Update 44

Dax_Draconis

nbksaske wrote: »

Did they say eso+ members will get more AP?

I think she said more AP and more Tel Var.

Dojohoda

I watched it and I wasn't particularly excited or not even glad to hear about anything mentioned.

Later that night, I went to Cyrodiil and the game froze/crashed 3 times in 2 hours. I didn't log back in after the 3rd time.

nbksaske

Dax_Draconis wrote: »

nbksaske wrote: »

Did they say eso+ members will get more AP?

I think she said more AP and more Tel Var.

I will not say no, thanks

BretonMage

And here I was, hoping to hear more about their personalities

I think non-binary companions are fine, and that it's controversial at all is just beyond me. Anyway, I'd be more interested in our companions' voices and personalities. Tanlorin is "scrappy"? I guess after Sharp and Azandar, it's a change, though I'm not particularly interested in scrappy types myself.

LikiLoki

It seems to me that these companions will not be popular. Even their special skills are not needed by anyone. The cat will be taken more often, you know why

fizl101

If the DK companion (can't remember their name) can make a non buggy tank for archives, that will be my first one to get

SkaraMinoc

Personally, I don't care. I thought Isobel was well done and is one of my favorite companions. But ZOS should take caution or share the fate of games like Concord. Know your market.

RMW

We don't know anything about the companion.

Nothing about their story, nothing about gameplay, nothing about their voice. But somehow some of you already figured everything about this companion out just because they are non binary? Maybe reserve judgement until you actually tested them on PTS - because it's very telling how some of you react here in a game with talking dragons and lizard people who can change their gender by licking a tree.

GuuMoonRyoung

hiyde wrote: »

Lady_Titania wrote: »

[Snip]

LGBTQIA+ inclusion has been part of this game since the start.

[Snip]

The beauty of these forums is that we all get to speak as long as we keep it within the rules established by the forum owner.

Here is how I see it, when we got ES in the old days, it was filled with all kind of stuff that were not common in real world, why? Because it is a fantasy world and it is fun to do! That should be the only reason to add something in a game, not to push real life politics.

I remember in Dragon Age Origins, I went to brothel and chose the option "surprise me!" and a "dude" came up, talked in pure female voice and hinted that he had ***. I laughed like crazy and clapped. Later, I found an addon that restored some stuff in places, voice acted cutscenes that were removed from game, one of them were in the brothel where choosing "suprise me!" option would have a cutscene with female with a huge bulge showing up, fully voice acted and all. It was hilarious and amazing. At the same time I felt sad that those were cut from the game.

My point is, games should be fun and experimental, things that we don't find in real life or don't usually accept as the norm, should frequently come up in games, simply because games are fantasy and these things are fun.

Peace out!

[Edited quote]

GuuMoonRyoung

My biggest problem with the companions is that the companions are not being given to the Gold Road chapter owners for free. Why? I don't own the chapter but I will still ask, why? The content of Gold Road is already half of what Necrom chapter got. There is scribing, cool, but the core content is still half! And now the new companions are hidden behind paywall? This is shameless ZOS!

I offer a compromise, those who have purchased Gold Road before today's reveal, allow them to claim the companions for free after they are released. Maybe give the gold road owners 15 days to get the companions for free, after that, crown purchase.

As for PvP, I simply don't care, was waiting to see whether or not we get a balanced synchronized casual PvP queue for 10-50, yeah I know, it was never going to happen but still wanted to see if ZOS could surpise me. So, I don't care about the PvP update.

spartaxoxo

RMW wrote: »

We don't know anything about the companion.

Absolutely. Elder Scrolls has had characters that are non-binary since decades. It's only suddenly an issue now. None of the lore comments are actually about lore. Tanlorin doesn't have lore yet and their gender has been part of the franchise before we even had a commonly used word for it. Literally decades.

BlueRaven

AzuraFan wrote: »

Lady_Titania wrote: »

I want to say the majority of pve players wanted elves for companions this time around. I still want the other unreleased races as well, all in due time of course.

I would have loved a female Bosmer, so she could run around with my female Bosmer main. I didn't want another khajit, and this is the second companions release that doesn't include a female. I prefer female companions so hopefully we'll get at least one next time. We're looking at 2 years with no females now. ZOS has been pretty good at having strong female characters (including villains!) in the game, so to go 2 years with no female companions is disappointing.

I was so confident we were going to get a bosmer this year. It felt so obvious. I had been collecting a bow set and planning it out. And boom, they dropped another cat instead.

I am still stunned over it. It felt almost spiteful.

Wolfkeks

BretonMage wrote: »

And here I was, hoping to hear more about their personalities

I think non-binary companions are fine, and that it's controversial at all is just beyond me. Anyway, I'd be more interested in our companions' voices and personalities. Tanlorin is "scrappy"? I guess after Sharp and Azandar, it's a change, though I'm not particularly interested in scrappy types myself.

Voices for the companions:

1. Zerith-var voiced by Darin De Paul (who also voiced J. Jonah Jameson in Spiderman 2)
https://x.com/SianezDeLaO/status/1833637861624557568

2. Tanlorin voiced by Vico Ortiz (best known for Our Flag Means Death)
https://x.com/SianezDeLaO/status/1833599462109048969

Lugaldu

BretonMage wrote: »

Tanlorin is "scrappy"? I guess after Sharp and Azandar, it's a change, though I'm not particularly interested in scrappy types myself.

I had to look up what the word "scrappy" actually means - and I suspect that the German translation doesn't capture the intended meaning. Here it was translated as "combative", but that wouldn't be a particularly remarkable quality for a knight.

JiubLeRepenti

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Personally, I don't care. I thought Isobel was well done and is one of my favorite companions. But ZOS should take caution or share the fate of games like Concord. Know your market.

As always, in my opinion, the main issue lies in how things are introduced (and no, I'm not trying to mean anything inappropriate here ).

As you mentioned, Isobel hasn't faced any criticism nor complaints (from what I've seen so far), and most people have enjoyed the character and her backstory.

I'm a huge fan of TESIII: Morrowind, which was released in 2002. You could meet Crassus Curio, who is gay, in House Hlaalu. He was, in my opinion, the funniest and nicest character in the whole game. Again, nobody complained about him. We've had many gay characters in TES games over the years. Vivec, for instance, is basically a non-binary character, and he remains one of my favorite characters in the entire TES lore. But at least, it never felt like the developers or DEI team were trying to shove it down my throat. It's well-introduced, well-integrated into the lore, etc.

Here, I feel like ZOS is trying to say: "Look! We've added diversity! We're inclusive! See? SEE?!"

Adding diversity just for the sake of it always seems senseless to me. The key to success is how you integrate it into the lore. This is why nobody criticized the fact that you can play Afro characters with Redguards in TES, even though many people are harshly criticizing Amazon's Rings of Power series.

As you said, I hope Concord and Dustborn will finally show the developers and game publishers what we actually want. The modern audience doesn't exist.

spartaxoxo

ZOS announced Tanlorin the same way they announced every other companion. We knew Bastian and Mirri's gender before we knew much else.

RMW

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Personally, I don't care. I thought Isobel was well done and is one of my favorite companions. But ZOS should take caution or share the fate of games like Concord. Know your market.

As always, in my opinion, the main issue lies in how things are introduced (and no, I'm not trying to mean anything inappropriate here ).

As you mentioned, Isobel hasn't faced any criticism nor complaints (from what I've seen so far), and most people have enjoyed the character and her backstory.

I'm a huge fan of TESIII: Morrowind, which was released in 2002. You could meet Crassus Curio, who is gay, in House Hlaalu. He was, in my opinion, the funniest and nicest character in the whole game. Again, nobody complained about him. We've had many gay characters in TES games over the years. Vivec, for instance, is basically a non-binary character, and he remains one of my favorite characters in the entire TES lore. But at least, it never felt like the developers or DEI team were trying to shove it down my throat. It's well-introduced, well-integrated into the lore, etc.

Here, I feel like ZOS is trying to say: "Look! We've added diversity! We're inclusive! See? SEE?!"

Adding diversity just for the sake of it always seems senseless to me. The key to success is how you integrate it into the lore. This is why nobody criticized the fact that you can play Afro characters with Redguards in TES, even though many people are harshly criticizing Amazon's Rings of Power series.

As you said, I hope Concord and Dustborn will finally show the developers and game publishers what we actually want. The modern audience doesn't exist.

So cool that you already seen the whole companion quest line and know how they tackle this!

Lalothen

I didn't manage to catch the stream but I have read the teaser post, and while I find it annoying that the companions aren't included as part of the Gold Road chapter at least ESO+ members can claim them for free so that's something (I think it probably says something about that ESO+ sub numbers too... and not in a good way).

The inclusion of a non-binary character feels a little like box-ticking, but frankly so long as their story is well done I think it's cool that we're going to have that companion-based representation. My ex was non-binary and we used to play ESO together, so having that companion alongside one of my characters while adventuring will be a nice little reminder of those good times.

The BG update is whatever since I don't play that content, but I am interested to see what QoL update to IC vaults & vendors. It's not much, but again it's something I guess.

One thing that does sort of intrigue me is Golden Pursuits; I look forward to seeing how that turns out.

Overall it feels like we're not really getting enough for our money this chapter, and ZOS really ought to be careful with their trajectory here because competitors like WoW & GW2 have significantly upped their game with their latest expansions (plus they've listened to their respective communities, something ZOS still isn't doing).

JiubLeRepenti

RMW wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Personally, I don't care. I thought Isobel was well done and is one of my favorite companions. But ZOS should take caution or share the fate of games like Concord. Know your market.

As always, in my opinion, the main issue lies in how things are introduced (and no, I'm not trying to mean anything inappropriate here ).

As you mentioned, Isobel hasn't faced any criticism nor complaints (from what I've seen so far), and most people have enjoyed the character and her backstory.

I'm a huge fan of TESIII: Morrowind, which was released in 2002. You could meet Crassus Curio, who is gay, in House Hlaalu. He was, in my opinion, the funniest and nicest character in the whole game. Again, nobody complained about him. We've had many gay characters in TES games over the years. Vivec, for instance, is basically a non-binary character, and he remains one of my favorite characters in the entire TES lore. But at least, it never felt like the developers or DEI team were trying to shove it down my throat. It's well-introduced, well-integrated into the lore, etc.

Here, I feel like ZOS is trying to say: "Look! We've added diversity! We're inclusive! See? SEE?!"

Adding diversity just for the sake of it always seems senseless to me. The key to success is how you integrate it into the lore. This is why nobody criticized the fact that you can play Afro characters with Redguards in TES, even though many people are harshly criticizing Amazon's Rings of Power series.

As you said, I hope Concord and Dustborn will finally show the developers and game publishers what we actually want. The modern audience doesn't exist.

So cool that you already seen the whole companion quest line and know how they tackle this!

Congrats for having completely missed my point here

Discovering Isobel as a lesbian character through her story was totally fine to me. But if I had seen ZOS introducing her before her release as a lesbian/straight/genderfluid/trans/etc. character, it would have been a problem to me.

I would have exactly the same reaction if the character was initially announced as a straight character.

This is what ZOS did for this new non-binary follower.

See the difference?

spartaxoxo

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

RMW wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Personally, I don't care. I thought Isobel was well done and is one of my favorite companions. But ZOS should take caution or share the fate of games like Concord. Know your market.

As always, in my opinion, the main issue lies in how things are introduced (and no, I'm not trying to mean anything inappropriate here ).

As you mentioned, Isobel hasn't faced any criticism nor complaints (from what I've seen so far), and most people have enjoyed the character and her backstory.

I'm a huge fan of TESIII: Morrowind, which was released in 2002. You could meet Crassus Curio, who is gay, in House Hlaalu. He was, in my opinion, the funniest and nicest character in the whole game. Again, nobody complained about him. We've had many gay characters in TES games over the years. Vivec, for instance, is basically a non-binary character, and he remains one of my favorite characters in the entire TES lore. But at least, it never felt like the developers or DEI team were trying to shove it down my throat. It's well-introduced, well-integrated into the lore, etc.

Here, I feel like ZOS is trying to say: "Look! We've added diversity! We're inclusive! See? SEE?!"

Adding diversity just for the sake of it always seems senseless to me. The key to success is how you integrate it into the lore. This is why nobody criticized the fact that you can play Afro characters with Redguards in TES, even though many people are harshly criticizing Amazon's Rings of Power series.

As you said, I hope Concord and Dustborn will finally show the developers and game publishers what we actually want. The modern audience doesn't exist.

So cool that you already seen the whole companion quest line and know how they tackle this!

Congrats for having completely missed my point here

Discovering Isobel as a lesbian character through her story was totally fine to me. But if I had seen ZOS introducing her before her release as a lesbian/straight/genderfluid/trans/etc. character, it would have been a problem to me.

This is what ZOS did for this new non-binary follower.

They also introduced Mirri as a stab you in the back kind of gal, before we knew literally anything about her. Why is it okay to announce Bastian as Male and Mirri as female, but not Tanlorin as non-binary.

We are always told the companions gender, a cliff notes version of their personality and occupation (Tanlorin was described as brash and energetic thief), and also for a while now we've been getting their class. We knew Azandar was a male Arcanist since before we knew his lore. Heck, last year, I think it was, they told us that they made both of the companions male as a result of our feedback of wanting more equal representation. The year prior to that there was a gender equality thread complaining that Bastian was the only male.

When they were giving us men that was not an issue.

JiubLeRepenti

This is what ZOS did for this new non-binary follower.

They also introduced Mirri as a stab you in the back kind of gal, before we knew literally anything about her. Why is it okay to announce Bastian as Male and Mirri as female, but not Tanlorin as non-binary.

Because these are the two genders you can choose when you create your character. So, yea, it follows a certain logic just as you precise its race, it's class, etc.

When you create your character, you can't decide through the creation process if it will be straight, gay, be, lesbian, etc. So this is why I wouldn't like to see any of these terms in its description (even if I'm totally fine with the idea of discovering it through the questline).

Also, and this is probably the main point you'll disagree with, non-binary is a concept we've never explicitly heard/read in any TES game. When I see it, I just feel it's breaking the 4th wall in order to tell me how inclusive the game is trying to be. I'll take back my example of Vivec. He's non-binary, we all know it, it was properly and subtly explained through the lore. So I'm 100% fine with it.

JonesFPS

And the politics already unfolded for 4 Pages XDDDDDD
Its actually good that the companions are sold seperately this time. The Customer will then decide if they want it or not.

spartaxoxo

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

Because these are the two genders you can choose when you create your character. So, yea, it follows a certain logic just as you precise its race, it's class, etc.

And yet they could have let you discover it from interacting with them in the game. Azandar and Sharp were explicitly stated to both be male because of people wanting more men.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All! We've been keeping tabs on this thread for companion thoughts and feedback. So thanks for all who have contributed so far and for SilverBride for starting it up.

As noted in some threads around companions last year, we're keeping track and taking the feedback noted back to the dev team. As some of you have noted, one of the most requested elements of adding new companions was to even out the ratio with two male companions, which we were able to do in Necrom. While we know not everyone was going to get the companion archetype they hoped for, we hope some of you enjoy your time with Sharp-As-Night and Azandar Al-Cybiades.

We'll have some opportunities to learn more about your new companions in the coming weeks and months, but definitely continue your feedback here and we'll keep an eye on it here.

Urvoth

PvPers being upset about getting PvP content after a 5 year drought, yikes

JiubLeRepenti

spartaxoxo wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

Because these are the two genders you can choose when you create your character. So, yea, it follows a certain logic just as you precise its race, it's class, etc.

And yet they could have let you discover it from interacting with them in the game. Azandar and Sharp were explicitly stated to both be male because of people wanting more men.

Yes... Because it's directly related to the options you can directly choose when you can create a character. Male or female.

spartaxoxo

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

Because these are the two genders you can choose when you create your character. So, yea, it follows a certain logic just as you precise its race, it's class, etc.

And yet they could have let you discover it from interacting with them in the game. Azandar and Sharp were explicitly stated to both be male because of people wanting more men.

Yes... Because it's directly related to the options you can directly choose when you can create a character. Male or female.

No. It's not related to player customization because that has nothing to do with companions. We cannot customize them.

It's just gender demographic information.

JiubLeRepenti

spartaxoxo wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

Because these are the two genders you can choose when you create your character. So, yea, it follows a certain logic just as you precise its race, it's class, etc.

And yet they could have let you discover it from interacting with them in the game. Azandar and Sharp were explicitly stated to both be male because of people wanting more men.

Yes... Because it's directly related to the options you can directly choose when you can create a character. Male or female.

No. It's not related to player customization because that has nothing to do with companions. We cannot customize them.

It's just gender demographic information.

Yes it is.

When you create a character, you can chose if it will be a male or a female.

You can chose its class.

You can choose it's race.

So it makes sense to me to find the same basic options in any NPC description.

Being non-binary is not and has never been one of the basic options you can choose to define your character.

Wolfkeks

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

Because these are the two genders you can choose when you create your character. So, yea, it follows a certain logic just as you precise its race, it's class, etc.

And yet they could have let you discover it from interacting with them in the game. Azandar and Sharp were explicitly stated to both be male because of people wanting more men.

Yes... Because it's directly related to the options you can directly choose when you can create a character. Male or female.

No. It's not related to player customization because that has nothing to do with companions. We cannot customize them.

It's just gender demographic information.

Yes it is.

When you create a character, you can chose if it will be a male or a female.

You can chose its class.

You can choose it's race.

So it makes sense to me to find the same basic options in any NPC description.

Being non-binary is not and has never been one of the basic options you can choose to define your character.

Then they should just add NB option for character creation. You don't know the story yet so maybe wait until we can see it on PTS. The writer is Andrew Siañez-De La O and so far he has done a fantastic job writing for ESO.

JiubLeRepenti

Then they should just add NB option for character creation.

This would make more sense regarding the direction the want to take indeed, even if I wouldn't feel concerned about this new option.

spartaxoxo

You can't choose companion gender. You also cannot pick the player character occupation at character creation or their personality but we always get that information too.

Gender, personality, class, and sometimes occupation is the standard information we get about every new companion. Azandar was described as a male arcanist, fatherly, and a bit of mad scientist as his description.

Tanlorin was treated the same as every other companion. Non-binary, thief, dragon Knight and soul magic hybrid, brash and energetic.

And they literally told us that Sharp and Azandar are men for gender representation reasons. Nobody tripped.