Apocrypha was well received?

Jordan.nick11b14_ESO · July 31

The writing is just too boring and the VA's don't do any of it justice. Serious drag and I'm having to really put effort in to force myself to play through it. Very much hate it as opposed to zones like Blackwood. I'm probably just halfway through it and desperately hope it improves, but I doubt it will. It's very much hurt my enthusiasm for The Gold Road quite a bit, which I've also purchased and figured I'd run next.

tuxon · July 31

It was more Morrowind...so = good.

Grec1a · July 31

Jordan.nick11b14_ESO wrote: »

The writing is just too boring and the VA's don't do any of it justice. Serious drag and I'm having to really put effort in to force myself to play through it. Very much hate it as opposed to zones like Blackwood. I'm probably just halfway through it and desperately hope it improves, but I doubt it will. It's very much hurt my enthusiasm for The Gold Road quite a bit, which I've also purchased and figured I'd run next.

I felt the same about Necrom. I did 2 or 3 of the quests when it first came out, and only went back to it to get the Wildburn Lynx. However, I'm enjoying Gold Road a lot more. It's not Summerset, but I'm interested in seeing what happens next, the quests are varied, and the companions have a bit more personality than drippy Gadayn.

Araneae6537 · July 31

I like the ambiance of many of the areas in Apocrypha and I enjoyed the companion stories and Meln the Mouthless and a fun character in the Apocrypha public dungeon. But the main story itself… The original TES III Morrowind had more Lovecraftian vibes than Necrom. But that’s okay, what really made me less engaged was just going here and there to watch the story happen — I had better been a scribe in Mora’s service for all that I actually did anything!

So far the best zone quests for me have been Aldmeri Dominion base game (I have to play the other alliances past the starter zone yet so can’t compare), Orsinium, and Morrowind. There are certainly other stories and characters I enjoyed, but some had too many villains whose motives for working together seemed at best unclear or otherwise lacked the focus that would have made them more compelling to me.

El_Borracho · July 31

There was a little too much of the "fetch" missions which kept you coming back to the same locations, but I enjoyed Telvanni Peninsula and Apocrypha. Large but not too large with good wayshrine locations and loved the scenery.

Personofsecrets · July 31

Yes, the Apocryphal Well lead is in the archive right now.

TaSheen · August 1

I'm not now and never have been a fan of Morrowind, the dunmer, etc. While Mora is okay, the rest of it left me cold. No, didn't do the questline (started it, got bored, left it in the book dust of Apocrypha), and won't. I will probably eventually do the Gold Road questline.

I pick and choose these days....

katanagirl1 · August 1

The main story of Apocrypha kept my attention throughout. I thought it was one of the better ones as of late.

I have not done the Gold Road story yet so I haven’t reached the conclusion yet.

Bo0137 · August 1

This is odd for me because I liked Necrom over any other content in ESO. And I thought Blackwood was ok at most. ESO is truly a game with many games within it. Some people like x content, some people like y content. I really loved Necrom!

I_killed_Vivec · August 1

TaSheen wrote: »

I'm not now and never have been a fan of Morrowind, the dunmer, etc. While Mora is okay, the rest of it left me cold. No, didn't do the questline (started it, got bored, left it in the book dust of Apocrypha), and won't. I will probably eventually do the Gold Road questline.

I pick and choose these days....

I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the gold road main quest is a continuation of the necrom main quest.

I suppose that you could skip the necrom quest and go straight into gold road, but it might not make much sense (I don't know, there might have been recaps that I just skipped because I had done necrom).

Given the lack of content in gold road it does appear it was supposed to have been released as a DLC to complete the necrom chapter story line.

El_Borracho · August 1

katanagirl1 wrote: »

The main story of Apocrypha kept my attention throughout. I thought it was one of the better ones as of late.

I have not done the Gold Road story yet so I haven’t reached the conclusion yet.

Its not bad, it was just a tad frustrating in the way they broke up the storyline quests. I don't need a ton of exposition to know who or what Ithelia wants, nor do I need to traverse the zone repeatedly. To the point some quests I was saying "Why didn't you tell me to do that the first time I was here?" But in all, I think the story was well done.

FYI, be sure to do the prologues for both zones if you want to do the epilogue in Gold Road, which it sounds like you will want

TaSheen · August 1

I_killed_Vivec wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

I'm not now and never have been a fan of Morrowind, the dunmer, etc. While Mora is okay, the rest of it left me cold. No, didn't do the questline (started it, got bored, left it in the book dust of Apocrypha), and won't. I will probably eventually do the Gold Road questline.

I pick and choose these days....

I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the gold road main quest is a continuation of the necrom main quest.

I suppose that you could skip the necrom quest and go straight into gold road, but it might not make much sense (I don't know, there might have been recaps that I just skipped because I had done necrom).

Given the lack of content in gold road it does appear it was supposed to have been released as a DLC to complete the necrom chapter story line.

Yeah, but I just HATE Morrowind and dunmer, and I'm so not interested in anything in that storyline. I'll do what's available in Gold Road, and cross fingers we never have any more MW/dunmer stuff again. Yeah, yeah.... unlikely I know. Next time I'll skip it too.

spartaxoxo · August 2

TaSheen wrote: »

I_killed_Vivec wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

I'm not now and never have been a fan of Morrowind, the dunmer, etc. While Mora is okay, the rest of it left me cold. No, didn't do the questline (started it, got bored, left it in the book dust of Apocrypha), and won't. I will probably eventually do the Gold Road questline.

I pick and choose these days....

I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the gold road main quest is a continuation of the necrom main quest.

I suppose that you could skip the necrom quest and go straight into gold road, but it might not make much sense (I don't know, there might have been recaps that I just skipped because I had done necrom).

Given the lack of content in gold road it does appear it was supposed to have been released as a DLC to complete the necrom chapter story line.

Yeah, but I just HATE Morrowind and dunmer, and I'm so not interested in anything in that storyline. I'll do what's available in Gold Road, and cross fingers we never have any more MW/dunmer stuff again. Yeah, yeah.... unlikely I know. Next time I'll skip it too.

Necrom's main story isn't really Dunmer specific after the first act. The Dunmer parts mostly just introduces you to two of the characters, then they head to Apocrypha and it is mostly Hermaeus Mora from there. The quests in Apocrypha itself revolve around Mora.

Araneae6537 · August 2

TaSheen wrote: »

I_killed_Vivec wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

I'm not now and never have been a fan of Morrowind, the dunmer, etc. While Mora is okay, the rest of it left me cold. No, didn't do the questline (started it, got bored, left it in the book dust of Apocrypha), and won't. I will probably eventually do the Gold Road questline.

I pick and choose these days....

I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the gold road main quest is a continuation of the necrom main quest.

I suppose that you could skip the necrom quest and go straight into gold road, but it might not make much sense (I don't know, there might have been recaps that I just skipped because I had done necrom).

Given the lack of content in gold road it does appear it was supposed to have been released as a DLC to complete the necrom chapter story line.

Yeah, but I just HATE Morrowind and dunmer, and I'm so not interested in anything in that storyline. I'll do what's available in Gold Road, and cross fingers we never have any more MW/dunmer stuff again. Yeah, yeah.... unlikely I know. Next time I'll skip it too.

Well, that’s how I feel about most human focused stuff (especially when it’s the pseudo-Euro-medieval — but with magic! — generic setting that’s been done to death), and the Breton year was worst, in my opinion.

Finedaible · August 2

Apocrypha was better than High Isle for what that is worth.

However, I am still waiting for more compelling writing and not just some NPCs describing a scene I literally just witnessed on a prop-filled stage. Coincidentally I came across a Youtube short somewhat recently which I think describes ESO's writing problem perfectly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgpM0cY7fzU

If you look back to the days of Thieve's Guild and Dark Brotherhood, you can witness far, far more compelling writing with characters we actually care about.

Elsonso · August 2

katanagirl1 wrote: »

The main story of Apocrypha kept my attention throughout. I thought it was one of the better ones as of late.

I have not done the Gold Road story yet so I haven’t reached the conclusion yet.

Necrom had better stories than other recent Chapters. I just recently repeated Morrowind, Summerset, and Elsweyr. Necrom is definitely better than Summerset, but not quite as good as Morrowind.

I am trying to place Gold Road in the range. I have not decided whether it is better or worse than Greymoor and Blackwood.

Destai · August 3

Necrom as a chapter was certainly an improvement over the last three chapters’ story writing. The narrative had better pacing and consistency than say High Isle. Still, I didn’t care for it.

Hermaeus Mora felt a bit too tame compared to other depictions. The whole “world will unravel” thing was very played out. I didn’t care for the whole premise of collective memory loss either.

Meln and Torvesard were the only characters I really cared; Leramil just annoyed me.

Zone wise, Telvanni Peninsula was appealing. Sure, it was more morrowind but it was still vibrant. Apocrypha, OTOH, was just hard on the eyes. The green was just too intense for me. For me, it’s up there with Coldharbour as the most uncomfortable zone for me.

Elsonso · August 3

Destai wrote: »

Necrom as a chapter was certainly an improvement over the last three chapters’ story writing. The narrative had better pacing and consistency than say High Isle. Still, I didn’t care for it.

Hermaeus Mora felt a bit too tame compared to other depictions. The whole “world will unravel” thing was very played out. I didn’t care for the whole premise of collective memory loss either.

Meln and Torvesard were the only characters I really cared; Leramil just annoyed me.

Zone wise, Telvanni Peninsula was appealing. Sure, it was more morrowind but it was still vibrant. Apocrypha, OTOH, was just hard on the eyes. The green was just too intense for me. For me, it’s up there with Coldharbour as the most uncomfortable zone for me.

The premise of Necrom was basically Order vs Chaos, and certainly Mora would see that as “world ending”. The collective memory loss is just the plot device that allowed for ZOS to conjure up an unknown Daedric Prince. This particular plot revealed a Daedric power that is a little too powerful.

As for Leramil, the main quest NPC guide tends to get annoying. She was not as bad as Eveli in Blackwood, or Lyris in Greymoor, though. In Blackwood, the constant huddles were annoying, and seemed to be fewer in Necrom. Lyris is just in a bad mood all the time and I would be happy if I never saw her again.

kaushad · August 4

I liked the zone of Apocrypha.

The main quest was too long. There's an existential threat to world, as usual, but we don't what is. Except we know that whatever it is, it's not going to end the world. So there isn't much they can do illustrate how dreadful (in a good way for the player) the big secret will be. Each quest does not encourage me to care any more about it.

If you do know that the Secret was a daedric prince, then you also know that isn't going to remain significant in the future. That's not necessarily a problem. We know that the Orsinium in ESO is going to get destroyed, but it's interesting to see it while we can. And it's interesting to meet Ithelia while we can. But that's in Gold Road. So Necrom's main quest is like a very long prologue to the main story in the next chapter.

As for the Morrowind. The Indoril/Telvanni switch worked out at as a promise not give us more Dunmer content, choosing instead to copy something that we already had and could have again in the real Telvanni peninsula and isles to the north anyway. And for all the good work that the visual artists did to build Necrom, we didn't get any quests about Necrom.

GuuMoonRyoung · August 4

Finedaible wrote: »

If you look back to the days of Thieve's Guild and Dark Brotherhood, you can witness far, far more compelling writing with characters we actually care about.

Thieves guild and Dark Brotherhood quest lines completely disconnected me from the game, they were so bad, that they were just bad, they could not be "they are so bad that they are good"! Only one quest in Dark Brotherhood area stood out(I can't even recall the name of the zone, it is so *** bad!), and it had Raz and Naryu, that was the only quest that felt good to me, it had an intricate story.

I can not believe ZOS actually pushed out such horrendous stuff before they went back to doing good stuff like Vvardenfell and onwards.