Dont spend a dime if you plan on going solo. It's tempting but dont.

Unless it's DLC. Some DLC are worth it just for the lore and plot

Welcome to the wiki, have a Fishy Stick!

I'd recommend joining the mages and fighters guilds in ESO, they'll unlock new active and passive skills (among which are persuasion and intimidation, which are really useful). Reading lore books (the ones with the purple glow) will help you level up your mages guild level, which will unlock new quests in the mages guild questline.

Welcome to both the game and the fandom! Both are fun! Currently playing through a lot of ESO myself again after years so here's some of my tips (mostly geared towards solo pve play, since that's what I do) in too much detail!

• First and foremost, I agree with Duke of Scales and his comment on paying for things. I want to go into a bit more detail (a habit of mine). ESO can be entirely free to play if you're smart about how you go at things. All of ESO's DLCs can be bought with crowns, the microtransaction currency, but crowns can be bought from players for gold. This is entirely left to the player community, meaning the luck part is finding a trustworthy crownseller. Guilds are best for this. Other than that ESO's subscription service, ESO Plus, gives all DLC for free (while you have the subscription) among other benefits. I personally don't mind the sub, since most MMOs have a sub anyways, but I'd recommend playing some of the game before deciding on that. Either way, it is not necessary to pay any real money.

• Making gold in ESO is not that hard actually, especially if you gain access to certain skill lines from DLCs. The most important thing for making money will be a Guild Trader though. This allows you to sell items to other players at a price you set. Join a Guild if only for this reason (and hold out for a donation-based guild, don't join one that requires weekly/bi-weekly/monthly dues unless you're all about making money). Selling crafting materials, set pieces, crafting motifs, and other choice items will net you loads of gold. Investing in the thief skill line (base game's ledgerdemain and the Thieves' Guild skill line of that guild's DLC) will also get you lots of money. Scrying (available in the Greymoor DLC) is good too but very grindy and tad-boring gameplay.

• If you plan on being a crafter you're probably going to end up getting ESO Plus just for the craft bag alone, as you don't get infinite inventory for your crafting materials without it. Trust me when I say there are a lot of crafting mats in this game. Just something to keep in mind.

• Make visiting a stablemaster NPC part of your daily ritual. Each day (actually each 20 hours) you can pay 250 gold to increase your mount sprint speed, stamina, or carry capacity (more inventory for you). The game will give you a free mount while levelling up, so this is absolutely worthwhile. These are tied to your character, not the mount, so all mounts for your character will increase equally. There are no other stats for mounts besides these.

• Don't worry about your equipment's level/traits/enchantments, or about any specific class set ups, until you're Champion level 160 (champion level is the "prestige" once you get to level 50). This is the cutoff for when gear stops levelling. Until you get to that point sticking to the basic necessity for your class is all you need (light/medium/heavy for magic/stamina/health and so on).

• You've probably already made your character and chosen their "class style" (Dragonknight, Nightblade, etc) but if the game hasn't made it clear yet, these are more like martial art styles rather than pure classes. Each class in the game can effectively be a DPS, Tank, or a Healer, and each class can effectively use Magicka, Stamina, or Health as their main resource (at least in PVE). This means that you can be a tanky, stamina-using scorcerer if you really wanted to. Have fun with your class!

• Vampirisim and Lycanthropy are primarily given to players by other players. Players must follow/meet another player with either curse at respective shrines to be bitten, and then complete a quest to be fully turned. One player can only bite someone once a week. DO NOT PAY ANYONE ANY GOLD FOR A VAMPIRE OR WEREWOLF BITE. Plenty of people will give it for free, especially to their guildmates. Vampirisim offers a bit more variety to overall gameplay while werewolves are timed instances of pure powerhouse destruction. Both have benefits and downsides.

• Besides PvP, there are no game-enforced level requirements in ESO. That single requirement is only level 10. However, the player community "enforces" some requirements for group/pvp content. This is because you'll want to be very high levelled for this content, the hardest stuff needing you to get into the thousands in Champion Levels. Besides that though, all PVE content scales to your level or your group's average level besides the amount of health an enemy has. This essentially means you can start and do any quest in ESO whenever you want without story restrictions.

• Alright, final tip before I leave this at an "ask to know" basis lmao. While I said you can do any quest whenever you want in ESO that is true, but it's also not how the game was designed narratively. This is mainly because the game used to have story restrictions but they were removed in a major patch years ago. Bluntly speaking this can make your questing timeline completely screwed up, causing lots of confusing moments. Prime examples are characters that are simultaneously trapped in Oblvion while also asking for your help in Tamriel and characters not recognising you despite previously meeting them. The proper order for TES storyline to make any sense is the same as the release order for the game and DLC/updates. Instead of just listing that out, here's an easier guide for that. I highly recommend you play the game's quests in this order.

If you have questions on something I didn't cover, or other people didn't cover, feel free to ask! I truly hope you enjoy ESO, it's an absolute treat if you love TES's lore and settings. Best display of the series in years.

My best advice for eso is:

Play Skyrim instead

If you give someone an opening, they will most likely try to fu sro da you off a cliff.

Thanks!