What a fantastic cherry tree in the Dominion harborage.

It's Lita Ford!

Ciri's got some legs on her, to be that tall. Those are some neat tree houses in the background. Is that Valenwood?

Aurora

Desert sky

Stonefalls

Sunny Cyrodiil

On top of the world

Off topic: Oh, you have done it with this comment! I've been on an Ozfest now since you posted it! Ozzie and Lita! WOO HOO!

** and despite the fact that Lita should smack you down for that comparison,



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foGkU6x3eSE

These are some spectacular shots!!!! How on Nirn did you get that Stonefalls one from such a distance?

I take it from all of these that you are back in Ebonheart territory for a while! Where is the "Top of the World" screen taken? Is it that place that is so cold you need to stand by a fire or die?

Oh, or is it up at the actual "Throat of the World" where you have to climb the 1000 steps up? I actually was able to get up there and back with minimal Frost Troll fights (to gather up medicinal plants for a quest),

ESO is awesome for having such a variety of beautiful lands to explore; and all of them so familiar from previous TES games! I absolutely LOVE this game !!!!

Hazmick - Like mALX said, spectacular! I love the variety of wonderful climes and places Haa-Rei is able to take us in ESO. The light in that first one is really neat, how it glints off Haa-Rei's armor.

Wow spectacular skies, and Red Mountain is boiling! I even noticed a netch in that pic.

White Fall mountain, in Cyrodiil. There was a giant guarding a skyshard at the top, which was our original reason for visiting. After seeing the view we stuck around for a little while

Oh, okay! I've gotten that achievement, too. Thanks for telling me that - I didn't recognize it; (couldn't see that Ayleid platform the giant walks on up there in the screenshot). Thanks!

hazmick, what a spectacular collection of pictures from July! That Stonefalls location is one of Jerric’s favorite camping spots. Many travelers on their way to craft a set of Deaths Wind gear have been startled by the sight of a nearly naked Nord fishing by the falls among the netches.


In honor of Buffy’s meeting the mammoth hunters of Valenwood, Jerric wants to share this picture of a pocket mammoth grazing on the rocky plains of Wrothgar.

Though Jerric is not the guy who says, “I know, let’s go to the art museum,” he is not blind to the things around him. Here’s an Orsmeri tapestry he thinks is nice, hanging in (of course) a tavern.

Here Jerric is waiting out a bounty on the Wrothgar coast. It’s cold and bleak there and rains a lot, and he loves it. They have little chub loons and smallish horkers that don’t run away or try to eat you. Plus, blue-ringed octopus!

I am wondering whose pockets are big enough for that (admittedly smaller than usual) mammoth to fit into!

I was expecting Jerric's tapestry to be something at least slightly pornographic! But ESO is a family game, so I guess fighting it is!

Wrothgar Coast does look pretty grey and bleak. At least he has Ulfe and that Horker for company.

SubRosa, I’ll confess that at first glance he thought those round shields on the tapestry were breasts.

Jerric probably thought that too!

Grits, what great shots! The li'l mammoth is adorable! Very nice tapestry indeed and always love to see Jerric with a line in the water.

Announcement: Buffy the Bowgirl lives in ESO! She's still in the tutorial but doing well. I'm delighted with her looks as well.

Pics or it didn't happen!

If ESO is anything like the single-player games, she won't have found anything she'd want to be seen wearing yet.

D'awwww, that baby mammoth is adorable! And Jerric may like the tapestry, but I'm gaga over the dresser beneath it, lol. Jerric fishing is what got Misa started fishing, she had never tried it till he started posting pics of himself doing it! Awesome shots !!!






WOO HOO !!!!!!!







I Misa sent her some Bosmer styled armor and bows, hope she likes it!

Oh my goodness, what exciting and fabulous news!!! I can’t wait to hear how it goes!! I’m sorry that Jerric and friends are on another platform, or he would be flooding Buffy’s mail with nutritious meals and metal clothing that she wouldn’t wear, lol.

YAY!!!

Omg, I didn't know the Platforms couldn't send messages to the PC's! GAAAAAH!

mALX just sent Buffy a beautiful bow and set of Bosmer armor that is buckskin and perfect! Woot!

What a kind and thoughtful friend! I’m sure Buffy looks fabulous in her buckskins. Yay, how exciting!

mALX, yep, parallel worlds.

All this talk about ESO and seeing beautiful screenshots made me download ESO as well. Actually it's still downloading and it probably won't be finished before tomorrow morning.

I've never played an MMO before so I'm a total n00b when it comes to that, but I read that you can 'reset' your character, I mean skills and similar stuff, even if you screw something up.

I have two questions, though.

1) There are three factions / alliances you can join but does that mean you can't visit countries featured in another alliance?

2) I read that you can meet other players in Cyrodiil only, is that true, or can you meet other players elsewhere as long as they're in the same alliance?

I do have a shot of Buffy's basic ESO look. I'm sure she will be recreated several times and her look may evolve a bit but I'm pleased that even my first attempt does a fair job of capturing her essence. Given the massive time jumping to get into ESO land, I'm tentatively viewing her presence there as a completely different incarnation of Buffy + Acadian - one of their many previous lives as they travel back to the future?

Anyway, here she is sporting the magnificent gear gifted by dear mALX: Screenshot

*

Lopov - I'm a No0b too so can't help you much. Yes, it is a big download. I've found the UESPwiki helpful for quest/geography/skillz info. I'll let someone smarter than me answer your questions because I'm not positive on the answers.

Lopov, that’s great, I’m excited for you!

1. You will be able to travel throughout all of Tamriel with one character regardless of your alliance, but in the early levels you will be questing in your home faction area. I’ve heard that traveling across areas will be even easier once they do the next big update.

2. I am not sure how meeting players from other factions works right now as far as intentionally grouping up with friends, but I’m told that with the next update you will be able to group with friends regardless of what faction they are in. You are safe from other players unless you travel to Cyrodiil to the Player vs Player areas, meaning that the players you meet while you’re adventuring are in your own faction. The players you meet in the DLC areas such as the Gold Coast and Wrothgar/Orsinium cannot attack you.

So for example if you want to spend time early on questing with a friend in your home faction area, you would want to choose their faction.

It’s true you can respect your attributes and skills any time for either game gold or a scroll you can buy for real money (Crowns), so don’t worry about making mistakes or trying new things. The only thing you can’t change is faction and class, and you get enough character slots to try a bunch of different combinations. And you can delete characters that don’t work out and try again.

Yay, have fun! I look forward to hearing about your adventures!

Ninja’d!

Acadian, Buffy is gorgeous!!! That gear is perfect for her. Thank you so much for the picture, even though it is subject to change at will!

Jerric and I have not settled on how his ESO adventures will “work” in his big picture. Lil and Darnand see only the things that fit in their late Third Era world, but Jerric makes too many connections to fool. I’m sure that in time he will make sense of it, and for now we’re just enjoying the ride.

Acadian, Buffy is gorgeous! It's hard to imagine her looking even better. She looks mature and very determined. I like her outfit too, it reminds me of the Tribal outfit from FO3 DLC Point Lookout.

Grits, thanks for your help. Are updates that'll be released, payable or does the game update automatically? While waiting for the game to install, I see there's some DLCs that can be purchased like Shadows of the Hist coming up or is that the same update you had in mind?

I don't have any long-term characters like your or Acadian, so I don't have any ideas yet about my first (and also test) character. I'll probably go with a Redguard or a Breton, though.

The update will be to the base game and not something you have to pay for.

The DLCs like Shadows of the Hist you can pay for, or you can subscribe to ESO Plus for a certain fee every month to gain access to all of the DLC content while you are subscribed. I wouldn’t bother with that right away, just get your feet wet and see how you like it.

Argh, I’m going to be away from my laptop for a while, I hope this helped get you started!

Good luck with your first character! I suggest going back to make sure you've chosen the class and faction that you want before you exit character creation. It's easier than you'd think to have those change accidentally.

Thanks, you've been very helpful.

The game's been downloaded, now the patch is being applied which is taking a long time too, and judging from the percentage completion of the installation there's more stuff to be installed after the patch. I probably won't play it before tomorrow, because I'll be away from home as well. It's fortunate that the installation runs by itself without us needing to click something from time to time.

EDIT: Looks like I was wrong. Now the installer jumped from 33% to 73% so maybe I'll play it today after all.

That definitely looks like our Buffy! Her outfit is perfect for her!

ESO Buffy looks great!

It'll be nice to have a couple more ESO players around. Between mALX, Grits, and myself you have quite a large repository of ESO knowledge to help you out.

WOO HOO Lopov !!!!!!! Awesome !!!!!

You can meet other players anywhere your character is currently allowed to go to talk or hang out with or fight BESIDE as allies; but the only place there is fighting against other Player characters is in Cyrodiilll.

Acadian and I are both Noobs to MMO's too. You CAN reset your stats, but it is expensive in game. (The crown store has scrolls you can use for less I think) But you can make up to 8 characters at a time and delete 3 daily too; which means starting over is a cheap option too!





OMG, she is gorgeous! And that armor looks fantastic! I wasn't able to see it, so I'm really glad it came out so good! How are the bows, did she pick out one she likes best?

AWESOME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT !!!!!!!!

Gosh, thanks, folks. I'm pretty pleased with the char gen of ESO. Thanks, mALX, that armor is as gorgeous as anything I could imagine for Buffy! And all the bows were fabulous!

If I find a longbow in my inventory, I'll send it - that might increase your range. Have you read up any about the bows? I haven't in so long that I can't remember much.

The ESO official pages should have the range on them; and sometimes you can find forum threads where people may have workarounds to get better distance out of them.

No matter what I do, I can't get ESO to run. Installation worked fine, then I first got an error about application not running correctly. I fixed those by downloading some missing DLLs, then I got a message that I need DirectX 11 to run the game but I already have this DirectX. After spending entire afternoon trying to figure out what's wrong, I really don't have any ideas anymore.

EDIT: Looks like I won't be able to run ESO after all, at least not on my current laptop. I was reading minimum requirements and at first DX10 was also supported but according to the official support of TES:O with the latest update they made DX11 a requirement and my video card is too old for DX11. Well okay, at least I have the game purchased for some time in the future when I buy a new PC. Now I won't spam this thread with non-screenshot topic anymore.

Aw, I'm so sorry, Lopov!

Lopov, I’m sorry it doesn’t work on your laptop!

Haa-Rei poked his head into the Ruins of Mazzatun dungeon to grab a screenie. Some really cool lore behind this one, but we couldn't advance much further by ourselves.


An evening ride with our new, as yet unnamed, mount.


We also visited Bruma to check out the new Town Capture mode:
Down with The Covenant!
Blood for The Pact!

Those ruins are gorgeous, but from the sounds of the number of boss enemies inside - I'd say you would need a whole party in there, lol !!!


That Guar looks Awesome!


Oh, I would love to hear more about this "Town Capture Mode" !!! I've been to Bruma. Still wondering what their plans are for the Cloud Ruler Temple, though!


Awesome Shots !!!

Wow, that ruin looks gorgeous. Someday I will have to start talking to my Guildmates so I can check out these group adventures.

Haa-Rei’s Hist guar looks so neat! I have seen very few of those, and they always stop Jerric in his tracks. Congrats on the new guar friend!

I still have no idea how the Cyrodiil battles work, but it looks like Haa-Rei has captured/burned the Daggers’ flag and replaced one with the Pact’s? Lil has ventured in Cyrodiil a bit, but she keeps getting chased away from what she wants to see.

Thank you for sharing these, hazmick!

Town Capture, as the name suggests, allows you to capture towns. There are three towns that can be captured: Bruma, Cropsford, and Vlastarus. Within each town there are three flags, each guarded by a small, medium, or large squad of alliance guards. They work the same as lumber mills and mines next to keeps - kill the guards and capture the flag to claim the area for your alliance.

Haa-Rei was planning to take Bruma all by himself and got 2/3 flags, but then some enemy players showed up and a tactical withdrawal was in order. Really fun though!

OK, light bulb moment, the towns can be defended by NPCs?! Suddenly things make a whole lot more sense. I didn’t know that’s how resources worked, either, I thought you had to show up in a group of allies when there were a certain number of players to fight or something. D’oh! Thank you, hazmick!

Congrats on 2/3! Blood for the Pact!!




Here are a few from Jerric:

Anvil!

Ayleid ruin entry and a big chamber. I wish I could move the camera and do them justice!

Here Jerric has killed a minor daedra lord and needs to escape his collapsing pocket realm through that portal – but first, let’s see what lurks beneath this water.

Escaping the Daggerfall crowds.

Yep, all keeps and their resources have teams of high level NPCs guarding them to stop people from capturing the entire map while the other alliances are asleep A good player can still take a resource (Lumber mill, mine, farm) by themselves, but the guards often slow them down long enough for players to arrive.

Love those Jerric shots. Looks like he's fishing through the portal on the second-to-last one. That's a whole new level of angling mastery!

BWAAHAA!!! I've done a bunch of those tactical withdrawals - or downright hiding a few times and still been seen and killed, lol.

Hmmmm, I have seriously whipped some regular guard butts in Cropsford; Bruma; and Vlastarus before; so now I wonder if the guard will be beefed up there for this new "Town Capture" thing so they will be as tough as the guards on the Keeps are? Because I get murdalized in seconds by those Keep guards.

Thank you so much, Hazmick!!! I appreciate the info!





l

l


Oh, I am so glad you posted Anvil! I am so in love with being in Anvil in ESO! Well, except the Minotaur; they are HUGE!!! They are so much more scary than the Oblivion Minotaur were, they are terrifying!


OMG, that Ayleid ruin is AWESOME !!! Is it Beldaburo? I think I found two Ayleid ruins there, but didn't go into either one.


BWAAHAA! The pocket realm is collapsing around him, but Jerric is steady on fishing, lol.


Aw, Retriever Ulfe wades right in behind Jerric!


Awesome Shots !!!

The purple skies of Mazzatun look really cool. Is that in Black Marsh?

It's a glow in the dark guar! Name it Gl'oh St'hk.

It looks like people are shooting apple arrows in the last pic!

mALX, I’m pretty sure that was Garlas Agea. Jerric was sent there on a bounty quest from the board in Kvatch. He went into Tribune’s Folly on a bounty today. Fortunately some other adventurers showed up, because it was one hell of a fight. Super fun!

hazmick, thank you! Jerric is going to want to go back to Cyrodiil now. He saw a mill once but didn’t know what he was supposed to do about it. Fishing through a portal, lol!

Oh, I did the Folly and the Arena last night for the first time (also with a group of others, thank goodness!!!) - both were a Blast !!!!

Garlas Agea, is that the one that was the "Knights of the Nine" quest in Oblivion?

Has Jerric fought a Minotaur yet? Those things scare the living crap out of me, I have been sneaking and running whenever I am spotted by one. Yesterday I jumped in the water and swam away from two, lol. Urg, they are big!

I think in Obllivion we got someone's pets!


Today I beat two major bosses in Hews Bane and didn't get an achievement for either. I was ticked!

Sorry, I haven’t done Knights of the Nine in years, so I don’t remember the locations. Garlas Agea is in Oblivion, but I don't know about the quests there.

I agree, the ESO minotaurs are way tougher than their 3rd Era descendants. Plus they are huge! Jerric gives them room most of the time and just walks on by. Funny, there’s not a lot on the Gold Coast that he likes to kill, so unless he sees bandits he’s pretty much either clearing a dungeon or just picking flowers and baking in the sun. The river trolls are also very long and not particularly rewarding fights. He steers clear of them when he can.

I wonder what happened to your achievements? Jerric missed out on the prize once when he and about a million other people fought Syvarra of the Deep. In his case I think he died too many times, or maybe just at the wrong time for them to count him as present (and still living, lol).

Here’s a screenshot from Auridon: afternoon nap.

I love ESO's minotaurs. Haa-Rei goes on frequent hunting trips to clear them out. Their design is so cool!

I agree with Grits about river trolls though. Those guys are jerks.

Oh WHEW! He's just napping! I saw the screenshot without the caption - thought Ulfe was trying to revive him by licking his face!

My first fight in Anvil was one of those things that looks like an armadillo turtle on steroids - the fight took forever, and so many times he did something that paralyzed Misa so she couldn't run while the screen was turning red and she just barely made it. All she wanted was a runestone she noticed (didn't notice the giant beast, only the runes! )

I did find all the Ayleid ruins, but didn't go through any except just to grab the skyshards in them. One thing that tickles me is how much "Set" armor is dropping in the DLC's! Some new ones, one I am really tempted to try.






Holy Cow, he is in gold trim, lol. If you have any Minotaur killing tips, I'm all ears !!!!

Yeah, that guy's the minotaur world boss. I just treat minotaurs like any other enemy - cast all my buffs then go through my attacks until they go down. Their health isn't too bad, less than a trolls for example. The minotaur shamans can be tricky with their magic but it's easy enough to dodge roll out of the way.

Oh, I fought a Minotaur last night! I was passing by a guy fighting one near the Folly and his (the guy's) health bar was looking low so I stopped to help him. It really was a fun fight; (but of course the minotaur was already worn down when I got there, lol.)

But that was my first time fighting one - Well, if you don't count the Kvatch Arena one. I fought the big one in the Kvatch Arena twice, but with like 20 other people there, so that doesn't count, (But that Arena one killed me twice)

The toughest combatant so far is still the armadillo turtle troglodon thing in the shallow water areas; that thing was tougher than that named Sentinel guardian gargoyle in the Citadel in Hews Bane!

(Not meaning the toughest in the whole game; just referring to the two DLC.)