I’ve always hated how they change the starter zone with each new chapter. I would prefer to start all characters off in Coldharbour since the game refers to them as “The Vestige” whether we have been to Coldharbour or not.

Also, I’m not really excited about this new chapter. Mehrunes Dagon again? There are plenty of other Daedric Princes that have yet to play a big role in ESO, why can’t we see some of them? Well, we all know the answer to that, don’t we?

* Actually; I did like the idea of the companions a bit. I hope they are a bit dynamic; and at least have conversation/dialogue related to your activities (AKA: a toned down version of Vilja). I hope to hell they are better help than Lyris or Sai Sahon, holy crap those two were useless to the Player! Abner Tharn actually healed me a few times.

* Really glad we will get to choose which Chapter's tutorial we go through; because there were some I liked a lot (and others I didn't care for at all) = and there were some I didn't even get to do because I didn't start a character before the next Chapter had already come out. This way I will be able to experience them.

* Really glad they are giving the healing back in Cyrodiil; but I have to agree with Rader that limiting groups of 12 is still ridiculous. (and that they are taking everything away from us; while leaving the cheating players in and not doing a darn thing to stop them = grrrr. When you see players able to fly or go underground; spam Ultimates; etc - and ZOS's response is to cut down our zerg group size and take away our ability to heal rather than boot out the cheaters? = grrrr).

* I want the chair!


https://noblechairs.com/pages/eso?utm_sourc...tent=q1_kw04_21



* I want a house in Leyawiin, not just a free hotel room! I hope we can get one of the houses!


* SO glad they finally realized that reskinning the Indirik anymore was ridiculous! I def like the idea that we can turn that stupid sigil pet into a personality, mount, or house instead of just a different looking sigil pet! (don't want the skin they are giving in the 1st quarter; but I do want the house and personality; and might want the mount).


* I somehow missed the part about the CP system overhaul; I'll have to listen to that again = but I know how ZOS works = not looking forward to what they ever do when "tweaking," urgh.


* I LOVE Eveli Sharp-Arrow!!!!!!! SO glad they are letting us have her instead of Lyris or Sai Sahon!










Ditto. I do think we should go through Coldharbour first; but def like the idea that we can do a tutorial in the other zones after finishing up Coldharbour = but yeah, Coldharbour should come first; because if it doesn't then we aren't really a "vestige" yet; I noticed that too (and was irked by it).

I'm excited to see Leyawiin again, and I notice a familiar looking Bosmer in the trailer - looking forward to it!

Companions sound quite interesting, I suppose we'll wait and see how that turns out. Likewise the Morpholith.

I got the impression that you would not choose which of the pre-existing tutorials you go through. Rather, you would go through a new, generic tutorial and when you reach a certain point, you would choose which storyline you wanted to emerge into. Will have to wait and see but that's the impression I got.

In another interview, ZoS confirmed that we can expect additional companions in the future to choose from. Each will have their own backstory, personality but each can be adjusted to support you in various ways such as if you want a mage, rogue, tank, healer, dd, etc. They also confirmed that they are working on romance options for the companions for the future. You can have one travel with you, you can summon/unsummon them and they can go about anywhere with you except PvP. I love the idea.

One other thing I forgot to mention is that your character sheet info will be expanded to include advance stats such as physical penetration, magical penetration etc. They showed a character info screen and it was loaded with new data. The dev said they were inspired by addons such as combat metrics and wanted that to be available across platforms without having to use an addon.

I watched the main event, then also watched the hour that followed with Gina and Jess as they expanded on some things and introduced quite a few coming new features coming this year. Though I don't do PTS, I do monitor the PTS forum and will interested to follow that. Apparently, PTS goes live today.

Oh dear; I re-listened to it; and you are right = it DOES sound like you just "emerge" in the place of your choice; not get to enjoy the tutorials there. Urgh; I hope that isn't what they have done, they may as well not have if so.

And yeah; I did hear what you did about "more companions in the future" (good, more choices) and also thought by something they said that they may be adding in romance with them eventually; which I'm pretty sure is what they were hinting at.

Ooh, I also didn't see that about the new combat stats = that has been needed for so long! It is about time!

@mALX and @hazmick - Oh, I didn't even realize that was Eveli Sharp-Arrow. She was so adorable in Orsinium! It's nice to see her come back after all this time too.

@Cheshire - I'm always intrigued by going back to places we've been at a much different time (nostalgia is one hell of a drug), but I do mostly agree with you about Mehrunes Dagon. That's pretty unoriginal. Yeah, we haven't had him as a main antagonist in ESO yet and (attempting to) invade Tamriel and wreck house is kind of his shtick, but plenty of other Daedric Lords that get little spotlight could be so cool. Boethiah is a great example. Why has he/she (in the games, Boethiah is the only Prince to appear as both male and female) not been used? I mean, he/she is the Daedric Prince of Plots, come on.

Or how about even Peryite, the so-called "weakest" of the Princes? We're in the slummiest part of Cyrodiil, right next door to Black Marsh. Sickness and disease would make a lot of sense for it. Hell, ESO implies, if not outright states, that Peryite was behind the Knahaten Flu, which happens shortly before the events of ESO. And we could explore what it truly means for Peryite to be the Prince of "natural order." On a related note, Namira could have been involved in Blackwood.

@Acadian - I love Gina and Jess. If only the rest of ZOS was as responsive, transparent, and personable as they are. Obviously yes, it's their job to be, but they seem like they are genuinely interested in interacting with the community even with how easily toxic it gets. And from what I have heard from players who have gone directly to them with problems, they've been helpful.

Finally about physical and spell penetration. I can get rid of the add-on that shows it when the update comes, which I'm told takes up a lot of data.

RE: Romance options and backstory for companions, if they are actually going to put in a lot of effort to make the companion system robust, then I'll be interested. I don't think anyone can top my girl Piper Wright from Fallout 4 though.

@mALX and Cheshire - Regarding where we start: I'm not sure what I think, but I will say that the way they get you into Coldharbour (if your tutorial is now one of the DLC zones) is pretty goofy. "Sure, strange, dodgy, hooded person who teleports out of nowhere and tells me to meet someone that they explicitly say they will not give any info on. I'll go and see them. What's the worst that could happen?"

Agreed; it isn't even tempting to go "meet" her benefactor, lol. We may as well choose to walk through the graveyard on a stormy night because it is a "shortcut." Or decide to go in the basement when we hear animal noises coming from down there and we don't own a pet.

Personally: I think we should all have that Coldharbour as our first tutorial automatically; and then be able to pick the playthrough for the DLC zone's tutorials if we want to (or skip the additional tutorial zones if we don't).

Before the Morrowind chapter, it used to be you simply started off in Coldharbour and that whole bit was your tutorial. It was only after they decided to change the tutorial location to Vvardenfell that they made up a series of events to get you into Coldharbour. I much preferred that way to start the game.

A nice minor QOL feature:

Fast Travel Outside of Homes
There are many reasons to visit your lovely home, but sometimes you just want to use it as a handy fast travel point! For times like those, you can now select the “Travel to Outside” option when traveling to any of your homes, and it will take you right outside the front door without any extra loadscreens. You can of course still travel straight inside, as before, with the “Travel to Inside” option.

Ooh, I like this feature very well! Thanks for the heads up, I didn't hear about this in the Live Stream!

If you're planning on checking out the new update on the PTS, be aware that you'll spend a lot of time re-spec'ing your character. All skill points and CP are refunded and must be re-assigned, as the CP system is totally remade, and there are a lot of passive things swapped between skills and CP. Doing multiple characters is going to take forever when it goes live.

Evili Sharp-Arrow is in the new prologue, which made that fun.

The patch notes don't mention companions at all. They presumably won't be available until the full chapter release, and we're just testing the next dungeon DLC so far, with the new CP/skill change.

Oh crap; thanks for the heads-up! I better log all my character's stats before they bring that update live then; so I know/remember what I want to do with them. Urgh.

Still looks like the new 'Tribunal Celebration' event will happen this month (Feb). Exact dates not yet announced. This event is a blending of the former Morrowind and Clockwork City events. A little bit more info: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Tribunal_Celebration_Event

Standard event fare. Event tix are maxed at two a day. One for the first MW daily and another for the first CWC daily you do each day. So it looks like Buffy will simply do a daily delve in each zone each day. Impresario will continue to carry fragments for the basic pet and will add the second frag for the pet morph skin for those interested. In Buffy's case, she'll simply be looking to build her tix from 8 to 12 and see what non-frag items are of interest to her (since she has one pet and all three frags for a second pet). Again, the skin morph is this quarter, followed by personality, mount and house morphs over the following three quarters.

The third and final event for this first quarter will be the Jester's Festival sometime in March.

The new Tribunal Celebration event has been announced and will run Feb 25 - Mar 9. Official announcement here: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/59597

A fair number of moving parts and the event includes both CWC & MW. One event tix per day can be earned from the first daily you do in CWC each day and another one from your first MW daily each day.

Yeah; I just need to get back up to 12 tickets too; I already have one pet and all the fragments for a second pet; but I need all 12 tickets if I am not mistaken.

I'll have to see the Mount to decide if I want it or not; and possibly the Personality details before actually deciding on it; too (though I'm pretty sure I'll want it). The house, though = I am totally sure I will want the house no matter what it looks like; how big or small, etc.

I'm in a similar situation, mALX. I have the pet all ready to morph and I have 3 more frags to make a second pet after I morph the first. But I have 8 tix now so it'll be easy to get back to 12. No interest in this first morph (skin) and will have no interest in the mount (Superian need not worry, lol). Will have to see about the personality. Have plenty of free houses already but will at least give the house a look. So for this event, I'm more interested in what else the Impresario has to sell besides frags.

Here is a guide to help reset your CP Points after the Patch:


https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TcE...pyDw/edit#gid=0

Thank you, mALX. I noticed that on discord and it looks very helpful!

Tip I learned post update 29: The old skill Rapids from the Alliance Skill line no longer makes your horse run faster. To get that 'gallop' buff, you want to put just one point into the Alliance Skill passive 'Continuous Attack' which requires an Alliance skill level of 3. Now your horse will passively have the 'gallop' buff all the time.

So they are forcing you to start spending extra skill points in the Alliance passives; which I always left off on characters unless they were actively pursuing the Alliance War. Grrrrr.

Not really. If you wanted the Major Gallop buff in the past you had to spend one point on the Alliance Rapid Maneuver active skill, then slot and cast the skill. Now if you want Major Gallop, you have to spend one point in the Alliance passive skill Continuous Attack instead (no points in Rapid Maneuver required). Just one skill point either way. The only difference is that if you get the Major Gallop passive, it is active all the time - in or out of Cyrodiil without slotting or casting any skills. I think it is an improvement.

It will work out of Cyrodiil too? That is interesting; and that could make it worth the extra skill point expenditure. I still will need rapids though; I use it a lot in and out of Cyrodiil. (so for me, it is still an extra skill point that will need to be spent).

Next event upcoming - Jester Festival Mar 25 - Apr 1. In addition to the three old quests, there are now three additional ones.

First quest each day gives you a gold box and 3 event tix. All other quests give you a regular box.

100% XP gain for 2 hours when you eat some misrule pie.

Impresario's stuff will include the third and final fragment for the skin morph.

Full details on the event here: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/59717

Wow, right on the heels of the Jester event is the 7th Anniversary Jubilee event, Apr 1-13. More info here: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/59783

Just learned a little more from Rich Lambert (ZoS) about companions in ESO. The Blackwood Chapter will launch in early June and there are two companions that you can get by questing. You can have one at a time and summon/unsummon them. Will have to see on the details but you can level them up, select the skills they will use and give them armor and weapons to use. They will use skills in the order in which you place them on their skill bar. You can assign them combat styles/roles. It is likely that more companions will become available in the future. They each have their own personality and you will be able to influence how they feel about you by your actions. What I found most exciting of all was that they can wear costumes and ride mounts from your collection! Woot!

Costumes and Outfits!! I shrieked out loud. And super yay for getting to see two of our mount collection at the same time!

Mournhold is going to be a riot. Oh, and Daggerfall! I can't wait.


This is part of the new purchase, right? Not a base-game upgrade?

I don't know for sure but I suspect it will be like Antiquities or the Psijic skills - you need the chapter to access the companion system. All I know for sure is that the companion system will be introduced as part of the Blackwood Chapter.

I'm excited to imagine that the companion system might rank right up there with the wonderful outfit system and the more recent stickerbook reconstruction system.

Edit: *slaps forhead* After thinking about this a bit I'm sure what I suspected above is indeed the case: The companions are earned by doing quests in Blackwood. So you need the chapter to do the quests to get the companions.

Something encouraging happened today. Buffy was doing the Blackwood prequel. She and Eveli were fighting a mage miniboss. The mage started putting quite a few red circles on the ground. Buffy dodged out of them while continuing to fight. We were surprised and pleased to see Eveli also dodge rolling out of the red circles when they appeared beneath her and continuing to shoot - just like a decent real player!

I've seen enemy NPCs dodge roll to avoid your telegraphed heavy attack before but have never seen an NPC (friend or foe) dodge roll out of a coming spell. I hope I'm not reading too much into it but I'd like to hope that Eveli's fine job is a byproduct from some of the combat style they've been working on for companions.

This really does sound interesting! I was so disappointed when Sai Sahon didn't actually help fight that evil dragon in the Southern Elsweyr DLC, really glad they listened to the Players and gave us a companion who can actually fight alongside us! I am excited about that addition too, glad to hear it is working "as planned!" ( )

How do we get the prologue quest?

Though it is possible to find the prologue quest while exploring, it is much simpler to just get it free from the crown store in game. You buy it (free) and the quest appears in your quest log.

Another Currency? Don't we already have enough?

I presume this is a response to the various countries that are working on legislation to ban in-game gambling, but I would have thought that you could earn one of the ones already in there, like gems, and not need a new one.

Thanks for that news, ghastley. Since I don't buy crates, this will be welcome - and I like that there is no cap on the currency. But, yes, the variety of game 'currencies' seems too high.

I played around on the PTS a bit this morning. The Companion system is very straightforward once you try it. Without spoilers, here’s what I found with Mirri.

Jerric befriended her first and took her on an adventure. Then Abiene went and found her.

She is the same Mirri for the whole account, meaning that when Abiene met her, she had already leveled a bit and gained some skills with Jerric. She was wearing the pants (equipment) that he gave her and had her skill bar set up by him. Her Outfit is the same, so when Abiene gave her an Outfit, it was the same when Mirri returned to Jerric.

However the Collectables that she used were by character. So for Abiene she rode the mount that Abiene gave her, not the one that Jerric had given her. When Abiene dyed a dress for Mirri, the dress had the same dye for Abiene (twins). Swapping back to Jerric, the same dress model was undyed when he gave it to Mirri.

I think of it as the equipment, skills, and most importantly Outfit are hers, but she can borrow whatever Collectibles the character gives her.

Also this is my favorite part – Companions do not displace Non-Combat Pets! Jerric was conflicted over having an elf or his dog trailing along with him. Turns out he doesn’t have to choose!

Oh, and I predict that my crew will forever be searching for Companion equipment. They only carry what they are wearing. So Jerric is still holding Mirri’s original pants.

Here’s a bit more. I made a new character on the PTS, and she could summon Mirri right away. That’s neat, I guess once one character meets her, she knows the whole crew. I suspect that her relationship status is per character, though. I haven’t tested that.

Also the new tutorial is awesome.

Thanks, Grits! Buffy is really looking forward to the companions.

Not on PTS but I did read the patch notes for it and it seems when you make a master writ your active quest, there will be a quest arrow pointing to the proper crafting table (among the guild hall's sea of tables). If that works, I expect those who do lotsa master writs will appreciate it.

I hadn't noticed the dye effect with my Mirri, as we did it the other way round. Unna recruited her to the Bear Riders, and we copied Unna's outfit as Mirri's (and gave her a white bear to ride). We swapped her armour to medium, nut left her using the bow, as Unna likes some ranged support.

The companion leveling was weird - probably bugged. When she filled her bar at level 4, I got the "companion leveled" notification, but I looked at her stats, and saw the bar still full, and showing level 4. The next half dozen or so kills repeated the same message, and the bar didn't move. After a while (probably after a way-shrine hop) the notifications stopped, and her bar now showed 5, but completely empty, Then a kill that registered 75 xp for her took it from zero to over 2,000. It may be that the count is good, and it's just the display that's messed up, with the notifications triggering off that.

We finished the zone story together in just two evenings play. But we didn't do any side quests. We almost did one when our quest took us to a delve that had its own, but that one was bugged, with a quest item inaccessible, and we couldn't complete it.

I have not figured out the Rapport system. It went down when Unna took her pants away, but it seems to be back up again, without any notification. Talking to her gives what might be clues, but I can't work out how to use them. She says she doesn't like snakes, for example, but happily fights them without blaming Unna for finding one.

---

On related topics. Leyawin is reasonably Oblivion-like and many local points of interest, such as a White Stallion Inn where the lodge will be, are just where you'd expect to find them. The map goes further East, so it includes Gideon and points beyond. Gideon uses the same building style as Leyawin, which makes sense. Land gets swampier as you go East.

I found a gate through to Elsweyr, but didn't go through and see where it connects. I recalled doing that during the Reach tests, and not being able to go back the way I'd come from Western Skyrim. There should be a border link with Murkmire, but I haven't been that far yet.

Well we would if it worked. No sign of a quest arrow in the guld hall, so I went to the original station out in the wild, and there isn't one there either. And yes, it was my active quest, and I was on the PTS server.

At least they're intending for it to work, so if they fix it, life will be much easier. Laurie has being trying to reduce her vast backlog of master writs recently, and this would have saved so much time.

More from the PTS. A companion can have an outfit and mount just like the player.

Pair of Bears

I couldn't find any way to change her hairstyle or give her a eye-patch. And she has a hat that is always hidden.

And in other news: we met the Adoring Admirer.

A pair of bear riders- how fun! And there's Fanador's ancestor Adorimir!

I am really looking forward to the companions! So wait; does the "Adoring Admirer" offer backrubs like the "Adoring Fan" did?

Midyear Mayhem PvP event runs June 24 - July 6. More info here: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/60293

Buffy's going into the event with 5 scouting missions and two Cropsford dailies ready for turn-in.

An unexpected bonus with the new update. You can now reply to Mail!

Another small thing I'm liking about Update 31 is that the soul magic perk to fill an empty soul gem is changed from 10% from weapon skill killing blows to 10% from any killing blow. Already I see that makes a noticeable difference.

Smart Loot and Armory System coming in Update 32! The first thing I want to do is go into Vaults of Madness and see ghastley finally get that resto staff!!

Looking forward to the smart loot system. Don't care about the armory. Buffy just changes class/spec as casually as she changes hairstyles by logging in as different variant. That said, what I would dearly love to see is some love applied toward allowing changing gear for companions in the field. Some sort of armory system would be perfect but even some simple, partial solutions would be most welcome such as:
- Give the companion a dozen or so 'inventory' slots so they could carry (only) companion gear to facilitate in the field changes.
- With only 5 skills, changing those manually is easy enough so I don't really care about that.
- Absent some companion inventory slots for their gear, at least let us indentify/seoparte their alternate gear in the bank via allowing us to lock companion gear. Heck, even being able to identify unused companion gear as 'junk' to separate it would be helpful. I was chagrined to realize you can neither lock nor junk label companion gear.

You may not be the only one.

That is a much needed change!

Upcoming event (Sep 30-Oct 12) will be in Blackwood. The Impresario will be offering the last fragment of the mount morph - that means beginning to gather fragments for the final (house) morph will start with the next event after Blackwood.

Event tickets this time are a max of 2 / day. You get both from the first daily Blackwood quest you do each day including the daily delve / daily WB quests.

One thing that occurs is that the event runs through our next guild meeting so sharing and doing a bunch of delve/WB dailies might be fun.

Does anyone recall what “guaranteed to include attuneable crafting stations” meant last time it happened? That could be two or a complete set. I didn’t get them before as it required a chapter I hadn’t bought yet. And could you claim on each server, or just once per account?

So today's news is...
...I am fully immersed in TESO, with a cheeky Khajiit.

Why a Khajiit?
Because they are fun and mostly as mad as a box of frogs and this? This one is no different. She will be my comic relief after the rather more angsty adventures of Kaia in Skyrim.

I've played about 6 hours on and off today and more or less figured out the mechanics.

I should also probably sort out my PS+ subscription as I only went for monthly to start with.

Welcome to ESO! The +subscription really is helpful. If you play ESO a lot it works out to be a pretty good value I think. If you bounce among games a lot though, it becomes more questionable.