Elder Scrolls Online: New Life Festival + Shadows of the Hist DLC

Two weeks ago I started playing ESO again, this time because I knew the New Years event would come around soon. It started last Monday and it's been the most fun yet. Unlike the Halloween event it wasn't exactly grindy.

You bought a free scroll from the Crown Store, which gave you a quest to seek out Breda in Eastmarch, Skyrim. She was a scholar on the New Life celebrations of Tamriel and also the start of  a questline of nine quests. Those quests were hilarious. Much like the Halloween event you got containers as quest rewards (this time looking like little Christmas presents) and these containers contained (lol), among other things, parts of the new Skinchanger motif, new recipes, and collectables. The entire questline was daily so you could complete it once a day, which became necessary to collect all the parts of the Skinchanger style and the recipes and collectables.

But let's start from the beginning. The day the festival started it was insane. Because Breda was stationed in one place and couldn't be summoned anywhere you wanted like the Witchmother in Halloween, her immediate area became extremely crowded. I read in the online chats that lots of people couldn't even go there with their toons without the game crashing on them or them getting unplayable lag. I had no issues, though, so I happily started playing the festival as soon as it begun.

The nine quests consisted in the PC getting to participate in the different kinds of celebrations for each race of the continent.

• Nords: Snow Bear Plunge. Cannonball into freezing water and then warm yourself by the fire close by. To get the achi; cannonball naked.

• Dunmer: Lava Stomp. Go to several taverns in Stonefalls and participate in the dancing.

• Argonian: Go fishing. Three different kinds of fish. To get the achi; catch five of each.

• Khajiit: Pick Three different leveled chests and bring the contents to the woman nearby.

• Bosmer: Mudball Merriment. Throw mudballs at 10 different people, and when you're done throw one mudball at one of the ambassadors of their Alliances. To get the achi; throw mudballs at Queen Ayrenn, Jorunn Skald-King, and High-King Emeric.

• Altmer: Help their temple with either donations or by killing the encroaching wildlife. To get the achi; do both.

• Orsimer: Help prepare a feast by hunting for meat and honey. Eat the food and then show your appreciation by putting your soiled napkin on display. To get the achi; Learn how to make Betnikh Twice-Spiked Ale and then drink one after your fest.

• Breton: Perform at several locations around a castle; juggling with knives, sword-swallowing, and fire-breathing.

• Redguard: Participate in a race and light signal fires along the way. To get the achi; do this in less than 35 seconds.

I loved throwing mudballs at people (you can even throw them at other players!), doing the cannonball into water and the fire-breathing, also the fishing was hilarious when there were so many people doing it at the same time.

I completed all the achis this Sunday night/Monday morning, so it basically took me a week. But the event is on until January 4th, so I could keep doing this just for the lolz. And throwing mudballs at other players may become a general thing to do in ESO - it's that popular!

I also recently, finally, managed to play through Shadows of the Hist DLC. It was a DLC consisting of two slightly tougher group dungeons. Ruins of Mazzatun has a main quest that has you saving enslaved Argonians from another group of Argonians who've been influenced by a corrupted Hist. Cradle of Shadows is full of Mephala worshippers... So spiders deluxe! That quest is a bit simpler. Just kill her followers and clear the place out. Ruins of Mazzatun is by far my favourite of the two. Now all that's left is doing these two in hard mode :P

End boss in Cradle of Shadows. So ugly OwO