My gosh, Blackwood is written so badly.

Hygiliack · April 27

I love ESO, been playing since the last closed beta and will continue to play until the end but had never actually played the Blackwood story and... yeah, as I said, it is so badly written.

From conversations when Eveli "forgets" that you know each other ("Hey, you are that adventurer that helped me in Black Drake Villa"... yeah, never mind the weeks we spent together in Wrothgar Eveli!) to her talking as if the NPCs gave HER the information they gave you as the Player, to the forced recaps as if I had not played the game for months when I finished the previous mission 5 seconds ago.(Not to say how obvious the "plot twists" are in the story... I dare say the Farmer's Nook storyline is better written than the main story lmao)

I have not really played the story of any area beyond, though I have played the stories of the companions and those are very well written, I just hope that the writing gets better in latter DLCs(I have them all, doing a full chronological run) Because both Dark Heart and Elsweyr were awesome. So I really hope that it was a one off.

Malyore · April 27

They don't get better.

FlameDark · April 27

A better way of doing stories is to maybe have a section that players can read "the story so far". Which would detail what has happened and any important details the player would know. Instead of making it seem like the player has the intelligence of a hamster and the npcs have to simplify or repeat everything that happened two seconds ago like we are children. I feel like maybe there was complaints about people not being able to follow along with the story, or maybe players coming back into the game after some time were getting too confused on what was happening? Thus the... cringe hand holding writing.

Malyore · April 27

FlameDark wrote: »

A better way of doing stories is to maybe have a section that players can read "the story so far". Which would detail what has happened and any important details the player would know. Instead of making it seem like the player has the intelligence of a hamster and the npcs have to simplify or repeat everything that happened two seconds ago like we are children. I feel like maybe there was complaints about people not being able to follow along with the story, or maybe players coming back into the game after some time were getting too confused on what was happening? Thus the... cringe hand holding writing.

Yeah really all it would take is a journal showing up next to the NPC for them to discuss what has happened so far.

Or maybe we are hamster brained and we all sound like that lady in bleakrock

peacenote · April 27

IIRC correctly Blackwood was the storyline where I repeatedly wondered why I was there at all...

coop500 · April 27

Blackwood and onward is defo when the side quests felt better than the main quest.

spartaxoxo · April 27

Blackwood and High Isle are both pretty not great and like that. The writing does get a bit better with Necrom, and then Solstice is better than Necrom/WW's story imo.

AScarlato · April 27

Only expansion out of every one of them I can't bring myself to finish.

DoofusMax · April 27

I've finished Blackwood and, yeah, it's far from their finest work. On the bright side, play Blackwood and the rest look good by comparison. <insert state motto jokes here>

moderatelyfatman · April 27

I'm willing to cut the writers a bit of slack for Blackwood: it was done under lockdown and ZOS still insisted that it would be ready at the usual time.

Misty · April 27

Maybe they could go back and touch it up a bit. Make it slightly more interesting.
I have noticed how the writing takes a massive dump here and there in parts all over the map. Luckily they are few and far between.

SkaiFaith · April 27

Blackwood felt especially a big let down because it was nostalgia farming for Oblivion and people had very high expectations. Eveli was also a beloved character to return.
Definitely badly executed.

Personally I found Blackwood and Skyrim (Solitude) to be the most obvious and boring, and I am one of the few that instead didn't get early High Isle but really appreciated it (even though the ending of Galen... It's hard to make it make sense).

Solstice was good, but in retrospect I think playing it without taking part in the big event (writhing fortress) will lower its quality bar.

Necrom + Gold Road... I'd like to say it's good... And "it is"... But the very ending of the arc... "Why in Nirn have I spent 2 years on this?"

AzuraFan · April 27

I liked the Blackwood story, mainly because of Lyranth. Eveli drove me nuts.

Lixiviant · April 27

I didn't think that Blackwood was that bad. I did have a problem with Solstice.

whitecrow · April 27

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

I'm willing to cut the writers a bit of slack for Blackwood: it was done under lockdown and ZOS still insisted that it would be ready at the usual time.

They could have carried on as normal. Everyone could have.

Varana · April 27

FlameDark wrote: »

A better way of doing stories is to maybe have a section that players can read "the story so far". Which would detail what has happened and any important details the player would know. Instead of making it seem like the player has the intelligence of a hamster and the npcs have to simplify or repeat everything that happened two seconds ago like we are children. I feel like maybe there was complaints about people not being able to follow along with the story, or maybe players coming back into the game after some time were getting too confused on what was happening? Thus the... cringe hand holding writing.

At some point, I wish that games stored the time of previous quests and took that into account.
If I just finished the previous quest in a chain, the recap can be brief.
If I hadn't touched the quest in half a year, I might need a refresher, as an option.
It still shouldn't make me sound like a moron.

DenverRalphy · April 27

I didn't find Blackwood to be so bad. Sure, the writing was quite bad. I enjoyed playing it nonetheless.

But then what do I know? Some of my all time favorite movies had absolutely atrocious writing.

SilverBride · April 27

I didn't find it any different from other chapters. The main thing I didn't like about it was Eveli. I hate cutesy characters, and having her wear pigtails made it all the worse.

whitecrow · April 27

While the Blackwood story wasn't great overall, there were some small things in it that affected me. 2021 was a very bad year for me, and this game was the only thing that could distract me. I found myself strangely moved by a few things.

- Bastian's general positivity
- The obsessed fan's final wisdom to take life as it comes, the good and bad
- Dancing with the dog at the inn

Whoever was responsible for these bits, thank you.

Reginald_leBlem · April 27

I was dabbling in ES3 Morrowind recently and despite not picking up the game for almost a decade, I was able to read my extremely detailed journal entries and pick up exactly where I left off.
A journal function would be an incredible QOL improvement for people who enjoy the quests.

BetweenMidgets · April 27

I don't honestly even remember the Blackwood story anymore. I do remember how abysmally awful the High Isle chapter was.. where there was legitimately only one option for the villain.

Personally, I find Eveli very annoying. I'm glad I'd forgotten that she was a part of that content.

AScarlato · April 27

I'm honestly surprised Eveli is one of the Smolder Scrolls and Valentine's Cards.

I haven't seen her with the fan base of the other ones, especially after Blackwood.

Taarente · April 27

Summerset is probably the last actual zone with a main quest I was ok with. Blackwood was a bit too featureless and from then on I've generally avoided the zone main quest if i can. I will say that generally the zones other than west weald are really well designed from a world perspective. West weald someone left saturation and vibrance at 100%

tomofhyrule · April 27

AScarlato wrote: »

I'm honestly surprised Eveli is one of the Smolder Scrolls and Valentine's Cards.

I haven't seen her with the fan base of the other ones, especially after Blackwood.

Eveli really felt like one of those “we’re going to shove this character in everyone’s face because we want them to be a fan favorite” kinds of characters. I’m sure she does have fans, but she seemed to get a lot more attention in the story than expected based on her fanbase. And it didn’t help that she had to explain everything to you like Dora the Explorer with the whole “I don’t know what’s going on!” while she’s standing right next to a letter saying “This is the whole story.”

That’s one of the issues I have with “fan favorites” in the first place, where they bring some 1.5 dimensional character back and remove any nuance from them, but at least you can flirt with them now!

But yeah, I’d still take Blackwood over High Isle. Ugh, I can’t even think of a single part of the High Isle line that didn’t make me retch. Every choice they made was the wrong one.

Kikazaru · April 27

I did not like when my vestige had no choice but to admit to Eveli that I am part of the order of the dark brotherhood. The story would go on just as fine without needing to create unnecessary conflict with her.

Syldras · April 27

After High Isle was absolutely horrible, it's not surprising that Necrom/GoldRoad and Solstice were slightly better. They're still not even close to ESO's earlier chapters, though.

I personally, found the Solstice story boring. Obsolete, most of all. Basically just a nostalgia chapter more or less retelling the original Coldharbor story with a few changes. Even the composition was similar, from the portal accident at the beginning, to Vanus Galerion running away on his own at the finale.

And did we really need a Planemeld 2.0 after it didn't work the first time? Could a brilliant mage like Mannimarco not come up with any different idea? It's generally sad; he has interesting background lore, and there's clearly a gap between his depiction in base game ESO and TES2 Daggerfall - a lot could have been done with that, showing us what happened in the centuries inbetween. Instead we just got another planemeld, clichéd good/evil depictions, and Mannimarco's reappearance led to absolutely nothing. It was horribly formulaic. I would have hoped for something more creative.

tomofhyrule · April 27

Syldras wrote: »

After High Isle was absolutely horrible, it's not surprising that Necrom/GoldRoad and Solstice were slightly better. They're still not even close to ESO's earlier chapters, though.

I personally, found the Solstice story boring. Obsolete, most of all. Basically just a nostalgia chapter more or less retelling the original Coldharbor story with a few changes. Even the composition was similar, from the portal accident at the beginning, to Vanus Galerion running away on his own at the finale.

And did we really need a Planemeld 2.0 after it didn't work the first time? Could a brilliant mage like Mannimarco not come up with any different idea? It's generally sad; he has interesting background lore, and there's clearly a gap between his depiction in base game ESO and TES2 Daggerfall - a lot could have been done with that, showing us what happened in the centuries inbetween. Instead we just got another planemeld, clichéd good/evil depictions, and Mannimarco's reappearance led to absolutely nothing. It was horribly formulaic. I would have hoped for something more creative.

I really wish we would have gotten a "Meridia is also evil!" story as our MQ sequel, considering how Summerset was leaning a little bit in that direction with Darien and we also have the story of Malatar. But instead, we got "surely this time it'll work!"

...

I guess I should finish that story eventually, but I am just so uninterested in doing the rest of Solstice since I feel like I already played it. But honestly, I am more inspired to replay 15 year old games than do these stories lately.

Esha76 · April 27

I've been with this game since early beta. Absolutely love the base game content. Still play is over and over with different characters and combinations to this day. However, there is a distinct difference in the quality (in my opinion), and type of writing in many of the chapters. By that I mean..... base game is a little, dare I say "darker"? A little more mature? New chapters seem to be a little more light hearted and even a bit "bubbly". Such as the sisters in the Ghosthunters side-quest in Solstice. Utterly annoyed me, maybe even a touch childish. I found High Isle utterly predictable. And the format of the game and the writing got stale for me.

Maybe a Prince could get their way for once?

I took Gold Road and Solstice off. Got them when they were on sale a year after launch. I hope the quality and style of the future content get more like the base game feel.

Syldras · April 27

Esha76 wrote: »

By that I mean..... base game is a little, dare I say "darker"? A little more mature? New chapters seem to be a little more light hearted and even a bit "bubbly". Such as the sisters in the Ghosthunters side-quest in Solstice. Utterly annoyed me, maybe even a touch childish.

The sisters were annoying. But luckily, their brabble could easily be ignored; it was not needed to understand the location's background story, one didn't really need to mediate between them, it was mostly just playing in the background and I was rummaging through containers - or already proceeding to the next room - while it was playing, completely ignoring it. And then, from my point of view, it was an interesting location and story. I also liked that no obvious moral judgment was thrown at our faces (which was astounding, considering we got that a lot in that chapter).

Hygiliack · April 27

Esha76 wrote: »

I've been with this game since early beta. Absolutely love the base game content. Still play is over and over with different characters and combinations to this day. However, there is a distinct difference in the quality (in my opinion), and type of writing in many of the chapters. By that I mean..... base game is a little, dare I say "darker"? A little more mature? New chapters seem to be a little more light hearted and even a bit "bubbly". Such as the sisters in the Ghosthunters side-quest in Solstice. Utterly annoyed me, maybe even a touch childish. I found High Isle utterly predictable. And the format of the game and the writing got stale for me.
Maybe a Prince could get their way for once?
I took Gold Road and Solstice off. Got them when they were on sale a year after launch. I hope the quality and style of the future content get more like the base game feel.

I gotta agree with that, I mean, i am still half way there, and just like you, I never got there because I always went back to playing the base game again as I LOVE how dark and sad the story in EP can be, and less so but still good in the other areas.

So far from Vvardenfel to Elsweyr was very good, and I really hope that Tharn found a way to survive but if not, that was an epic ending to a legend, and for me Skyrim was a good story as well, not AS good, but still good but reading all the comments I might be utterly disappoined from Blackwood onwards... WHY do they need to "tone down" the stories? Is not like the main player base is kids.

Now I like my humour, I mean, I love the silliness of Rigurt, Laurent and Stibbons, Narsis Dren, I love reading the rivalry between Lady Cinabbar and Phrastus, and contrary to what I now see(I thought she was a fan favorite) I love Eveli, even in Blackwood.... but the game didn't need to be all silliness and if they are leaning towards that in the following chapters that I have not played(and any future content), then it will be a disappointment.

Can you imagine a DLC zone with the Tanlorin vibe? "Sorry tree, we need your flesh chunk" (Annoying AF laugh) Nope, I hope they don't lean that way for future areas as some have mentioned, I hope they are wrong lol

Tyrobag · April 27

It gets worse and worse. I'd say Blackwood is in the better half of the DLC zones all things considered, plus Fargrave/Deadlands makes the overall story arc much better. The writing quality has been in freefall since then, culminating in the daedroth dung that was Solstice.