Nice shots, Rader - you adorable little monkey!

If Cincy's scales weren't red, you'd be able to tell that he blushed at her comments. He's got a thing for human (and some elven) ladies, but even he was taken aback by how forward she was. Not that he's complaining.


Ya boy is a Master Alchemist now! Now the focus is on Blacksmithing, Clothing, and Woodworking. Provisioning will probably be last as I am so far behind on that. I'm deconstructing whatever glyphs I can find for Enchanting, but I'm not that great with that crafting skill.

Also, Cincy took a brief trip to Vvardenfell. Had no idea I had access to it because I never bought the DLC. Just found a navigator who could take me to it, so that was a neat surprise. Although I think I remember hearing that some DLCs would be free at some point long after release?


More screenshots!

Stylin' and Profilin' (some sets of armor that I really liked the look of):
The Golden Knight (right after I started playing again)
The Silver Knight
The Blue Brawler
The Red Ranger

A Glitch in the Matrix

This looks like a good place to sit

Cincinnatus vs. Angof

Lighting up the night

Caius? Caius Cosades? Are you home?

It seems that you have ESO+, in that case, the DLC are available as part of the subscription, and you also have Summerset. You can confirm that without going there, by just using a jewelry station. Elsweyr is still a chapter, so that will show in the maps, but you can't go there. It won't stop you getting treasure maps, as ZOS want to tempt you into buying.

Congrats to Cincy on his Master Alchemist achievement! It took a long time for my Maz to reach her Master Crafter status, and another few months to get grand master crafter.

Today marks Julian’s (and my) third-year ESO anniversary! In honor of the occasion, I have taken my first vacation day in ten years (first paid one in 20) and have a bottle of wine set by. Today is Julian’s day, and we will explore Elsweyr together. When I explored it with Do Rah, we kept telling ourselves that Julian would enjoy the land and the culture, not to mention the people and the cuisine!

I hope to have Julian fighting dragons by the end of the day . . .

Nope, I don't have ESO+. I should have clarified that it was the only DLC I can access that I did not directly buy (I have ESO Gold Edition, so I got the Imperial City, Orsinium, and a couple of other DLCs with it). It looks like it is free for a limited time. Seems that it goes through September 2nd.




Congrats to you and Julian!

Rader, nice screens. Cincinnatus is making great progress and 'grats on blowing through CP160 already!

Rider, happy 3rd anniversary to Julian! Buffy celebrated hers a week or two ago.

Yes, we calculated our total hours played:
Julian has 1243 hours under her belt as of 1 pm today; only Maz has more at 1354 hours.

My total ESO time among all seven toons equal 5410 hours and 38 minutes - over 225 days altogether. I believe this is the most I've ever played a single game . . .

I picked up the daily log-in reward last night on Spreads, who hasn't done any Cyrodiil, because it doesn't benefit a magsorc. She got a level from the AP and two extra Skill points! That was better for us than the 100k gold, which hasn't made much of a dent in the 3.8 million you need for a mansion.

How do you find this info out?

There is a command you can use in the chat box: /played.

That will give you the time played for that character in days & hours. Go through that with all your characters, add 'em up then convert the days & hours to pure hours. No way to accurately account for any deleted characters.

Anyone who has the game via Steam can get an hours readout anytime from Steam.

Oh, thank you so much!!!

Thanks! Sure is nice not to have to deal with level scaling anymore and constantly replace gear.

Off-topic: Of course when an Alchemist Writ requires 3 Violet Coprinus they suddenly are near impossible to find. Went to Auridon since I read they can be farmed there, but I only found 2. Does anyone have one more that I could use? It's the only thing I have left for the writ.

Rader, just sent you a violet coprinus via game mail. Enjoy!

Acadian/Buffy is da real MVP. Thanks!

Palm trees can be bought from Maladdiq at Redfur Trading Post. Pair for 100 gold, single ones cost more!

That looks great! I'm going to have to try to do that; the whole pic looks better without all the chat box/health bars/compass/mini-map/etc. What a huge difference!

Yeah, Ghastley already answered it; you have access to all the DLC included with your ESO Plus membership as long as you are paying it. (Plus double bank space, double Transmute stones ceiling, double housing inventory space, a craft bag that holds unlimited amounts of crafting materials, and accelerated XP for everything you do).

This does not include "Chapters," they are new land areas that come out once per year = however; those Chapters usually do become DLC on the one year anniversary of their launch.

Even though I had the Plus membership; I always bought the DLC's that I wanted to keep too (always on their one year anniversary when they had them on half price). That way, if I ever stopped my Plus membership I wouldn't lose access to them.

These are some great shots! LOVE the red armor in "Red Ranger!" My favorite has to be the "Glitch in the Matrix" due to you wearing the Chorrolite's Tabard in the shot, lol. Also = have to love that you caught the "knocking" animation and great Vvardenfell style door in the "Caius Cosades" shot! Those houses remind me so much of the Morrowind game!








Nice!

These screens are AWESOME! What great shots you got here! The Dolmen shots = I don't know how you managed to capture all that action in one shot, amazing!!! And Septima Tharn!

I really love the idea of your ancestors in the next Era being the ones who stop Jagar Tharn!!!! That is an Awesome storyline for your characters! I haven't played Arena; but read the original story that the game Arena (and the Elder Scrolls) was based on = one of the best stories I've ever read.

And then we get to the shot: "Whoa...um...is it getting hot in here?"

OMG, SPEW !!!!! Holy Crap, I nearly choked to death laughing at that !!!!!!

Plus, it explains what Acadian said in a later post that had me completely stymied!!!



I kept looking at your Argonian character and wondering...monkey?

That pic HAS to be my fave of the bunch!!!












I'm dying to know what add-on is giving you the Penetration stat! I've used "SuperStar" till now, but it does not show the penetration stat! That is amazing! I def want to swap add-ons after seeing this!











Happy Anniversary to both you and Julian! I remember Julian's first day in ESO!!! I walked into the bank in Daggerfall with Bubba and happened to notice a Redguard with white hair and my first thought was "She looks just like Julian!!!!" And then I saw her name (and yours) and my eyes nearly popped from my head! I tried to get your attention; and it scared Julian to be bearded that way by a strange man,

You and your Clan are such a wonderful addition to this game; I am so glad you started playing it!







Oh, I didn't even know they had a free limited time offer on it! Lol. Wow; and I also didn't know the Gold Edition came with all the DLC like that! I only knew it came with the Palamino horse I wanted, but since I had already bought the game and DLC = not a workable way to get the Palamino, lol.









Wow, they gave you the skill points for the quest without you having to do it? Awesome!

So that's how I had the horse. I was too dumb to figure out I had a mount already until I started playing the game again around a month ago. *facepalm*

I very almost bought that Gold version just to get that darn Palamino; but I couldn't see spending that much money a third time; lol. (I bought my son the game, he played it for a few months and then shelved it for some card trading game, lol).

Yeah, seems that we have a knack for killing Tharns, although only the Vestige and Eternal Champion get to do so (so far...perhaps a surprise is in store for TESVI?). One of the things I really appreciate in this game is their callbacks and nods to all of the other games, at least the main entries. Arena is often left by the wayside, but there are a bunch of references to the game in Online, the most obvious probably being the Tharn name. There's also locations like the Crypt of Hearts, Fang Lair, and Mines of Khuras, although they obviously don't look anything like their 1994 iterations.

In my headcanon, all of my Heroes in TES I-V and Online are the same bloodline.

The dolmen party was crazy. Just saw everybody waiting at it and I figured I might as well get in on the action to clear it. Molag Bal and his forces didn't know what them, there were so many of us. I've done that at several dolmens now. That dolmen in particular probably didn't even last a minute.

If the option were available, Cincinnatus would've taken that Breton woman up on her offer, lol. Reminds me of how Daggerfall (as in TESII) was originally going to let you sleep with prostitutes, but it was one of the (many) things that got cut out. Always found that amusing. There's apparently still leftover code in the game files that points to it.

I believe that "My Build" is effectively a later version of SuperStar, especially as the display is so similar. My only issue with it is that the back bar content often comes up missing until you swap to it and re-invoke the display.

-------

I started a mod for Daggerfall, to add a quest line for the Guild of Prostitutes. You'd do quests to find lost guild members in random dungeons, etc. I added Marghak, consort of Gortwog, as part of that, and she re-appeared in an Oblivion mod as a quest-giver again. The mod-making tools for Daggerfall depended on older versions of Windows, so upgrades made me abandon the project.

------

Last night, after the crew had done their daily crafting to raise housing gold, I took Floozie hunting skill points. Mostly, that was skyshards, but we also picked up where we left off on the Rivenspire quests, and got one or two from that.

I'm trying to fill in the crafting skills on all my crew. They all reached level 50 in everything (except JC), but the primary passives need points in some of the lines. Floozie does ruby for cloth and wood, but not yet metal. Cat Man Dhou still only makes sips of alchemy. Taminwe uses maple, and Wizwen Beech, even though they do master writs in other crafts. Other than Nirnhoned, they've all researched most of the other 8 traits, only Floozie and Bo still having a couple of gaps. Blossom is close to completing 9/9, with Potent Nirncrux as the bottleneck.

Laurie, Blossom, craft at max levels in everything, including jewelry. Unna does the original six, Bo is closing in on L50 in jewelry, and does max equipment. Minx needs only a few points in consumables. ...

I was hoping Floozie could complete Smithing, so we could make sure Cincy is fitted out well enough that she doesn't have to do much healing. However, we only got as far as Quicksilver before bedtime. I may turn up with a crafter, and swap characters before we go exploring.

I am pretty sure there is one place in ESO where if you agree to sleep with someone (the screen goes dark for a while). When the screen comes back the dialogue has changed. Can't remember where it happened though!

That was one of the funny things they did A LOT in New Vegas, lol. Fallout 3 had it at least once in Megaton, maybe more if Dukes Place or Paradise Falls did it too (can't remember).

What an amazing idea to have all your characters related!







Oh, thank you so much for the info on that addon!

Wait, what armor were you needing, and at what level? Is there something I can do to help?

So, after the guild meet on Friday, I spent the other days of the weekend getting skill points for everyone's crafting. Floozie completed Smithing, and everyone now has top rank in Provisioning, so they can make their own food (if they know the recipe).

Then it was Taminwe's Clothier, Bo's Jewelry, and a few others. We found another Potent Nirncrux, and got Blossom started on another research (only three to go!).

We're at the half-way point in gold for buying a mansion. There's a lot of arguing about which one to aim for: Daggerfall Overlook, Serenity Falls, or Ebonheart Chateau. Breton, Khajiit, and Dunmer furnishings are all pretty easy to make, and each one has features we like. Still, plenty of time to decide at our current rate of progress, and of course, Laurie is arguing that we should complete Hunding's first!

Speaking of skill points, Buffy the BowWarden was looking for some so she went to Cyrodiil. Turns out the 7 day with CP campaign was at low population and her alliance owned 80% of the map. So she had a blast rather safely racing all over for shards. Her count at the end of the session was 9 shards so those 3 skill points were just what she was looking for. We only saw one other player in all her travels. He was enemy and grabbing a shard with no more interest in Buffy than she had in him.

While there have been some annoyances the past couple days, there has also been much progress for Cincy. But first, the bad stuff.

The bad stuff was pretty much solely due to the Imperial City. A day or two ago, Cincy was traversing the Imperial Sewers, and saw a Covenant player in the distance. He was a much higher level, so Cincy had to try to find ways to sneak around him. A couple of times it seemed that the Covenant player was evaded, yet Cincy would run into a room where he was. Not sure if the Covenant player saw us, but it seemed like he did and came our way. We had to hide on one side of this giant column in the one room we were in, and fortunately the Covenant player went around the other side. This was also deep in the Pact section of the sewers. The whole point was to try to take on one of the bosses near the Pact camp (Wiznacki?). Finally, we made it to the boss spawn location, and found two other Pact players waiting for the boss as well. It was all great...until a GIGANTIC contingent of Dominion players just flooded the room and slaughtered us. I'm talking like 30 players. Although my Pact compatriots were a very high level, there were just too many enemies. That was frustrating.

Then today, I went to the Arena to try to do the quest where you kill all the daedra there. It was going alright, until some player I didn't see killed me while fighting the harvester boss. I tried coming back and...no one was there. Seemed like my opportunity. But a Dominion player came in, but fortunately they seemed more interested in attacking the daedra as well. Then some [censored] Covenant player came in and saw a prime opportunity to gank me. He was close to double my level and used some moves I had never seen before, mostly stunlocking me. I don't care much for Tel Var stones, but [censored] I just want to do Imperial City stuff without getting ganked.


____________________________________________________________


On the other hand, there have been some great successes as well.
1) Cincy finished his first Undaunted pledge with the guild on Friday, getting some great coaching and teamwork from Buffy (Acadian), Floozie (ghastley), and Jerric (Grits).
2) Cincy achieved the Pact Hero status yesterday, taking the title for other players to see when they encounter him.
3) A bunch more quests for places of interest were completed, and almost all of them have been done for the Pact zones (at least, those that are available with the main game, not including DLC). Several more delves were completed, being no match for Cincy's combat prowess.
4) Cincy finally visited Cyrodiil outside of the Imperial City for the first time yesterday. Fortunately, we saw no enemy players (and only a couple of Pact players), so it was easy traveling. Cincy found Cheydinhal and helped out the rebels there a bit. He also found a few skyshards.
5) Over the past couple days, Cincy achieved Master status in Restoration Staff, Woodworking, and Destruction Staff. This past week, he also became a Master Clothier.

But most of all: Today some huge inroads were made against World Bosses. First, Cincy attacked that giant Bull Netch in Stonefalls (Brahma's Grove is the location). He would've taken it down on his own even though it was taking a while, but another player joined in and made the fight go quicker.

Then we went to fight that Golden Saint at the Shivering Shrine, Aurig Mireh. We found a level 42 player (not CP) hanging around. Seemed that he was debating whether to take on the boss or hoping someone would come along. We tag-teamed the Golden Saint, but we were eventually overwhelmed by the number of scamps and clannfear that were summoned. But we regrouped, realized that we had to keep constantly shifting attacks to summoned creatures when they came, and killed them so that not too many attacked at one time. After a grueling second battle, we defeated the Golden Saint! Cincy and the other combatant congratulated each other and parted ways.

But the best part is that Cincy took on two World Bosses and killed them all by himself today! And in the Imperial City Sewers no less! So not everything about the IC was a wash the past few days. Both bosses were deep in Covenant territory too. One was the vampiric Orc leader and the other was a Dremora who was holding open a large gate for creatures from Oblivion.

Still, we did figure out Cincy's limits soloing World Bosses. There was a big wraith close to the center of the sewers but just inside Pact territory that was too tough to beat. The last World Boss left in Stonefalls for Cincy is actually a 3-on-1 in the Cave of Memories, which was also beyond his capabilities. Nevertheless, there was a lot that was learned today.

__________________________________________________________


I know that is a lot to read, but there was a lot to report. Although there were some frustrations, there were by far more successes than defeats. EDIT: Due to the IC event, Cincy and I got a couple of event tickets. There's finally a bed in his house! Bought the Imperial canopy bed they have in the store. Some of the other stuff in there looks cool so I am going to try to do some more stuff in the IC Sewers.

That's really common for a tank. I've never managed to keep a World Boss fight secret for long enough for Laurie to finish one solo.

And there's Imperial furniture available for tickets? We were ignoring the event because we have no interest in Indrik.

Oh, I'll bet Cyrodiil is empty right now with everyone in the Imperial City for the Event! Pia should go nab her skyshards too!

Great job, Rader! That is a good feeling being able to solo some of the WBs. That Stonefalls Golden Saint is indeed one of the tougher WBs you'll find among the Alliance zones.

Sounds like you are really getting to enjoy the game during this event! And yeah; as long as this event is going on, the Imperial City and its sewers are going to be overloaded with PvP gank mobs. It is a great time to get all the Skyshards in Cyrodiil though; while everyone is in the sewers, lol.

You are really doing amazing on your build though; you soloed a couple World Bosses that I still can't do! Congrats on your progress; and on the crafting mastery too!









Yes, I'm more excited over the rare Imperial and Daedric furnishings; the Imperial ones are usually Crown Store only!

Darnand (Grits) and Stefan (haute) invited Athynae on a tour of the dolmeni, way shrines, and WBs of Glenumbra. It was a rousing success with outstanding leadership by Stefan- and Athynae (mostly) managing to not get into too much trouble.

Then we took a jaunt to Stormhaven, where it was clear that dealing with Old Widow Silk in close quarters is... not an easy task. But, with some help from some passersby, we finally scotched the spider... mmm, Scotch. I think Athynae and I could USE a drink after that one...

The Three Dolmeneers

(Sorry for poor quality- but I wanted a shot of everyone).

Great that Athynae and company got some fun adventuring in!

Having those wayshrines will help going forward. Yikes, I agree - that spider is very tough, between the confined space, all the red on the ground and those pesky incapacitating webs.

Yay, you got a picture! That's the best way for me to see the lovely Athynae, as my setting are at rock bottom.

Many thanks to treydog and Rider! Darnand (I am not a necromancer) the necromancer made it to 50 this afternoon. I'm about to get Elke to make him some gear. Whoop!

Make sure it's enchanted!

I too had fun - Stefan has not had much chance to practice his tanking skills in a group setting until this afternoon. It was great to not only help Darnand and milady Athynae, but also whatever random player jumped into the fights with us. More than one leveled up as well!

Oh, what great fun! And Haute is a fantastic host and guide, she is born to lead a platoon!










Yes, I have spent most of my time fighting her as a wriggling cocoon, lol.









I started a Necromancer; but reached a point where I had to stop and research what is working for others, lol. She is powerful; but I see others doing much better than me with theirs! Lol.













So good to see you finally getting some play time!

A good evening for crafting. Laurie pulled all the Jewelry surveys from the bank and went collecting. She finally has enough Zircon to upgrade another item, which is likely to be Taminwe's other Briarheart Band. She got an Exemplary Swift ring from her daily writ, so now Blossom is researching the trait. At the end of the round, Bo got another survey, this time in Craglorn, so she did that one herself, and came back with two Potent Nirncrux. So now Blossom is back up to three weapons under research, and has the next one already banked.

Naturally, the next log-in reward is instant woodworking research, and nobody is doing any. All the crew are at least at 8 traits, Blossom finished her Nirnhoned a long time ago, and any Potent goes into Smithing. I don't think it's worth starting a new character just to use that.

Do they still do the free crate giveaways for logging in anymore, or have those been nixed in favor of the login rewards?

Buffy usually does one provisioning writ a day to keep her frost miriam up. Though less diligent, she'll often do a jewelry writ also - to build purple zircon stocks.


After the latest big patch/update, she was delighted to verify that the reward box for doing a jewelry writ sometimes gives a purple dust - that makes doing them worthwhile for her. She had been simply laughing and destroying all jewelry master writs as silly - no way she's going to use her hard earned purples on a writ. Well, after that same patch, master writs sometimes ask you to make a blue or green piece instead of always purple.

She was excited when she got her first one for a blue piece the other day. Turns out, she needed to make it Triune trait. Okay, she knows all 9 traits but wait. . . Triune trait material needs to be bought in Cyrodiil for 100K AP each! She has about 180K AP in the bank but is not going to pee over half it away on a silly writ. She rather grumbled as she destroyed that master writ.

Well, finally today she got a master writ she deemed acceptable. Blue Robust Twice Born Star necklace. No problems there and she happily completed the writ.

There's a crate this month, but it's a "preview" crate that's not representative of the real ones. You get a guaranteed "high-value" item in a three-card crate. That has meant a non-combat pet before (pack critter in the Bandaari preview). The other two things are the potions etc that become gems. Full crate give-aways have disappeared.

Too bad on the derth of free crates. Buffy quite enjoyed them and it was, is and will be her only exposure to crates. Free mystery boxes are fun but we're certainly not going to buy something without knowing exactly what it is first.

Sadly, most of the daily rewards simply get destroyed upon receipt. Seems a common theme among experienced players who don't care about crown consumable potions/poisons, XP scrolls, are research complete, horse training complete, etc. Even gold is of limited value anymore. Free crates, costumes, pets, etc are among the very few things in the daily rewards that hold the interest of many experienced players - a common observation on the official forum.

Well, I caved. I finally got an ESO+ subscription. I got 3 months at a 7% discount. I'm on record (well, about to be) for saying many times previously that I didn't think any game was worth $15 a month. That was in response to hearing how much World of Warcraft was when I was a kid, a game which never interested me. Long after, I still didn't feel like paying that much a month was worth it.

But now I have changed my tune, at least for ESO. I didn't quite spend $15 per month anyway, but I think with how much extra you get with ESO+ that it was worth that price (and I was willing to pay it, but found that the subscription was on sale). I've been playing the game a lot the past month and a half, and I kind of wish I did this earlier to get the extra benefit. The game gives you so much even without the subscription, but I think Zenimax has earned my money with how much fun I am having. I think it's fair to pay extra and get the added benefits.

Rader, sounds like you made a solid, thought out choice.

For folks like me who only play one game at a time, the choice makes sense I think. I feel I'm definitely getting my money's worth. I can see the choice being tougher for folks who play multiple games or play ESO only occasionally.

I think you'll enjoy ESO+. I like the craftibag and ability to dye costumes. Many folks also really like the double bank/housing slot space. And the 'free' crowns do help defray the cost if you buy anything at all in the crown store.

+1 on all that. Especially on the housing space, as most homes would be bare at the half-full limits without it. The crown allocation for me effectively means that I don't pay out for costumes (or Unna's required Snow Bear), and a small amount goes on furnishings that you can't get any other way.

I bought base game package and ESO+, instead of any DLC-bundled alternative. I'm undecided about Elsweyr to the point where I'll probably have it as a DLC, before I make up my mind.

So after we finished all the daily crafting writs, Ct Man Dhou decides he wants to go fishing. He's almost finished the Reaper's March ones, just a couple of foul water fish to go. It turned out that one of the foul spots is right underneath a World Boss.

We decide to see how we get on, since we're here, and nobody else is. CMD got our first solo! I still can't believe nobody else came by to "help". And then the first fish he caught was the one he needed. He's sleeping it all off now.

Nooooiiicce. Cincy would've helped if CMD needed it, but he was too busy taking down a corrupt Orsimer king and his arguably even crazier mother.

Which World Boss did CMD grind into dust?

It was Ysolman the Roving Pyre, a daedroth who roams Old SRen-jJa Docks. It took so long (CMD being a tank) that I was certain someone else would turn up before I could complete the feat. That's what usually happens for CMD or Laurie, my other tank. They don't have any problem staying alive, but can't finish off the bosses before "help" arrives.

And after I finished, I needed to fish the spot he'd been standing on. He re-spawned before the fishing hole played out, and we ran off, rather than do it all again.

Ghastley is right on tanks vs WBs. Acadian is a tank and takes on WBs. He's unkillable and can solo WBs pretty well but it can take a very long time. So he generally hopes some help will show up just to add some damage.

Funny story about tank vs WB -
Dire Bramblepatch is a WB site in central Deeshan inhabited by a large troll named Sharpfang. Thing is, Sharpfang's main 'trick' is that he has a very, very high health regeneration rate. Acadian went up against him once. Acadian's damage mitigation and passive healing are high enough that the best the boss could do is wiggle Acadian's health bar between 96-100% so Acadian was never in danger. The problem was that the darn boss' health regen was every bit as high as Acadian's low dps so the troll's health bar also merely wiggled between 96-100%. After about 5 minutes of this 'battle of the titans', with no progress and no help arriving, Acadian gradually worked his way back until the troll hit his 'reset leash' range and ran back to his spawn point.

I've decided that I want to start training up my other combat skills, so I've gone to Dual-Wielding. I want to be able to switch to DPS if I can. Catapulted my skill level from 8 to 35 (I think, but it is somewhere in the 30s) in a couple of days. Sure does help to be at a high level to level the skills up much more quickly. Next, I'll move onto 2-Handed and finally Bow.

Too many things to list that Cincy has done recently, but he has also dramatically increased his Provisioning thanks to the craft bag holding a bajillion Provisioning items. Even made some legit helpful foods and drinks. Probably will store some more in the guild bank later. Now Cincy is on the hunt for some more Skyshards to level up combat skill passives.

Oh my gosh you guys. Warden Jerric spent some time today working through the fetch quests in his log both to deal with the clutter and to push his last new skills into the morphs that he wants. (Not quite done yet.) One of them sent him to a ruin with some lady’s notebook. Oh hey, he says at the door, this is one of those group dungeons. I’ll just pop in, she’s probably right by the door.

She was right by the door. But of course once she got her book she had some more use for him. One thing led to another, and that’s how Warden Jerric soloed Volenfell!

Good progress, Rader!

Wow, Jerric! Soloing Volenfel is quite impressive. The final boss trio can be stinkers!