The Elder Scrolls Online: Travels In Tamriel – Imps, Ruins And Cancellation

This is the third part of our Travels in Tamriel diary, which comes from the perspective of both myself, in standard font, and my in-game character, in italics. You can read last week’s issue here.

I once spent a good while in Skyrim mining ore, before crafting it into weapons and jewellery, which I’d then spend some time enchanting. This didn’t give me more powerful weapons to use in my quest, nor did it really serve any other purpose than levelling up my skills a bit faster and giving me more money to spend on, well, nothing in particular. It was basically work, but didn’t feel like it.

But in The Elder Scrolls Online, I must admit that everything is starting to feel like work. I’m doing quests to level up and get to the next area, getting enough gold in the process to allow me to buy new armour or weapons, so that I can actually complete those quests. And the quests themselves are usually set by people that I know could do it themselves. What’s worse, is that there’s other people running around, and I know they’re doing the same quests. Why should I be the hero, if they can just do it first?

I’m not the Dragonborn, I’m just another character, needlessly completing quests alongside others. There’s no individuality here, and even that mining, crafting and selling nonsense in Skyrim was more enjoyable than this. But still, I brought myself back, and took up another quest – one which perhaps made a bit more sense in context and which I felt as though I could play a genuine part in, despite the others crowding around the quest giver.

Athel told me of his inheritance from his father. He was excited to discover he owned something really special, but when I looked around, all I could see was ruins. That was part of the problem; Athel’s inherited land sat in ruin. It was no longer normal land, either – it was haunted, by ghosts and imps as well as a malevolent spirit. Since that spirit wouldn’t let him and his men enter, I had to sneak in.

And sneak I did. Past the imps as much as I could, taking out a few on my way. They were strong, these ones, but as long as I didn’t attack two at the same time, I was fine. Exploring the ruins led me to some artifacts – a book and a necklace – they didn’t seem as though they were worth much, but taking them made the most curious thing happen. A spirited woman and man appeared before me, and I learned of Athel’s father wronging this woman, leading her to haunt this ruined land.

Now that I knew the reason, I could complete the quest, so I returned to Athel. He had thought it might be a good idea to run in after me. But due to my sneaking skills being higher levelled than his, he was hurt as the spirit was angered once again. He asked me to summon the spirit – how was I meant to know how to do that? Apparently, I had to head to the mages guild, but by this point, I was bored of the whole situation, so left Athel to sort his own problems and headed further down the path. Another online player would do it anyway, I thought.

As I continued, I found another place overrun with Imps. Great, a burning and ruined village, headed by a crew that could probably just deal with their own problems rather than ask me to help them. But I spoke to them anyway, and so began my next quest in the world of Tamriel.

After speaking to a few sisters, who seemed to run this desolate village, I was tasked to collect Essence of Aetherius so Helena could create a ward over the mill and protect the villagers inside. I grabbed a bucket from the mill, and doused flames on the way where I could, also saving any villagers from their burning homes. Tackling creatures as I went, I found that my arrows would seemingly target a different creature than the one which I was aiming for at times. Strange indeed.

After all of that, and the weird auto-aim stuff, I was genuinely a bit bored of The Elder Scrolls Online. The next part of the quest involved killing creatures at a specific location, to nourish roots of the forest, and then to kill specific creatures to take their arms. There’s nothing really fun here – the quests felt as bland as could be, and creatures will flee if they get too far from their zone while fighting, or even just respawn back there.

If this is what MMOs are all about, then I’m not sure I really like them. So, as my month’s subscription of The Elder Scrolls Online comes to an end quite soon, I honestly can’t see myself shelling out £8 for another month of something which feels like a chore at times. I might just go back to Skyrim; I hear it’s lovely this time of year.