I was in the original beta back in January 2014. I pre-ordered the game and was thus given Early Access in March 2014. That was when the first change happened! In the beta only three player-classes had been available: Sorcerer, Nightblade and Dragonknight. With Early Access Templar was added. For years I've been telling people that Templar wasn't around for beta and was added with original release, which, to me, it was because Early Access was imho original release and not beta. But other people see it as a prolonged beta rather than original release. So we agree to disagree.
Screenshots from 2014. Top left from Early Access.
Originally the game was very divided. The Alliance you chose when you created your character would dictate who you could play with and which other players would be seen in the PvE zones. Also the world was locked. Originally you only had access to your Alliance's zones and it wasn't until after you beat the main quest line that you would gain access first to one other Alliance's zones and when you finished with those, the third Alliance's zones. This created a long string of quests having to be completed before you could actually get anywhere. It didn't help that Molag Bal, the final obstacle of the main quest, was really effing hard to defeat in these early days and I was stuck on him for about a month before a friendly soul crafted me a set of equipment that helped me defeat him and unlocked the rest of the game for me.
Originally the zones in the game were divided by level and the zones' levels didn't scale. Which was amazing to me because back in 2014 I adamantly played ESO as a single-player game. Since the zones didn't scale, neither did the dungeons. So as max level (which was veteran 14 at the time) I went around all the dungeons, soloing them and clearing them one by one. The only dungeon I couldn't solo was Blackheart Haven due to the final boss's pesky ability to turn you into a skeleton and strip you of your abilities and so I had to ask for help for that one, but only two people were more than sufficient for Blackheart Haven.
Craglorn was the first zone to be added to the game, in a free update, which also extended the max level from veteran rank 14 to veteran rank 16. I will confess that I never got to veteran rank 16. Veteran rank took so so so very very very long to level up that I just couldn't bother with the last rank. Vampirism and lycanthropy were also added around this time. Vampirism was originally much much more detrimental that it is now. The weakness to fire was a lot harsher.
In March 2015 Tamriel Unlimited came around which made the subscription optional rather than mandatory and it created the Crown Store, an in-game cash shop using real money. The Crown Store is almost exclusively cosmetic. The things that aren't are the DLCs. But in making the subscription optional they also created the premium account ESO Plus for the people who kept subscribing or chose to subscribe. ESO Plus members get a craft bag (where all looted crafting mats go, I have no idea how I survived without one before), an experience buff, and access to all the DLCs for free.
Screenshots from 2015. Top right is the common werewolf bug, when the transformation wouldn't complete and your character would be stuck as a screaming banshee with too long arms.
Around this time (maybe even before Unlimited) is also when they added a second version of certain dungeons, i.e. Banished Cells 2, Elden Hollow 2, City of Ash 2... These dungeons had a story that was a continuation of the story in their respective dungeon 1. These dungeon 2 were made for max level player who wanted harder content. These dungeons were tough, really tough, in the old days. Even now when everything has scaled you can still notice that these dungeons were made tougher than their partner dungeons. They still require a bit more tactics and have a bit more mechanics in them.
After console launch in summer 2015 is when they started adding DLCs. In 2015 we had Imperial City and Orsinium. Both of which haven't recieved as much attention from me as maybe they should've. In 2016 we got Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood and Shadows of the Hist before Update 12 came around.
Update 12 was when everything changed and ESO became what it is today. Update 12 is also called One Tamriel and this is when they ripped ESO wide open. They completely scrapped all the limits that Alliances put on players. Now the Alliances don't matter one bit (except for large-scale PvP) and the whole world is open to players from the get-go. The whole world is scaled and they scrapped veteran ranks for something called Champion Points or CP. No more blundering into high levelled areas, no more blocked content due to level or quests. Dungeons are scaled, trials are scaled, the whole world is scaled. Which we've proved time and again trials can be completed on low levels. Dungeons and large-scale PvP is still locked until you get to level 10, but the first 10 levels are quick. Molag Bal has been nerfed and from being some of the toughest content for a non-veteran character the main quest line is now considered some of the easiest content in the game all-around. Vampirism has been reworked and fire doesn't hurt as much as it used to anymore. Even Craglorn was revamped from being a purely group-based end-game zone.
Screenshots from 2016. Top left is from Orsinium DLC. Top right and bottom left from the Dark Brotherhood. Bottom right is from the very first New Years Festival at the end of the year.
Late 2016 and Update 12 was also when they added duelling and the Festivals. New Years, April Fools, Summer and Halloween are the four Festival seasons. Before duelling large-scale three-front all-out-war PvP was the only PvP action in ESO. In early 2017 housing was added (how did we live without housing before this?)
Then there was Morrowind in 2017 and the whole game was turned upside down again. Not as much as Update 12 maybe, but there was so much new stuff. A new class was added for the first time since Early Access 2014; the Warden. More PvP alternatives were added in the form of different Battlegrounds and all of Tamriel cheered. And come on! It was Morrowind! Every ES fan's fondest dream: to rediscover Vvardenfell in modern graphics!
Screenshots from 2017. Top left is from Shadows of the Hist DLC. Top right is the first house I bought. Bottom left is Vivec City!!! Bottom right is from Clockwork City DLC.
ESO then slowed down a bit with DLCs like Horns of the Reach, Clockwork City and Dragon Bones, before Summerset arrived in 2018 and turned the meta upside down - for healers for the first time since Imperial City was released 3 years previosuly. Summerset also added Jewelry Crafting which had been fervently requested since the game launched.
Screenshots from 2018. Top two are from the Summerset Chapter. Bottom two are from the Murkmire DLC.
This year also gave us Update 21, which featured a huge amount of changes! Most notably changes in the Race passive skills, which otherwise have remained completely unchanged since launch. They have finally given the Guild Traders (market) a search window, so now there's finally no need for an addon to be able to search for a specific item! (That's long overdue tbh). Also really impressive is the Zone Guide system, which helps players track zone completion. In the early days when the game was zone-locked in a specific order and you couldn't progress to the next zone without having done a specific quest this wouldn't have been necessary. But now when the whole world is 100% open and instantly accessible it could be really helpful to help players find their way to content they may have missed before.
All we need now is a grouping tool that won't stop working after every other patch...
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