PlayNotes: Elder Scrolls Online

A large volume of Adventures may be grasped within this little span of life by him who interests his heart in everything.

That’s just how this evening went.   First there were ruins to visit.  Luckily it was a fairly busy place so things went quickly.  I practiced a few healing skills on unsuspecting adventurers.

I was given two maps to try to locate places in Balmora.  The first one was very distinctive, and easy to find the location.

With the second map, I just didn’t see a house I thought looked quite like this, with the mushrooms growing by the steps and the distinctive tree in particular.

Once I did find this spot, there was still the matter of the hidden doorway, which was luckily given away by the quest arrow symbol nearby.

Next I was to break into a house and steal something.  How they do love breaking and entering in Tamriel.  Unfortunately, my constant snapping of lockpicks in an effort to open the simplest locks left me at the door all bummed, with “no lockpicks or key”.

I couldn’t find a place to buy lockpicks in Balmora so back to Vivec, where I bought ten.  Pricey!  I hope these will be enough.

Instead of heading straight back to Balmora, I sold some stuff from my inventory and looked for the guy who starts the housing quest.  It turns out my habit of grabbing every quest I come across had me already started on his quest line.

His is another quest location way north, so I decided, after looking at the map, to take the ship for the Mushroom quest, and I could do that one, then just swim over to the housing quest location.

The City of Mushrooms (whose name I clearly didn’t write down) is really stunning, and full of quests I had to pick up.   I won’t be swimming to my house guy for a bit.

There are also two quests involving romance, something this game includes often, and successfully, I think.  “Sunning herself in the light of a book”.   I love that.

PlayNotes Issue 4: Elder Scrolls Online

Another download/update tonight, ack!

Long load screens at login, I suppose this means everyone’s playing.

Tonight, my level 5 Warden who is doing quests from Vivec.

Going to the closest npc/quest location, I am offered a boat ride to a place I’ve never heard of, and the map marker for it is way across the land mass.  I’d rather wait till I have the quests nearby before I go off somewhere new.

Next closest is a simple one, find a stone, take some rubbings, help find the location of a lost library.

Rubbing stone

The cool thing is, this gives me a piece of a map in an Indiana Jones like display.  I get to find all the pieces. Then what happens?

It’s night time and very very dark…

Next the charming family saga quest Like Blood From Stone.  I’m to investigate a brother who may be doing something shady in a mine.  Nobody ever does anything good in a mine, particularly in this game.

You can’t get into the mine unless you lockpick the bad brother’s front door and steal the key in his house, or find the mine foreman in Balmora and pick his pocket.

I can pick locks in the Elder Scrolls games, but not here.  I snap all the lockpicks or get a couple and freak at the timer going kablooie.  I wasn’t meant to be a thief, truly. 

I had to look up how to pick a pocket in the game.  It worked fine but I felt like a real scum.  Again, not joining the thieves guild any time soon.  With a 75% chance of success, I plucked the key.

Another Night, Another Game, Another Mine 

 

Then I’m asked to murder someone.

This is all just going against my grain.  Hello. Good guy.  Heroine!  See me be a low, scummy killer thief instead.   I tried telling myself this was no different than any set of fetch, then kill the named npc quests in any other game.  There shouldn’t be this desire to back away and not do what is so wrong.   It shouldn’t even seem wrong.   Nice writing, if it can have that effect on me.

Notes:

I should should buy a million lockpicks and pick pick pick till I am not freaked.

H calls your horse.  I found this out with quite a bit of searching.  Not intuitive.  No, not even thinking “H” for Horse.

Haven’t been able to summon my Warden Bear.   I finally find it looks like I have to slot him on my toolbar.   My toolbar with what, five slots to start with?   Other games might give you a few too many skills and toolbar slots, but this is bad, just the few given, and to use one to summon the bear, that’s pretty low.