An ESO Love Story

Every year on the 16th day of Sun's Dawn, love is celebrated across Tamriel for Heart's Day. Gaming has brought together many couples, and today, we'd like to share the love story of two players who met through The Elder Scrolls Online: Paul-Simon (@paulsimonps) and Jenna (@jenshady).

When did you first become interested in games?

Paul-Simon: I started playing games when I was very young. I grew up with the PlayStation One and Nintendo 64, but eventually started playing more PC games. I now build my own computers and play almost exclusively PC games. At the moment, ESO takes up about 75% of the time I spend in front of the screen.

Jenna: Honestly, I've been interested in games as long as I can remember. They always gave me an escape. I found myself dwelling in MMOs especially because of the sense of community and atmosphere.

What's the story behind how you met in ESO?

Paul-Simon:One day I was just standing around in Mournhold, I randomly got a whisper from someone about wanting to join the guild I am in so they could run Maw of Lorkhaj with us. It was Jenna that asked. I normally just ignore such requests as our guildmaster prefers to keep the guild a bit smaller so we can spend more time with each member, but on that day for some reason I made an exception; I don't remember why. At the time, Sanctum Ophidia had just been scaled up to Veteran and I wanted to get more healers from the guild in there, and I pulled Jenna in since her guild note said she was a healer. She had never ever done a Trial before; even though she had been in the Alpha testing, she had left the game for a long time and just gotten back.

We did Veteran Sanctum Ophidia Hard Mode without a problem and she really impressed me. She had never been in there before, and she didn't die a single time on the Serpent, which for new players isn't an easy fight! After that, I started to invite her to more and more runs and it wasn't long until we started talking to each other as more than just friends.

In October last year, I made up my mind to go see her, so I took all of my savings and bought a plane ticket from Sweden to North Carolina. It was an amazing trip and experience.

We heard you recently got married – congratulations! What made you choose Baltimore to get married?

Paul-Simon: I was given a great honor and opportunity to come to Baltimore to playtest for ZOS, and since Jenna only lived a few hours away she drove up to stay in the hotel with me during the week. We had gotten engaged just a few weeks earlier while she was visiting me in Stockholm, and we thought it would be a really fitting place for our marriage. ZeniMax brought us together and it also gave us this amazing experience, so while it wasn't planned we thought that it was really fitting.

We only had one witness with us, which was our friend Carrie. We will of course (once I get back to the United States) have a large party for our friends and family. Since this was such a spontaneous thing, no one had time to attend, but a party will be held.

Do you plan to have an in-game wedding ceremony?

Paul-Simon: We will be having an in-game wedding in a few weeks. We didn't have time to fix up our houses while we were in Baltimore, so we will be spending time on that first to make sure it's a special thing for us and our friends in our guilds. We also saw on the PTS that the new special merchant had wedding themed items, so hoping that will be in the first rotation of the new merchant once that starts to cycle.

How often do you play ESO together? How do you usually spend your time together in ESO?

Paul-Simon: While we are in-game, we almost always play together. Very few exceptions to that. We are currently worlds apart and the game gets us closer, so when we don't work or have other things we need to do, we spend our time in the game together. We do everything from dungeons to Trials to PvP to even just fishing together. As long as we do it together, it's going to be nice.

Most of the time, though, it will be Trials. We are both passionate about PvE as well as the social aspect of the game, so getting to play challenging content with as many of our friends as we can is what we enjoy the most. But since I am a big theorycrafter we also go test stuff a lot… or more like I kindly ask if she can help me, and she gets to hit my characters a few times which always puts a smile on her face.

What else do you do for fun?

Paul-Simon: During my free time, I coach football. And yes, even though I live in Sweden, it's American football. I also read a lot of manga and sometimes watch anime and other TV shows. I do play a single player games as well, which are usually RPGs of sorts.

Jenna: Besides playing ESO, I enjoy playing single player RPGs and watching anime (especially the MMO-themed animes).

What is it that you love about ESO?

Paul-Simon: I love the atmosphere. For me, not only is it an Elder Scrolls-themed MMO, but it has interesting PvP setups and PvE content that I really want to explore. After I got more into it and Trials were released, I got into the role of leading them, and I found great joy in that and the social aspects around that.

Jenna: The first thing that drew me to ESO was the fact that it was an Elder Scrolls-themed MMO. As I got to play the game further on I enjoyed the PvE content, especially the Trials (which is how Paul and I started spending time together.)

Will you two be customizing a Homestead dwelling together?

Paul-Simon: At the moment we are most likely going to be living in Jenna's in-game house, which is the very popular Hunding's Palatial Hall. We are setting it up right now for the in-game wedding we are planning, but Jenna is also having a lot of fun decorating the outside. I bought myself the nice little place outside of Riften, Old Mistveil Manor, and we will be using that as our winter lodge.

We wish Paul-Simon and Jenna the best in their new journey, and are so glad we could be a part of their lives! You can join us in congratulating them on their recent real-life Pledge of Mara on the official ESO forums.

How are you celebrating Heart's Day in Tamriel this year? Share screenshots of your characters with us using our Heart's Day card templates found here, and spread the love by sharing them on Twitter using hashtags #ESO, #ValentinesDay, and #HeartsDay!