Elder Scrolls Early Access Fun [ESO]

I got into the Elder Scrolls Online Early Access on Sunday and was having a blast. My first character created was a Breton Templar. I planned on using her as a healer, but was starting with a sword and shield to get some initial levels under my belt. I figured I would not need to be focused on healing for a few levels when I would start grouping up.

I played my templar up to level 4 when I encountered an issue. I had passed through the prison escape in the tutorial area, and a few of the quests in the Aldmeri Dominion starting area of Vulkhel Gaurd when I got to a quest that Ihad trouble completing. The quest was “A Hostile Situation” and it was part of a chain that required me to talk to some people and put on a disguise to get past some guards. This was all good, and I got the disguise, but when I tried to put it on, I received a message that I could not swap items during combat.

Huh? I did not know I was in combat. I looked around to see what was attacking me and there was nothing. I ran around and sheathed my sword, but I was still “in combat”. I kept looking for a way to get out of combat – I tired entering buildings or actually attacking and killing something, but I was still “in combat”. So I submitted a bug report and waited…and waited…and waited…

Eventually, I hit on an idea – I would attack something and let it kill me. That had to get me out of combat – right? So I hunted around for some beast to slay me. I found the same imp (or a respawned one) that I attacked and killed earlier. I started my attack this time knowing this would be my first death and happy that this would solve my problem. But I was thwarted by a friendly archer who jumped into the fray as I was at 1/4 health. He slew the imp and saved my life – while I was not pleased IRL, I thanked the archer and went hunting for another beast to die to.

A couple minutes later, I found another imp and proceeded to let it kill me. It was sad and pleasing at the same time since it removed the “in combat” flag and I was able to put on my disguise. No more problems getting past the guards now.

Now I had to talk with Battlereeve Urcelmo and then follow him into the Temple of Auri-El for a confrontation with Captain Astanya who had tricked me earlier and threw me into prison. This battle was epic and in the end I think bugged as you will learn.. The quest task changed to “Defeat the Assassins” as 2 of the Captain's cutthroat henchmen jumped out and started attacking. I put up a weak fight initially and they downed me pretty quickly, but the battlereeve kept fighting while I respawned in place. Once back, we took out the assassins, and 2 more jumped down into the fight. This time, I put up more resistance and was able to kill one of them before once again falling in battle. The battlereeve continued on undeterred. I respawned in place again and helped him finish off the 4th assassin.

And then…2 more assassins jumped out to attack. If this is how fights are going to happen normally in this game – it will be tough. These assassins were the same level 4 that I was and knew much more about how to conduct combat than I did. I jumped and dodged and swung my sword and healed myself, but after I took down one, his partner killed me and I had to respawn again.

Finally though, the Captain had seen enough and decided to handle things herself. She began to jump down from the balcony and…got stuck in mid air. I figured this was not how the fight was scripted and tried to remedy the situation by using the /stuck command. I died and it had me respawn at the nearest wayshrine – inside the front door of the temple. I ran back to where the battle was to be fought, but the Captain was still in mid air. I tried leaving the temple and re-enetering – no good…logging out and back in – no good…rebooting my computer – no good. There was nothing I could do to get past the “defeat the assassins” segment of the quest.

So I abandoned the quest.

Well, that might not have been the best idea, but the help pages and google indicated that it was the correct action to take. The only problem with this was that I could not restart the quest. I looked everywhere to try to get the quest again, but no luck. So now I was in a confusing situation since I was pretty sure this was a major part of the story questline. I sat waiting for customer service for about 30 minutes and decided I want to play the game rather than wait for customer service – they at least said it might take a while.

So I started up a new character.