ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

Posted by tong on April 14th, 2016

The Elder Scrolls Online is built on an ambitious but deceptively simple premise--it seeks to combine the elements of one of the gaming world's most beloved single-player RPG series with the cooperative trappings of massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Players had been clamoring for this sort of thing ever since Morrowind hit shelves way back in 2002, and I personally remember stumbling through the open beta for World of Warcraft in 2004, thinking how much cooler all that would be if it only took place in Tamriel. I got that wish a full ten years later when Elder Scrolls Online released for PC back in April of 2014. ESO gold

ESO has changed a lot in the intervening months, and whether you're jumping in for the first time or making a return in time for the upcoming console release, this primer should help you find your way.

From Buggy Mess to Bug-Free

With the benefit of hindsight, it seems almost safe to say that ESO was doomed to disappoint. Elder Scrolls veterans criticized ESO’s clunkier combat and lack of player freedom. MMO fanatics nitpicked the game’s story-driven emphasis that made it difficult adventure with friends. www.esosell.com

A bevy of big launch bugs didn’t help ESO’s reputation. Even now, players who've never tried Elder Scrolls Online before think it's a buggy mess. In those early days, the launch day hordes that hit every big MMORPG release gave players the impression that the open dungeons (known as "delves") would always be packed with people. And then, at last, came the bots. They spread like a zombie invasion, and almost ruined the single player experience.

But that's all changed now. I've since leveled an entirely new character all the way to Veteran Level 14 (for now, the de facto level cap) and I don't recall experiencing a single bug during that journey. The bots are gone, and the delves and solo dungeons are generally enjoyable affairs where you'll find two or three other players at most. The problem is that ZeniMax appears to have spent so much time addressing these issues that it took resources away from content development--indeed, in the months leading up to ESO's big overhaul, only one content patch even made it out to players waiting for new adventures at Veteran Level 14. Buy The Elder Scrolls Online gold

Introducing Fresh Adventures

The patch was a doozy, mind you. This was Craglorn, a sprawling "Adventure Zone" with numerous open world events that required groups of players to complete. In the place of solo dungeons and delves, there were now group-focused counterparts. Craglorn even introduced 12-person "Trials"--challenging, time-based events with leaderboards that served as the closest thing Elder Scrolls Online has to traditional raids.

Craglorn was a good patch, even if it felt a little too similar to the content we'd already played over the 300 or so hours it takes to get to Veteran Rank 14. Completing its various challenges was enough to keep people like me (who genuinely enjoyed the game) coming back and paying our subscription fees. For a while, at least. Craglorn also addressed one of the chief problems of the game up until that point - max-level characters now had tough new content to chew through, instead of focusing on the very grind-heavy “Veteran” ranks.

The big problem, alas, is that Craglorn was essentially ESO's only patch. Months went by without any real new content, leading to speculation that the game was doing poorly. ESO didn't exactly feel empty at endgame thanks to its "megaserver" technology, which ensures that players almost always see someone else in the vicinity, but it seemed clear that too many guilds were folding up and that trade had slowed to a gelatinous crawl.