I find it odd that they would allow people to skip these 2 islands per faction? they to me feel like part of the game that should be played, why would they auto skip them and allow* us to go back? just seems a bit wrong they would do this so people can rush to the main city that is one of the most exciting things about doing the starting islands.

It was a knee jerk reaction to some of the press and TES players that complained the game wasn't open enough and because of that wasn't "Elder Scrollsery". I agree that it was a bad decision.

If these people had played more than 4 hours, they would have seen how open the game became and these islands were simply a tutorial and way to get familiar with the game.

some ppl felt the starting islands a bit lame....so they can skip ahead if they want to.

when doing first character - it must be done, but later there was completely useless for alt creation to do starting areas again.

It's to cater to people with short attention spans. And it's a good thing, because lots of people have short attention spans; and if all those people get turned off by ESO without giving it a chance ESO will fail.

It doesn't affect you if you if you don't like it (unless you're truly OCD), so to demand it be changed back would be incredibly selfish (and self-destructive, if you like the game and want it to succeed) IMO.

No. The islands are skipped by default. The Coldharbour tutorial can be skipped on alts.

It's exciting for you. But some people, sadly enough, are here simply for gameplay. With their strict play schedules where they power through everything to reach towards the end. They kinda hate "wasting time" or something.

But as I understand, the first new character is made to do the beginning island(s), but every character created afterwards has the option to skip these which is a nice deal for those people who make alts just to get into crafting alts.

Personally, I will not be skipping the starting islands, they are nice, give EXP and some skyshards. I also like to make sure most if not all things are completed if I can do it.

I think making them optional is a good decision. Coming from single player TES, getting stuck on a small island with no way out felt quite restrictive. However, I'd prefer it if we still started on the island with the option to immediately go to the mainland - not the other way around. I'm planning to visit the islands with every character anyway.

Perhaps then just becuase people did not like it.

The problem with that is the aforementioned people with short attention spans may choose to not skip without knowing what it entails, then log out and uninstall 5 minutes later in a frothing rage of ignorance.

Doesn't change much other than not being locked behind quest walls, which was the complaint. Perhaps it was easier to do it this way than to completely overhaul the quest lines on the starter islands? The quests are still there, just not forced to do them to get access to the rest of the game world.

It's because 99% of the initial beta impressionists didn't get past the first starter islands so ultimately gave a bad impression of the game. But w/e IMO, I'll be going back to play the starter areas myself each and everytime. I'm not looking to skip content nor do I feel the starter areas were lame in any way. Heck they are fantastic areas for early crafting resources, much better than later areas.

Good for them. I won't miss them. But it would only happen if it was a one-time choice - why not let us leave whenever we want? Don't like the quests on the island, fine, drop them and go check out another zone.

You won't, but don't you think ZOS would miss all the shiny clinky gold in their pockets?

Again, for those of us that like the starter islands (I do) there's no harm done, you can go back. Why insist on an OCD request that may cost ZOS customers (what you think of these customers is irrelevant)?

And how do you propose to implement this "leave whenever" choice? An NPC? Those short-attention-span people aren't going to look around for an NPC before they rage-quit. A box that constantly hangs around in the corner of the screen? No thanks.

The current solution may not be elegant, but it works. It's fine, it's the best they could do for this so close to launch.

Perhaps even a kind-of crafter refuge, if the cool thing to do is to completely skip the islands for the masses. A place to go to gather up resources and get your initial levels of crating without competing with a zillion people for the same nodes.

Game wasn't open enough.

Apparently allowing us to start somewhere else, and THEN travel to the starter islands is "opening up the game."

It's just like Skyrim now guys.......

I'm not asking them to go change it again. I'm fine either way. I'm just saying what I'd prefer.

Shiny, shiny gold... I think you exaggerated this rage quitting a bit. But still, I don't work for ZOS. I understand their reasons for catering to people with attention span of a squirrel on acid, but I don't have to like it or agree with it. I honestly don't see any problem with introducing a ferryman. I mean, it's exactly what they're doing right now by informing us we can go back.

Well, at least we won't have to deal with crowds on the islands. Not everyone will go back, so they should be a little emptier.

I think it's a shame that they skipped over the beginning islands, kind of makes players miss some decent content but at least we can go back to it. When speaking of this beta I'm happy they did that because I am starting a new character and want to get to lvl 10 but not do too many quests... if that's possible. Trying to leave as much content as possible for the launch, I know that I will be going back to the starter islands if this stays in the live version.

I'm not crazy about it either. I personally enjoyed the starting areas of EP (not Bal Foyen so much, but Bleakrock.) Khenarthi's Roost and Stros M'Kai were solid as well.

But I do get what they're going for.

In every other Elder Scrolls game you escape from prison and there's this moment where you're just thrown into a wide open world. Its like, "I can do anything. I can go anywhere."

ESO can never quite capture that same feeling because of the level based zones. However, all of the zones except the starting areas come close. They are fairly wide open, large, with lots to explore. So the idea was to try and capture some of that same moment, like when you left the dungeon in Skyrim.

Right now, I think all they need is a bit of a stronger hook to get you to go back to the starter zones.

It's because the starter islands are not representative of the overall game.

I have no strong feelings one way or the other.

I have no problem with the starter area per say but having done them several times with different alts it gets a bit tedious.

im a TES player (since Arena) and i loved the starting areas, and im going to do them again at launch....

ESO is a hybrid..not a mmorpg and not a TES game... it's a mixture of both...AND I LOVE IT !!

Phew...glad i got that of my chest

I find it funny how people play mmo's and don't like the main content, its like playing DAOC and hateing pvp, or playing ESO and hating Questing... i've heard people complain about VO in ESO, i mean wtf... lol, these people who want to skip the game should not play the game, because they make the devs change the game to suite their needs of dumbing down and reducing content to please their power leveling and their hatred for story and quests. The day people play RPG MMO's and complain about story... the world is soon to be doomed.

Reminds me back when i played SWTOR, and people were complaining about all the VO and Story i mean its a bioware KOTOR game and they play it and rage on everything the game is, i will never understand peoples lack of respect for lore and story when playing a game, to me a game is an interactive book, if they hate such a thing so much they just should go do something IRL lol.

The answer is: I don't want those people in the game...

If someone is so pathetic they can't spend 1 min in an mmo to ask or find out where an npc is and ragequit good, let them leave, you think those people will add anything good to the society of the game? just another kid on daddys credit card, nope, get rid of them all please, if FFXIV can put its fans first zenimax should.

But also what about the story? i mean don't the starting iislands follow a story where you make choices and meet the main chars of the story etc, so people are actually missing all this story, take the bretons the boat bla bla story when you arrive int he main city, thats a cool moment that the story led up to, if we POP into the city then this is messing up the story of the game... so it goes like

Tutorial > pop into a city > teleport back to the starting islands > do the story to go to this city > pop back into the city

This is messing up the way the game was desiged and removing all hype and excitment to reach the city, i have doubts now, if zenimax can do this what else are they capable of.