Which DLC had the best story?

Tariq9898 · March 8

I've been doing the quests in chronological order and I have NOT gotten to the DLC zones yet. However, I've heard many say these are the best DLC stories thus far.

Which one was your favorite? And please no spoilers!

WhiteCoatSyndrome · March 8

Orsinium

Gonna give it to Orsinium, though Clockwork City has the second best twist in the game it’s tied into the arch with Summerset and Vvardenfell where Orsinium is mostly standalone.

Summerset was terrible, Elseweyr was okay, Necrom mostly suffered from the goalposts being vague and moving frequently.

freespirit · March 8

Southern Elsweyr is my favourite by far! 🙂

SilverIce58 · March 8

Orsinium

I picked Orsinium, but Murkmire will always be one of my top favorites. The zone is a beautiful swamp with a nice collection of stories and characters. I take every Argonian I make through there, and have the Xanmeer house decorated in a nice Black Marsh vibe as a little hub for my Argonians.

GlassHalfFull · March 8

Necrom

My tank need skill points, so i looked at this thread to see which story may be the most interesting while he slogs through a main story. I usually enjoy main stories, so this thread should be interesting.

Keep voting everyone...

AzuraFan · March 9

I liked Morrowind, which used to be a DLC. Also Necrom. I thought Orsinium was okay, but I wasn't as enamored with it as the majority seem to be.

Giulietta · March 9

Orsinium

haven´t seen elsweyr and necrom yet, though

metheglyn · March 9

Clockwork City

Sotha Sil!

Valpro · March 10

Orsinium

Or sinium was great. I personally like Southern elsewyr in second and my third is Necrom.

ArchMikem · March 16

Elsweyr

Of those here I'm biased to pick Elsweyr, but Murkmire's really shines thru for me. I'm fascinated by ancient Argonia.

Prophet_of_Malacath · March 17

Orsinium

Murkmire deserves to be on the list!

Orsinium is great - no apocalyptic threats, just local storytelling. However, what I ENVY from Murkmire is how all the tribes were fleshed out & represented.

The Bright-Throats, Dead-Water Tribe, Ghost-People, Black-Tongues, Root-House, Miredancers - half of these have skins you can use; distinctive architecture be it stick houses vs massive stone works; Dead-Water have a unique motif, Ancestral Argonian fits in too for others, and on top of it, EACH has their own sense of cultural identity. Argonians are not uniform, each tribe is it's own thing.

For contrast, in Orsinium we never see Clan Igrun nor Clan Bagrakh (only token representation via a museum relic & Kurog). Clan Tumnosh doesn't even get a map-marker (and Orsinium never gave us structural furnishings, so we can't build with the masonry they produce). Clan Fharun is on fire & dead. Clan Shatul has a handful of survivors, broken fences, it looks sickly.

Only Clan Morkul seems to thrive - they have auction vendors, portside trade, fame for crafting & a questline with a signature craftable set. Meanwhile, everyone in Wrothgar is dressed alike. And for a story about "rebuilding the great city of the Orcs", we never got structural furnishings with which to build our own neighborhoods. There's not even an apartment! Sure, I have Pariah's Pinnacle, but if we had structural furnishings, I'd have turned it into "a part of the city, buried deeper into the mountain" instead of some remote outpost. We can't even BE city Orcs.

Murkmire has a LOT of things I'd love to see for future Orcs - give each group an IDENTITY.

And ironically, despite the gloomy swamp, Murkmire has some horror-elements in the Ayleids and the things they did, the mystery still buried beneath. Just imagine if Orcs had some subterranean horrors to deal with, or some Ayleid/Direnni/Dwemer ruins blocking construction or something. We don't need apocalyptic threats.

SeaGtGruff · March 17

I haven't played through Necrom's storyline yet, so I'm going to abstain from voting. And besides, I enjoy all of the DLCs' and base game zones' storylines, so it's hard to pick a favorite because I think they're all different and stand on their own merits.

However, as far as which of those DLC zones I tend to spend more time in compared to the others, I'd say Northern Elsweyr.

moderatelyfatman · March 17

Orsinium

Orsinium had the best story line, I didn't see the twist coming because I liked the villain.

However, the trifect of Morrowind, Clockwork City and Summerset together was the best. I was most surprised by Clockwork City and it's still an absolutely unique setting. There's something so brilliant about hiding a city by shrinking it down to a fraction of it's true size.

Number_51 · March 18

Orsinium

Prophet_of_Malacath wrote: »

Murkmire deserves to be on the list!

Orsinium is great - no apocalyptic threats, just local storytelling. However, what I ENVY from Murkmire is how all the tribes were fleshed out & represented.

The Bright-Throats, Dead-Water Tribe, Ghost-People, Black-Tongues, Root-House, Miredancers - half of these have skins you can use; distinctive architecture be it stick houses vs massive stone works; Dead-Water have a unique motif, Ancestral Argonian fits in too for others, and on top of it, EACH has their own sense of cultural identity. Argonians are not uniform, each tribe is it's own thing.

For contrast, in Orsinium we never see Clan Igrun nor Clan Bagrakh (only token representation via a museum relic & Kurog). Clan Tumnosh doesn't even get a map-marker (and Orsinium never gave us structural furnishings, so we can't build with the masonry they produce). Clan Fharun is on fire & dead. Clan Shatul has a handful of survivors, broken fences, it looks sickly.

Only Clan Morkul seems to thrive - they have auction vendors, portside trade, fame for crafting & a questline with a signature craftable set. Meanwhile, everyone in Wrothgar is dressed alike. And for a story about "rebuilding the great city of the Orcs", we never got structural furnishings with which to build our own neighborhoods. There's not even an apartment! Sure, I have Pariah's Pinnacle, but if we had structural furnishings, I'd have turned it into "a part of the city, buried deeper into the mountain" instead of some remote outpost. We can't even BE city Orcs.

Murkmire has a LOT of things I'd love to see for future Orcs - give each group an IDENTITY.

And ironically, despite the gloomy swamp, Murkmire has some horror-elements in the Ayleids and the things they did, the mystery still buried beneath. Just imagine if Orcs had some subterranean horrors to deal with, or some Ayleid/Direnni/Dwemer ruins blocking construction or something. We don't need apocalyptic threats.

Absolutely agree that Murkmire deserves to be on the list. I would also argue that the Nede "clans/tribes" in Craglorn had more identity than the Orcs got. And I would include Craglorn in the list. But that may just be me, I find the Nedes one of the more interesting aspects of ES lore.

Soarora · March 18

Summerset

Never done Orisinium but Summerset was wonderful, it made me feel. No other quest has really done that.

MaisonNaevius · March 25

Orsinium

What I liked about Orsinium is the absence of an enemy that is too big. The plot is political and religious. These are Daedric cults. But at no point do we have a Daedric Prince who appears to destroy everything.

After Orsinium, I will say Necrom which I really liked despite the fact that neither the region, nor the protagonists, nor the factions are normally ones that I appreciate. In the end it was a real freshness.
Finally I will say Elsweyr. I don't know why but I liked the general atmosphere of this Chapter.

FabresFour · March 25

Orsinium

Orsinium is the best standalone story.

Summerset becomes the best story only if you've done Morrowind and Clockwork City before.(Summerset has the best characters, one of the best villains in ESO, and the storytelling is sublime. I feel like they could have delivered a slightly better climax. But it's still amazing.)

Anumaril · March 31

Orsinium

I really liked that the Orsinium questline had nothing to do with huge daedric end-of-the-world crises. It was a political struggle, and a really enjoyable one to experience at that. Towards the end I even found myself wishing I could have the choice to oppose the King in his plan or support him.

I'm just really tired of storylines that deal with end-of-the-world stuff. It's become so stale, and you can absolutely engaging stories without that trope. Just because something is smaller scale doesn't make it any less engaging or "epic-feeling". It's about how good the writing is.

SeaGtGruff · March 31

Having just played through Orsinium for only the second time, I have to say that Orsinium did have great writing. However, as is often the case with the various zones, my favorite quests were side quests rather than part of the zone's main storyline.

In the case of Orsinium, my favorite quest was the one where we go back in time by visiting memories and get to meet one of the Elder Scrolls' most famous characters.

I thought the main storyline was about on a par with the zones that a lot of players have complained about, for the very same reasons they give for those other zones-- "Too predictable, I figured out who the villain was before the 'big reveal,' etc." That's not to say I didn't enjoy the story, because I did; I just didn't think it was markedly better than the storyline of, say, Greymoor.

jaekobcaed · April 13

Summerset

I'm a bit biased: I'm a huge fan of the Altmer, the Psijics, the metaphysical side of TES lore and anything related to elegant and pristine game environments. Bias admitted, I have to give it to Summerset. Seeing Summerset for the first time since Arena (which is hardly lore-friendly to the games that followed) was awesome enough but the way the story involved deep, metaphysical lore and tied into the Psijics which we knew relatively little about, it was just exactly the sort of story I wanted in TES. Elsweyr was good but it couldn't measure up for me, and Greymoor was a huge letdown for me since I'm not really into the gothic, vampire type stuff. I never did play any of the chapters after that, so I can't speak on them, but Gold Road sounds exactly like the sort of TES I love, and I'm looking forward to a story that will hopefully come close to Summerset's lore-heavy, metaphysically-intriguing plot.

nerevoryn · April 15

Orsinium

Orsinium probably has the best story, but I think CWC has the best everything else, especially worldbuilding and character and is just better overall.

SirAxen · April 25

Clockwork City

I really hope the writing quality improves. It's just my opinion of course, but I genuinely feel like the stories have been sort of 'mediocre' the last couple years.

reg369 · May 27

Clockwork City

Markarth is underrated. Great tie-ins with the main game and one of the best villains.

The Elder Scrolls Online

Which DLC had the best story?

Which DLC had the best story? 107 votes