This review is strictly from 6.1.4. It's when I put up my armour and moved on from the masterpiece that the game is. The game may have changed - for the better likely.

I must recommend this game. It's just too damn good. I spent most of the lockdown grinding it. Now, before you turn around and say, "I've tried it before, the combat/game-play doesn't feel as fun. Well, there's a simple solution to that. Invest some money in the game, purchase the necromancer class, play them as a ranged Magicka class and enjoy every minute of every hour whilst playing the game.

The game is as cool as it sounded; you can level any route (obviously, some are better than others). Becoming a vampire or a werewolf is quite simple, so if that's your thing, ask in a guild or a town, and people will do it for free. You get so many skill points at this point that you shouldn't worry about not having enough. You will because with every area come to these things called sky-shards, 3 of these, reward you one skill point and within the whole game I think a total is close to around 300 sky-shards. Meaning 100 bonus on top of what you get from quest-lines/story-lines. There will be a point where you just get bored and spend them on useless crap.

Stories in this game are fantastic; they are in an Elders Scrolls-y fashion for sure. Many mythological characters we only hear in the main 5 games are actual talkable characters in this. There are your side quest-lines, dark brotherhood, or thieves guild or whatnot are all full of fun and lore. Some require doing stupid side quests to level your standing/level with the specific guild, but all of the quests flesh out to add to your surroundings and feeling of this natural world.

Guilds in the game are what guilds should be in all games. Non-commit. Obviously, if you're in a raiding guild, you'll be expected to show for events, or a trading guild will require a min selling amount every week. To explain it better, you have the availability to join multiple guilds. I used to stick to a casual guild that ran gear runs (some key sets drop in raid level dungeons and people are usually ass at their role and need these runs to get a better feel for the class). These casual guilds are more than often very lovely and very easy going; I haven't had a lousy guild experience, well, maybe that one odd person, but they get usually kicked out quick. The other side of the game is trading. For trading, each town/settlement has 1-7 traders. These are all owned by a guild. Guild leaders can bid for a trader based on how much income they get from taxing players for using their traders. You can only sell at your guild's trader.
Obviously, due to this, there is a finite amount of traders, so underdeveloped guilds might have a trader once a month in a random spot that's not very populated. But giant top-level trading/raiding guilds will have constant traders in capitals and bustling areas. So obviously, you won't make the amount you need to cover your trading tax and can then put in a fee to the guild that covers you for that week, usually ranging from 10k-500k, depending on the traders' location. To bridge the gap of some traders having better spots than others, a MAJESTIC tool called Tamriel Trade Centre was birthed. Now, it's a simple tool you download, install, and whenever you launch the game, it syncs the prices of how much everything in the world is currently worth, so a potion might one day be worth 50 gold per bottle but go up in price if its new or not many people are crafting it making it surge to 100 gold per bottle allowing you to know what the general selling amount it should go for. TTC also enables you to search for particular crafted/farmed gear. If you need something asap and for cheap, head to the site, select your platform/region and look up the gear or mats, and you'll be able to find the items you need. Make sure you launch the app every time you run ESO, though otherwise, the tool will give you out of date prices, nor will it update the website with the items you have listed.

PvP in the game is something different. It reminds me of GW2, where you have a large war campaign and need to capture elder scrolls/keeps/outposts to gain area. It's a way that you can level from scratch, so if PvE is not for you, go to the campaign map once you hit 10 (or maybe it was 15) and level that way. When I was leaving, they were introducing global cool-downs to AOE effects as the servers would be under heavy load and cause substantial lag issues. But I cannot recommend the fun you have with PvP (I'm not personally generally into PvP in MMO's); it's on another level. I remember playing as a healer, meeting some of the top players in our Alliance and becoming one of the "casuals". Just remember to ask to join a party; if someone is advertising the guild like a b****, leave and try with someone else. I met a lot of great friends through PvP. Alternatively, I recommend just doing some of the campaign quests that are in surrounding villages. They are fun but not as fun as the outside-campaign quests.

Right, mounts in the game are a bit weird... because, in a way, you could say they are the one P2W mechanic, not really a P2W, just a pain to level. Every mount is split into 3 parts stamina/speed/carrying capacity. They are pretty self-explanatory; you spend 250 gold every 20 hours to level one of the 3 skills by 1 point. Each tree has 60 points available per tree. So, even if you were to do it perfectly, it will take you about 150 days to get a fully levelled mount. It is HIGHLY recommended to fill out your char slots and just log on on each character to level the mount on each one. The way I did it was focus on Speed>Stamina>Carrying capacity. The P2W issue comes in that you can buy an item that levels one of these mount skills by one, and you can just stock up on them if you have the money.

That being said, you will receive items daily as part of the rewards calendar; you miss a day, it just means that your calendar decreases by a day. So you might not get the last few items. Hence it's recommended to log onto a character once a day, even if it is just for the reward. The shop is full of cosmetics, and that's what its good for, because sooner or later, either you'll save up millions for someone to gift you a pack (unless you're from Germany where packs are banned, so you have to ask someone outside the country for it) or you'll end up buying crowns (premium currency) and wasting it to get that awesome pink wolf mount.

The subscription in the game isn't a must-have; I know a lot of people that played without it and didn't suffer. But once you sub, you won't be able to go back. Not having to worry about running to your bank is an exceptional experience. The crafting bag just makes life so so so much better. You get the 10% boost to XP, too, as well as access to all current DLC/Expansions apart from the most recent one. Which is just a no-brainer. Also, you get a nice chunk of crowns every month.

The DLC/Expansions release on the game works as such. First, they release an expansion sized update to the game (usually £30 on release but can get it on cdkeys for half price usually); they then follow it up with 2 DLC sized stuff, usually much smaller but still incredibly noticeable and relevant. It's a great model; it adds new gathering/crafting skills and really creates a constant fresh feeling to the game with new sets/new recipes/new activities.

Dailies/Weeklies are fun, unlike WoW, where you want to shoot off your leg doing them. These will take an hour max. You get your usual do a dungeon for a boost of XP. Your crafting is based on your proficiency at a crafting tree; how many points you invested will change the materials you craft with; these quests give you great rewards.

I would go on, but I've reached the word limit for a review.

To finish off, as someone else said in the review: this game ruined my life. Had fun tho 👍🏿