I've naturally gone the route of a Dark Elf named Keah (again). In sort of vague story-telling terms, I've decided she's the ancestress of my Keah in Skyrim, and the family line was transported there due to the events in ESOTU. My gamertag is grohiik07, so for the purposes of simplicity, I'm probably going to end up referring to my gamertag and character names together at some point.
The map has to be my biggest complaint about the game, though, since it's so very hard to navigate it on Xbox One. A mini-map would 100% help, even if they didn't want to "clutter" the UI. (I am very tired of their belief in a lack of clutter disrupting my ability to play their game.) Beyond that, the differences between ESO and Skyrim are very interesting. Making money in ESO is hard, a full-time job. Any gold drops or found gold are only in small amounts. You have to really have a profession to make any money. Or, you could do as a Nightblade sneak-thief does and steal everything that's not nailed down from houses... pockets... the market.... You can gather materials-- which themselves are only slightly more common than gold sometimes-- and craft them through an extensive and interesting crafting system to make money. Not being that committed, and with a character that can actually become invisible when necessary, I generally steal, and sometimes make potions. So do a lot of other people. The marketplaces are literally crawling with thieves, crouching behind the stalls, stealing whenever the stall merchant isn't looking their way. I've been playing for several hours and still only have a bit less than 3000 gold-- and it was hard won let me tell you. The cheapest horse is 14K unless you buy it in the Crown Store, which feels a bit like cheating. And I should probably start playing every night to make money if nothing else, if I want to get a horse.
Nightblade is an interesting class, especially when you combine the abilities with your choice of any kind of weapon. The Nightblade abilities give you some magic daggers for close-up moves, and pairing it with my love of ranged weaponry works perfectly. Health-draining moves alleviate the need for heavy armor. I can shadow walk across the map if I can get a target to lock onto, making it so I can shortcut the map in interesting ways at times. Outlaws refuges in most cities make it so I can fence my goods (limit of 50 per day) and launder any items I want to use myself, making switching up my weaponry a breeze. The vast crafting system makes it easy to change the way your bow looks as well. I have a nice Nordic style bow with curved dragon heads on the ends, as well as a lovely Altmer-style bow covered in gold wing patterns.
One complaint, which I think might end up fixed by the Imperial City DLC, is the lack of a Thieves' Guild. The only guilds as yet present in the game are the Mages and the Fighters. But I'm willing to wait for the Imperial City and see if it provides me with either Thieves' or Assassins' Guilds. OR BOTH. I would also like more of the different countries unlocked, if possible. Currently you can only get into Eastmarch and the Rift in Skyrim, for example, and after running all the way across Morrowind at level 7it was very disappointing that I couldn't reach Markarth. And it was already irritating enough to be level 7 in an area where the enemies are level 42. (Irritating/terrifying/holy shit what.)
I'm going to leave this here for now like this, in the hopes of adding another post today if I get a chance to play after work. Screenshots to come when I'm no longer hidden behind my work computer's firewall!
