The Elder Scrolls Online

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ESO has changed a lot in the intervening months, and whether you're jumping in for the first time or making a return in time for the upcoming console release, this primer should help you find your way.

From Buggy Mess to Bug-Free

With the benefit of hindsight, it seems almost safe to say that ESO was doomed to disappoint. Elder Scrolls veterans criticized ESO’s clunkier combat and lack of player freedom. MMO fanatics nitpicked the game’s story-driven emphasis that made it difficult adventure with friends.

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A bevy of big launch bugs didn’t help ESO’s reputation. Even now, players who've never tried Elder Scrolls Online before think it's a buggy mess. In those early days, the launch day hordes that hit every big MMORPG release gave players the impression that the open dungeons (known as "delves") would always be packed with people. And then, at last, came the bots. They spread like a zombie invasion, and almost ruined the single player experience.

But that's all changed now. I've since leveled an entirely new character all the way to Veteran Level 14 (for now, the de facto level cap) and I don't recall experiencing a single bug during that journey. The bots are gone, and the delves and solo dungeons are generally enjoyable affairs where you'll find two or three other players at most. The problem is that ZeniMax appears to have spent so much time addressing these issues that it took resources away from content development--indeed, in the months leading up to ESO's big overhaul, only one content patch even made it out to players waiting for new adventures at Veteran Level 14.

Introducing Fresh Adventures

The patch was a doozy, mind you. This was Craglorn, a sprawling "Adventure Zone" with numerous open world events that required groups of players to complete. In the place of solo dungeons and delves, there were now group-focused counterparts. Craglorn even introduced 12-person "Trials"--challenging, time-based events with leaderboards that served as the closest thing Elder Scrolls Online has to traditional raids.

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Craglorn was a good patch, even if it felt a little too similar to the content we'd already played over the 300 or so hours it takes to get to Veteran Rank 14. Completing its various challenges was enough to keep people like me (who genuinely enjoyed the game) coming back and paying our subscription fees. For a while, at least. Craglorn also addressed one of the chief problems of the game up until that point - max-level characters now had tough new content to chew through, instead of focusing on the very grind-heavy “Veteran” ranks.

The big problem, alas, is that Craglorn was essentially ESO's only patch. Months went by without any real new content, leading to speculation that the game was doing poorly. ESO didn't exactly feel empty at endgame thanks to its "megaserver" technology, which ensures that players almost always see someone else in the vicinity, but it seemed clear that too many guilds were folding up and that trade had slowed to a gelatinous crawl.

Much More Than Free-to-Play

At last, in January 2015, ZeniMax announced that ESO would be going buy-to-play in March. Traditionally, this is where a lesser developer would have given up and simply transitioned the payment model. But in the weeks prior to the switchover, ZeniMax announced that it was implementing changes that would fundamentally change the game. And they're good changes.

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Some are already instituted, such as a justice system that causes you to rack up a bounty depending on how many friendly NPCs you've killed and how much junk you've shoplifted. Thus far, it only applies to NPC and not to other players, but it shifts the entire experience into something more properly Elder Scrolls. Just as in Skyrim, if a guard comes up to you and demands that you pay up your bounty, you have the option of fighting or fleeing (or, of course, paying).

“ They might have had a rough time of it at first, but by the Nine, they weren't going down without a fight.

Based on the breadth of the changes, it suddenly felt easy to take ZeniMax at its word. They might have had a rough time of it at first, but by the Nine, they weren't going down without a fight. That's the climate we're in as ESO marches to its console release date on June 7, and it once again makes ESO a game worth watching.

What You Need to Know

Zenimax's MMORPG takes place a full 1000 years before the Dovahkiin started punching dragons, and 800 years before the Nerevarine walked off a prison ship in Vvardenfell. In our own world, that'd mean everyone would be walking around in chainmail and homespun tunics, but life seems to stay static in fantasy worlds, and thus you'll find much that's familiar in previously-seen Elder Scrolls locales such as Riften (Skyrim), Cyrodiil (Oblivion), and Mournhold (Morrowind). Even key figures and artifacts from Elder Scrolls lore pop up here, such as Mannimarco (known from Oblivion's Mage's Guild quest line) and the legendary axe Wuuthrad.

But this is also a great time period for the tale of world-spanning conflict that ESO wants to spin. The famed emperor Tiber Septim has yet to appear, and there's no one sitting on the Ruby Throne. The remnants of the Empire are torn among three factions composed of Tamriel's signature races. You initially align with one of these factions, and they remain your "home team" when you venture into the massive faction-versus-faction-versus-faction PvP zone of Cyrodiil.

Up next: What makes ESO distinct from other MMOs, how the game's buy-to-play system works, and more.