Preach. 🙏

There is nothing worse than feeling like you’re playing a story designed for edgy teenagers.

Know your audience, ZOS.
MMOs are not favored by young gamers.

It seems nothing is taken seriously anymore in writing, so why would the player take the story seriously? It can't work.

I'm not entirely against humour, of course. The game always had humourous content and characters. Cadwell is a good example. But it was a type of humour that fit the world and the story much better.

The other thing they seem to be going for now is "romance". I fully expect them to include lots of random flirting next year (with "fan favorites", of course), probably believing that people will find that awesome and will ignore all flaws over that.

Great, ESO is now fan fiction.

In recent years I've noticed a type of meme-y humor as well as internet-speak in the dialogues, and like OP said, it's immersion breaking, poor quality and not up to the standards of earlier writing. I don't know if the team has undergone changes, but it's keenly felt in the quality of stories and dialogues as of late.

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

People loved it with Naryu, dunno why there's people hating on it now.

"People" are not a uniform group with one opinion between them. Some people liked it, others will have disliked it or been indifferent. Maybe the people who didn't like it didn't feel the need to mention it until it became clear it was going to be a reoccuring thing.

I know I was indifferent to Darien when he was an occasional side character in a few storylines I could forget about afterwards, but was more put off by ZOS informing us that they have decided we all find him attractive and want him flirting with our characters at every opportunity.

Yes romance storylines are popular with some people, but it needs to be a choice, not just a flat yes or no but a choice of who and how and when. My characters are all very different people and not only is it impossible to design a character they'd all find attractive, they'd all go about it in very different ways and without those options it's going to fall flat for me - I'd rather skip it entirely than waste my time on a storyline I have no interest in because it's full of things my characters would never do.

(Very different situation but it's the same reason I didn't like many of the chapter-specific tutorials. How you came to be sacrificed by the Worm Cult was left open so I could come up with all kinds of ways it happened to fit the characters. It's a lot harder to explain everyone being on a boat to Vvardenfell (especially if they leave immediately) or in an Elseweyr monastery or whatever.)

I also don't think it necessarily has to do with millenials being game writers nowadays, by the way. A good writer has the ability to write in a style that's appropriate for the story and medium they're writing for. It doesn't matter how they might talk or write in everyday life with their friends, it should be clear if a dialogue is supposed to be for a medieval fantasy game, it should sound accordingly. Let alone not all people born between 1980 and 1995 talk like that. I surely do not, and my friends of roughly the same age don't talk like that either.

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

I physically cringed at the end of an eastern solstice quest where a ghost sends you to tell his wife he died and you are given the option to flirt with her after delivering the news. Just low class.

And here I thought it was funny as hell and very in line with my dibellan character lmao, different strokes. See what I did there.

Its an option, options are good for an rpg.

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

I am surprised anyone takes the writing seriously. When characters that are dead, sacrificed to the gods, or supposedly transcended to a different planet of existence suddenly return...

And no real consequences for choices. And the ones you think you have get overridden or forced to be inconsequential.

It seems like some people are taking this too seriously in general judging from the responses. TES has always been a dark setting and I agree it could and should be darker, but the romance stuff, or anything relating to sex has never been the focus, and has always been light hearted, so for me none of it is a big deal and this is in line with the series. Could it be better, sure? I guess, always can but this isnt dragon age, just not what I want them to focus on.

Mannimarco coming back again makes sense for the anniversary, Darien eh will see in the future whats going on with him if its necessary or not but I enjoyed how it played out here until Darien kept crying about being useless.

kotisovich wrote: »

BardokRedSnow wrote: »

dragon age

DAO was dark enough though

True enough, they nailed the dark themes Id even say up til inquisition, many flaws aside.