Welcome to Postcards from The Elder Scrolls Online, a look at Bethesda's new MMO. Stay tuned for more entries in the coming weeks. Prior to writing about games for a living, I was spending much more time on MMOs than I do now. Once upon a time, I was hell-bent on topping the Everquest 2 server leaderboards for quests completed, and I put more hours into that game than I did my university course (maybe that's not saying much). After that, I got up to Level 65 in World of Warcraft - I even queued up for the Burning Crusade launch, something I've not done for any other game. Since then I've had brief skirmishes with Rift, The Old Republic, and Final Fantasy 14, but no MMO has grabbed me (and my time) like EQ2 and WoW did.

Still, the pangs are always there, so when Richard asked if I wanted to check out The Elder Scrolls Online, I was happy to. If anything, Bethesda Game Studios' recent efforts had done great jobs of satiating my hunger for games gone by. Skyrim in particular felt like a single-player MMO, constantly rewarding me for every little thing I did in its timesink of a world.

So, don't consider this a review of TESO. Instead, it's offered as my musings on returning to the fold with Bethesda's first foray into it. And in my first week I encountered Harry Potter flashbacks, smart-talking cats, and almost-naked epiphanies. [Images: Bethesda]