Am I Bouncing Off ESO?
Last week, Syp had some thoughts on inventories and their effects on immersion. While his thoughts lead up to, specifically, Pantheon wanting to bring inventory weight back, it made me wonder if his starter thoughts are partially why I’ve been so “meh” about ESO as of late. I’ve been stuck with an overflowing inventory for months. For a while I only had time to log in for events and made sure to collect boxes and such and obtain my tickets, but then I had an inventory full of boxes, and not much desire to do anything with them.
I’d log in daily, if I remembered, grab my log in reward, look at my inventory, cringe, and log out. When I logged in last night, I’d 73 mails. And I finally told myself enough was enough. I spent about forty five minutes in game last night cleaning out my bags and working on traits. I deposited things I could into the bank (such as furniture and some recipes), and emptied my mail, which was mostly crafting materials. Then I went through all of my event boxes, and opened them. Then it was another bag cleanout and to the vendor to sell all the Treasure items that are throwaway from boxes.
After that I felt a lot better about my inventory, to be honest. And I felt more like playing. But I knew I didn’t have time, so instead, I updated a spreadsheet of what traits I need to learn for various professions, and then picked some up to train. I’m sure I could have gotten a lot of the traits cheaper than I did, but to be honest, I didn’t feel like playing the TTC run-around game. I will for some of the more expensive traits (Triune, and Nirnhoned), but right now most everything is training for 21 days. I’m planning to play a little bit on Saturday to at the very least pick up some Nirnhoned items to train for Woodworking so that I can start using up my crafting training scrolls.
Though maybe with a cleaner inventory, I’ll feel up to continuing my meander through Grahtwood.
2 Comments
Krikket
You have summed up the main reason I have NOT gotten back to ESO after an extended break despite wanting to play. Before the break, I had ESO Plus, which means extra bank space and the crafting bag. When I log in next, I will not be able to use my bank unless I resub, and it keeps me from even logging in until I feel like I have the time to devote to make the sub worthwhile. Plus, I realize that when I *do* actually sub again, I need to carve out a few hours to figure out what’s going on with all my characters and actually dump a bunch of stuff that’s just taking up space, because I know I’m holding onto a lot of stuff I’ll never actually use. Inventory management is probably the most tedious chore in most games.
Roger Edwards
I find that to play ESO in a way that I enjoy, I have to impose a lot of structure upon the game. I have a “bee in my bonnet” about playing through the story in narrative order, so my primary alt (which I last played in January) is sitting in Vvardenfell. If I resume playing now, I will be tempted to go to the new zone and “do thing out of order”. We can’t have that!
I also prefer playing when I have an active subscription for the obvious benefits of bag management. When I do return to ESO (I logged in last night just to patch the client and update my add-ons) I will have to sort my bag and vault, dispense with items and stuff that is no longer relevant and resume the story I was completing. I can’t help it. It’s how I roll and play ESO.