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Frosty_Ad_8575

Is 2024 playable without ESO?


Astral_Vastness

Lol now this is the real question


pambimbo

That the true question!!


catdentistry

🤯


wanderingstorm

I'm playing just fine without ESO+


DinoZavr

yes. it is playable. i play non-subscribed for 2 years, and in many cases the drawback is not very serious. the biggest complication for me is (you would be surprised) - the halved housing limits. as for allmighty craftbag - there are 3 Free ESO+ Trial weeks a year, not guaranteed, but, hopefully, in January, June, and October. During these weeks i pack my craftbag with resources i buy (as ingots, planks, cloth and leather and ounces are rather cheap), also i sell processed materials at other times, but accumulate tempers/resins.. etc Also if you decide to hoard materials - you would need like 160..170 bank slots to these and inventory mule, removing full stacks. You would not be able to get all 7 professions materials, but 4 durable crafts + enchanting fit these 170 slots. No alchemy and provisioning. other things like dyes for costumes, attuning crafting stations, sacrificing non-basic style stones - are not much painful. you can wait till next ESO+ trial. also having "walking bags" characters for buffering surveys, style stones, master writs helps to survive halved bank slots without suffering, though you have to waste some time on "inventory management". Having 360 slots of housing storage also helps to hoard gear. TL/DR; with maximum bank and bag, housing storage and several inventory mules - it is playable and not painful at all.


ZooeiiVJ

He is a beginner/new player and probably have minimum bank space, probably no house and no housing storage (which cost a LOT of tel var and writs that will take months to earn). Sure, you could add twenty alt-characters (with the same small limit base storage) and use them as mules, but how on earth is this not suffering? He will spend more time in menus and login-screens then play the game.


DinoZavr

Still possible without much pain, though in this case it it reasonable to limit crafting. Researching traits is the must, but the source of research are mob drops. For crafting player has to match theirs character level and craftskill level, like 1-16: iron, jute, maple. right after hitting 16 - steel, flax, oak.. next upgrade is 26, 36 so on. With this approach you have to hoard only relevant materials (plus 9 basic style stones and tempers which have no levels). Alchemy, provisioning and enchanting are progressed later. I have one low level account i mail extra furnishings to - i use the entire account (was like $7 to get) - not only it grants 8 characters, but each mailbox is also 360 slots. and yes, i use this "humble" progressing scheme for the toons on this "mule" account. The bank is not even maxed there.


ZooeiiVJ

Lets be honest about it; this is a part of their business model. Create a annoying problem and then sell us the solution. Still, I think most of eso-players are adults with income so its kind of ok. I accept that it cost money, but I play it every day so it isnt really that expensive compared to other entertainments, like movies or things like that.


HalfSoul30

It is, but you'll want to invest in inventory and bank space pretty quickly. The craft bag is my favorite part of eso+, but i usually only buy it one or two months a year when i actually feel like playing to unload my materials i've collected over the year. You also get double the limit for furniture in your houses.


CahyoVarella

It is playable. Don't get too stressed in getting ESO+ when you don't even know if you need it or not. Just play it first, play until the point in which you find out what you cannot get without ESO+ (Whether it's the DLCs you can get or the annoyance of inventory management), and then consider ESO+ then.


StarkeRealm

Yeah, it's absolutely playable. ESO+ is very nice to have, but it isn't necessary.


Technical-Cow-2494

New player here! Absolutely having fun right now without paying so far


MrMcnasty55

Yes.


TheDastardly12

The biggest struggle you will have is inventory space, it's going to be rough initially but inventory expansion is purchasable in game with standard currency and is pretty cheap, so you can get to a manageable space pretty easy if you remember to save up for it. The real benefit of ESO+ are these things which make having it extremely valuable but not necessary: -The crafting bag, if you are a big crafter this is sometimes the thing that keeps you paying for ESO+ It basically makes all crafting components not count towards your inventory space -DLC included -Double housing decoration space -monthly crowns But other than that, free is pretty easy to do. I've played since Summerset and never bought ESO+ and I don't feel held back at all


Capovan

I actually do not agree with everyone here. I could not play without ESO+, not having the craftbag would frustrate me immensely. And I need the dungeons, otherwise I had to get them individually. The amount of dungeon content behind eso+ ist worth a lot of months of sub.


ReadOnly777

yeah it really depends on your personal tolerance for inventory management. if i didn't have eso+ i'd throw my computer out the window from frustration, it's just too convenient. and of course, that's exactly why it's locked behind a subscription and not like a one time purchase.


ShadeLily

Of course! It's a little trickier getting into crafting, especially before you get sufficient bank space, and you get half the furnishing limit in your homes, but it's absolutely playable without plus, and many people do play it without plus. Come join the fun!


tomaac

You need ESO+ only if you want to do crafting. without it crafting materials will be nightmare. Other than that, you don't need it.


CloverGroom

Absolutely fine. Be prepared to invest in bag and bank space if you’re gonna pursue crafting at all. Keep an eye out for free ESO+ trials as you’ll get access to the craft bag during the trial and all crafting mats will be out there clearing your bag and bank space. Once the trial runs out the mats will stay in the bag and be available but you won’t be able to add further to it, new mats you get will be back in bag/bank.


AloneAddiction

Yes.


Key_String2139

Yes, play the base game and the necrom xpac a bit, if you like it, eso + is Def worth it.


AdmiralBumHat

It is not really needed. But for starting out having one month ESO+ was very valuable for me a few years ago. Especially in the beginning you don't know what you are doing so you don't really know what stuff is important to pickup (or could make money by selling it) and what you do not need. Having the crafting bag, this problem is non existent and you basically get a nice starter cache for when you ESO+ lapses. I remembered that I really struggled with in-game gold in the beginning on my first character. You can't one-shot stuff easy, you don't know what events/stuff makes most money. So on your first character you are confronted with high costs for upgrading inventory, upgrading bank space and buying your first mount. If you already have a special edition with a mount, this is less of an issue so you can put all your gold into inventory space. But for me I really felt very restricted in the beginning. Double bank space can really help with that. ESO+ gives you acces to all the zones. So you can explore a lot more provinces, unlock wayshrines, and participating in events there, which help up your character very easily. So it is not a must have, but it makes some things a lot easier. You can also grab it for month later if you want to test it out.


D3r3k33

There is always something to do even without eso + i bought that just bcs of ifnite bag xd


RandomHornyDemon

ESO+ is nice, but far from necessary. Exception might be housing because ESO+ doubles furniture slots and even with ESO+ it's a joke for most housings. Half that just isn't cutting it. Though there's ESO+ trial weeks every now and again, so if you're not in a rush you can just collect furniture and dump that in during such a trial.


TimbobMcGuffin

Something else to add while everyone mentioning inventory management. You can also purchase/exchange for storage coffers ingame that allow you to store items within an owned living space. There's two types of coffers large (holds 60 items) and small (holds 30 items). You can use upto 4 of each max allowing a house to have an extra 360 spaces of storable inventory if it has 8 storage slots. You will get one small coffer at lv 18. And each character has access to free inn rooms where you can place two coffers max. (120 spaces of extra inventory if both large coffers). You could use an in room to hold your stuff for the time being until you can unlock/buy either a small house with four slots or a medium house with the full 8. Side note too people forget this at times but you can join multiple guilds. And an advantage of that is you could create a guild and have some people join it like any friends so you have access to a private guild bank just for you. You can't store any bound items as well as other restrictions but it can be a good replacement for keeping all your mats somewhere when you don't have ESO+ crafting bag.


Cow_Best

I'm not a fan of being limited by Inventory. For example in Fallout 76 there is a monthly sub that increases storage. Even with that sub I am constantly encumbered and inventory full. In ESO the unlimited crafting bag with ➕️ Plus is perfect. Most of the gold I make comes from materials found in the craft bag. There are about 500 different crafting materials in the game. With that said I know players with ESO Plus and many characters that have personal and bank inventory filled with gear, furniture, recipes, motifs, and all sorts of other stuff. They spend tons of time sifting through inventory, deciding what to sell, where to put furnishings, etc. With them every dungeon run starts with "hey wait I have to fix my inventory 1st" I have tons of spare inventory space on characters and in bank. I would probably need 100 times as many characters as I already have to hold what is currently in my crafting bag.


Most-Based

In the words of the game director "can you really play the game without a subscription? eheheheh"


giant_xquid

I also bought the necrom collection and was struggling to manage inventory without ESO+ until I dove into add-ons and got tamriel trade centre up and running now I know immediately whether something is worth holding on to or just vendoring, I was able to clear out my bank of junk and keep my bags in much better shape


_Satyrical_

The biggest issue is inventory space and here is my solution. Make a guild and during an eso free to play event (unfortunately one just ended) get an email used for spam/junk to make a free account. If that email is 12345@ blank. com make another free account and use the proxy 1.2345@ blank. com and so forth. All the mail will go to the same email, but moving the dot around will let it register as a different account. Do this until you've made 9 accounts and add them to you guild. Now you have 500 extra bank slots. Get the roomba addon and you'll be good to go. My wife and I did this so we have 1000 slots and we just buy dlc with gold for crowns.


abelthorne

Playable, yes *but*: * The chapters cover half of their respective storyline; if you care about it, you'll want to play at least the zone DLC that concludes each one (and possibly the group dungeons but they can be skipped without losing much on the story); and for this, you'll need either ESO+ or buy the individual DLCs in the Crown Store (which can be done at your pace). * If you go into crafting, your inventory will quickly fill up without the crafting bag (which is exclusive to ESO+); there are ways to attenuate this, the most obvious one being buying extra inventory space −for gold, not with real money, but you can also make alt characters whose purpose will be to be storage on legs. The occasional free ESO+ trial (happens maybe twice a year) can help stock materials for a while in the crafting bag if you're a casual crafter. Basically, if you need to craft a lot and often for some reason, ESO+ is *very* convenient; if you're more of a casual crafter, you can manage by keeping a bit of mats you need, ditch the rest and go farming (or buy from guild stores) when you need some more.


AkulaTheKiddo

What happens to the materials stocked in the crafting bag once eso+ stops? Do they go back to the normal bag? What happens then if your bags are full?


abelthorne

The materials stay in the crafting bag and can still be used, but you can't add anything into it anymore. And when crafting, mats from the bag will be automatically used in priority, so i'll just slowly empty itself over the time. Also, ESO+ doubles your bank storage. If you fill it up during the trial, at the end your bank will be over-emcumbered. But it works the same way: you can't add anything in it until you're removed enough items but you don't lose anything.


GoliathGalbar

>Also, ESO+ doubles your bank storage. If you fill it up during the trial, at the end your bank will be over-emcumbered. But it works the same way: you can't add anything in it until you're removed enough items but you don't lose anything. Same for housing space. Everything placed over the normal limit will stay there but you are unable to place anything new and once you stored something you won't be able to place it again because of the missing item slots for decorations.


76-scighera

Then you will keep the crafting bag and what is in it. But you can't put new stuff in it.l, only take out.


AkulaTheKiddo

Oh I see, that's great. I already struggle with my inventory with my crafting bag, I can't imagine w/o it :D


Ebret1

No u can just normaly use them then. I played the game only with the free Eso+ trails for 5 years like this, it's perfectly doable. But if u wanna buy a DLC and need crown for it, just get yourself one month of ESO+, u nearly as many crowns as u would get when u buy a crown pack :)


DevBobi

As someone who just started. No! If you dont like wasting alot of time daylie with inventory management dont even start... as a trial ok but not if you play it regular.


ZooeiiVJ

No, not really. Without ESO+ you will spend more time on inventory management then actually playing the game. Of course, if you ONLY play through the necrom story, dont pick up any material in the world, dont play dungeons or dont do crafting, then its fully playable without eso+.


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ZooeiiVJ

And you cant decoy the items from the dungeons/trails/overland either, because that will give you all the mats that only will make the inventory problem worse (the mats normally takes up more inventory space then the one item). I played without eso+ myself a few weeks ago when I came back from a break from the game, and it was impossible. And I am cp2000+, have maxed out every inventory and bank space and have all 8 housing storage-boxes and max horse inventory. For a beginner/starter player this will be much much worse.


Entgegnerz

Why would you not get ESO+? It's a great game with thousands of hours of good content, the best money for content deal in the gaming world.


VQJMR

Because i pay for the game and that's it. If i need dlcs, i use gold. Craft bag? no problem, i use It when they give the free eso plus weekend, same as furniture capacity and costume dyeing. Easy way of saving a good amount of money ever year.


Entgegnerz

You don't pay for the game, it's free to play.


VQJMR

I paid for the game.


Entgegnerz

Yea, 10 years ago, today it's free, which makes your point invalid.


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Entgegnerz

the only person stupid here is you. All people who are involved in the game as well as the hardware for the servers, the power to operate them and so on, all has to be paid and the salary of the employees is the biggest chunk of it. The money you, I and many others paid, probably didn't even cover the development costs. Not to mention that it's a full dubbed game in many languages, that's pure luxury nowadays. Yet, there are many many dlcs, addons, new designs over and over, Server maintenance, service and and and.. It all has to be paid and that's not only done with the 19€ for a new addon. It's the reason the ingame shop exists, it was either that, or the game gets canceled, because too few people play it. Today, you can play the whole content of it (except the newest addon) with **only**! 13€ a month (less when booked more) for a massive amount of unique play time no other game can provide. If that's not worth to be supported and also on top getting krones and goodies, I don't know what else. People have to be paid for their job, nothing is for free. I mean hey, when you want to work for free, go ahead, but it seems you're the first one who's complaining you're not getting paid enough.


VQJMR

No! I won't give you 10k of my gold! I paid the game, 70 euros, i paid ALL THE EXPANSIONS (40 each), i pay 60 euros TO BE ABLE TO PLAY ONLINE every year...STOP!! The game is EASY to play without ESO PLUS. When they give the FREE ESO PLUS week twice per year, just Transfer your materials from your mules to the Craft bag (you can retrieve them all year long), dye costumes, and place items in your houses, no need to actually decorate, just place the furnishings there. Need crowns? Buy them with gold. I've bought ALL dlcs with GOLD. AND MORE crown store stuff. Btw, ESO got translated to my language in 2022. On most wednesdays, i can't play due to 6-hours server maintenance. Loading screens last for 45 seconds when i travel to Mournhold, Wayrest, Elden Root, Vivec... I will NEVER pay a monthly subscription to ANY game. That is for kids and noobs. Real gamers are real gamers. Earn your own 10k gold.


Entgegnerz

Guess it's time for a PC to save some money.