I think playing for over 6000 hours says it all for this MMORPG. However here goes a mixed bag of thoughts on the game. There's much more, but it would take me days to write a full review of this amazing game.
If you love any of the single player Elder Scrolls games and you consider yourself a solo player, then despite this being a massive multiplayer online game, a lot of the game, especially the main quests and side quests as well as all the crafting side of the game still plays like a single player game. There are specific multiplayer areas where you do play against other players i.e. pvp; in fact there are two pvp modes, Battlefields and the Alliance wars (there are three alliances, The Daggerfall Covenant, The Aldermeri Dominion and the Ebonheart Pact), In both modes you tend to play with a large group of players on your side either against two other alliances , so it still feels almost SP like, though if you find yourself cut off from others of your alliance, you'll probably not survive in the parts of the world where the other alliances hold sway. The alliance wars are fought in Cyrodil, which covers much of the area that the old Oblivion world (from 2006) covered, with the central area, the Imperial city being the main focus. (to play the Imperial City you do require one of the first dlc's released unless you buy the Deluxe version, which I think includes the Imperial DLC (I may be wrong on this now) .
I've been playing this game since the Beta was released back in 2013 and have still to explore a large part of the world fully. As with all Elder Scroll Games, this game starts with a linear chapter, where you have to complete various tasks before entering the main game. Every Elder Scrolls since the first (called Arena {1994} and the second called Daggerfall {1996} - both of which are totally free now) have included an initial linear element. This usually takes no more than an hour or less to complete. Once you enter the main open world game apart from the main quest line, there are literally thousands of smaller side quests as well as hundreds of ways to create your character. (I've been playing now for six years if you count the beta time and still haven't completed the main quest as I easily get side-tracked in the smaller quests as well as the many daily quests that you can repeat every day. These are useful experience and in game gold earners, so are worth repeating. There are several for each daily quest, so you don't repeat the same quest for each one every day, otherwise you'd soon bore of them. I do rotate between the different daily quests as it is almost impossible to complete every daily quest there is in a day as some can take upwards of an hour or more to complete. The quickest to complete are the crafting quests so long as you have the appropriate materials on hand (these are usually obtained via grinding or via spending skill points in certain ways so that you have NPC helpers who find them for you, or by completing the daily writs as these always give you some gold, materials and experience. For example I have literally hundreds of each type of material required, including some of the rarest (that can cost upwards of 20 000 gold via the guilds). Once you have all your materials, the actual crafting for all seven disciplines only takes about 15 minutes at the most and can be even quicker if you install various add ons that automate the process of crafting for you.
There are ten main races in the Elder Scrolls Online, High Elf (Altmer), Dark Elf (Dunmer), Argonian, Khajiit, Redguard, Orc, Nord, Breton and Imperial. Each race has particular racial passives for example Bretons focus mainly on Magicka abilities, with an increased spell resistance to others magic. They also use Magicka more often as it costs less. The Redguard make great tanks because of their main passive is sustained stamina, and they are more proficient at martial training that reduces the cost of weapon abilities. I could go on for hours talking about this, but there are many great tutorials available via the ESO dedicated sites that I advise you check out .
There are so many ways you can play this game, for example as a lone wolf I tend mainly to concentrate on completing the main quests, solo dungeons and crafting as well as improving my skill lines. you have the potential to create eight different characters, plus you can purchase more slots to extend these if you wish. Each character can increase their level to CP 810 (that's 50 to reach veteran status plus another 810 levels in champion mode), though you can go beyond that, but any increase in level above 810 does not bring any extra benefits apart from Kudos.
As a crafter I have the ability to craft virtually any armour set and weapon set available in game to any quality as well as add any magical ability I desire, though this has cost me many hours to earn the applicable motifs and gold as you can also purchase such things via the guilds or the in game crown store. The game used to cost around £42/$50 every six months to be able to log in on top of the cost of the game; however, when the X Box and Play-station were added; the monthly server subscriptions were scrapped and the game became virtually free to play once you'd purchased the base game. However, they did add an ESO plus, which basically cost the same as the monthly subscription used to cost and which gives you several perks such as double bank space, a craft bag that held all of the crafting materials such as plant materials, metal ores, glyphs etc for free, whereas non ESO plus members had to keep all those materials in their basic inventory. Thankfully you can expand both your bank storage and inventories by buying extra space using in game gold, which is earned loads of ways, for example playing as an assassin and thief, you can earn upwards of 20 000 gold every day once you've maxed out the thief and assassin skill lines, other ways to earn gold are selling items you've picked up through killing NPC's or finding and unlocking chests (either by breaking the locks or picking the locks) as well as completing quests and via the guilds of which you can join up to five for selling purposes, but buy from all guilds. you'll find guilds in every town. You'll often see guilds recruiting via the in game messaging system. They always appear as coloured test so as to stand out from players messaging each other. Some guild specialize in selling, whereas others concentrate on pvp, or pve parts of the game.
Another benefit of ESO plus is that every month you get an allowance of Crowns, which are the main currency for buying the many DLC's now available (Imperial city, Orsinium DLC, Thieves Guild DLC, Dark Brotherhood DLC, Shadows of the Hist DLC, Morrowind Chapter, Horns of the Reach DLC, Clockwork City DLC, Dragon Bones DLC, Summerset Chapter, Wolfhunter DLC, Murkmire DLC, Wrathstone DLC, Chapter III: Elsweyr, Scalebreaker DLC and the latest Dragonhold DLC, with more to come over the coming new year). The average cost of each DLC via the crown store is 1500 crowns, though the latest chapter, i.e. Elsweyr will cost real money for the first several months before being added to the Crown store. There are sites where you can exchange in game gold for Crowns, so, if you take advantage of the many guilds where you can buy and resell items.
There are loads of add-ons available modded by the community to enhance the game and to make it easier to craft or buy and sell items. You'll find loads of great posts in the forums and ESO dedicated sites that will list all of the add-ons available. One of the best for buying and selling is Tamriel Trading Center. Another one (the name escapes me) colour codes all items for sale via the guilds to show how much of a bargain they are, with Yellow being a must buy because you can more than double and even quadruple the money you pay if you resell it. That gold can them be exchanged via some dedicated sites for crowns. Personally I've never exchanged my gold, partly because I'm still concentrating on buying the few motifs I still don't own and which are difficult to find in the world unless you play the much harder dungeons on Veteran plus mode.
Because my main character is a crafting character, he's not as powerful when fighting and defending, so I tend to die a lot when trying out the veteran dungeons, or spent most of my Magicka on healing myself. Also I get around 20 000 crowns each year for subscribing to ESO plus. Subscribing to ESO Plus also gives you access to all DLC content for free apart from the three chapters (Morrowind, Summerset and Elsweyr). Whenever an anniversary of a particular DLC arrives, you'll often find a special event that apart from earning event tickets, will also often give you double experience point , double materials from nodes and other rare items as well as being able to buy the DLC for half price in the Crown store (using crowns), which is the best time to purchase them.
You can also spend real money buying crowns if you wish to kit yourself out with all the latest fashions etc. All clothing purchased from the crown store as well as all armour and weapons can be customized via the dying stations that can be found in every town as well as via your own personal dying station if you spend writ voucher son one; which can be added to any homes you have purchased. there are rooms available for free in most ins, but the amount of items you can leave there are limited. When they ran a special event following the release of Summerset last year, the whole community could earn a large mansion that would normally have got around 20 000 crowns to buy via the Crown store for free as well as some good looking pets and mounts.
Although I am primarily a lone wolf, I do enjoy joining small groups to play the many dungeons cooperatively. There are two ways to enter a dungeon, either by travelling to the particular dungeon and entering it or by using the dungeon finder (not available until you reach level 10). The latter is the easiest and quickest way to enter one of the many available dungeons by selecting the dungeon you want to enter, then selecting the difficulty. You also decide what you want to play as such as a healer or tank.
When 4 players are matched, you enter the dungeon & work your way through until the final boss. Once killed, you collect your rewards, which include at least four or five purple items (items are colour coded on quality, with White (common), Green (fine), Blue (superior), Purple (epic) & Yellow (Legendary). Legendary items are never dropped in game; these have to be crafted either by spending skill points on the appropriate skill lines or getting a player who can create weapons and armour up to legendary status.
You also get skill points from most of the main dungeons when you first complete it. One of the easiest dungeons to start with is the Fungal Grotto dungeons; however, some dungeons are much harder and you need to know what to expect because the last stages can be devilishly difficult, even when joining a normal difficulty dungeon, simply because there are certain things that the final boss does that can kill you instantly if you don't know how to look for the signs. All the dungeons are described in detail on several of the ESO fan sites and I recommend you check them out before entering any of the group dungeons. There are also 8 and 16 player dungeons that can also be tackled. Those are best attempted during the weekends as there are a lot more players around to join those dungeons.
There are also grotto's that can usually be cleared as a solo player, especially once you pass the 50 level mark, though playing with a friend cooperatively is much more fun. Once reaching level 50 you move over to what is loosely called Champion status, Up to level 50 you gain various point that you add to your attributes and skill points that are spent on your abilities for every level you rise. Since I started playing when you first start there are other items that are awarded as you progress to level 50, such as free mounts, pets, outfits, armour and weapons, of which there are countless ariations. You can also gain skill points by completing various dungeons and quest chains from all area's of the Elder Scrolls world as well as collecting sky shards. to get a skill point from sky shards you need to collect 3. There are hundreds scattered around Tamriel. you'll know when you find one as they throw off a bright light that travels heavenwards.
There s so much more to do in ESO, much of which I've still to explore, for example I've hardly touched the pvp part of the game yet; the only times I've done pvp is when ESO holds one of their regular special events where you earn event tickets for doing specific quests. These event tickets can then be spent on various in game items, some of which could potentially cost quite a lot in ether in game gold (the main currency in ESO) or via the Crown Store where you can buy a myriad of items from mounts, pets, motifs for crafting armour and weapons as well as skins and clothing for your character.
There are other in game currencies, some of which can only be earned by playing pvp, though some can still be earned if you are playing pve (person 'v' environment), for example alliance points, which are awarded for participating in the alliance war, Tel Var Stones, a token system used in the imperial city and can take the place of in game gold when buying items while in the city, as well as giving access to special chests and treasure rooms. Key fragments that are dropped by various creatures in the imperial dungeons and sewers which are also used to open special chests. Transmutation crystals, which can be used to change the magical abilities of your weapons, though you need a special transmutation device that can either be found in the bigger guild houses or you can buy using yet another currency called Writ vouchers.
These can only be earned by completing mater writs, which themselves are not earned until you've maxed out the appropriate craft skill lines which include Metal working, Clothing, Jewellery, Wood working, Alchemy, Enchanting and Provisioning. Once you complete the skill lines for each one of these you will be awarded master writs randomly every time you complete daily quests for these skill lines. All those crafting skill lines require specific materials and traits to be able to complete them. Again, you can read all about those on many dedicated sites. There are many more daily quests, that are basically repeatable quests that can be carried out via different skill lines such as the Thieves guild, where you 'll be tasked with stealing various items from places and or people, the Assassins Guild will task you will killing various people. all skill lines have daily quests, so you can spend all day just completing those and never find enough time to do other stuff.
The most important thing to remember is that anything you buy to add to the game does not give anyone an advantage over those who spent nothing, all every item in the crown store does is give each player the ability to style their in game characters as originally as they can. I can honestly say I've never seen ant two player look alike as every costume you get via the crown store, or are awarded free via the daily log in reward (basically every day you log in you get a a free gift. most are just consumables such as alchemy concoctions that can increase your base abilities temporarily, or give you a quick boost of health, stamina or Magicka, or food for increasing your base stats for a period of time.
There' s even one that will give you better access to rare fish, which some player will spend literally hundred of hours pursuing the master fisherman award, where you have to catch all the rare fish from each of the main areas of Tamriel. A particular provision will enhance your ability to catch these rare fish, however, you first need to either be able to craft it, or buy it via the guilds. It is quite costly as you need some rare items to be able to craft is such as clam gall, which can only be found in one place off the Summerset islands.
ESO have been constantly updated (on a weekly basis) ever since it was released back in April 2014. Each year at least 3 DLC's and a new chapter have been released that either have added new dungeons or significant areas to the world map, for example the most recent releases include Elsweyr chapter and the Dragonhold DLC (as of early November 2019.
I will endevour to update and rearrange this review into a more manageable state if and when I get the time. At the moment I'm too distracted with trying to clear my backlog of literally thousands of un-played games I never seem to have much time..