Top 8 Beginner Questions Asked in the Elder Scrolls Online Beta

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The
Elder Scrolls Online
's stress-test beta weekend is still
going on. If you have only just finished downloading the massive client
and want to get into the beta, there's still time left. But you will
probably find yourself asking one of these commonly-asked questions,
gleaned from low-level Zone chat in the various alliances. A lot of these
things will persist into the launch of the game, so even if you don't manage
to get into the beta event, this list of answers to common questions will
likely come in handy in April.

How Do I Trade?

Stand next to the character you wish to trade with and target him with
the reticle. Hold the F button to bring up the interaction wheel menu, and
select Trade in the lower left. The other guy has to accept your request.
Group membership may play a role here - both parties may need to be in the
same group. When the other guy does accept the invitation, you swap items
with the trade window.

Top ESO Questions - interaction radial menu

Where Do I Find Crafting Resources? 

Resource nodes are found mostly in wilderness areas.

Top TESO Questions - Iron node

For the most part, I find Iron Mine nodes
close to the bases of cliffs and boulders, usually nestled right up
against the larger rock formations. You can't mistake the reddish-brown
lumps for anything else.

Top ESO Questions - Maple log

Maple logs I usually find at the base of trees.
To me they look more like birch logs than maple, and sometimes their
locations don't make a lot of sense - for example, on Stros M'Kai where
they are often found at the base of palm trees.

Top ESO Questions - Jute and other stuff

Jute is harvested from jute plants. These grow
everywhere, and you will know them by their orange flowers, which tend to
stand out somewhat. In this picture, you can see a Jute plant in front of
the character, an iron node against the rocks above the loot window, and a
maple log just to the right of the giant insect at the top.

Rawhide for leatherworking drops from mammals
and lizards and such.

Water for alchemy can be found in barrels or urns, the same as food
ingredients, or in the odd bubbly patch of river or lake water. The herbal
components grow in the wild.

The items used to improve crafted items come from Extracting trash green
or better items. For example, if you want some Hemming to improve items
made at a clothing table, break down some scrap green pants or gloves or
whatever. The drop rate for these items isn't high, but it's the only way
to get them.

Where Is The Harborage?

You get the quest to meet the Prophet at The Harborage
at around level 5, usually midway through the second island. The Harborage
is not on that island - you have to finish the "enemy invasion" story
there and move on to the next place, and The Harborage is usually located
in a cave near the city.

How Do I Fix The Merchant Window / Crafting POV UI Error?

This error popped up a lot in beta, and it was rather frustrating to work
with. After closing the merchant window or attempting to exit the crafting
window, the POV would be stuck and the character can't move or interact
with anything. There are two solutions for this: the first is to type /reloadui
in the chat bar, which reloads the UI. The second, much easier way is to
open the Mail window with the ' key, which forces the POV out of the stuck
mode. Hit ' again to close the mail window and you're back in the game. If
the error keeps happening every time, I found it helped to restart the
game client.

How Do I Craft Items?

Ok, this merits its own full guide, but here's the bullet points:

  1. Gather resources. See above.
  2. Find a crafting area, preferably with crafting vendors nearby. There's
    usually an area for this in every major town, and you can often find
    smaller, isolated facilities elsewhere as well. Sometimes the facilities
    can be kind of split up - e.g. the woodworker bench is not located in
    the same "workshop" area as the forge and clothing station. This is the
    case in Mithral, and I've seen it a few other places as well.
  3. Talk to the vendors until you find the guy selling the style stones.
    Each race has its own unique style, you can only make your own racial
    type's style of gear (unless you find a rare book that teaches you
    another style), and each of these styles uses a different type of
    mineral to achieve their signature "look." Khajiit use moonstone, for
    example, and Dunmer use obsidian, etc. Check which one you need by reading
    the tooltips and item descriptions, and buy a good handful of that type
    of stone.You need one style stone for each item you wish to craft,
    regardless of the craft (except Provisions and Alchemy, which have their
    own exhaustive list of ingredients).


  4. ESO Top Questions - Extract tab (crafting)


  5. Process your resources with the Extraction tab.
    You can break down trash gear of the appropriate type to scavenge
    materials (for example, swords and axes can be broken down at a smithing
    station to provide iron ingots, bows and staves can be crushed at a
    woodworking station to get sanded maple, etc.). Extraction also provides
    the improvement items, like Hemming and Honing Stones, and gemstones
    used to imbue the crafted item with specific traits (which you must
    first learn). Most of your materials, though, will likely come from
    gathered resources, which are also processed via the Extraction tab.


  6. ESO Top Questions - crafting window


  7. Go back to the Creation tab, cycle through the list of available
    recipes you can make until you find the item you want, then match up the
    material and style stone.
    Higher-level goods consume more materials, so if you want to make a
    Level 6 Cuirass, click the + button on the Materials part to dump more
    ingots into it. This will provide you with one white-quality item.

There is, of course, a lot more to the system than this, but
this will get you started and geared up for adventure. 

How Do I Open Locked Chests?

This is an interesting mini-game, and so far I like it better than any
lockpicking mini-game I've seen in any previous Elder Scrolls game. You
have a set of tumblers which must be depressed to the correct depth before
the timer runs out. Higher difficulty locks have faster timers, so the
timer on an Intermediate lock is shorter than it is on a Beginner lock.
You get as many tries as you can fit in that time frame, limited only by
the number of picks you have - multiple failures causes the picks to
break.

Top ESO Questions - picking locks

Press down on the tumbler until it starts to shimmy, and then release -
preferably right at the start of the "shake spot." If it snaps back up and
breaks your pick, try depressing it again and release it slightly earlier.
Some need to be pushed all the way down, some will only go down a tiny
bit. If you try to push those ones too far, the pick snaps. When you find
the correct depth and release the tumbler, it stays in place. Keep trying
- practice makes perfect, and it's the only way to find the correct tumbler
depth.

If you manage to depress all the tumblers before the timer runs out, the
chest is unlocked with a satisfying ka-chunk. If you fail to beat the
timer, wait a few seconds and try again. The more you do it, the easier it
gets.

How Do I Do PvP?

PvP starts at level 10. Once the character reaches level 10, access to
the PvP campaigns can be achieved by hitting the L key to open up the
Alliance War window. Join a campaign, teleport to Cyrodiil and do the
tutorials. You won't be able to do much with the Alliance War window until
you hit level 10 (and I had not yet hit level 10 at the time of this
writing).

How Do I Follow The Trail For "Perils of Diplomacy?"

This is an early Aldmeri Dominion quest in the town of Mithral. When the
Green Lady disappears, the quest tracker tells you to "follow her trail",
but she leaves no visible trail to follow, and there are no clues in the
quest dialogue. She runs off to the Abandoned House, circled in red on this
map: 

Top ESO Questions - Map of Mithral, Abandoned House circled in red

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This is hopefully some kind of glitch which will be fixed by the time the
game goes live. But if it's not, here's your spoiler.

Got any more beginner-type questions you couldn't find the answers to
in-game? Ask in our comments, and we'll try to answer them for you!


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our The Elder Scrolls Online Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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