Story question - Continuous DLC stories instead of separated chapters?

Jammy420

BenTSG wrote: »

I do wish the chapters all did feel a little more connected. To me as it stands, everything feels isolated, that the world isn't progressing alongside every release. All we have is characters that reappear and all it does is add a little extra flavour dialog about what they did after X's adventure.

I am curious though about how ZoS will handle things going forward. For starters, how this chapter will hold up now that it's all going to be in this chapter instead of spread out over two parts (The chapter and then Story DLC), but also because they've said the story now is going to be a Multi Year story, so I assume similar to the way before, expect its the next chapter to continue it and not a story DLC the same year. Hopefully they'll do a decent job at connecting the Chapters together for whatever this story will end up being.

We do need , quite honestly, a catacalysm type event where everything finally progresses along ALL zones. The vanilla zones are in desperate need of a polishing at the very minimum.

Kendaric

Jammy420 wrote: »

We do need , quite honestly, a catacalysm type event where everything finally progresses along ALL zones. The vanilla zones are in desperate need of a polishing at the very minimum.

True, but I doubt anything like that will ever happen.

There is, from a company's point of view, simply too much work involved for too little gain unfortunately. At most we can hope for minor updates, such as NPCs getting new outfits and such.

SeaGtGruff

Kendaric wrote: »

Jammy420 wrote: »

We do need , quite honestly, a catacalysm type event where everything finally progresses along ALL zones. The vanilla zones are in desperate need of a polishing at the very minimum.

True, but I doubt anything like that will ever happen.

There is, from a company's point of view, simply too much work involved for too little gain unfortunately. At most we can hope for minor updates, such as NPCs getting new outfits and such.

"One more dev and I can get a new pair o' shoes!"

Amottica

Zenimax has done the continuous story thing with the year-long story. However, for the most part, it is easier and less constraining to start fresh with a new area.

Even with the year-long story, there were complaints. It was likely due to trying to fill things in between their starting point and ending point and get enough for multiple zones and that may have led to a quality issue. That goes into how it is easier to start fresh with a zone even if there is a loose tie into another zone.

I will be honest. I did not read the entire OP as it was fairly long. After the second paragraph, I could not see where things were going so I worked off the title.

Northwold

It does sound like they're intending to move back towards the old way of doing things with a broad arc between chapters.

The "year of" stuff was pretty disastrous, not least because they were giving two story zones a year but weren't serving up stories with any kind of logical and dramatically satisfying break in the middle (presumably because they couldn't as someone could play one without the other), nor any narrative interesting enough to justify wallowing in it for that period of time.

I think Elsweyr just about survived it because of the quality of the side quests, but Greymoor and Blackwood definitely did not (I didn't buy High Isle as a result so I guess I'll have that pleasure next week).

(I started with Morrowind, and there was no guide to the order of playing things with clockwork city etc. I didn't even know there WAS an order until I read it here years later. Seems a bit daft not to advertise that point.)

ZOS_Hadeostry

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic, as it deals with the story of the game.

Thank you for your understanding

E_Lucan

Amottica wrote: »

Zenimax has done the continuous story thing with the year-long story. However, for the most part, it is easier and less constraining to start fresh with a new area.

Even with the year-long story, there were complaints. It was likely due to trying to fill things in between their starting point and ending point and get enough for multiple zones and that may have led to a quality issue. That goes into how it is easier to start fresh with a zone even if there is a loose tie into another zone.

I will be honest. I did not read the entire OP as it was fairly long. After the second paragraph, I could not see where things were going so I worked off the title.

Sorry to hear that the post is too long for your taste, though I don't entirely agree (*that the post is unnecessarily long/has no point) - I wanted to first establish how I play the game to maybe put into perspective how I view it/what I like to see in it, hence the introductory bit, and the point I am discussing is actually positioned after that second paragraph. Not entirely sure what else to say since if you didn't read my post beyond that then I'd just be re-writing what I wrote originally anyway lol

E_Lucan

Northwold wrote: »

It does sound like they're intending to move back towards the old way of doing things with a broad arc between chapters.

The "year of" stuff was pretty disastrous, not least because they were giving two story zones a year but weren't serving up stories with any kind of logical and dramatically satisfying break in the middle (presumably because they couldn't as someone could play one without the other), nor any narrative interesting enough to justify wallowing in it for that period of time.

I think Elsweyr just about survived it because of the quality of the side quests, but Greymoor and Blackwood definitely did not (I didn't buy High Isle as a result so I guess I'll have that pleasure next week).

(I started with Morrowind, and there was no guide to the order of playing things with clockwork city etc. I didn't even know there WAS an order until I read it here years later. Seems a bit daft not to advertise that point.)

Yeah exactly, and I'm looking forward to seeing if maybe this link between chapters will make it more entertaining to play again. I liked the DLCs up until Greymoor, though admittedly my experience with Greymoor was primarily shaped by the NPCs and the nostalgia from Skyrim rather than the story being extremely interesting - if it wasn't placed where it was, idk if I'd enjoy it that much.

Blackwood and onwards though I couldn't bring myself to care about, and even though I did play High Isle and enjoyed the overall setting and design, the story had only a pretty small impact on me in the end anyway. And it's a shame because the individual zone designs and the NPCs and such are nice, but after a bit the story has started to feel as just a duplicate of what we've done before but with slightly different names and armour colours. So here's hoping they do better in Necrom onwards?

ADarklore

Supposedly everything is happening all at once, which honestly, doesn't make any sense whatsoever. However, it's an easy way to explain why, after you sacrificed Lyris during the MSQ, she suddenly appears asking for your help in Skyrim. Or if you sacrificed Sai Sahan, how he's suddenly back in another DLC.

I just wish they would have done things in an order that made it seem like time was moving forward, and not completely stuck at one point in time.

E_Lucan

ADarklore wrote: »

Supposedly everything is happening all at once, which honestly, doesn't make any sense whatsoever. However, it's an easy way to explain why, after you sacrificed Lyris during the MSQ, she suddenly appears asking for your help in Skyrim. Or if you sacrificed Sai Sahan, how he's suddenly back in another DLC.

I just wish they would have done things in an order that made it seem like time was moving forward, and not completely stuck at one point in time.

I do think that might be a bit of the reason, but then there is actual dialogue (not sure about Lyris because I haven't personally seen it but for Sai definitely) where, * if you picked them in the main quest, they tell you that they "woke up" in some place and were magically okay after that happened, so they have dialogue that acknowledges that sequence but simultaneously it's the only time it happens lol

Hurbster

I just love all the little references you get to previous missions, even if they are throwaway comments. I would not even consider doing the Necrom quest without doing Naryu's previous quests. I always play the game in order asI feel the 'everything happening at the same time' thing we have makes no sense and is, imo a bit silly and a cop-out.

E_Lucan

Hurbster wrote: »

I just love all the little references you get to previous missions, even if they are throwaway comments. I would not even consider doing the Necrom quest without doing Naryu's previous quests. I always play the game in order asI feel the 'everything happening at the same time' thing we have makes no sense and is, imo a bit silly and a cop-out.

Oh yeah absolutely - I was so delighted when there was vampire-specific dialogue in Greymoor, even if it was just a few things here and there, it makes such a huge difference!