I just wanted to skip the Prison escape part. The starter island was fine imo.

Some of you have absolutely zero appreciation for story. I know MMOs are generally attract a crowd of players who only play the game so they can kill other players, but it still boggles my mind how you can pay for a game only to skip all of the content.

In my view, there is a lot of flexibility for different overall narrative with each character. Some characters I play may be interested in visiting the islands, others may not. Likewise, when playing a bookish mage, I would not be inclined to join the fighter's guild or thieves' guild.

Or if I'm playing a two-handed barbarian type, you will never catch him poring over arcane research at the Mages' guild. It doesn't mean I would never get to experience the mages' guild quests, just not with that particular character.

Ultimately I hope to experience lots of different content, but I've been playing Skyrim for years and still haven't come close to completing all the quests.

I guess there is one positive to these changes. I can now immediately join the Mages Guild so those lorebooks in the starter islands will help advance the skill line instead of doing nothing as is the case now.

I heard that after escaping the prison, we are automatically sent to the locations after the starting islands. So, how do we get back to the starting islands if we want to do them? I never fast travelled while in beta, but is it like that? Must we pay to go to the way shrine on the starting island? Why can't there be an option when leaving the prison to decide which location we want to visit?

dont press the skip button? wait are you saying its not optional? they force us to skip the starter islands now? hmm if this is a case huge mistake you should have the option as your porting up out of coldharbour to pick skip or no skip

In the video I just watched there was an NPC standing next to a boat. You had the option to say to them "I heard you need help in ___________." And they'd take you there on the boat.

aah ok im cool with that

Oh, okay. That's good then. ^.^

I didnt ask, but really wanted the option.

I'm most likely going to do starter island anyway. but theres something about being FORCED to do that questline that psycologically harasses me... yes I'm crazy.

Now I'll be able to do the entire island feeling totally free to leave whenever I want. And I might. And to me, it is a huge difference. Thanks ZOS

Well, speaking for myself, Cold Harbor was fine. The first starter island was kind of meh, but kind of an MMO thing you typically just have to deal with. When I got to the second island and I was still trapped on a small landmass with little exploration capability and really no choice but to do their story line their way I was thinking that I wouldn't buy the game. That's not why I buy and play ES games. ES games are all about "it's your game, play it the way you want". If I wanted to play a game that was guided, I'd be looking at that type of game. By the time you get to your third land mass, I start to assume that this is the way the game works. Once I got to the main Breton city and I could wander around with no particular plan. Encounter quests and do them or not at my own discretion, that's where the game got sold. That's what TES means to me much more than any window dressing or lore.

This move was done mainly for beta and it might not be final after player feedback. I didn't mind going through the beginning of the game, but it was mainly hand-holding you. It wasn't so bad, when you could loot from crates/ sacks. it's just a high traffic area and I think they have a cool down before new loot appears. It does become frustrating if they wiped your character and you have to start it over repeatedly. They finally stopped doing server wipes but having the option to skip doesn't hurt and you can always go back and play it later.

Blasphemy.

Actually, I wish there was the option to skip the Coldharbor part in ESO and just get dumped into Stros M'kai rather than being required to do Coldharbor and being able to skip the starter island. That Coldharbor section is going to be jam packed with people at launch and I know that story already and will be the same for every faction.

The downside is that this change in ESO smacks of design by committee. Hopefully it isn't representative of how the late game was designed.

I did "complain" about Coldharbour. I know it's not very long, but I felt like I needed to feel more like I was fighting to get out. I was being let out of a cage and no one was doing anything but running. There was 2 things to kill before the main area to get out quests. I felt underwhelmed. There should been a chaotic feel, and scramble to get out....

I didn't. Though I didn't like how linear follow a single path feel it had but I never made any complaining...guess they read my mind.

The starter islands contained 6 skyshards, lots of chests, books, treasure maps and other drops, all easy to obtain. Despite all of the complaining about the islands in the various forums, I wonder how many people will actually be willing to forgo them. Probably will just be another round of complaining about effectively being forced to do them.

The players looking for the lore or backstory will do the initial quest line just like they do in TES games. The mmo types will skip and level as fast as possible either to get into instanced group dungeons (none on the starter islands) or into Cyrodiil for pvp.

I'd bet there will be players in Cyrodiil in less than one hour after launch accumulating points to become the first Emperor.