Yesterday I wrapped up Vvardenfell, which ultimately was the DLC that I had been playing through during my last ESO binge back in June of 2019. At that point I was already well behind the curve in content and they have piled on a significant chunk over the last few years. The thing is I have this habit of purchasing an expansion even if I don’t end up playing it because I know at some point I will return. I’ve talked about this at length before, but The Elder Scrolls as a franchise and I have a long and storied relationship and this involves a significant amount of emotional attachment to Elder Scrolls Online. Up until recently there was still a hidden forum dedicated to the original alpha testers which sadly has disappeared. I am however in a guild that formed from those first folks and we generally use it as a nostalgia bomb every now and then.
Finishing Vvardenfell meant that I would be moving on to the next piece of content. Since I am trying to follow the original content release order, that means the next step forward is to venture forth into The Clockwork City of Sotha Sil. The challenge however is that I had no clue HOW to begin the quest that would ultimately send me to The Clockwork City. I could of course just click on the map and go there through the wayshrine that was unlocked, but I my personal preference is to do the introduction mission whenever possible. When ESO first started releasing DLC content they would end up mailing you an item that took up bag space but ultimately started the quest chain. It seems at some point they evolved past this and now you can accept the introductory quest for any of the “Zone DLC” as they refer to it from your collections interface under Stories.
I have to admit this is the area of the game that I have been looking forward to the most because I love all things Dwemer, and while this is technically not a Dwemer city it shares a lot of the same characteristics. The city itself exists outside of time and space, but you get into it from a hidden location underneath Mournhold. So I spent last night going through that initial mission and then roaming around the Brass Fortress and surrounding area. I have not been disappointed in the least at the splendor of this area or to be truthful ANY of the DLC areas of Elder Scrolls Online. I mean the White Gold Tower/Imperial City area was a little sparse but it was also the very first DLC drop an they were trying to sort things out.
One of the questions I have been asked is if Elder Scrolls Online is still active. This is just a random snapshot of people coming and gone from the main portal in the Brass Fortress area of the Clockwork City. You can go to pretty much any city hub in the game and see a similar flow of people coming in and out of an area, and I’ve yet to be anywhere that was not a solo instance and not run into two or three other people completing the same content. I casually “grouped” with some other players the other night while doing a public dungeon which largely meant we were just following each other around and occasionally talking over say. The world feels alive and vibrant, which is pretty great.
This is hanging out waiting on a world boss to spawn and the folks who gathered in the meantime. Just like in any game you can see a lot of spell effects being fired off ahead of the spawn attempting to get a tag in. However unlike some games that mob seems to have enough health to be able to survive plenty of time for everyone who was paying any attention to get a tag in. From the moment the mob spawned in it was up for roughly a minute before we defeated it. This has pretty much been the case with most world encounters and there are a lot of times I roll up on a fight that has already started and am able to help out and feel like I actually did something rather than simply trying to get a single hit in.
Almost unbeknownst to me, the new champion system rolled in yesterday with a patch and as a result everything has been reset. Technically Zuu gave us a heads up Sunday night after I had already stopped playing for the evening so I was at least a little bit prepared. With the new champion system comes a lot of changes to the way champion points in general work. Most of the abilities now have a threshold of needing to spend a fixed amount of points before you see any benefit from it and some of them taking a massive dump of points to get abilities that have more impact. I think I more or less cobbled together something resembling what my previous build was and I am largely functional. I actually think the new version can burn through content a little faster, but struggles a bit with stamina regeneration.
The cool thing however is that right now and for the next two weeks, there is an event called Heroes Reforged that allows you to reset your Champion Points, Skills and Morphs and Attribute points for free as many times as you like until Monday March 22nd at 10 am. Side note, some of this will require you to travel to a Rededication Shrine and as such here is a link to the various locations. Essentially they are located in the original capitals of Mournhold, Wayrest, Elder Root and then in some of the expansion areas of Summerset, Vvardenfell and Elsweyr. The other big takeaway from last night is it seems like I am gaining Champion Points at a much faster clip than I did before now. Previously I would walk away with four to eight in a normal evening but last night I racked up fourteen in total. Talking with the guild there were folks who were feeling the same as well.
All in all I am still having a freaking blast. I’ve yet to really break into dungeons but I am hoping in the coming days I am going to start dipping my toes into those waters. Ultimately I am super focused on the story content and as such I have not really had room for dungeoneering as of yet. The story has been just compelling enough that I keep wanting to move it forward to see what comes next, but not so driven that there isn’t plenty of time for me to roam around aimlessly between beats.