I was working over the last beta weekend so I didn't get as much time to spend playing ESO as I'd hoped but, overall, it was good experience. There were still a few bugs but the game is in Beta for the purpose of finding and fixing those bugs so I'm hardly going to complain about that. However, as a confirmed alt-aholic, I have to say I was disappointed with the Cold Harbor tutorial.

Starting out as a prisoner escaping/ being released from a prison is a tradition in Elder Scrolls games and it was used with good effect in Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim to guide you through character creation and learning the basics of gameplay. But playing through Cold Harbor a few times over the weekend as I tried out the different alliances and classes and I have to say that ESO didn't really do a good job. I imagine it's setting up the back story for the world raid encounters coming later on but I think those plot points could have been covered in a minute long cut scene.

The areas were overly large for the amount of actual game play explanation that was passed on. Do people really need to practice running for a couple of minutes just to grab a weapon from a rack? I did a quick run through once, ignoring the loot items and clicking through the dialogue as fast as I could and it still took over 15 minutes to get through it. It's almost like someone in management had insisted they had to have a 30 minute tutorial to prepare people for the game and the only way the guys who actually built Cold Harbor could stretch it out was by making the areas larger so you'd use up time running from place to place.

In terms of story line, Lyria's sacrifice to free the Prophet was noble and all but seriously, I'd met the woman five minutes earlier, she'd helped out in a couple of fights I could have easily won myself and passed on a couple of plot points. I had absolutely no emotional investment in the character so this noble sacrifice added about as much to the experience as seeing a red shirt die in a Star Trek film. She could have easily been replaced by another couple of visits from the Prophet in his blue glowie form. Maybe the idea is you'll go back to rescue Lyria in some end game raid but by then you'll be asking yourself "Lyria who?"

Lastly there's the loot chests and the instancing from having a mega-server. Quite aside from the game story telling you, "Rush, rush we have to get out of here before we're trapped forever." then plopping a few dozen loot chests that you have to search through (because if you don't get at least one racial style book you can't craft armor or weapons) the way they've been implemented is that it's random chance whether they'll have already been picked clean or untouched, depending on whether you entered the room just as the mega-server's population had fluxuated enough to put you into a new instance or into one that had already been running for hours.

Overall I'd say that they need to seriously re-think whether they even need Cold Harbor. At the very least they should have an option to skip it once you'd played through it with at least one character.

It was an issue with the chests, first they was shared, this was changed to instanced, then people used them to farm with alts so they changed them again so you sometimes never get loot.

Else I think they made the are pretty large as it would be packed on release. Three betas ago it was an huge stream of players running out.

Well if they take away how do you explain the factions being split into area, you jumped through the portal and got pot luck where you ended up(story wise) so that's a good thing to keep more so with any race in any faction for pre orders.

It's a chore after the first time but it takes 10 minutes or so to run through. An option to skip and dump you with 1 sky-shard in your first city would not go amiss.

Cold Harbor was an awful start. I wish they'd have just put you on the first starter island and introduced Molag another way. It was terrible. The graphics, awful. The "An enemy has appeared to block the way" *I proceed to run past enemy* "NOOOO, you must defeat the enemy BLOCKING THE WAY!!" me: "but he's not blocking the way, he's slow and just a silly skeleton"

Terrible way of introducing the "mechanics" lol (hint: swing your frickin sword)

I liked it for the first time due to the visuals but after some thought the whole 'supernatural' element seems too forced... I think I rather enjoyed Morrowind and Oblivion much more(and Oblivion is my least favourite TES game by the way). Seems on par with Skyrim's start for me. Somehow Skyrim didn't impress me as much. Could be due to age though.

Other than that I think it is pretty ridiculous they went with the 'chosen one' plotline again. How am I supposed to believe that I am somehow chosen by the stars or the Elder Scrolls when there's another few thousand people who are also 'chosen'? The whole 'chosen by the stars' or a prohpecy or the elder scrolls worked in SP, although I wish they cut it there too, but in an MMO it's just silly. Why can't we be just a nobody who has to work hard for their (in)fame and glory for once instead of being a friggin' 'chosen one' which merely enhances the whole 'theme park' feel of the game? At least try to be subtler. :c

Edit: Also if I was meant to feel anything for that giant nord who sacrificed herself in order to free the prophet and myself it didn't work, didnt' care for her in the least. You could have put Jiub there, at least.

I sent a bug report, sometimes, EVERYTHING is empty, yet sometimes everything is full, just relog if you see its empty, some fishy bug there, also it appears that you can loot everything in the prophet 2 rooms, and sometimes they "respawn", I did this like 5 times until it stopped respawning, got 2 blue books, hope they fix it to be stable loot all around, and also non respawnable (not really respawn, its a different server shard, still I hope they limit it)

All characters start being able to craft armour/weapons in their own racial style... (you just need an appropriate "gem-thing" for each item which can be obtained from someone near the crafting zone for a tiny fee).

I'd like to be able to skip the tutorial, but it's actually very fast to complete.

I must have missed the right racial material then because my High Elf wasn't able to craft any weapons or armor.

I did the same thing for a bit - the trick is to select the 'has knowledge' filter at the top - that shows you what the right material is.

Like a lot of the crafting interface, it's not exactly intuitive...

The best thing about cold harbour is the english guy playing the lute HAHA.

Is it just me or does he sound like John Cleese from Monty Python?

That is John Cleese.

I'll admit that Cold Harbor left me feeling a bit MEH. The world opened up or me when I got to the 2nd "tutorial" area on Stros M'Kai. I thought that was fun. A lot of people complained about the number of "tutorial" areas, so now you only have to do Cold Harbor and can choose to go back to other places according to the latest news released. Its a bit long, especially if you do a couple of characters back to back, but I don't support making Cold Harbor any smaller because then you would loose the feeling that its a large and varied plane (its pretty small as it is given that perspective)

I remember that I was most excited when I got into Daggerfall and the whole world opened up. The moment was similar to getting out of the Vault in F3 and having the entire Wasteland to explore for the first time.

John Cleese and Michael Gambon. I feel like making a Breton sorcerer named Harry.

I ran thru cold harbor 3 different times this weekend. The first time was just casual barrel and chest opening. I wanted to get to the island fast. The second time I took time and opened every barrel, crate and chest I saw. I got out with about 30 or more chest keys. When I reached the island I played with opening the locked chests and got the hang of it. The third time I ran thru most (almost all) chests and barrels were empty. I wish I would have known that relogging would solve that problem. I have no issues with having to do the cold harbor tutorial. It can be done quickly or take the time to gather items.

Agree with that. The finding of the one book out of a million for being able to craft among already-looted chests needs to be fixed.

I think it serves it purpose to set up the story of the game more or less, I don't really have anything negative to say about it, if it was longer I might have an issue, but it is short and to the point.

I actually liked the beginning, at least the two times I played it because I need a refresh on how to play a game with a mouse and keyboard so it was good for me. I'm sure though by the time I've played this game a few times the beginning would have become annoying. However I didn't know about the racial book thing... what is that?

It's not that long that I can't do it every time, but I very much hope it will be skippable after the first character.

...hmm.. on the other hand, I always get 1-2 motif books from it, so maybe I will never choose to skip it.

i agree with that sentence but in the end, its like 5 minutes long when you know where to go.

It did a good job at what its supposed to do, let you learn the game and give you some tips with enemies that do 0 damage (skellies) and let you practice.

I find it surprising how people can complain about the Cold Harbor zone, I thought it was fine. It was short, there was plenty of monsters to get the hang of combat but there wasn't so many that you couldn't progress quickly if you wanted to. If you wanted to finish it quickly you could, so i really don't see an issue with it. Every elders scrolls game has had a tutorial section or area, this one is more directed but it doesn't change the fact that it's needed to introduce new players. Personally I think they just need to balance it a bit better so that you are either rewarded for looting the chests or just make them only contain 1 gold a piece or something. It's a real shame that the best way to get lock picks, racial motifs and provisioning ingredients is the cold harbor tutorial area rather than out in the world.

Going through the content didn't bother me at all. It's looting the dozens of containers is what gets me... but I can't just leave them laying there unopened..

hahahaha yeah right in the feel.

First time i went into the sewer part i was like "oooH! shinies!" and proceed looting all the containers (without autoloot) one by one. After a long and tedious opening of every boxes in the wrong direction, i turn around satisfied and proceed to find my quest objectif. Along the way i glance at a box and it says it good loot in it.. im like "hmm... i must have forgotten it" so i proceed looting it. Then i look at the crate just beside and there is loot. I do again a second run of loot up to the back of the cave again. Then i realise loot respawn....

It is the infinite loot circle of my own greediness... perhaps the skeleton you see in the back end is my toon who died of hunger, looting all those recipes.

You got an giant nord? I had a lady.

But I agree with you about the chosen one fits badly. Three betas ago it was an impressive stream out of the cells, kind of the mother of all breakouts.

No you are not the chosen one you are part of an far larger plan, imagine and warrior who auto resurrect then killed, yes by freeing the coldharbor prisoners they have stolen the major benefit of the daedra and you free legions. Naturally going back you also get involved in the faction war and doing all sort of stuff, still an major resource.