Let me just say that I've been really excited about ESO ever since they first announced it. I logged many hours playing Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim and have loved each one. I've been checking in every few months to see how the game is progressing and I like what I've seen so far except for a few small things. I figure I should start sharing my thoughts on the game so far. Starting with this.

I've seen many people taking issue with the fact that when you level through various areas of the game, you eventually reach a point when you out level those areas. This then forces the player to progress to the next area appropriate for his current level never returning again to that area. This is a rinse and repeat until level 50. I personally hate seeing a large part of the game's content being worthless once we reach endgame. But of course this is normal for any MMO. In previous TES games, mobs leveled with you never making any area of the game worthless to repeat or revisit. The ability to revisit past dungeons and areas was still progressive for obtaining gear and providing a challenge. I think many TES veterans would agree that this added countless more hours of gameplay to each series.

So obviously in ESO you can't have mobs level with you in real time due to the fact there will be many other players there.

So I just ask myself why don't we just use Server Shards to solve this problem.

Basically, we know that at level 50 the other two faction areas will be open to us for questing and exploring. This is exciting to me. They've stated that during this time we won’t encounter enemy players which reinforces the fact that we're playing on different server "shards" or instances than those factions. So why not allow this ability for our home faction territory as well? Why can't we just have an endgame (level 50) shard(s) for all areas of the game? So although we leveled through it in the beginning, once we reach level 50, we have the option of making those areas viable and progressive again? Obviously we'll still get the option to still phase to other shards to play with friends in lower level shards.

I mean you could even take this a step further and have multiple shards of the same areas for different level brackets. For example, 1 shard for levels 1-10 and then a second shard for 11-20, 21-30 and so forth. This is a little more extreme but it would give more control back to the player letting them decide where they want to level rather than being forced along the linear gameplay the devs have chosen. Although I personally love to explore and try new areas, why should I be forced to leave a certain zone that I absolutely love just because I've now spent, what some devs may consider, too much time there. I say let me be the one to make the choice.

I also just want to reiterate that because we all know that we'll have the ability to phase to different server instances aka shards, you wouldn't encounter the problem of finding people to play with at any level.

Is there any problem with this? What does everyone think? What are the downsides to this and have I missed something crucial that would make this not viable or desired?

Zones of different levels are a requirement for giving us the progression a RPG needs. Was the weakest point of Skyrim imo.

TESO is not linear as you still can go where you want... Quests allow you to choose your own path and its possible to explore whatever you want, you are not forced to do anything, thats more then enough freedom for 90% of the players..


A little leage player will not succeed in the major leagues either, that requires a lot of hard work.