Within Elder Scrolls Online, fast travel can be expensive. When you use a Wayshrine the price goes up dramatically for a while. And the base price is never all that cheap for a lower level player. The cost scales with level and for a level 20 player is around 80 gold to anywhere in the world to a wayshrine that you have visited before, but as soon as you travel, the cost is about 6 times that for your next trip and the cost begins to count down every second until it reaches that base cost. However, there are free ways to travel – coaches, wagons and boats.
BenevolentBowd has made a very nice map showing the routes for free travel. However, given the way boat captains and wagon masters talk about their destinations, this map can be confusing. This map reports the destination cities, but leaves out the zones. And the travel vendors report the zones they travel to. I’ve taken BenevolentBowd’s map and added the zone names so that it can be more easily used by the novice adventurer. To use the full size map, right click and “Save Image As” to your hard drive. Enjoy. :ww
However I recently came back, after about 3 years with Final Fantasy XIV, with some Guild Wars 2 along the way and found the experience with ESO very different. I’m sure that I’ve changed, but the ESO game has changed too.
I recall that in 2018, as I started, the quests seemed very disconnected and hard to find. Also, they sent me off to do things that were Killing Me quite often. I did get a starter pack with a nice mount and some other goodies. Not sure if I bought it or if it was a gift.
ESO Economic Model
The ESO economic model is a lot like Guild Wars 2, which is Buy-Cheap-To-Play and then Pay-For-DLC [Download Content] and Cosmetic items in the store.
ESO appears to be Free to Play, with Pay-For-DLC and Cosmetic rewards, and an Optional Subscription with Perks. ESO does not appear to be Pay-To-Win. As I have come back, I find things in my account wide collection – Four Nice Outfits – light, medium and heavy armor and a fancy dress up armor, among other things – that I didn’t think were there four years ago.
Not Dying As Much
As I have returned, quests were never life threatening. At least I have not died all the time. A few times. And one quest even has death as part of the story line. But repair of gear is required not only after death, but after fighting for a while. One of my playing rewards was a stack of repair kits tho. So there is that.
I have a level 8 character, with a companion who is level 2, and we were just in High Isles, a zone from the recent DLC. We came across lots of mobs on the road and as part of quests that had bright red names – as if they were much higher level, but we dispatched them in two’s and three’s with no problem. I’m not sure what the Bright Red Names are meant to signify. Those mobs didn’t seem any stronger than the ones I’ve seen in Summerset for example, which is a “Starter Zone”. Looks like ESO scales so you can deal with any of the zones or quest content that you will see.
A lot more fun
I’m having a lot more fun now with ESO than I did four years ago. This is not a detailed review. Just take this as an advertisement [unpaid of course] to encourage you to go try ESO for yourself if you’re interested in an MMO and haven’t played Elder Scrolls Online in a while or have never played it.
Elder Scrolls Online, or ESO, is a long time active title that has an enthusiastic following. I recently saw a complete history of “The Elder Scrolls Franchise”, but oddly, this video leaves out any mention of The Elder Scrolls Online.
I recently saw that one of the Youtubers that I follow for FFXIV, also plays ESO, so I thought I’d give it a try.
Windy Weather 