On a busy bridge in Alinor, sandwiched between the fast-travel wayshrine and the crowded crafting stations, hundreds of Elder Scrolls Online players will cross from one part of the busy city to another. Some thunder over riding horses or bears. Others pause for a moment to rummage through their inventory bags. One particular player, a splotchy black and white Argonian, does the most useless thing a person could be doing at the heart of a lively MMO hub. His name is Sleeps-On-Bridges, and he logs on every night to do exactly that.

When a friend told me about Sleeps-On-Bridges I had been absent from ESO, and all other MMOs, for a few years. I’d formed an unproductive Facebook-like habit of logging in daily to frown at my full inventory or list of incomplete achievements and then logging out disappointed and unmotivated. But her description of the Argonian’s routine reminded me of the shenanigans that first endeared me to online RPGs over a decade ago. 

I fell in love with Guild Wars as a teenager,enamored with the camaraderie between players goofing around in the starter zone. They would scrutinize one another’s outfits, start dance battles, and develop reputations that other players knew them by. When I heard about the Argonian player who spends hours facedown in the middle of the city, it was my proof that the whimsical attitudes of MMO players were still alive and well. I had pulled out and dusted off nostalgia that only his existence could validate, so I went looking for him.

I cross-referenced several Reddit posts about Sleeps-On-Bridges, netting me the exact location of his bridge. In game, my Khajiit thief leaned against the bridge flipping a coin with a levity that I didn’t feel. I felt vulnerable, getting so excited about a character that could amount to nothing more than a fleeting joke. I was self-consciously toeing the line between journalism and stalking. Hours later, Sleeps-On-Bridges still hadn't showed. Maybe I’d missed him. Maybe he was in another map instance. Disappointed, but not discouraged, I vowed to come back the following day. 

The second night, with the sky dark outside my own window and over the city of Alinor in-game, I found Sleeps-On-Bridges exactly where he was promised to be. I watched and waited. Over the course of four nights, my Khajiit skulked at the edge of the bridge. I assimilated myself into the colorful cast of regulars like a spear fisher wading into shallow water and standing completely still until the prey forgets the hunter’s presence. I watched other players sleep beside Sleeps-On-Bridges. Some played music to him. Others stopped to laugh and clap. Most often, Sleeps-On-Bridges would remain motionless on the ground. On rare occasions, he stood up to wave back, join in playing music, or taunt the city’s NPC guards.

I did not go unnoticed as I watched. I became expected. Without ever speaking a word, I earned an invitation to Sleeps-On-Bridges’ own guild. I was dubbed one of the Bridge Sleepers. After more than a week of silently watching, I messaged Sleeps-On-Bridges on Discord.

The unlikely trendsetter

What I found was a reserved, shy player (who I refer to as just Sleeps) whose passive approach to the spotlight became an attempt to reflect that attention back to the community forming around him. The natural first question: "Why?" Why this character and why this bridge in Alinor?

"I think Alinor is special because it's the starting zone for new characters if they own [the Summerset expansion] and because it's the latest chapter it means a lot of veteran players are playing through it too," Sleeps said. "So he gets a lot of eyes, new and old, looking at him. I wanted to experiment with this idea with a new character, so I took my love for Argonians and created Sleeps-On-Bridges as a somewhat lore-friendly character that could occupy the bridge in that area."

The original plan for Sleeps-On-Bridges was a simple one. He was a silly little experiment over a weekend, just to see if players would notice him. "If I could manage to make a couple of people laugh, then it would have been worth it," Sleeps said. "Throughout that weekend I was surprised at the amount of people that would stop and interact, whether it be a simple comment as they were passing by or joining me in my sleep."

Now, months later, Sleeps-On-Bridges is a fixture in the city of Alinor. The bespeckled Argonian has evolved from a quick experiment into his main character. Sleeps-On-Bridges never would have lasted so long without the rest of the ESO community, Sleeps says. "Even though I created the character Sleeps-On-Bridges, I feel like it was the ESO community that truly developed him."

A home-hatched hero

After Sleeps-On-Bridges’ first couple weeks in his favorite spot, a fan community erupted around him. Another player formed the Bridge Sleeper Tribe guild and the little clique took off. Sleeps found the setup exactly to his liking. "I thought this was perfect, because Sleeps is a very passive character and I didn't want to feel like he was in a position of authority over other guild members." Members have come and gone and leadership of the guild inevitably fell to Sleeps. Although it’s currently over 150 members and growing, the Bridge Sleeping Tribe is an informal bunch and Sleeps-On-Bridges has become a willing figurehead. Other strong personalities keep the guild chat and the bridge exciting while Sleeps-On-Bridges continues to do exactly what he’s always done. 

Sleeps never gives direction to guildmates or requests their presence on the bridge. He’s happy to be surprised by the community’s antics around him. "My favorite quality of our bridge sleeping culture is how it is a 100% organic hobby that players choose to do without my request or direct influence. A recent common occurrence on the bridge is what players have dubbed the lute and flute wars, where Sleeps will wake up to about a dozen players standing over him, lutes on one side and flutes on the other." 

I happened to witness a lute and flute battle of the bands in one of my early days prowling the bridge from the sidelines. From the outside, it appeared coordinated. Now that I have a view from the inside of the guild’s chat, these situations seem to ebb and flow as players jump in to participate undirected and unannounced. The guild’s members, and Sleeps himself, are often bemused and entertained by how many other players choose to jump in and turn their small jokes into bridge-wide parties. The night I witnessed one such instrument battle, another player added their own accompaniment to the event by using the /yell command to serenade the entire region of Alinor with their all-caps rendition of Smash Mouth’s "All Star." 

In my original search for Sleeps, I came across a couple players claiming that they used Crowns, ESO’s premium currency, to send cosmetic gifts to Sleeps-On-Bridges. He says that he was shocked by the generosity of fans, but that the best gift has been less tangible.

"This might sound cheesy, but the best gift I've gotten is other players' appreciation for this character. It gives me a really unique feeling of mutual acknowledgement. I've been in love with The Elder Scrolls ever since I first played Morrowind in 2003, and the amount of love that people show Sleeps makes me feel like he's my genuine tribute to Elder Scrolls and its amazing fanbase." 

The kids are alright

Sleeps-On-Bridges spends multiple hours on his bridge each evening but on the rare occasion he’s absent, he is slowly chipping away at other goals. Sometimes he earns extra pocket money by completing crafting writs, other times he’s actually playing through ESO’s main quest content. After finishing the story missions in the recent Murkmire expansion, Sleeps-On-Bridges has begun displaying his new "Hero of Murkmire" player title. Despite his attachment to Alinor, Sleeps wants his fellow Argonians to know he hasn’t forgotten his roots. He does plan to visit Elsweyr, home of the Khajiit people, when the new expansion comes out this summer. He says he will investigate the bridges in the area but a permanent migration is unlikely. 

After multiple weeks assimilating myself into the Bridge Sleeping Tribe and watching the impromptu scenes that unfold around Sleeps-On-Bridges, it occurs to me that new players to ESO may very well feel the same curiosity and fascination when passing by as I did years ago in Guild Wars. Sleeps-On-Bridges and his guild are likely inspiring the newest crop of MMO players to socialize and co-create in online spaces with their carefree community. It’s exactly the restoration of faith in humanity I was hoping to find hiding behind the opaque facade of a sleeping Argonian.

A piece of software called Red Shell that's used by game developers for marketing analysis has caused an uproar among gamers who are concerned by its ability to generate detailed "fingerprints" of users—in many cases without them knowing about it. 

"Imagine a game developer is running an ad on Facebook and working with a popular Twitch channel," the Red Shell website explains. "The developer wants to know which of those ads is doing a better job of showcasing the game. Red Shell is the tool they use to measure the effectiveness of each of those activities so they can continue to invest in the ones that are working and cut resources from the ones that aren't."

In other words, if you click a Red Shell tracking link and then launch the releated game, the developer is able to determine that the link led to a sale. The site states that Red Shell does not collect personal information about users, such as names, addresses, or emails. It doesn't track users across games, and the data it collects is not used for targeted ads. "Red Shell tracks information about devices. We collect information including operating system, browser version number, IP address (anonymized through one-way hashing), screen resolution, in-game user id, and font profiles," it says.   

"We have no interest in tracking people, just computers for the purposes of attribution. All of the data we do collect is hashed for an additional layer of protection." 

Those reassurances don't carry much weight in this Reddit thread, however, which begins by pointing out that users typically don't have a say in whether or not Red Shell is installed in the first place. Games using the software "may offer an opt-out for any type of data/analytics services they use," Red Shell says, but that places the responsibility for declining the software entirely on the user, and could be in violation of opt-in privacy laws—and that's assuming the developer makes the option available at all. 

The list of games found to be running Red Shell is surprisingly broad, and includes everything from indies like Holy Potatoes! We're In Space? and My Time At Portia to high-profile hits including Civilization 6, Kerbal Space Program, The Elder Scrolls Online, and Vermintide 2. Some developers have promised to remove the software, but there's also widespread insistence that there is nothing sinister or spyware-like about it. 

Vermintide developer Fatshark, for instance, described it as "no more than a tool we can use to improve our marketing campaigns in the same way a browser cookie might," while Total War studio Creative Assembly stated that it's ditching the software only because "it will be difficult" to reassure players that it's not being used for nefarious purposes. 

And some studios have said that they will continue to use the software despite the furor. ZeniMax Online, maker of The Elder Scrolls Online, said in a Reddit post that Red Shell was mistakenly added to a live build while it was still being tested. ZeniMax said it would remove the program, but added: "We are still investigating how to use this technology in the future to grow and sustain ESO more effectively. When/if we do so, we will give everyone a heads up with clear instructions as to what it is doing, how it is doing it, and how to opt-out should you so desire." 

Dire Wolf Digital, formerly of The Elder Scrolls: Legends, said something similar about the presence of Red Shell in its new project, Eternal: "Red Shell is not 'spyware'; that’s a scary-'Let’s-burn-the-witch!'-word that’s getting thrown around without a lot of information behind. No personally identifying information is collected anywhere in this process," it wrote. "That’s basically it; there’s nothing nefarious going on here, just some under-the-hood analytics that help us understand how our advertisements perform." 

Reddit's rundown games containing Red Shell as of June 18 is below, although I wouldn't be surprised to see more games added to it as people become aware of them—you'll probably want to check the thread if you want to be sure you're up to date. There's also a publicly-available Google spreadsheet that contains more detailed information on how each one was identified. For games that don't offer one, Red Shell maintains its own per-game opt-out option here.   

Update: Team17 contacted us on June 19, 2018, to say that Red Shell integration in My Time at Portia, The Escapists 2, Yoku’s Island Express and Raging Justice has been fully removed.

Update 2: On June 21, 2018, HypeTrain Digital contacted us to say that Red Shell has been removed from The Wild Eight and Desolate; CI Games informed us that Red Shell was no longer present in Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3; and Gavra Games said that it had been removed from Warriors: Rise to Glory.

Games which used Redshell which removed or pledged to remove it (as of June 18, 2018):

• Elder Scrolls Online (Pledged to remove it )
• Conan Exiles (Pledged to remove it )
• Ylands (Removed it )
• Holy Potatoes! We’re in Space?! (Removed it )
• All Total War games (Pledged to remove it )
• Warhammer: Vermintide II (Pledged to remove it )
• Dead by Daylight (Pledged to remove it )
• Battlerite (Pledged to remove it )
• AER Memories of Old (Pledged to remove it )
• Magic the Gathering Arena (closed beta, not on Steam) (Pledged to remove it for now )
• Secret World Legends (Pledged to remove remains of it )
• Hunt: Showdown (Pledged to remove it )
• Omensight (Pledged to remove it )
• Ballistic Overkill (Pledged to remove it )

Games still using Redshell according to community reports (as of June 18, 2018): 

• Civilization VI
• Kerbal Space Program
• Guardians of Ember
• The Onion Knights
• Realm Grinder
• Heroine Anthem Zero
• Warhammer 40k Eternal Crusade
• Krosmaga
• Eternal Card Game
• Astro Boy: Edge of Time
• Cabals: Card Blitz
• CityBattle | Virtual Earth
• Doodle God
• Doodle God Blitz
• Dungeon Rushers
• Labyrinth
• My Free Farm 2
• NosTale
• RockShot
• Shadowverse
• SOS & SOS Classic
• SoulWorker
• Stonies
• Tales from Candlekeep: Tomb of Annihilation
• War Robots
• Survived By
• Injustice 2
• Trailmakers
• Clone Drone in the Danger Zone
• Vaporum
• Robothorium
• League of Pirates
• Doodle God: Genesis Secrets
• Archangel: Hellfire
• Skyworld

It's right when you're laying down some funky orc drum beats for a topless male dancer, admiring the wiggle of his lithe hips, that you realize this is a slightly different Elder Scrolls Online expansion than you were expecting. With its vineyards, theatrics and a cheeky glint in its eye, Summerset is ESO letting loose Summer Break style.

Don't fret, there's all the high fantasy and cheekbones you could want. This is land of the elves after all, the haughtiest of all the magical races, and there’s lots of lore laden chatter about Daedric princes and the Psijic Order to wallow in. It’s just complimented with a bunch of camp and comedic side quests. 

With each expansion ESO has added a new dimension to its world, and it’s slowly been reaching that glorious point when an MMO is confident enough about its fanbase to start having a little fun with them. Nowhere was this more obvious than in a simple enough seeming side quest in Rellenthil, starring a troupe of flamboyant, masked entertainers. Warning: performing arts. 

Wanted: Drummer

The House of Reveries quest started the way so many of these things do: some stranger needing a favor, me so desperate for approval that I’ll act on the whims of even third tier NPCs. Rinyde asked me to find her brother Larydel among the masked hopefuls wanting to join the collective, and naturally the only way to infiltrate the gang was to audition. It was like The Americans, but with more juggling and hammier accents. I won’t get into spoiler territory, but it was here I found myself playing percussion for a man who was a strong supporter of #freethenipple. It’s the first time in ESO I’ve actually giggled, and it suddenly reminded me of what made Oblivion and Skyrim feel like lively worlds, rather than just stodgy fantasy tropes stretched out over so pretty backgrounds. 

This wasn’t just a throwaway quest either. Despite the shenanigans along the way there was a satisfying secret at its centre and a decision to make at the end. My role might have been more stumbling jester than fantasy hero, but it felt just as significant as slaying a gryphon or battling a mad mage. The same was true of another side quest, one that was more murder mystery than high fantasy. (If you’re in the mood for Miss Marple with elves you can read more about it here.)

I don’t want to belittle the more traditional fantasy quests with all this talk of nipples and Agatha Christie, if anything the balance gives Summerset’s main questline more impact. A whole world of eccentrics is at stake, not just a few dull NPCs who have been draped around the place like hot girls in a music video.

 Summerset safari tours 

It helps too that while the world is one of the more traditional landscapes for fantasy, crystal clear waters, blue skies and towers, it’s packed with a crazy amount of strange creatures. In just a short walk I was savaged by a lion, a salamander, a gryphon, and—my personal favorite—a deer/unicorn hybrid. It means it’s impossible to be too grumpy about romping through a landscape of green meadows and vineyards and sandy beaches, even if that’s a little overly familiar for MMO fans, or even anyone who picked up The Witcher 3’s Blood and Wine expansion. It feels like a tiny vacation for your character, even if a horrifying death is only ever one unexpected monster battle away. 

Of course, there is an actual purpose to your arrival in Summerset, and it’s not paddling in the sea or snapping screenshots. The plotline for Summerset involves its ruler, Queen Ayrenn, making the decision to open the island to visitors (topical) and the mayhem that follows. You’re shepherded through the main quest lines by hottie (still just me?) Khajiit Razum-dar, who is one of the wittier ESO celebrities. He’s always a welcome site, because whoever writes his dialogue seems very aware it’s coming out of a giant cat with a mohican, so there’s a knowing tone to conversations that can sometimes be missing in your other ESO relationships. Am I projecting a little onto this Khajiit that I’ve become sexually attracted to? That’s for me and my therapist to discuss, but either way, he’s a great spokesperson for the Summerset experience.

Breaking new ground

One of Summerset’s greatest strengths is that its appearance in the Elder Scrolls lore before now has been minimal, mentioned here are there in other games but only really appearing in 1994’s The Elder Scrolls: Arena. It’s not carrying the same fan expectation as something like the Morrowind expansion, and leaves the developers and designers freer to experiment. It really shows, and I hope an intern at ZeniMax Online Studios is currently tasked with going through old lore files to find similarly unencumbered edges of the world. 

While the game design tweaks are minor—the time turning powers of a new Psijic skill line, the chance to knock up some bobby dazzlers with the jewellry crafting addition—the quality of the writing and world building make this feel like a bit of standard setter for ESO. That’s not an easy thing to do with an MMO that’s the offspring of a beloved singleplayer series, especially when all your hard work is met with a smile, and then a polite inquiry about where the hell the next 'real' Elder Scrolls game is coming out. Will no one think of the developers out here sweating over perfectly rendered camels, imps and gryphon baby pets? I’m as hyped for a follow up to Skyrim as the next fantasy nerd, but don’t let that blind you to one of the best MMOs available today.

At first mention of Summerset Isle you might think The Elder Scrolls Online development team had finally lost their minds and were going for some weird Wicker Man mashup. Sadly, you’re thinking of Summerisle, while this new fantasy expansion has a lot more high elves and a lot less burning people in giant effigies. If anything, the new setting of Summerset Isles looks like the kind of place the people of Tamriel might vacation if they’d made a killing in the soul gem business, with vineyards (prepare for a bittersweet flashback to The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine), hanging plants and a crystal tower that definitely isn’t in any way phallic.

Of course, as any good HBO miniseries will tell you, behind the perfectly manicured scenery lies intrigue, drama, and serial killings. It also packs a checklist of features: a new Psijic skill line, jewelry crafting (amazing news if you just can’t find the right brooch to match your helmet), a new 12 player trial, along with lots of other smaller treats to make the $30 price for a new expansion sting a bit less.

I only went hands-on for a couple of hours—barely enough time to make sure my slottable items were properly organized—but that was enough to give me the impression that the Elder Scrolls Online team are up there with some of the hardest working in the business.

I should have been a good reporter and headed off on the main quest line, guided by everyone’s favorite Khajiitt Razum-dar, but I got distracted by a murder mystery at a local vineyard. I did manage to start one of the bigger plotlines in the expansion, smashing up Skaafins in an Undercroft for the quest ‘The Queen’s Decree’ with the Psijic mage Valsirenn, which had a distinct odor of Daedric Princes and treachery about it all. In the space of 30 minutes there was a “life sucking pearl,” political drama, murder and an anecdote about pudding tarts.

I was supposed to be whacking on an elegant outfit and infiltrating an important meeting when I wandered off to the Ghost Of Green case. You can watch it play out in the video above.

Forget the demands of local royal Queen Ayrenn, her gaunt accomplices or her khajiitt emissary who may or may not have featured in a number of my sexual fantasies. Or that whole Daedric thing—nothing screams "living fantasy dreams" like doing your best Miss Marple impression among the grapevines while decked out in heavy armor. 

It was a quest called "Old Wounds," starring a pair of elven Jurisreeves (we muggles would call them investigators) who are 90% cheekbones, and a killer called the Ghost of the Green, supposedly dealt with but now returned and killing innocents with his signature wood elf arrow to the heart. This being ESO, my part in it all was less finding fingerprints or sending off forensics and more searching the fields for clues, finding chatty bystanders, observing magical rites and reading extensive exposition from everyone in sight. And damn it was satisfying following every lead, bringing it to a satisfying end and being patted on the head by all involved. Honestly, this stuff is crack for people-pleasers. 

It was one of those perfectly formed ESO side missions that seems like a quick diversion and ends up leading you through impressively ornate locations and plot lines while quietly eating up two hours of your limited life. Did I encounter bugs while trying to fight my way through the corridors of the Red Temple? Yes. Is that par for the course with any early preview of an MMO? Hell yes. You haven’t known the privilege of early access until you’ve had a concerned-looking producer leaning over your shoulder, running one hand nervously through their hair and asking if you’ve tried logging in and out again. 

What is a good sign is that a simple side quest ended up just as attractive and diverting as the main storyline, which is a credit to the writing and depth of this latest expansion. That bodes well for Summerset Isle and its life sucking properties. The expansion is out on June 5.