izigame.me

I have several thousand hours into this game, so I think my opinion might hold some weight to some people. I will start off by saying the good things about this game, the reasons why i started playing in the first place, the reasons I have thousands of hours into the game, the reasons why I am giving this product a thumbs down after all this time, finally followed by the reasons why I quit. I will keep it brief yet detailed as I can.
This game has fantastic visuals, character customization, and environments to explore. That being said, the quests are intriguing, stick with original lore of Elder Scrolls while adding fresh content to the stories, and keep you entertained. They are more than "fetch this for me, take it to another person, gather 10 of this." There is content there.
The multiplayer experience is average of an MMO, but personally, as being the leader of several guilds and a member of countless others, this community is one of the least toxic I've encountered. There is lots of inclusive people with open minds and good hearts, Ive met some friends on there that even tho we dont play ESO together anymore, we send Christmas cards to each other. Social is A+
Let's get to the bad. If you enjoy having thousands of hours into a game with virtually nothing to show for it, then this is the game for you. MEANING: all my skins, emotes, houses, (housing system has severe pros and cons I don't have the time to address in full detail, but I will say that each house in the crown store costs $100 each) and titles were GAMBLED. If you want an in-game skin, you have to buy it. If you want an in-game house, you have to buy it. WITH REAL MONEY. Sure, that's fine, why not support a "free-to-play" title? Except that it's not, not entirely.
Let's delve into the "free-to-play" lie that they slap on their title. You have to buy the base game, every major dlc at almost a triple A title price, and if you truly want to have a stress-free experience and not have to sell items or find measly storage in your bank, which costs a small fortune to upgrade to a meaningful level, you can purchase ESO plus! You'll get basic mechanics found in other games for the low, low price of $15 A MONTH. They add dungeons and smaller scale content that you can get access to buy purchasing eso plus, otherwise you have to buy it separately. This EXCLUDES major dlcs such as High Isle and Morrowind, for example.
That's all fine and well, I've bought my game, I bought my dlcs, I bought my ESO plus. So what? It's worth it right? The amount of content in the game.... Yes, there is a lot of quests and areas to explore. You're in this deep already with money, you've been playing, how do you get all these cool mounts and pets and skins that you see others in? Oh, right. You must purchase crown crates.
Crown crates. Holding items of value you want, at a percentage of a chance to obtain them, with no indication of what that chance is. You could spend 20$ and get that mount you wanted! Yay! Praise the RNGesus! Or, you could spend hundreds, and still not get that skin you wanted. Sure, you could convert items you already have into yet another currency to spend in their store, but that is only obtained through buying Crown crates.
In recent dev blogs they have explicitly stated new content will be available through the crown store, or through crown crates.
There are some really cool titles and skins to earn in-game.I had a max level character, unkillable in pvp. My toon did unbelievable damage for their class. And still finding a group to do a Trial (essentially a raid) with 12 players of equal skill to complete the challenges to earn said titles and skins was nearly impossible. People have lots of paid runs where they will carry players, either costing exorbitant amounts of gold in the process or real money which is against ToS. Good luck getting those skins naturally, and some of them aren't even close on the scale of "Coolness" when compared to skins they expect you to gamble for.
They're just skins, so what? I don't need cosmetics. Okay, that's fine. You know how they boast about being "One Tamriel"? That's only true if you buy the upgrade in the crown store. You want to make a Dunmer in alliance with the Altmer? Sorry. gotta pay another 15$ to do this. Okay that's fine, I'll just stick with the alliance my race is associated with by default, not a SUPER big deal.... At least there aren't any paid potions or scrolls to make you level super fast or anything? Right? Right? Cause wouldn't that be pay to win?
Right?!
I repeat, this MMO is HEAVY ON PROMOTING GAMBLING.
As a final note, please keep in mind this game is published by Bethesda, not developed by. Zenimax Studios has full control over their monetization, not Bethesda. Even FO76 has a way better monetization system. (albeit not that great, but still 100 times better than ESO's) If you enjoy throwing money like hundreds of thousands of other people at developers who despite all their greediness, still cannot add any meaningful end-game content that is not stuck behind a pay wall.
But hey. I only have about 3800 hours into this game, and have spent countless dollars to feel cool or was pressured into it by their horrible monetization system, which I can only imagine would translate to younger people not so well, so either take my word for it, or don't. There are better MMO's out there with better monetization. I hope this helps.