Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind

It's been out for over two months now, but with my computer dead it was hard to make a proper blog post about it. So here goes.

I was so hyped about this release, mostly for nostalgia reasons (and I didn't even play the original that long ago! is 2014 long ago enough to qualify as nostalgic?) The fact that Seyda Neen looks exactly like it does in the original Morrowind is slightly lore breaking, but I'm one of those people who Just.Didn't.Care. I was half-expecting Fargoth to show up when I was walking around Seyda Neen in ESO and being dazed by nostalgia. Ofc he didn't, because no one lives to be that old (except Mannimarco). Once again being able to take silt striders across the island of Vvardenfell and listening to the sound they make was ♥♥♥ And the new intro!!! They incorporated the original soundtrack of Morrowind!!! :D:D:D:D:D:D *fangirling*

Ok, so with that part out of my system... Let's get a bit more serious.

The island of Vvardenfell is the single largest addition of game area since ESO launched, and you kind of notice that going through the main quest. Vvardenfell is just one single zone, but it feels larger than any one single zone from the base game. The main quest revolves around you helping Vivec, which takes you around the whole island of Vvardenfell, which consistently brings you to all the places you visit in the original Morrowind, even the Cave of the Incarnate. And of course every single town that the main quest takes you to have their own quest lines. My personal favourite is the quest line found in Sadrith Mora, but I also really liked the one in Balmora.

There was also an addition of a new class; the Warden, which is the first class addition since the Templar came around a few months after original launch. The name Warden brings immediate Dragon Age associations to me, which I'm sure it does to lots of other people too, so while I haven't actually played much Warden yet, I did log on to quickly create a Warden and grab that Dragon Age name I wanted (Elissa Theirin). From what I've heard from guildies and other players, the Warden seems extremely versatile (like the Templar). It has class specific healing abilities, which makes it a good healing class, and I've seen it being used as a tank successfully so there's some good sustaining there too, and like every class it makes a good dps.

Something new that was added was Battlegrounds. ESO's PvP has been lack-luster for a very long time. Duelling was introduced late last year, but before that all we had was a large scale two-front PvP war in a zone that was larger than all the other ones. Battlegrounds added some classics like 4v4v4, Catch the Flag and Deathmatch. While I'm not a super fan of PvP, I did try it out and it reminded me of that time I played the PvP in Bioshock 2.

We also got a brand new trial (12-man dungeon or raid) called Halls of Fabrication, which is basically the other trials on steroids. There's so much mechanics required even on normal difficulty. When we did that first blind run we spent two hours on the first boss, and then had to give up at the second to last boss (because it was Sunday and people had work/school in the morning). Just a week before my computer died, we managed to complete it for the first time and it was soooo good :) So much cheering and applause as the final boss died.

Apart from these big things, there were also two public dungeons added, in which you can collect fragments (either Dwemer or Sixth House) and when you've collected a certain amount of them you can combine them into collectables. There were also a few new crafting motifs added, some new dailies, and a whole bunch of achievements related to exploration.