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The

Elder Scrolls Online's stress-test beta weekend is still

going on. If you have only just finished downloading the massive client

and want to get into the beta, there's still time left. But you will

probably find yourself asking one of these commonly-asked questions,

gleaned from low-level Zone chat in the various alliances. A lot of these

things will persist into the launch of the game, so even if you don't manage

to get into the beta event, this list of answers to common questions will

likely come in handy in April.

How Do I Trade?

Stand next to the character you wish to trade with and target him with

the reticle. Hold the F button to bring up the interaction wheel menu, and

select Trade in the lower left. The other guy has to accept your request.

Group membership may play a role here - both parties may need to be in the

same group. When the other guy does accept the invitation, you swap items

with the trade window.

Where Do I Find Crafting Resources?

Resource nodes are found mostly in wilderness areas.

For the most part, I find Iron Mine nodes

close to the bases of cliffs and boulders, usually nestled right up

against the larger rock formations. You can't mistake the reddish-brown

lumps for anything else.

Maple logs I usually find at the base of trees.

To me they look more like birch logs than maple, and sometimes their

locations don't make a lot of sense - for example, on Stros M'Kai where

they are often found at the base of palm trees.

Jute is harvested from jute plants. These grow

everywhere, and you will know them by their orange flowers, which tend to

stand out somewhat. In this picture, you can see a Jute plant in front of

the character, an iron node against the rocks above the loot window, and a

maple log just to the right of the giant insect at the top.

Rawhide for leatherworking drops from mammals

and lizards and such.



Water for alchemy can be found in barrels or urns, the same as food

ingredients, or in the odd bubbly patch of river or lake water. The herbal

components grow in the wild.

The items used to improve crafted items come from Extracting trash green

or better items. For example, if you want some Hemming to improve items

made at a clothing table, break down some scrap green pants or gloves or

whatever. The drop rate for these items isn't high, but it's the only way

to get them.

Where Is The Harborage?

You get the quest to meet the Prophet at The Harborage

at around level 5, usually midway through the second island. The Harborage

is not on that island - you have to finish the "enemy invasion" story

there and move on to the next place, and The Harborage is usually located

in a cave near the city.

How Do I Fix The Merchant Window / Crafting POV UI Error?

This error popped up a lot in beta, and it was rather frustrating to work

with. After closing the merchant window or attempting to exit the crafting

window, the POV would be stuck and the character can't move or interact

with anything. There are two solutions for this: the first is to type /reloadui

in the chat bar, which reloads the UI. The second, much easier way is to

open the Mail window with the ' key, which forces the POV out of the stuck

mode. Hit ' again to close the mail window and you're back in the game. If

the error keeps happening every time, I found it helped to restart the

game client.

How Do I Craft Items?

Ok, this merits its own full guide, but here's the bullet points:

Gather resources. See above. Find a crafting area, preferably with crafting vendors nearby. There's

usually an area for this in every major town, and you can often find

smaller, isolated facilities elsewhere as well. Sometimes the facilities

can be kind of split up - e.g. the woodworker bench is not located in

the same "workshop" area as the forge and clothing station. This is the

case in Mithral, and I've seen it a few other places as well. Talk to the vendors until you find the guy selling the style stones.

Each race has its own unique style, you can only make your own racial

type's style of gear (unless you find a rare book that teaches you

another style), and each of these styles uses a different type of

mineral to achieve their signature "look." Khajiit use moonstone, for

example, and Dunmer use obsidian, etc. Check which one you need by reading

the tooltips and item descriptions, and buy a good handful of that type

of stone.You need one style stone for each item you wish to craft,

regardless of the craft (except Provisions and Alchemy, which have their

own exhaustive list of ingredients).









Process your resources with the Extraction tab.

You can break down trash gear of the appropriate type to scavenge

materials (for example, swords and axes can be broken down at a smithing

station to provide iron ingots, bows and staves can be crushed at a

woodworking station to get sanded maple, etc.). Extraction also provides

the improvement items, like Hemming and Honing Stones, and gemstones

used to imbue the crafted item with specific traits (which you must

first learn). Most of your materials, though, will likely come from

gathered resources, which are also processed via the Extraction tab.









Go back to the Creation tab, cycle through the list of available

recipes you can make until you find the item you want, then match up the

material and style stone.

Higher-level goods consume more materials, so if you want to make a

Level 6 Cuirass, click the + button on the Materials part to dump more

ingots into it. This will provide you with one white-quality item.

There is, of course, a lot more to the system than this, but

this will get you started and geared up for adventure.

How Do I Open Locked Chests?

This is an interesting mini-game, and so far I like it better than any

lockpicking mini-game I've seen in any previous Elder Scrolls game. You

have a set of tumblers which must be depressed to the correct depth before

the timer runs out. Higher difficulty locks have faster timers, so the

timer on an Intermediate lock is shorter than it is on a Beginner lock.

You get as many tries as you can fit in that time frame, limited only by

the number of picks you have - multiple failures causes the picks to

break.

Press down on the tumbler until it starts to shimmy, and then release -

preferably right at the start of the "shake spot." If it snaps back up and

breaks your pick, try depressing it again and release it slightly earlier.

Some need to be pushed all the way down, some will only go down a tiny

bit. If you try to push those ones too far, the pick snaps. When you find

the correct depth and release the tumbler, it stays in place. Keep trying

- practice makes perfect, and it's the only way to find the correct tumbler

depth.

If you manage to depress all the tumblers before the timer runs out, the

chest is unlocked with a satisfying ka-chunk. If you fail to beat the

timer, wait a few seconds and try again. The more you do it, the easier it

gets.

How Do I Do PvP?

PvP starts at level 10. Once the character reaches level 10, access to

the PvP campaigns can be achieved by hitting the L key to open up the

Alliance War window. Join a campaign, teleport to Cyrodiil and do the

tutorials. You won't be able to do much with the Alliance War window until

you hit level 10 (and I had not yet hit level 10 at the time of this

writing).

How Do I Follow The Trail For "Perils of Diplomacy?"

This is an early Aldmeri Dominion quest in the town of Mithral. When the

Green Lady disappears, the quest tracker tells you to "follow her trail",

but she leaves no visible trail to follow, and there are no clues in the

quest dialogue. She runs off to the Abandoned House, circled in red on this

map:

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This is hopefully some kind of glitch which will be fixed by the time the

game goes live. But if it's not, here's your spoiler.

Got any more beginner-type questions you couldn't find the answers to

in-game? Ask in our comments, and we'll try to answer them for you!