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.