core, its bread and butter.

ESO is the only MMO I've ever played where I don't care about getting to max level. I just don't. I just get onto the game and do stuff and I guess eventually, I'll be max level.

Ironically (because I said that it felt overwhelming above), one of the things I like is that the things you can collect are fewer in number than in other games. The amount of different mounts I can get is not very much. This is a GOOD thing. It means that I have a realistic chance of actually acquiring them all if I just put my mind towards it. The Imperial horsey horse that I have, is genuinely my favorite mount because he is pretty and because I know that there's only like 4 other horses to get and they probably aren't as nice as the one I already have. I really can't overstate how much I love that horse lol.

The new difficulty choices: This is incredible and a slam dunk. Please never get rid of it or nerf it. I can actually fine tune the experience to be how I want it to be. I cannot even begin to express how good of a feature this is. You combine this with the lack of pressure to get to max level, and all the things you can do along the way, and you have an RPG that you can actually take your time in and experience the journey in. And that is huge.

Anyway, that's all I got in me right now. I could go on. Thanks for reading. I look forward to noticing typos later after I can't edit this anymore lol. Let me know what you think.