The Elder Scrolls Online

It's online but I have no friends, so to me it's Elder Scrolls Offline.

I treat the game like a big singleplayer with the occasional social interaction. Lots of lore, stories, collectibles and a beautiful environment. Not much of an end game player. Got my main geared up as good as possible for a solo player and can tackle much of the game on my own at my own pace.

Stoped playing World of Warcraft to get away from mmos for a whille . . .
Started ESO since i was bored and other releases are overpriced ea titles . . .
Much better community than wow at least , much more solo friendly since most of my friends play fps mostly .
If you are unsure about it just give it a try over free weekends and check it for yourself instead reading about it since we all have our own opinions and likes .

Review from Oblivion / Skyrim player who does not play MMO´s

it´s surprisingly good.
i wasnt expecting all voices to be not only voice acted, but better than what we got for usual bethesda games.

the main storyline is very epic and grandiose.
the side-quests are lower stakes and entertaining.
crafting seems very involved though i didnt get into it much, same with house building.

phenomenal music.
great to visit some places i had never seen and re-visit some old favourites such as morrowind.

seems like the game can be played fine solo but it´s not difficult to find groups for the harder dungeons.

the downside; you better do what i did and wait for a decent sale otherwise it´s quite expensive if you want to purchase the whole game with all the areas.

that´s about it for the bad part, can´t think of anything else really..
i´m enjoying my time exploring and probably will continue to do so for quite a bit of time.

Remember the good old days when our elder scrolls experience was Morrowind,, running around a massive world with lots of things to do,, guilds to join, quest to complete and fun to be had.. Morrowind was the first non MMO I played on the computer, It was glorious I would download almost any mod I could find, and enhance the game in many eventful and exciting ways.. I never actually finished Morrowind, but I loved that game to pieces.. Then I got oblivion, unfortunately Oblivion was far too advanced for my poor computer, but I played it on Xbox 360 instead.. it was good, didn't really hold up to Morrowind but still good.. Then came Skyrim or as I like to call it The Milk Maid as Beth Milked it to death.. This was the first game that really had people wishing for a co/op mode..
Beth being the oppertunist they are saw dollar signs and created the MMO Elder Scrolls online.. The masses rejoiced.. well actually they complained because the game was pretty devoid of almost anything that made the Elder Scrolls great.. 10 years later and the game is in a far better state but still lacking in alot of ways..
The Story - Well it's an MMO, most MMO's don't really have a story, this one kinda does,, although I don't know what it is.. something about A prophet, and betrayal and Daedric princes or something... who knows..
Game play - If you've played the Elder Scrolls then you pretty much know how this game plays, do quest, steal stuff, sell stuff, buy stuff, make stuff... etc etc etc.. Funtimes to be had by almost all..
Pro's -
Hours and hours and hours of gameplay..
Huge game, compared to The Elder Scroll games we're used too.
Decent substitute until Elder Scrolls 6 comes out
Con's
not really as fun as a core elder scrolls game/
Even with 10 years in the can, the game still feels empty
Only 25 quest at a time (with thousands of quest in the game, 25 is too few. you'll often find yourself with a full quest journal and frustration will ensue)
Inventory issues if you aren't sub scribed to ESO+
Recommendation -
If you've never played TESO before, now might be as good a time as any,, if you buy the newest expansion you get access to all the previous releases, which will add potentially thousands of hours of gameplay.. The game really has alot of content, but even with all that content eventually the game starts to feel like it Drags.. with leveled enemies, you never really feel overpowered and even at max level you can die to some random creature you were killing with ease earlier in the game..
If you're a fan of MMO's then this game will be a good addition to your game playing,, while it's more like a solo MMO, it does have some group content, which I can't really comment on, and I hear it might have raids, but I have zero experience in this game with raids or more then group content..
I'd recommend buying the newest expansion which at the time of this review was Gold Road.. I'd also ask Beth to increase the quest journal size another 10 quest or so.. it's really needed after 10 years..

It's a beautiful game and I've been playing it daily since 2020. There's so much to do and so little time to do it all.

First things first: I bought ESO directly from the homepage, so Steam doesn't show my real playtime. But between my 3 characters I've played 1087 hours and I'm still playing it.
I will leave out most of the generals because you can read about them in those thousand other reviews.
What is the best way to describe this game?
It's the MMORPG for solo players. There are many, many players still playing, which is kind of surprising for such an old game, but interacting with them is optional. Very optional. On the positive side, there is almost no kill stealing, because even hitting a MoB just once counts the kill for all players who did it. A few years ago they also added followers, which is an NPC that follows you around and helps you in fights and such. This made the need to interact with others even less (and it wasn't that much to begin with).
-It does most things right, but shines in none. I mean, it really has many concepts that are well thought out... but somehow it feels mediocre in almost everything.
-It has a more or less classless system built around classes. Your class has 3 skill trees that are unique to it. But you also have many, and will get even more, other skill trees that aren't unique. This makes characters feel more and more like other characters the higher you level them.
-It has the same lore, areas, and story flaws you know, love and hate from all the other Elder Scroll games - ok, except for creating your own self-healing uber-armageddon spells and spiffing fork of megadeath weapon smithing :)
-It has kind of an action based combat system, but in most fights you just spam 2-3 skills and maybe parry or dodge once in a while, and since it came out for consoles you can even activate assisted targeting, which makes this combat system at least closer to a tab target combat system.
-It is the most open world MMORPG; because it scales everything to your level. While this can be seen as a strength (you can play with your friends who may be high level or noobs and not be afraid of dying all the time if you decide to start as a new player more or less immediately in the latest expansion), it is also it's biggest flaw. Because leveling up does not really make you stronger, it just gives you and your opponents more options.
It has a unique pay-to-play system. If you don't care about crafting, you can play it forever, just buy the latest expansion and later DLC or newer expansions, if you like playing them. However, if you pay monthly, you get access to all content and a crafting bag able to hold infinite crafting materials. This bag is shared with your other characters.This may be done by just buying the base game and subscribing to ESO Plus for 10€/month instead of buying expansions +DLCs.
Would I recommend it? If you liked the Elderscroll games, definitely yes. This is the only Elderscroll game that wasn't made directly by HIM. And you know what? They made a lot of things better and it _really_ just works :)