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Elder Scrolls Online is free on Epic right now

Been playing this for the last few years. Helped me get through lockdown!

It's been around for long enough that there is absolutely loads of content. I love that there are several different ways to play, too. I love housing and decorating, but there's casual questing, end game content, PVP, crafting... It's fun!

I don't know if we're permitted to post links that that here, so I won't. But if you go to the Epic Games store, it's free through 27 July.

Happy questing!

48 comments

  • If anyone's on the fence, its definitely worth your time to check out.

  • I know it shifted from a subscription model to a paid DLC one. Do you actually need to buy some DLCs to get an enjoyable experience out of this? Do you only need the endgame stuff once you get there, like buying the latest WoW expansion? How does this model actually work for chill players?

    • You can do probably 60-70% of the game just with base version. You won't be hamstrung by missing meta sets or content. Even then, DLC sets that can be crafted can still be obtained by having someone else craft the for you, or by having access to tables via a guildmate (like 95% sure it works that way, if not, you just need the 3rd party crafter). You'll obviously miss the new zones, dungeons, trials, and skill lines, but you'll still get over a hundred of hours of content.

      You can absolutely play this casually. The base game stuff is pretty easy in comparison to how it was, with power creep and such, but it's, at worst, a good, long introduction to the game systems to better gauge your future interest.

      • If you subscribe and get ESO+, you get '...Access to all DLC game packs available in the Crown Store for the duration of membership'. That does not include the latest chapter; right now that's Necrom. There's a new one each year, so you'll be able to play Necrom next year with a membership if you don't want to buy it outright.

        They do a good job of making the membership very appealing, I have to say. Increased bank space, double the slots for furnishings in your houses, and a bottomless crafting bag, for ex. But they are not obnoxious about it like, say, Neverwinter Nights is.

  • I left right before High Isle came out, but nothing I've tried since has really caught my attention the same way. Even GW2, as awesome as it is, and as many QoL features it has that I deeply missed in ESO, just... isn't the same.

    Did they ever get the Champion Points re-worked into something that doesn't suck? I hate the way the green constellations worked, particularly; whose idea was it to say "Nobody harvests, chest-hunts, fishes, and searches for crafting recipes at the same time, so obviously it's silly to let players equip all those bonuses at once"??

    Even if not, I think I might drop Netflix and re-up my subscription. If just to remind me why I left, maybe?

    • As someone who played GW2 a ton; what does it have that ESO doesn't? Just curious.

      • Getting access to all the weapon skills is so much faster, which makes trying out new builds a thousand times easier.

        Not having to find and speak to the quest giver before I can do the quest is great. I like just having to get into their radius without having to track them down before and after.

        I'm a big explorer, so I really appreciate the rewards for exploring the maps (and the compass pointing me towards the things I missed).

        The jumping puzzles are amazing.

        The free mount not being a boring-ass horse is pretty cool. Mounts having different abilities is also cool. Not having to spend 120 real days upgrading your mounts is really nice.

        Getting experience from harvesting and crafting. Not having to spend real-time months researching things to craft them.

        Underwater exploration. Yeah, underwater combat is kind of a pain, but it's still cool to have the option.

        The directed story mode complete with boss fights in instances that can be done solo.

        Classes are all totally different from each other; there are no "meta" skills for a specific role no matter what class you're playing (eg, unstable wall, aggressive warhorn).

        Enough skill points in the game to learn every skill and every specialization, along with the ability to switch builds on the fly just whenever (without having to go back to a shrine and pay to do it).

        I'm not sure how I feel about having a centralized auction house. A lot of my endgame in ESO was shopping and flipping valuable things from one trader to another, but I have to admit it's really handy to just be able to go buy a bunch of crafting materials in any city for the lowest available price.

        Like, I could just keep going; there are so many things, both little and big, that I love about GW2. But for some reason, I just can't get into it. Maybe it's that it levels me up so fast that I don't get to really enjoy the view and learn the class. Maybe it's because the elite specializations change the class so dramatically that most of what I did learn during leveling is immediately obsolete at 80. Maybe it's because the combat feels kind of clunky due to being a weird hybrid of action combat and tab targeting. Maybe it's how complicated the buff system is, that I can't really wrap my brain around all the different boons and when I need them. None of those are really big deals, just quirks of the game that make it unique, like all games have. But it's not doing the same thing that ESO did for me.

    • I can't speak on that specific timeline, but CP has had a pretty large makeover recently. You still only have 4 slottable abilities, but quite a few have moved to passive status. Unsure if the ones you reference specifically are though, green tree is usually a throwaway tree for me.

  • hey, nice, always wanted to give that one a try. thanks

  • My girlfriend and I played through the quest line of where we started in Morrowind (I think?) and had a blast, but once we left we were totally lost! I was really engrossed with the story but all of a sudden we're just doing something completely different. I was quite disappointed and it left me wondering if we had done something wrong or out of order.

    • Yeah, the zone quests vs. the main quest are not explained very well. I started just after Elsweyr came out and was trying to play through the main quest at the same time I did the zone quest. I didn't understand why some of the characters showed up in both with different, ah, statuses, shall we say?

      Probably the easiest thing to do for continuity is to play through the quests for your faction. They will lead you to the next logical zone. With Morrowind / Vvardenfell, it's a DLC so it's a bit outside the main continuity lines. DLC's can be done at any time, though with some recurring characters, it can be fun to do them after doing the main quests. You'll sometimes get unique dialogue as the NPC's acknowledge your previous adventures with them. Release order of the DLC's is one option. However, the skills you get from the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests can be really helpful, so it's OK to take a detour and pick those up early on (and they don't cross over with the main quest).

      Some lovely person wrote up a nice guide on the forums about which order to quest in for every faction: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/525351/a-clear-step-by-step-guide-to-playing-eso-in-chronological-order.

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