The writing for the upcoming story content - some thoughts on the latest news article
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emilyhyoyeon✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭But I think what's the biggest problem for me is that it's so light in terms of story. It's just that fancy mysterious daedric realm where there are enemies (which are mostly copies from other places in Tamriel) and some weird arcade-like games for unknown reasons, and you need to kill the enemies and play the arcade games to get some favor points to be able to buy things from your faction. Well, it's actually not just light on story content, I think what bothers me more is that what's there feels random. There's a disconnect between the factions, the background story, and the actual playable content (none of the things you actually do there are really related to your faction's alleged interests and goals - unless you play for the one faction whose main identity is combat, perhaps) - it feels like the whole "story" is nothing but a colorful facade for killing bosses and playing arcade games. And that's absolutely not what I want to see from a narration. If there's a background story, I want it to be an immersive experience, want it to make sense as a whole, and tasks and story should clearly be logically connected.
I also noticed again how important, for me personally, it is that what I'm doing in game has some meaning in the game world. Just running around randomly killing something for points... It bores me. First and foremost, I'm a roleplayer in the traditional sense - I want to partake in some kind of fantasy narration with my character. Also, I want to learn about the fictional world and its people, and at best, what I read or see even makes me think about it. So, it's basically the same issue here that I also had with the Archive: It was fun to see everything once when it was new, but after that, there's nothing that interests me about it (in the Archive it also just became a grind for the currency then, because I needed it to buy those book furnishings I wanted; and in this case it will turn into a grind for extra housing rooms and furnishings as well). But it's good of course that it exists, for the people who enjoy it. But for me personally, it's not quite it.
Your posts are soooo cathartic sometimes
I haven't seen anyone else anywhere make these points. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. It freaks me out. All the feedback, positive or negative, I've seen about the NM is related to the difficulty/grouping or the rewards. None of the negative feedback addresses what you mention here. Otherwise, it's oceans of positive feedback with things like the ''most fun someone's had in this game for years'' (I've seen this one explicitly several times).
Are the majority of ESO players now really just looking for this kind of ''arcade'' content? The concept of investing into story/writing/world building anymore, considering the NM's positive reception, cannot be looking worth it to the devs.IGN @ emilypumpkin
Tullanisse Starborne altmer spellsword battlemage & scholar of the ayleids
Qa'Rirra khajiit assassin & dancer
Seliwequen Narilata altmer necromancer & debaucher4 -
metheglyn✭✭✭✭✭
✭From everything they said about the Night Market leading up to it, I never got the idea it was going to have much story behind it. It has the central mystery: what is this place and why is it only around sometimes. But fiction mysteries that have no solution (by design) aren't really that interesting to me. It'd be one thing if, while playing through the area, people could find clues/potential answers to the mystery, if not an outright solution. But if it's just a mystery for mystery's sake, and has no real connection to the rest of the world/planes of Oblivion, I find that a bit lacking.
When the Night Market was first mentioned, I thought the focus was combat only, and there wouldn't be much lore to it. Basically like the arenas we've seen in ESO before, or the Archive. But then I heard about it having an unexpected number of lorebooks, so I did think there was some lore to it, and the player could basically discover it bit by bit by finding these documents. We know it's in Fargrave, we know the connections between Fargrave and Ithelia, so I hoped it would give us more lore on that. Sadly, it doesn't.
I think the saddest thing to me is that it's so generic. We know there's some faction striving for wealth, one about combat, one seeking for mysteries (or at least we're told that) - but these are completely meaningless labels because the quests they give are all the same anyway, and they're not even related to their alleged goals. But there's no rooting in TES lore either, not even some simple "We are daedra of Hermaeus Mora, therefore we amass secret knowledge" or "We praise Malacath through battle". They are just random people who, for unexplained reasons, want money, or knowledge, or power. It almost has something clichéd to it, a very simple depiction of the world: Like that's the three life goals people might have.
This genericity also shows up in the combat districts. We have those arcade-like games. No one knows why they are there, or why one should do them - but anyway, your faction gives you favor points for that. Specifically, the text popup tells you it's for "increasing their reputation" - by playing some random games about shooting spiders or rolling boulders or crouching through a tunnel with laser barriers?! How does anything of that has anything to do with TES?
Then we have quests. In many cases, even the quest description is just a one-liner. All very vague. Someone has left notes you need to complete. Some guy has lost whatever and you shall fetch it. Or another example:
"I found a note asking for aid in freeing caged animals captured by poachers. If I free the animals, I can return this note to a collection box on a rooftop oasis to receive payment."
While it's nice to free these animals, it's completely unclear why they are even there in this daedric realm, who they belong to, who gives you the task, or why someone caught them, or why there are even poachers inside those locations (inside some mysterious daedric realm full of dangers where you can't walk three steps without daedra trying to murder you), or how freeing these animals will really help them in that dangerous environment where within a minute some animal daedra would likely eat them (we don't even bring them into safety, despite having transported weirder things in ESO before; we just open the cages, that are surrounded by dozens of dangerous creatures, and that's it)?
Or this one:
"I found a note tacked onto a notice board telling me that the other factions put up horrible propaganda about my faction. For a reward, I can clean up the district and protect our reputation."
Who put this propaganda up and why (There's no one around except for murderous daedra, so who's going to read that?!), what did it say, and why would a faction, which are all depicted as rogue-ish, care for that anyway? It's not mysterious, it's completely random and makes no real sense. And (and that's what I actually wanted to write about): It's completely generic and not related to TES at all. The quest about removing posters spreading evil lies about someone could also take place in a science fiction story set in 2300 in some colony on Mars, in a mafia story in 1920 USA, or in some children's story taking place inside a Swiss elementary school in 2010. Even the wording mentions nothing that hints on this being a TES story, or a fantasy story. It could be any place, any era, any genre. There's not even some bit of embellishment to even make it look like it's somehow TES. It could have been easily written by someone who has never heard a single word about TES lore before. And that makes me wonder... This game did have combat-focused content before, after all, but also dungeons and trials had a story clearly connected to the world of TES.
Though there's one thing about the Market that I actually find really funny. Not sure if you have taken a look into all 3 different zones before you dropped the content, but one of them is more or less "nightmare"-themed, eternal night with werewolves, liches, ghosts, skeletons, and all that. And for some reason, some of the random enemies there are Telvanni. Probably the scariest, most nightmarish enemies they could think of.
I only ended up going into the one section--skittering something? That is funny that the Telvanni are grouped with the nightmare area.
I get the idea that the Night Market was made to promote group play in a different way from dungeons and trials. It was given a basic (very basic) story framework, but since the story and the lore aren't the point of it, those aspects didn't get much development. Surface-level quests such as you describe come across to me as what I consider "filler quests" in zones--you know: small, simple quests put in just to increase the number of quests and make it seem like there's more to do. My experience with Night Market is minimal, and will remain so, because that place just is not for me.It is experimental, but since they haven't defined what they consider experimental about it, it's impossible to know what parts of it they are looking at for possible change (if it doesn't work) or iteration (if it does).
Knowing about the love for recycling, I'd not be surprised to see some of these "puzzles" again in future content. Perhaps with a different skin slapped onto them, so you don't crouch through tunnels with laser lightning traps but instead try to avoid poisoned spikes, or clouds of poisonous gas, or whatever.
Makes me wonder about the Sages Vault. Since that isn't combat-focused, put puzzle/trap focused (I think), what will that be like? Will there be a reason for the various puzzles? Or will it all be under the umbrella of: you wanted to explore, so explore? We don't know enough about it yet to have much of an idea, I'm aware. I was really hoping for puzzles with more thinking to them rather than just: can you time it right to not get hit by a thing.So if I had to guess what they mean about "excursion zone" I would think something that is a combination of story questing in the classic style of the game, and then some evergreen content added to it. Perhaps some form of repeatable quest that isn't the usual delve/world boss/incursion repeatable; something that has more narrative cohesion to it instead of just a round of chores. Or perhaps the zone story will be time-released. (LotRO does this sometimes: they'll release a quest arc over time, usually in weekly intervals).
Or perhaps it'll just be open-world Night Market with a different name.
If I had to guess, I'd say it probably has some main story and the surrounding areas of the city could be some kind of solo player Night Market, with a puzzle here, a boss there. Generally I somehow imagine it smaller in scope and with less detail and less different quests and locations than chapters had been in the past. We don't know yet, of course. I just hope it won't disappoint the story- and exploration-focused players who, from the impression I got, seem to expect something big next year, after this year had no new permanent overland zone in the usual sense at all.
Well, it will be smaller in scope than a chapter, I'm sure. We don't even know what size area the zone will be, much less what "excursion zone" means. I also hope it won't disappoint, because new zones with great quests are my favorite thing in this game. I can be happy with great quests put in existing zones, especially if they expand on that zone's history and lore some more, but a new place to explore is top notch fun.I think Mayhem used to happen around this time of year--before the chapter release. Or was it after? Eh, I don't know. I never paid much attention to it. At least the trade bars don't expire, though, or have a cap, so you can just happily stockpile them for whenever the vendor comes back with something you want.
It's strange somehow the Impresaria didn't show up now, since you can also earn trade bars in the Night Market. Though it's strangely an extremely low number; I think some bosses can sometimes drop 2 - seems totally nonsensical to me that you'd need to kill 150 bosses to get the number of trade bars that you'd get on one day during the normal events, sometimes even by just killing one boss or even by just eating cake once a day! It made me wonder if it's a mistake or bug, or if the average player is actually supposed to kill that many bosses a day - which would feel completely off to me, or how many hours a day is one supposed to play this game?
I would guess the trade bars in the Night Market are meant to be just a little bonus thing, not a major means of acquiring them. Can you imagine the reaction if you could rake in the trade bars in Night Market? The outcry of people claiming they are "forced" to play Night Market because of trade bars? I didn't even know trade bars could drop in there (and I don't care if they do--or if they drop by the thousands) but I doubt the expectation was that anyone would farm Night Market for trade bars.I don't know what the exchange rate for points to gold will be, but it's unlikely to be significant enough to make chasing points worthwhile. I'm on page 7 on one account, and page 8 on another. I've not been playing a whole lot lately. It still remains to be seen whether or not I finish off the pages. If I was desperate to do so, I have tome point caches, but I'd have to be really desperate to open one of those.
I just find it weird that there was no clear announcement of the conversation rate yet. I'd think it's a topic people would care to know about. And some people already seem to have unlocked the last page now, so they're in the situation now to decide if they still want to do more chores or not.
As for the question if gold would be worth the grind... For some very easy tasks perhaps, or if it's really something one does anyway (like picking up some treasure chests or doing event quests when the next event starts), but other than that - I don't think so. Those chores take so long, one would probably get more gold in the same amount of time by just going on a stealing spree.
I saw in one thread that the conversion rate right now on PTS is 10 gold to one tome point--not sure if that's going to be what goes live. Definitely not worth the grind in that case. I've been on a playing spree the past few days, so both my accounts have unlocked page nine. Now that I'm that far in, I think it's safe to say I'll be getting the whole thing done soon enough. Once I have, and I've bought all the things I want, I can't see myself bothering with the tasks on purpose--though some might get done by chance.When I first started playing the game, I was mystified at how often town npcs got murdered. At that time, I didn't know about the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood content that encourages such play. And though technically Thieves Guild sends you to steal, not kill, I've noticed that people often kill the npcs after stealing from them. Anyway, at first I found it a bit shocking, but that was just me being a standard rpg player.
Game mechanics. They refill/respawn faster if murdered, and many players seem to care for that more than they care for immersion or roleplaying aspects. And while they can play the game any way they like, of course, it's sometimes really not a nice experience for the more immersion-focused players (I also don't like towns full of murdered npcs much - even less so when I started playing this game and wasn't used to everyone respawning endlessly yet). Well, it's another downside of playing an MMO that one needs to live with.
Yeah, MMOs do require a lot of that kind of acceptance. I never kill the npcs I pickpocket (unless they catch me and start attacking, that is). I didn't realize that if I pickpocketed an npc, they wouldn't have anything for someone else to pickpocket. I thought they had bottomless pockets! Hah, well, I don't pickpocket that much.I go out of my way to not kill the animals on the landscape. I wish they were all non-hostile--you know, the yellow-named mobs--because I find it quite ridiculous that every animal in Nirn is so extremely aggressive. Must be something in the water.
In a way it's an rpg trope. Also the need for enemy variety for wilderness zones - can't just be bandit type a, b and c all the time. It doesn't have much to do with reality.
I also try to avoid killing wild animals in ESO most of the time; especially if they nowhere close to cities it just makes me wonder why I would even want to disturb them while they do whatever they're doing. They pose no danger to anyone there, far away in the wilderness, and if my character is no hunter, I don't know why I should kill them for meat or pelts either. I think it's a pity I sometimes need to kill them because they are placed right next to some crafting survey spot and attack when I try to harvest the nodes.
There are some surveys that have wild animals near them, and in those cases I often wait for the animals to path away before I run up, grab the node, and scoot away before they realize I'm there and want to attack. It's my own mini-game challenge I came up with years ago. For non-survey nodes, I just don't harvest the ones with animals right next to them.It's actually a bit off-putting to play a Breton through Betnikh, at least for me, especially since the over-arching story is that we're there to convince this tribe of Orcs to join the Daggerfall Covenant. So we have to solve all their island problems for them first, and of course the island problems are Worm Cult related, and then they'll lend their might (?) to the Covenant. But as far as showcasing the life and times of a tribe of colonizing Orcs, the quests are fine--there's nothing wrong with the narrative other than assuming my character has zero problem with helping this tribe that destroyed the previous Breton inhabitants of the island.
I think the game should give different dialogue options so the player can individually decide what stance their character has on events, including events of the past.
But automatically assuming that a character must still feel hatred for that happened centuries ago (and when trade relations between the former enemies have already been established for a longer time) doesn't seem logical either. If people would never recognize war atrocities that happened decades or even centuries ago as being a thing of the past, which were horrible crimes but can't be changed anymore, then the whole world would forever remain in permanent war, with no chance for peace at all. I don't want to get too deep into real-world comparisons as they might not be welcome here, I don't know, but I want to mention this, because it's a rather positive example: When the EU was founded in 1993, the Second World War (with 70 million people dead, war crimes, shifting country borders, displacement, forced labor, etc - and there was no family who was not affected by this) had been over for less than 50 years. There were even precursors of the EU already in the 1950's, but I can say that in the late 1990's, especially among younger people, there was no thinking of each other as former enemies anymore at all. It's just how things were, and the most important thing is to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. And a stable and reliable alliance is exactly one way to achieve that.
I didn't mean that all Bretons would feel hatred for what happened nine generations ago (that's the timeline given on the loading screen for Betnikh--and I'm not sure how much time that is meant to be in this game). And, unlike the real world, our characters actually experience the events of the Orc takeover as if they were there, making it seem fresher. So there's my Breton, reliving the past through some Orc's perspective, and hearing the Orcs call the Bretons 'cowards' for daring to try to fight back against the invasion and keep their home for themselves. I found it annoying, and I really wanted the chance for my Breton character to be able to express her distaste for how the Orcs acquired the island. I made no assumptions about what other characters might think about the situation.Also, I'm curious now: Would "colonizing" be the correct term in English for one singular nomadic(?) orc tribe occupying a foreign kingdom's island? A colony, at least, is defined as being a remote settlement belonging to some bigger empire, which is hardly the case when we're talking about one single tribe that has no lands anywhere else.
Hmm, given that scenario, colonizing probably doesn't fit what they did. So what is the term for a nomadic, landless clan who decides an inhabited and settled island is now theirs and proceeds to drive off/murder the current inhabitants?It's the sameness of these quests that bother me, not that they're humorous or light-hearted. These npcs will never grow or change or anything. And I don't even mean that they have to become "better people." There just isn't any depth to them, and their initial character traits are the sum total of who they are. It's like they've been cursed to play out the same story on a loop wherever they go, the only changes being in the minor details of the quest. However, I'm aware that plenty of people do enjoy these characters and quests and wouldn't want them changed up. I guess it's just another case of different people like different things.
I'm not sure if character development would make it much better in these cases. I just think that some characters are generally over-used in ESO and could get a little bit less screen time. I'm also sure there are many more light-hearted stories that could be written with completely different characters and backgrounds instead of needing to rely on the same (Rigurt, Stibbons, Dren) all the time.
Well, sure, they're definitely over-used, all of them. But having them play out the same basic story every time they do show up is..well, I already said how I feel about it.Considering the priest only did a deal with Molag Bal in a desperate bid to save his village from the raiding Nords, it would be strange if he had planned out a ritual. The way it was presented was this: Nords attacked (no reason given); wife led the defense of the town (being the captain of the guard); husband priest stayed at home and prayed to Stendarr for help (no details on how long the attack was going on or how long he'd been praying); wife entered home to check on husband and found him talking to Molag Bal, sealing the hasty deal. It doesn't seem like he had time to perform a ritual, and since everyone in the town, both villagers and ransacking Nords alike, is now cursed with undead existence, forever living out that last day, my question remains the same: can one's soul be bargained away from them that easily?
The bigger question to me is: Why would a random person choose Molag Bal to bargain with? Would one randomly get that idea, especially if one had never anything to do with daedra worship before?
This is how this particular situation was presented: priest of Stendarr was praying for help, initially to Stendarr, and then to just anyone who would listen. Since Molag Bal was the only one who was listening (must've been a slow day in Coldharbor), he was the only one who answered, and desperate priest of Stendarr did desperate act. So the priest didn't choose Molag Bal so much as just take the only entity who showed up. Why he thought he could get any help from Molag Bal is a different question--but we don't know what Molag Bal said to him, after all. We don't get those details.emilyhyoyeon wrote: »Are the majority of ESO players now really just looking for this kind of ''arcade'' content? The concept of investing into story/writing/world building anymore, considering the NM's positive reception, cannot be looking worth it to the devs.
I hope Night Market isn't giving the developers such an idea--that "arcade" content is more popular than the classic story and world building content the game was built upon. As a thing that exists as one way to play amidst all the other ways to play, Night Market is fine; if it becomes some kind of template for more and more future content, I'd be pretty upset.Edited by metheglyn on 10 May 2026 00:381 -
Syldras✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭@emilyhyoyeon @metheglyn So, first of all, I'm sorry for the long absence! I've been ill, then busy, then ill again; now it's not even 2 days anymore until the next story release - the Thieves Guild questline - , and later this month, there will also be the Sheogorath storyline, plus some few smaller releases that will probably have some kind of narrative background (hoping it will be more than what we've seen in the Night Market, which was barely anything when it comes to actual background story and lore, and which also gave me some kind of general ESO fatigue, to be honest - though that really wasn't the reason I had been absent).
Considering the bad news from earlier today (What news to return to these forums to!), I'm wondering: Do we want to continue discussing the writing and story content here? As in going through the new storylines, which are coming soon, together and discussing what comes to our mind?
Even if we keep it positive, as in voicing what we liked, and what we'd love to see, I'm honestly not even sure anymore if there will be any future narrative content releases? Just being honest about my current thoughts.
(Side note: Why ESO fatique? The lack of story of the Night Market, and the way how what we got presented there in terms of worldbuilding/lore felt so strangely random. The grind. The focus on so many chore-like activities, including the tome and golden pursuits. Overland difficulty also not interesting me. Also becoming a bit wary about the Sages Vault, since it sounded like searching for levers or buttons or similar was a big part of it, which isn't my idea of "puzzles" = things that actually make me use my brain, not just run around searching things. But anyway, when it comes to future content - what we might still get and when - we're not really in the situation to be able to discuss these things now anyway, anymore.)@Syldras | PC | EU
The forceful expression of will gives true honor to the Ancestors.
Sarayn Andrethi, Telvanni mage (Main)
Darvasa Andrethi, his "I'm NOT a Necromancer!" sister
Malacar Sunavarlas, Altmer Ayleid vampire
Soris Rethandus, a Sleeper not yet awake1 -
ArchangelIsraphel✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭~A wild bosmer has appeared~
Syldras, I'm sorry to hear you've been ill, I hope you're doing better and that things are looking up for you. I've always valued your insights, along with many others who have shared their opinions here.
I just wanted to poke my head into this thread to say I'm happy to see that it's still around. The future may be uncertain, but I think the discussion you've all been having here has been of great benefit to the community as a whole. I've been reading along whenever I get a chance, even if I haven't had time to participate in the kind of discussions I used to get involved in. I personally believe that the valuable opinions to be had in well-informed threads like this can be a boon to the dev team as they move forward, especially now. (Providing they are reading. >.>; )
Also, I had similar feelings regarding the storyline of the Night Market. I enjoyed the general feeling/mechanics of what they were trying to accomplish (it felt like a strange PVE version of Cyrodiil, if I'm honest, which I liked) but I did find it rather repetitive after the first week or so, and in need of a lot of improvement. The story itself was...well, like you said, really random. I had a lot of trouble liking any of the leaders, and I found it difficult to connect their goals/reason for being there within the greater overarching story. Their motivations were very basic when compared to faction leaders in other stories. Greed, power, money...such standard mortal fare in a zone meant to be a demiplane of Oblivion. I suppose it's just because it's an event zone and most of us are there to gain benefits from it, after all. But I do wish they'd have come up with some more...exotic motivations? Especially for the daedra.
It just seemed very half-finished, but at least it was a little better than those random "tourist" quests we'd been getting for zone events.
Not to be too negative in the light of everything that's going on at the moment, but I'd thought I'd throw in my two cents, especially when I enjoyed the event generally, and would like to see them work to make improvements on it.
PC l NA
Legends never die
They're written down in eternity
But you'll never see the price it costs
The scars collected all their lives
When everything's lost, they pick up their hearts and avenge defeat
Before it all starts, they suffer through harm just to touch a dream
Oh, pick yourself up, 'cause
Legends never die2 -
Syldras✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭@ArchangelIsraphelArchangelIsraphel wrote: »~A wild bosmer has appeared~
Syldras, I'm sorry to hear you've been ill, I hope you're doing better and that things are looking up for you. I've always valued your insights, along with many others who have shared their opinions here.
I just wanted to poke my head into this thread to say I'm happy to see that it's still around. The future may be uncertain, but I think the discussion you've all been having here has been of great benefit to the community as a whole.
Thank you!ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »I've been reading along whenever I get a chance, even if I haven't had time to participate in the kind of discussions I used to get involved in. I personally believe that the valuable opinions to be had in well-informed threads like this can be a boon to the dev team as they move forward, especially now. (Providing they are reading. >.>; )
I know that devs have read the forums in the past year or so and picked up feedback and ideas from them. But I'm wondering how much leeway there will even be in the future to be open for player suggestions, or how strict the directives from above might be now. Obviously, I don't know. What I can say is that it would be a sad change especially after the past year seemed to have worked so well in many cases when it came to feedback and communication. It felt like a real improvement - I'd hate to see that gone again.ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »Also, I had similar feelings regarding the storyline of the Night Market. I enjoyed the general feeling/mechanics of what they were trying to accomplish (it felt like a strange PVE version of Cyrodiil, if I'm honest, which I liked) but I did find it rather repetitive after the first week or so, and in need of a lot of improvement. The story itself was...well, like you said, really random. I had a lot of trouble liking any of the leaders, and I found it difficult to connect their goals/reason for being there within the greater overarching story. Their motivations were very basic when compared to faction leaders in other stories. Greed, power, money...such standard mortal fare in a zone meant to be a demiplane of Oblivion. I suppose it's just because it's an event zone and most of us are there to gain benefits from it, after all. But I do wish they'd have come up with some more...exotic motivations? Especially for the daedra.
It felt trope-y to me. Basic/standard motivations indeed (and nothing specifically for daedra where possibilities could be endless!); As if the thought had been: "What life goals do people have (in a somehow clichéd way)? Let's make a faction each for that!" - At least that was how it felt to me. One could say, once more (I've also criticized that in the Solstice year with black-and-white goodie/baddie characters and over-the-top evilness for the sake of being evil): Cartoony. The power-hungy brute. The wealth-loving hedonist. The mysterious gloomy knowledge-seeker. If you seek power without being brutish or care for collecting knowledge without dressing like a hobo the world will explode. To me, relying on clichés makes a narration feel less serious. Like a joke somehow. It doesn't help with immersing and creating actual feelings towards what happens in the story. Which is something that I care for a lot, being a roleplayer.
Well, if others agree, I think we can continue discussing. I can babble on basically forever. Like: Why did I find this in the Night Market, where did it even come from?!
And also, lately I learnt about the term "background show" - tv shows deliberately created for people not actually watching but just perhaps listening to it on the side while doing something completely different. A horrible concept and, for me, not really compatible with serious quality writing. We could discuss now how often stories - for movies, shows or games - might be written like that today, believing that the average consumer is not actually watching or listening anymore (but busy watching whatever on a second screen or staring at their phone). It was a thought I had regularly, thinking of all those dialogue repetations in ESO, for example.@Syldras | PC | EU
The forceful expression of will gives true honor to the Ancestors.
Sarayn Andrethi, Telvanni mage (Main)
Darvasa Andrethi, his "I'm NOT a Necromancer!" sister
Malacar Sunavarlas, Altmer Ayleid vampire
Soris Rethandus, a Sleeper not yet awake1 -
metheglyn✭✭✭✭✭
✭@emilyhyoyeon @metheglyn So, first of all, I'm sorry for the long absence! I've been ill, then busy, then ill again; now it's not even 2 days anymore until the next story release - the Thieves Guild questline - , and later this month, there will also be the Sheogorath storyline, plus some few smaller releases that will probably have some kind of narrative background (hoping it will be more than what we've seen in the Night Market, which was barely anything when it comes to actual background story and lore, and which also gave me some kind of general ESO fatigue, to be honest - though that really wasn't the reason I had been absent).
Considering the bad news from earlier today (What news to return to these forums to!), I'm wondering: Do we want to continue discussing the writing and story content here? As in going through the new storylines, which are coming soon, together and discussing what comes to our mind?
Even if we keep it positive, as in voicing what we liked, and what we'd love to see, I'm honestly not even sure anymore if there will be any future narrative content releases? Just being honest about my current thoughts.
(Side note: Why ESO fatique? The lack of story of the Night Market, and the way how what we got presented there in terms of worldbuilding/lore felt so strangely random. The grind. The focus on so many chore-like activities, including the tome and golden pursuits. Overland difficulty also not interesting me. Also becoming a bit wary about the Sages Vault, since it sounded like searching for levers or buttons or similar was a big part of it, which isn't my idea of "puzzles" = things that actually make me use my brain, not just run around searching things. But anyway, when it comes to future content - what we might still get and when - we're not really in the situation to be able to discuss these things now anyway, anymore.)
Hope you are on the mend!
It was indeed very bad news to find this morning, and I am saddened by the loss of so many talented people.
As far as continuing the discussion goes, I'll talk about the story/lore/writing of ESO as long as anyone wants to, because there is always a lot to consider.
However, I won't be going through the new storylines immediately. Partly this is due to my dislike of questing in a crowd, and partly it is due to other matters taking up most of my time just now. But I am looking forward to the new content and even the Sheogorath questline, even though I don't like Sheogorath, because story and lore and questing is what I love most about this game. Besides, my main character likes to thwart Daedric Princes if he can, and so maybe I can interpret the Sheogorath quest to read as him thrusting a spoke in the wheel of whatever shenanigans Sheogorath intends.
I understand ESO fatigue--I get it sometimes, too, and take a bit of a break. I also wasn't quite sure what to make of the Sages Vault after watching the stream that included more information about it. I guess I'll see if it's for me after I give it a try.ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »~A wild bosmer has appeared~
*gasp* I thought you were forever lost in one of Syldras' experiments!
On a less silly note, I'm also glad this thread is still around, and I'm always glad to chat about game stories (and more) with whomever pops in.Well, if others agree, I think we can continue discussing. I can babble on basically forever. Like: Why did I find this in the Night Market, where did it even come from?!
Now that is a bit of interesting lore/flavor. I have some questions.
1. Is this the first we've learned that there was official documentation about his banishment? I'd always thought it was just Iachesis sending him away and never mentioning the matter again.
2. Why are the runes "bizarre and illegible"? Does that mean someone scribbled on top of this document? That is, that the banishment bit is written in whatever language the Psijics use for their official documents, but then somewhere along the line someone else wrote those runes over the original text?
3. What's the significance of Mannimarco's name in red ink? Also, why emphasize that the document includes his name? Wouldn't a writ of banishment have to include the name of the banished, and therefore it shouldn't be a surprise to find it there? Or is the red-inked Mannimarco related to those indecipherable runes? Which in turn makes me think Mannimarco scrawled those runes over the original text, and they are meant as a curse of some sort on the Psijics.And also, lately I learnt about the term "background show" - tv shows deliberately created for people not actually watching but just perhaps listening to it on the side while doing something completely different. A horrible concept and, for me, not really compatible with serious quality writing. We could discuss now how often stories - for movies, shows or games - might be written like that today, believing that the average consumer is not actually watching or listening anymore (but busy watching whatever on a second screen or staring at their phone). It was a thought I had regularly, thinking of all those dialogue repetations in ESO, for example.
Some of the dialogue repetitions could be down to 'second screen' writing--saying the same thing over and over because people might not be paying full attention. Some of it, though, I think comes about from the fact that people can stop mid-way through a quest and not get back to it for a long time, and then might benefit from a line or two of refresher dialogue.
1 -
ArchangelIsraphel✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I know that devs have read the forums in the past year or so and picked up feedback and ideas from them. But I'm wondering how much leeway there will even be in the future to be open for player suggestions, or how strict the directives from above might be now. Obviously, I don't know. What I can say is that it would be a sad change especially after the past year seemed to have worked so well in many cases when it came to feedback and communication. It felt like a real improvement - I'd hate to see that gone again.
I have the same fears. Especially concerning how strict future directives may or may not be. I know they'll be able to move forwards (albeit more slowly) with their current plans. But what then? In the time since Project Blackbird folded, it felt as though the reigns came off the DEV team, and they were finally able to push the game forwards in a direction they had been longing to take it. It actually seemed like there was genuine passion behind the game again, as it was starting to gain it's second wind. I hope those who remain will still retain that drive, along with the freedom to make changes and communicate. Maybe we'll get smaller, bite-sized stories with more concentration on the overall writing. I don't know, I can only hope.The power-hungy brute. The wealth-loving hedonist. The mysterious gloomy knowledge-seeker. If you seek power without being brutish or care for collecting knowledge without dressing like a hobo the world will explode. To me, relying on clichés makes a narration feel less serious. Like a joke somehow. It doesn't help with immersing and creating actual feelings towards what happens in the story. Which is something that I care for a lot, being a roleplayer.
Agreed, I was put in mind of comic book villains, to be honest. Not that they were intended to be villains, but they followed a very similar, basic formula you tend to see in that form of media. I also felt like they were going for a sort of "seven deadly sins" kind of thing. Greed, gluttony, etc "chose your vice, traveler." Not to mention that it was all just flavor text, and had very little relevance to how you played through the Night Market, other than what dye and monster helm you ended up with.
I don't say that to be insulting, but as genuine criticism of the writing. Clichés aren't always a bad thing if they're used well, but in this case, the writing was far too one-dimensional to be satisfying. I couldn't get immersed at all, and just treated them as quest hub NPC's with no real relevance to my character's story.
I joined The Thousand Eyes, because the idea of gaining knowledge would be both a temptation and a narrative driver for my Templar. It was pretty disappointing when absolutely nothing came of the supposed "hunt for knowledge". No hidden secrets, lost lore, or actual arcane abilities are revealed to the player at all. In fact, I think the most interesting thing about the faction ended up being the esoteric rat king motif on their banner. The history of which is rather interesting in and of itself, outside of the game.And also, lately I learnt about the term "background show" - tv shows deliberately created for people not actually watching but just perhaps listening to it on the side while doing something completely different. A horrible concept and, for me, not really compatible with serious quality writing. We could discuss now how often stories - for movies, shows or games - might be written like that today, believing that the average consumer is not actually watching or listening anymore (but busy watching whatever on a second screen or staring at their phone). It was a thought I had regularly, thinking of all those dialogue repetations in ESO, for example.
Oddly enough, I also ran into this concept recently, in regards to an infamous streaming company I won't name here. I read that article, and immediately thought of some of the event quests we've had. As if they were written to be skipped over, rather than interacted with. The recent valentines event comes to mind. I know that one was fairly popular, but you know how picky I am when it comes to the depiction of Sanguine (I did enjoy the outfit we got, though :P )
With that quest line, the Writhing Wall, and the recent Night market quests, they left me with a general feeling of "don't think about it too hard, and you'll have fun." As if they weren't written for roleplayers who want to get deeply immersed?
I feel like the term background show also connects to the idea that players who do the quests to be entertained (like watching a movie, without any story/rp feedback from their own mind) and players who do the quests to roleplay, are two very different types of players. We're often looking for content to play a character off of, to have something to go on or motivate further story telling. And I don't think the current writers have been taking that into account. They've been writing more for the "movie watchers". Then there's the "grab the quest and get to the action" players as well.Well, if others agree, I think we can continue discussing. I can babble on basically forever. Like: Why did I find this in the Night Market, where did it even come from?!
Oh now that is an interesting find, I didn't run across that. That's the sort of thing I would have loved to see get elaborated on in the Thousand Eyes. Rumors/secrets could have been used to track down more information on such old relics. A shame they didn't think of that!
I wonder if the runes had any kind of binding quality to them, a spell attempting to keep Mannimarco out. Or perhaps it's an Easter egg of some sort, maybe the next Night Market will have something to do with him? I'd love to know how the heck it got into this particular demiplane of Oblivion, especially given that it must have had some kind of importance to Mannimarco, not something I imagine he'd easily toss aside. Or maybe he did, so that it would no longer have power over him? (If it even could) So many possibilities. What sort of container did you find it in, or was it on a boss?*gasp* I thought you were forever lost in one of Syldras' experiments!
On a less silly note, I'm also glad this thread is still around, and I'm always glad to chat about game stories (and more) with whomever pops in.
Now now, even though there is a limit to how much confetti and self-combusting camel meat Master Syldras can get me to eat, I'm certainly not dead!
Yet. >.>;What's the significance of Mannimarco's name in red ink? Also, why emphasize that the document includes his name? Wouldn't a writ of banishment have to include the name of the banished, and therefore it shouldn't be a surprise to find it there? Or is the red-inked Mannimarco related to those indecipherable runes? Which in turn makes me think Mannimarco scrawled those runes over the original text, and they are meant as a curse of some sort on the Psijics.
I might be reaching, but the imagery is reminiscent of Japanese Ofuda, at least to me. They are a sort of sacred talisman used by Shinto priests as vessels for deities, in order to ward off evil. Something about his name being written in red, along with the runes, makes me feel like the document contained a binding spell, or a seal.
A little snippet of the lore off of the wiki that might connect to my theory, perhaps, given that it's weird that the object is here to begin with:
"One method the Order utilizes to fix phenomena such as Time Breaches is through the use of Psijic Seals, arcane anchors created by the ancient Aldmer who sought to bind any wayward spirits or forces in a given place during a time when the veil was thinner,[29] which allow the wielder to stabilize the rifts and harden the walls of time that surround them through the use of "chrononymics".[7] Order members might also use their own ability in Time Magic to manipulate and untangle phenomena such as Time Knots directly.[9] It has been theorized that the Order has the magic to transport beings through time.[30] The experiments the Order conducted on Change, one of the Eleven Forces, had the potential to cause one to enter a synchroseisiac state, becoming scattered across time and space and out of sync with the rest of Aurbis[17] Psijic monks had the ability to use Time Breaches in order to springboard to a different time and place.[7]
There have been cases of mages conducting rituals that caused their surrounding area to "ripple with temporal distortion", connecting different time periods and drawing beings from one into the other. While time was distorted in this manner interacting with objects with a strong link to the different time period had the potential to transport one through time to said period, experiencing that time's events by taking the place of the one the object was tied to originally"
The fact that it's a strangely out of place, and in a realm outside of time, made me think of that particular part of Psijic lore.Some of the dialogue repetitions could be down to 'second screen' writing--saying the same thing over and over because people might not be paying full attention. Some of it, though, I think comes about from the fact that people can stop mid-way through a quest and not get back to it for a long time, and then might benefit from a line or two of refresher dialogue.
I think the repetition is also a relic of the time when we could start a character in any zone we wanted, so there were some Who Is This Important Person? Dialogue choices that explained things to players who jumped into the middle of the story.PC l NA
Legends never die
They're written down in eternity
But you'll never see the price it costs
The scars collected all their lives
When everything's lost, they pick up their hearts and avenge defeat
Before it all starts, they suffer through harm just to touch a dream
Oh, pick yourself up, 'cause
Legends never die1 -
Syldras✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭However, I won't be going through the new storylines immediately. Partly this is due to my dislike of questing in a crowd, and partly it is due to other matters taking up most of my time just now. But I am looking forward to the new content and even the Sheogorath questline, even though I don't like Sheogorath, because story and lore and questing is what I love most about this game. Besides, my main character likes to thwart Daedric Princes if he can, and so maybe I can interpret the Sheogorath quest to read as him thrusting a spoke in the wheel of whatever shenanigans Sheogorath intends.
Oh, actually I'm also someone who prefers to wait for a while after releases, until the initial rush of people is gone (Generally, the atmosphere or theme I mostly enjoy when questing in an rpg is basically that of being a lone explorer - well, actually it's not much different than when travelling in real life, I despise all group activities, and want, at most, one person with me, if necessary; of course having masses of other people run around doesn't help with that. Of course I'm aware this is an MMO, but it's fine if I can organize my playtimes myself so I won't come across masses of other players).
The "problem" (or not, depending on if one cares for it or not) is that I think there will be a Golden Pursuit starting with the release of the new questline, rushing us through the new content - again. I already disliked it the past few times they did that, not allowing us to play story content (which has generally become scarce) in our own pace. I think the first time it happened was when they released Scribing? It really wasn't fun rushing through it in those 2 weeks after release or so, with all places being extremely crowded like some mass tourism spot, when I actually had other plans.
I honestly wonder why it is necessary? Yes, surely they want to "motivate" people to play the new content, but does it need to be pushed like that, I wonder? As someone interested in quest content, an info that there is new content is enough for me - I will check it out on my own. As for people demanding rewards: These could just be included as quest rewards (or through the achievement lists, if they want that), no need for another task list on top of that - a time-limited one, of all things.
That's another issue: FOMO. We were told they understand people hate FOMO, but now we have lots of time-gated FOMO chores instead of giving us rewards earnable at any time through playing the game. Even ads sometimes rely on FOMO now - I've seen several different ones telling people to buy the Tome "fast, before it's gone!!!!" - and the same with the Night Market too, by the way. (Oh, I notice I actually took a note about one of these ad texts; it was literally "The countdown is running out! Get the rewards for Season Zero as long as you still can!") - what's that if not extreme FOMO marketing?
Anyway, now that I know we'll keep discussing story content here, I will keep that in mind during my playthrough (no matter when it will take place), and take some notes!I understand ESO fatigue--I get it sometimes, too, and take a bit of a break.
I never had ESO fatigue to that extent before - there really was something exhausting and frustrating about the Night Market (and interestingly, I talked to several people who felt exactly the same; usually no problems with fatigue - but the Night Market somehow made them lose interest for the game for a whole while, which I think is an interesting phenomenon; I also didn't bother to watch that big Xbox stream, by the way, knowing there's no new ESO chapter coming anyway).
Of course, it was my decision to partake in the Night Market for the achievements/rewards, so it's my own fault; all I'm saying is that forcing myself through group content despite absolutely disliking grouping with random people was somehow generally taking away my fun for this game (and it even messed up my usual playstyle for a while, I think - I got so used to just running past mobs in the Night Market, from marker to marker, fast-paced, so I somehow did the same in all other locations afterwards when doing daily quests and such - it's not a good habit; I'm slowly returning to my old playstyle now, but it made me think about how certain types of content might change players way of interacting with the game altogether, and how that could cause possibly cause difficulties/problems in other parts of the game?).
And the following content additions and announcements also didn't manage to really fascinate me, on top of that. Well, next thing are the questlines now, I'm curious how I'm going to like those!I also wasn't quite sure what to make of the Sages Vault after watching the stream that included more information about it. I guess I'll see if it's for me after I give it a try.
Ah, right, the stream(s). To be honest, there wasn't that much of interest lately for me personally. Lots of things that might be improvements in a way (and of course I'm happy for people who like these things), but not actual content. Like that option to reorganise the UI, for example - some people will love it, but it's not actually playable content. And for me personally, it's absolutely desinteresting - I don't want to spend my little free time on shoving around parts of a UI, I want to play the actual game. (Also, I'm a little concerned it might break lots of addons, but that's a different topic). But now, plans and priorities might have changed anyway - we'll see.Now that is a bit of interesting lore/flavor. I have some questions.
1. Is this the first we've learned that there was official documentation about his banishment? I'd always thought it was just Iachesis sending him away and never mentioning the matter again.
Yes. The first official mention of his banishment being recorded. Then again, I'm not really surprised; I somehow just assumed they'd probably have records about more or less anything there. Mer (well, except for Bosmer) seem to love bureaucracy, after all.3. Why are the runes "bizarre and illegible"? Does that mean someone scribbled on top of this document? That is, that the banishment bit is written in whatever language the Psijics use for their official documents, but then somewhere along the line someone else wrote those runes over the original text?
To me it felt a little trope-y. Of course the old, reclusive mages on some hidden island write things "bizarrely" and "illegibly" - too wise, old and reclusive to be understood by The Normal Person™ or so - except for the name of The Evil One, of course written in a different, eye-catching color (Red - danger, death, blood!) somewhere inbetween the chaotic scribblings, so it immediately catches the reader's attention.3. What's the significance of Mannimarco's name in red ink? Also, why emphasize that the document includes his name? Wouldn't a writ of banishment have to include the name of the banished, and therefore it shouldn't be a surprise to find it there? Or is the red-inked Mannimarco related to those indecipherable runes? Which in turn makes me think Mannimarco scrawled those runes over the original text, and they are meant as a curse of some sort on the Psijics.
I, personally, was first reminded of the tradition in some Asian cultures to write names of dead people in red (it's such a taboo until today that writing or printing a text including someone's name with red ink is seen as extremely distasteful, basically bringing bad luck or even wishing that person death). I'm not sure though if it's likely that the person who wrote that flavor text is aware of this tradition, so perhaps it was just meant to be some signal color here.Some of the dialogue repetitions could be down to 'second screen' writing--saying the same thing over and over because people might not be paying full attention. Some of it, though, I think comes about from the fact that people can stop mid-way through a quest and not get back to it for a long time, and then might benefit from a line or two of refresher dialogue.
It's a bit much, and I have the impression that the writing, or more precisely the phrasing, has generally become more simple over the years, with little info to actually think about. But anyway, I found it concerning to learn that "background shows" are even an established thhing, as it just sounds sad to me to produce media with the expectation that it was just babbling somewhere in the background with people not really paying much attention to it.ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »I don't say that to be insulting, but as genuine criticism of the writing. Clichés aren't always a bad thing if they're used well, but in this case, the writing was far too one-dimensional to be satisfying. I couldn't get immersed at all, and just treated them as quest hub NPC's with no real relevance to my character's story.
I joined The Thousand Eyes, because the idea of gaining knowledge would be both a temptation and a narrative driver for my Templar. It was pretty disappointing when absolutely nothing came of the supposed "hunt for knowledge". No hidden secrets, lost lore, or actual arcane abilities are revealed to the player at all. In fact, I think the most interesting thing about the faction ended up being the esoteric rat king motif on their banner. The history of which is rather interesting in and of itself, outside of the game.
It was indeed interesting to see the concept of a rat king coming up in ESO.
But, generally: I had the feeling the whole faction thing was, like sadly so many things nowaways, all just about "aesthetics", but with no real meaning behind it. The Eyes looked mysterious, the Glitter faction had some wealthy show-off party look, the Brutes faction looked "tough" - but there was nothing behind it.
In the end, they all had the same tasks, the same stuff at their furnishing seller, and having no differences there at all made the biggest part of the Night Market setup feel redundant. They could have just removed the factions completely and put one questgiver and one furnishing store npc on the main plaza, and it would have made no difference. It really made me wonder why they even made up factions and that whole competition aspect when it just felt meaningless and random. If there are factions with allegedly different goals, I want to actually see that coming up somehow - in dialogue, in playstyle. I think even splitting the different dailies between factions (so there would actually be some quest about collecting info for the Eyes, about combat for the Brutes, etc) and letting players freely choose which faction(s) to help per day would have made more sense.
But the way it was, yes, it wasn't immersive at all. It was just running around doing random tasks for points, which contributed to the general feeling of that place being some lore-less arcade game location, but not actually a believable place in the world of TES. It was sad, actually, and it made me wary if this kind of content could be ESO's focus going forwards.ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »Oddly enough, I also ran into this concept recently, in regards to an infamous streaming company I won't name here. I read that article, and immediately thought of some of the event quests we've had. As if they were written to be skipped over, rather than interacted with. The recent valentines event comes to mind. I know that one was fairly popular, but you know how picky I am when it comes to the depiction of Sanguine (I did enjoy the outfit we got, though :P )
In terms of Sanguine lore, that was... well, not quite it. But the strangest to me was that choices were given, but in the end, nothing really made any difference. And even if something bad was supposed to happen, no npc really seemed to care anyway. Why have choices if there are no consequences?ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »With that quest line, the Writhing Wall, and the recent Night market quests, they left me with a general feeling of "don't think about it too hard, and you'll have fun." As if they weren't written for roleplayers who want to get deeply immersed?
It felt like the focus was just on fast-paced action and bombastic effects, but not much beyond that. Indeed, for a roleplayer, this isn't very interesting.ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »I feel like the term background show also connects to the idea that players who do the quests to be entertained (like watching a movie, without any story/rp feedback from their own mind) and players who do the quests to roleplay, are two very different types of players. We're often looking for content to play a character off of, to have something to go on or motivate further story telling. And I don't think the current writers have been taking that into account. They've been writing more for the "movie watchers". Then there's the "grab the quest and get to the action" players as well.
Indeed. Getting entertained by big visual effects, action and quips is a more passive thing, in contrast to actually immersing, contemplating the events of the story, thinking further about it, building one's own character stories based on the things happening on screen. I wish players who enjoy the latter would be taken more into consideration. I think TES games, also ESO in its earlier years, provided a lot for that type of player.ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »Oh now that is an interesting find, I didn't run across that. That's the sort of thing I would have loved to see get elaborated on in the Thousand Eyes. Rumors/secrets could have been used to track down more information on such old relics. A shame they didn't think of that!
I wonder if the runes had any kind of binding quality to them, a spell attempting to keep Mannimarco out. Or perhaps it's an Easter egg of some sort, maybe the next Night Market will have something to do with him? I'd love to know how the heck it got into this particular demiplane of Oblivion, especially given that it must have had some kind of importance to Mannimarco, not something I imagine he'd easily toss aside. Or maybe he did, so that it would no longer have power over him? (If it even could) So many possibilities. What sort of container did you find it in, or was it on a boss?
Sadly, I think there was nothing to it - it was just random loot. Lots of random loot dropping from reward boxes there, I also had that Mannimarco reliquary amulet again, for example, plus all kinds of items from across the continent, Dwemer shopping lists, Dunmer toilet paper, and what not - you get it, just the usual random loot/contraband items. I could not see any specific adjustments to the Night Maket in the selection. Which made me wonder: Why? It's random stuff showing up there, but how does this in any way relate to this location? It felt random again.ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »I think the repetition is also a relic of the time when we could start a character in any zone we wanted, so there were some Who Is This Important Person? Dialogue choices that explained things to players who jumped into the middle of the story.
But it also comes up in newer storylines, sadly, that were written long after One Tamriel was introduced.ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »Now now, even though there is a limit to how much confetti and self-combusting camel meat Master Syldras can get me to eat, I'm certainly not dead! Yet. >.>;
Don't worry. If you ever die, I'll just resurrect you as a thrall!
Edited by Syldras on 7 July 2026 13:12@Syldras | PC | EU
The forceful expression of will gives true honor to the Ancestors.
Sarayn Andrethi, Telvanni mage (Main)
Darvasa Andrethi, his "I'm NOT a Necromancer!" sister
Malacar Sunavarlas, Altmer Ayleid vampire
Soris Rethandus, a Sleeper not yet awake1 -
metheglyn✭✭✭✭✭
✭ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »What's the significance of Mannimarco's name in red ink? Also, why emphasize that the document includes his name? Wouldn't a writ of banishment have to include the name of the banished, and therefore it shouldn't be a surprise to find it there? Or is the red-inked Mannimarco related to those indecipherable runes? Which in turn makes me think Mannimarco scrawled those runes over the original text, and they are meant as a curse of some sort on the Psijics.
I might be reaching, but the imagery is reminiscent of Japanese Ofuda, at least to me. They are a sort of sacred talisman used by Shinto priests as vessels for deities, in order to ward off evil. Something about his name being written in red, along with the runes, makes me feel like the document contained a binding spell, or a seal.
A little snippet of the lore off of the wiki that might connect to my theory, perhaps, given that it's weird that the object is here to begin with:
"One method the Order utilizes to fix phenomena such as Time Breaches is through the use of Psijic Seals, arcane anchors created by the ancient Aldmer who sought to bind any wayward spirits or forces in a given place during a time when the veil was thinner,[29] which allow the wielder to stabilize the rifts and harden the walls of time that surround them through the use of "chrononymics".[7] Order members might also use their own ability in Time Magic to manipulate and untangle phenomena such as Time Knots directly.[9] It has been theorized that the Order has the magic to transport beings through time.[30] The experiments the Order conducted on Change, one of the Eleven Forces, had the potential to cause one to enter a synchroseisiac state, becoming scattered across time and space and out of sync with the rest of Aurbis[17] Psijic monks had the ability to use Time Breaches in order to springboard to a different time and place.[7]
There have been cases of mages conducting rituals that caused their surrounding area to "ripple with temporal distortion", connecting different time periods and drawing beings from one into the other. While time was distorted in this manner interacting with objects with a strong link to the different time period had the potential to transport one through time to said period, experiencing that time's events by taking the place of the one the object was tied to originally"
The fact that it's a strangely out of place, and in a realm outside of time, made me think of that particular part of Psijic lore.
If I'm understanding this hypothesis correctly (and it's certainly possible I'm not), it means that someone (unknown) used that writ of banishment to move forward or backward in time and experience the time's events in place of Mannimarco. It's quite an interesting notion, and brings up a wealth of possibilities. Makes me think there's some powerful Psijic with some tangled plans focused on Mannimarco. Then of course I'd want to know the who and why of it all, if that was the case. Also how they lost that writ, and how it ended up in the Night Market. Accidental? Intentional? Was the writ bought and sold along a line of interested parties, the last of whom somehow misplaced it?
Well, now Syldras has it, and I'm sure nothing bad can come of that!ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »Some of the dialogue repetitions could be down to 'second screen' writing--saying the same thing over and over because people might not be paying full attention. Some of it, though, I think comes about from the fact that people can stop mid-way through a quest and not get back to it for a long time, and then might benefit from a line or two of refresher dialogue.
I think the repetition is also a relic of the time when we could start a character in any zone we wanted, so there were some Who Is This Important Person? Dialogue choices that explained things to players who jumped into the middle of the story.
Yeah, I'd forgotten about that aspect. As someone who has done all the story content, in order, on my main, and who remembers fairly well what's going on in the world of Tamriel, I admit I sometimes don't consider what it's like to be new to this world and game and not know all the details. These days I know I can just skip the dialogue options that have my character ask questions like, "Who's Vivec?", though from a role-playing perspective I'm often slightly bothered by seeing them available in the first place (particularly when my character is a Dunmer who was born and raised in Balmora and hasn't stepped foot off Vvardenfell yet).However, I won't be going through the new storylines immediately. Partly this is due to my dislike of questing in a crowd, and partly it is due to other matters taking up most of my time just now. But I am looking forward to the new content and even the Sheogorath questline, even though I don't like Sheogorath, because story and lore and questing is what I love most about this game. Besides, my main character likes to thwart Daedric Princes if he can, and so maybe I can interpret the Sheogorath quest to read as him thrusting a spoke in the wheel of whatever shenanigans Sheogorath intends.
Oh, actually I'm also someone who prefers to wait for a while after releases, until the initial rush of people is gone (Generally, the atmosphere or theme I mostly enjoy when questing in an rpg is basically that of being a lone explorer - well, actually it's not much different than when travelling in real life, I despise all group activities, and want, at most, one person with me, if necessary; of course having masses of other people run around doesn't help with that. Of course I'm aware this is an MMO, but it's fine if I can organize my playtimes myself so I won't come across masses of other players).
The "problem" (or not, depending on if one cares for it or not) is that I think there will be a Golden Pursuit starting with the release of the new questline, rushing us through the new content - again. I already disliked it the past few times they did that, not allowing us to play story content (which has generally become scarce) in our own pace. I think the first time it happened was when they released Scribing? It really wasn't fun rushing through it in those 2 weeks after release or so, with all places being extremely crowded like some mass tourism spot, when I actually had other plans.
I honestly wonder why it is necessary? Yes, surely they want to "motivate" people to play the new content, but does it need to be pushed like that, I wonder? As someone interested in quest content, an info that there is new content is enough for me - I will check it out on my own. As for people demanding rewards: These could just be included as quest rewards (or through the achievement lists, if they want that), no need for another task list on top of that - a time-limited one, of all things.
That's another issue: FOMO. We were told they understand people hate FOMO, but now we have lots of time-gated FOMO chores instead of giving us rewards earnable at any time through playing the game. Even ads sometimes rely on FOMO now - I've seen several different ones telling people to buy the Tome "fast, before it's gone!!!!" - and the same with the Night Market too, by the way. (Oh, I notice I actually took a note about one of these ad texts; it was literally "The countdown is running out! Get the rewards for Season Zero as long as you still can!") - what's that if not extreme FOMO marketing?
Was there a Golden Pursuit with scribing? I don't remember. I don't think I did that quest right away, because scribing just wasn't that interesting to me. Regardless of those details, I understand your point: why do they feel the need to pair new story content with a Golden Pursuit? I don't know. It's possible it's just another marketing thing, a way to hype up the content. I'd heard there was going to be a Pursuit for the Thieves Guild story, but didn't pay it much mind. Depending on how long it lasts, I may or may not get it done--if it's only a week-long thing, I won't; if it's around for a couple of months, I might. The Pursuit for the Night Market ran for a long time, didn't it? For myself, I'd prefer to not have Pursuits tied to story content, but it's possible ZOS is trying to give people a wider variety of Pursuits/rewards instead of just having them tied to events/systems.
As far as FOMO goes, they're never going to get rid of it entirely. Regarding the Season Zero ad text: in a charitable light, you could see it as reminding people to claim their rewards before the season ends (since the strange auto-claim feature doesn't, in fact, claim everything), but most likely it's to urge anyone who might have been tempted to purchase the upgrade to do so because this is their last chance. It's very much FOMO marketing in that regard.Anyway, now that I know we'll keep discussing story content here, I will keep that in mind during my playthrough (no matter when it will take place), and take some notes!
You'd better! And they better be the best notes you've ever taken! (Would use a smiley-guy of some variety here to indicate tone if the smilies weren't so very large and frightening.)I understand ESO fatigue--I get it sometimes, too, and take a bit of a break.
I never had ESO fatigue to that extent before - there really was something exhausting and frustrating about the Night Market (and interestingly, I talked to several people who felt exactly the same; usually no problems with fatigue - but the Night Market somehow made them lose interest for the game for a whole while, which I think is an interesting phenomenon; I also didn't bother to watch that big Xbox stream, by the way, knowing there's no new ESO chapter coming anyway).
Of course, it was my decision to partake in the Night Market for the achievements/rewards, so it's my own fault; all I'm saying is that forcing myself through group content despite absolutely disliking grouping with random people was somehow generally taking away my fun for this game (and it even messed up my usual playstyle for a while, I think - I got so used to just running past mobs in the Night Market, from marker to marker, fast-paced, so I somehow did the same in all other locations afterwards when doing daily quests and such - it's not a good habit; I'm slowly returning to my old playstyle now, but it made me think about how certain types of content might change players way of interacting with the game altogether, and how that could cause possibly cause difficulties/problems in other parts of the game?).
And the following content additions and announcements also didn't manage to really fascinate me, on top of that. Well, next thing are the questlines now, I'm curious how I'm going to like those!
I think I spent all of two hours in the Night Market the first day it was available, and since that small bit of time fatigued me, I could see how spending weeks in there could do it.
It is interesting how certain game components/features can alter our playstyles. I find myself sometimes speedrunning through content because I've just been speedrunning through my crafting dailies or event quests, and I have to actually check myself and slow down, because I don't actually like speedrunning through content. It's like the brain kicks into automation very easily, and overrides your own personal preferences.I also wasn't quite sure what to make of the Sages Vault after watching the stream that included more information about it. I guess I'll see if it's for me after I give it a try.
Ah, right, the stream(s). To be honest, there wasn't that much of interest lately for me personally. Lots of things that might be improvements in a way (and of course I'm happy for people who like these things), but not actual content. Like that option to reorganise the UI, for example - some people will love it, but it's not actually playable content. And for me personally, it's absolutely desinteresting - I don't want to spend my little free time on shoving around parts of a UI, I want to play the actual game. (Also, I'm a little concerned it might break lots of addons, but that's a different topic). But now, plans and priorities might have changed anyway - we'll see.
I know UI reorginization is a big plus for some players, so it's nice they'll be able to fiddle with it to their heart's content. LotRO has always had the ability to reorganize their UI in such a way, and it's nice to be able to put elements exactly where you want them, but I've never messed with it too much. I can't say I've ever been bothered by the UI layout of ESO, so I don't see myself using this new feature. What I want them to do is add a mini-map. I know there's an add-on for it, and I used it for a long time, but I much prefer for things like that to be part of the game itself. But, considering the new reality of the team, who knows what they'll be able to do regarding QOL updates, or anything, really. I really liked that ZOS had a team devoted to QOL/pain points, because those small things are valuable additions to the overall feel of the game. As you said: we'll have to see what the remaining team members are able to do.Now that is a bit of interesting lore/flavor. I have some questions.
1. Is this the first we've learned that there was official documentation about his banishment? I'd always thought it was just Iachesis sending him away and never mentioning the matter again.
Yes. The first official mention of his banishment being recorded. Then again, I'm not really surprised; I somehow just assumed they'd probably have records about more or less anything there. Mer (well, except for Bosmer) seem to love bureaucracy, after all.
They seem to love bureaucracy, but have very poor organizational skills, since they never seem to be able to locate information they need when they need it. If the Vault of Moawita is anything to go by, they also lose important things quite easily. So now my question is: was this writ supposed to be in their archives and somehow went missing, or was this a copy given to Mannimarco as they kicked him out (assuming they write out copies of their edicts)?3. Why are the runes "bizarre and illegible"? Does that mean someone scribbled on top of this document? That is, that the banishment bit is written in whatever language the Psijics use for their official documents, but then somewhere along the line someone else wrote those runes over the original text?
To me it felt a little trope-y. Of course the old, reclusive mages on some hidden island write things "bizarrely" and "illegibly" - too wise, old and reclusive to be understood by The Normal Person™ or so - except for the name of The Evil One, of course written in a different, eye-catching color (Red - danger, death, blood!) somewhere inbetween the chaotic scribblings, so it immediately catches the reader's attention.
The fact that the name was written in a different color is what made me think of someone writing over the original document--that the illegible runes were also written in red. Or maybe when the Psijic scribe was drawing up the writ, they ran out of regular ink just when they got to the name and had to use their back-up ink, which happened to red.3. What's the significance of Mannimarco's name in red ink? Also, why emphasize that the document includes his name? Wouldn't a writ of banishment have to include the name of the banished, and therefore it shouldn't be a surprise to find it there? Or is the red-inked Mannimarco related to those indecipherable runes? Which in turn makes me think Mannimarco scrawled those runes over the original text, and they are meant as a curse of some sort on the Psijics.
I, personally, was first reminded of the tradition in some Asian cultures to write names of dead people in red (it's such a taboo until today that writing or printing a text including someone's name with red ink is seen as extremely distasteful, basically bringing bad luck or even wishing that person death). I'm not sure though if it's likely that the person who wrote that flavor text is aware of this tradition, so perhaps it was just meant to be some signal color here.
I think I'll double-down on my supposition that someone used ancient runes scribbled over the original document to invoke a spell of some variety with Mannimarco as its focus. Now I just have to figure out who was doing that, and why.Some of the dialogue repetitions could be down to 'second screen' writing--saying the same thing over and over because people might not be paying full attention. Some of it, though, I think comes about from the fact that people can stop mid-way through a quest and not get back to it for a long time, and then might benefit from a line or two of refresher dialogue.
It's a bit much, and I have the impression that the writing, or more precisely the phrasing, has generally become more simple over the years, with little info to actually think about. But anyway, I found it concerning to learn that "background shows" are even an established thhing, as it just sounds sad to me to produce media with the expectation that it was just babbling somewhere in the background with people not really paying much attention to it.
Well, as we've seen plenty of times, creative endeavors are often harmed by the decisions of the people whose job it is to make the creativity profitable. Someone probably read a study or something about how people these days engage with media in a different way (multiple screens) and drew certain conclusions about what media had to be like going forward in order to succeed in this new way of consumption.ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »Oddly enough, I also ran into this concept recently, in regards to an infamous streaming company I won't name here. I read that article, and immediately thought of some of the event quests we've had. As if they were written to be skipped over, rather than interacted with. The recent valentines event comes to mind. I know that one was fairly popular, but you know how picky I am when it comes to the depiction of Sanguine (I did enjoy the outfit we got, though :P )
In terms of Sanguine lore, that was... well, not quite it. But the strangest to me was that choices were given, but in the end, nothing really made any difference. And even if something bad was supposed to happen, no npc really seemed to care anyway. Why have choices if there are no consequences?
I do think the Hearts Week event had potential, but it was odd that there were no consequences to what our characters might have chosen. I specifically took a character through who would want to work with Sanguine, and it wasn't meaningfully different from the character who went through the quests with the idea of thwarting Sanguine. As to what, precisely, Sanguine wanted our characters to do, I can't say if that fit with the Sanguine character or not--the most I know of Sanguine was their Skyrim appearance, and that was just...well, I didn't care for it. I can say that ESO Sanguine doesn't seem all that much different to me than Skyrim Sanguine, but I'm sure there are details I'm missing.ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »I feel like the term background show also connects to the idea that players who do the quests to be entertained (like watching a movie, without any story/rp feedback from their own mind) and players who do the quests to roleplay, are two very different types of players. We're often looking for content to play a character off of, to have something to go on or motivate further story telling. And I don't think the current writers have been taking that into account. They've been writing more for the "movie watchers". Then there's the "grab the quest and get to the action" players as well.
Indeed. Getting entertained by big visual effects, action and quips is a more passive thing, in contrast to actually immersing, contemplating the events of the story, thinking further about it, building one's own character stories based on the things happening on screen. I wish players who enjoy the latter would be taken more into consideration. I think TES games, also ESO in its earlier years, provided a lot for that type of player.
I have found it harder in recent years to figure out why my character would be doing some of the things that come up in the quests. And even in the quests where the decisions do fit my character, I can see how they wouldn't work for others. One recent example is all the support and help we give Darien in the Solstice quests. It seems to take for granted that the player character is invested in and cares about Darien's past/present/future and mental state. I know he's a popular NPC, but I also know there are people who don't care for him, and for those players, there's no way around being the super-supportive helpful Darien side-kick/buddy.
But on the other side there was at least one side-quest where the player could choose how to approach the NPC's demand, and I found that one quite satisfying. (It was the one with the guy who wanted the animal hides and said his partner had died to animal attack). So there is still some of that role-player perspective in some of the writing; it's not as much as I would like, but since the game has to serve a variety of playstyles, I think that might be the best we can hope for.ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »Now now, even though there is a limit to how much confetti and self-combusting camel meat Master Syldras can get me to eat, I'm certainly not dead! Yet. >.>;
Don't worry. If you ever die, I'll just resurrect you as a thrall!
Something to look forward to, for sure!1 -
emilyhyoyeon✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭So, first of all, I'm sorry for the long absence! I've been ill, then busy, then ill again; now it's not even 2 days anymore until the next story release - the Thieves Guild questline - , and later this month, there will also be the Sheogorath storyline, plus some few smaller releases that will probably have some kind of narrative background (hoping it will be more than what we've seen in the Night Market, which was barely anything when it comes to actual background story and lore, and which also gave me some kind of general ESO fatigue, to be honest - though that really wasn't the reason I had been absent).
Considering the bad news from earlier today (What news to return to these forums to!), I'm wondering: Do we want to continue discussing the writing and story content here? As in going through the new storylines, which are coming soon, together and discussing what comes to our mind?
Even if we keep it positive, as in voicing what we liked, and what we'd love to see, I'm honestly not even sure anymore if there will be any future narrative content releases? Just being honest about my current thoughts.
(Side note: Why ESO fatique? The lack of story of the Night Market, and the way how what we got presented there in terms of worldbuilding/lore felt so strangely random. The grind. The focus on so many chore-like activities, including the tome and golden pursuits. Overland difficulty also not interesting me. Also becoming a bit wary about the Sages Vault, since it sounded like searching for levers or buttons or similar was a big part of it, which isn't my idea of "puzzles" = things that actually make me use my brain, not just run around searching things. But anyway, when it comes to future content - what we might still get and when - we're not really in the situation to be able to discuss these things now anyway, anymore.)
Really happy to see you're back. And I hope you were doing ok during the crazy heat the past month.
I've been having the same thought, honestly, about not being sure there's even going to be any more story content. Even before the news the other day, I've been worried about it. It started with the official announcement of chapters to seasons or whatever because, although I don't think chapters are necessary for new stories, I did not have faith that it would mean anything else for ESO.
And the layoffs were disturbing to say the least. Someone posted an image list of the ESO devs in another thread here, and 6 of the 9 writers are confirmed gone. I've seen people throw around the idea that maybe there's going to be a shift towards AI written stories which would be disgusting and sad. Etc etc. So, yeah, it does feel like it would be silly to discuss this stuff at all anymore (but I like reading your insights regardless, so I don't want to suggest you stop lol, or anyone). I also feel this way about any kind of ESO suggestion at the moment, honestly, since everything about the game is seeming grim.
RE the ESO fatigue: I'm feeling the same way too. I've been enjoying overland difficulty and redoing old zone quests, but all the actual new content is just not it. I've definitely played the least amount this year as I ever have since I started playing this game. Also the Sages Vault, from what I saw during the stream a few weeks ago, is, yeah, a pass from me. I'm just not interested in a platform (?) style game-within-a-game. It gives off the arcade vibe like the Night Market. I don't want to play that stuff.
Some of my favorite posts from you, Syldras, are when you described what you're looking for in ESO, mentioning the stuff like wanting to expierence a world of different peoples and learn about their cultures, especially from perspective of people in those cultures and all that kind of thing. That's exactly what I want as well. It doesn't seem like the Sages Vault is anywhere near there.IGN @ emilypumpkin
Tullanisse Starborne altmer spellsword battlemage & scholar of the ayleids
Qa'Rirra khajiit assassin & dancer
Seliwequen Narilata altmer necromancer & debaucher1 -
Syldras✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Well, now Syldras has it, and I'm sure nothing bad can come of that!
I've already planned experiments! I can say it has some sort of magic aura emanating from it, but I'm not sure which kind specifically (probably Ancient Mysterious Psijic Magic). As I also conveniently have a certain guest in a marble box in my basement, I'll test if there's any reciprocal reactivity.Yeah, I'd forgotten about that aspect. As someone who has done all the story content, in order, on my main, and who remembers fairly well what's going on in the world of Tamriel, I admit I sometimes don't consider what it's like to be new to this world and game and not know all the details. These days I know I can just skip the dialogue options that have my character ask questions like, "Who's Vivec?", though from a role-playing perspective I'm often slightly bothered by seeing them available in the first place (particularly when my character is a Dunmer who was born and raised in Balmora and hasn't stepped foot off Vvardenfell yet).
It should be taken into consideration if a player character has done certain quests before or not. I mean, sometimes this game does that (they've even changed some base game Hermaeus Mora dialogue to be different in case a character has finished Necrom before those quests) - but often, sadly, not.
And when it comes to native Dunmer player characters asking about the Tribunal - there'd always be the possibility to word dialogues in a more vague way or to just make those questions an optional side branch of a dialogue.Was there a Golden Pursuit with scribing? I don't remember. I don't think I did that quest right away, because scribing just wasn't that interesting to me. Regardless of those details, I understand your point: why do they feel the need to pair new story content with a Golden Pursuit? I don't know. It's possible it's just another marketing thing, a way to hype up the content. I'd heard there was going to be a Pursuit for the Thieves Guild story, but didn't pay it much mind. Depending on how long it lasts, I may or may not get it done--if it's only a week-long thing, I won't; if it's around for a couple of months, I might. The Pursuit for the Night Market ran for a long time, didn't it? For myself, I'd prefer to not have Pursuits tied to story content, but it's possible ZOS is trying to give people a wider variety of Pursuits/rewards instead of just having them tied to events/systems.
I need to correct myself: The new Thieves Guild questline didn't get a Golden Pursuit (at least I didn't see a new one yesterday) - according to some monthly roadmap I've seen now it's the Sheogorath questline at the end of July that will get one (lasting 2 weeks). Thieves Guild did get related seasonal chores in the chore book, through, also only lasting for 2 weeks. Though in that case, if one doesn't do them, the only thing "lost" are tome points, at least, and those aren't exactly scarce (last season I stopped doing chores immediately when I had unlocked everything, and still ended up with about 14k extra points at the end of the season - they were converted into gold, which was a useful plus). It will be different with Sheogorath, especially since I read that those Golden Pursuit rewards will thematically be closely related to the questline's theme, so people might really want to get those.
In case of Scribing, it wasn't a Golden Pursuit, but one needed to complete achievements (from that achievement menu) to be able to claim a few items from the crown store for free. And these achievements were about reaching certain stages of the Scribing questline. So if one wanted to claim those items, one needed to rush through the questline right after release. It wasn't exactly pleasant.
I do understand they probably do that so there are high engagement numbers they can present somewhere (basically to show how much of a success the new content was), but for questers who want to immerse and experience stories in peace, it's really not fun. I'd go so far to say it's off-putting in a way.As far as FOMO goes, they're never going to get rid of it entirely. Regarding the Season Zero ad text: in a charitable light, you could see it as reminding people to claim their rewards before the season ends (since the strange auto-claim feature doesn't, in fact, claim everything), but most likely it's to urge anyone who might have been tempted to purchase the upgrade to do so because this is their last chance. It's very much FOMO marketing in that regard.
It had a "Buy now!" button, so it clearly wasn't just a well-meaning reminder for people who already participated in it to claim their stuff. I just find it ironic that this is more extreme FOMO marketing than we ever had seen in old ESO ads, and that this has started right after they told us in a stream that they heard the playerbase's wish and reduced FOMO. It just doesn't match.You'd better! And they better be the best notes you've ever taken! (Would use a smiley-guy of some variety here to indicate tone if the smilies weren't so very large and frightening.)
I really hope the sudden forum problems (Isn't it weird how they just started one day?) will get fixed soon. The invisible edit button is also slightly annoying.I think I spent all of two hours in the Night Market the first day it was available, and since that small bit of time fatigued me, I could see how spending weeks in there could do it.
In my case, it was 2 weeks (which doesn't even sound that long). The thing ran for 7 weeks in total, I think. I did wonder how busy it might still have been in the last few weeks, or if people struggled finding people to group with then, and I had initially thought about checking it on the last day or so - but once I've left the Night Market, I somehow had zero interest in ever seeing it again and also somehow forgot about it after a few days.It is interesting how certain game components/features can alter our playstyles. I find myself sometimes speedrunning through content because I've just been speedrunning through my crafting dailies or event quests, and I have to actually check myself and slow down, because I don't actually like speedrunning through content. It's like the brain kicks into automation very easily, and overrides your own personal preferences.
I also think it's a factor that possibly needs to be considered when designing things. How encouraging one specific type of behavior in one heavily hyped event activity could change behavior in other parts of the game, or also shape the expectations and feelings of the players - for the better or for the worse. After fastly running through the Night Market maps and getting into more difficult fights all the time, I also could see some players suddenly finding all other parts of ESO boring in comparison, for example, even if they had been totally okay with them before. As in: Overland fights having felt easy before, but after playing the Night Market for a while, they might feel super-easy now (and yes, I know, we have difficulty options now). But it's also the way one moves through the maps. It's obvious there's a big difference not only in difficulty, but also in pace between the Night Market and most other ESO content. Compared to the Night Market playstyle, all other content feels slow in a way. I enjoy that much more than the constant running, but I did wonder if the Night Market experience could have made all other content feel bland to some players now. Of course I appreciate ESO offering different kinds of content to the very diverse playerbase, but I still wonder.I know UI reorginization is a big plus for some players, so it's nice they'll be able to fiddle with it to their heart's content. LotRO has always had the ability to reorganize their UI in such a way, and it's nice to be able to put elements exactly where you want them, but I've never messed with it too much. I can't say I've ever been bothered by the UI layout of ESO, so I don't see myself using this new feature. What I want them to do is add a mini-map. I know there's an add-on for it, and I used it for a long time, but I much prefer for things like that to be part of the game itself. But, considering the new reality of the team, who knows what they'll be able to do regarding QOL updates, or anything, really. I really liked that ZOS had a team devoted to QOL/pain points, because those small things are valuable additions to the overall feel of the game. As you said: we'll have to see what the remaining team members are able to do.
What would be important to me is, if new UI items get added, they should be optional. I like my UI as minimal as possible (the way it is right now is okay for me). I personally would absolutely hate having a mini map on my screen. I can easily navigate by opening the normal map for the fraction of a second while riding (or mostly I just pin a location upon arriving in a zone and then just follow the compass marker), I just don't need it, and having it on my screen would take away visibility of my surroundings, especially since I don't have a super huge screen.
I fully understand the dislike for using add-ons, though. After every update, something breaks. It was okay for me when we had those 4 yearly updates - which meant not having to update all add-ons that often. Now, with more frequent smaller updates... Well, I am getting a little annoyed. Sometimes an add-on creator barely get their add-on updated before the next update drops that messes everything up again.They seem to love bureaucracy, but have very poor organizational skills, since they never seem to be able to locate information they need when they need it. If the Vault of Moawita is anything to go by, they also lose important things quite easily. So now my question is: was this writ supposed to be in their archives and somehow went missing, or was this a copy given to Mannimarco as they kicked him out (assuming they write out copies of their edicts)?
I don't think Mannimarco received any documents when leaving - at least it never sounded that way. So I'd assume it was something for the Psijic archives, that miraculously got lost somehow. Like many loot/contraband items. Or perhaps it's even fake?The fact that the name was written in a different color is what made me think of someone writing over the original document--that the illegible runes were also written in red. Or maybe when the Psijic scribe was drawing up the writ, they ran out of regular ink just when they got to the name and had to use their back-up ink, which happened to red.
My first thought went to the tradition of writing the name of the dead in read particularly because it was a name - but honestly, I'm not even sure if it has such a special meaning. In medieval manuscripts, it wasn't that uncommon to write some words or phrases in a different color (usually red, while the rest was black) to emphasize them. Today, bold or italic text is used, which obviously wasn't really possible with the handwritten letters back then. Underlining also wasn't always feasible. So they needed to use colors if they wanted to emphasize something. A bit more on this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubrication
And putting emphasis on a name in a bureaucratic document, so everyone can immediately see whom it is about, would absolutely make sense.Well, as we've seen plenty of times, creative endeavors are often harmed by the decisions of the people whose job it is to make the creativity profitable. Someone probably read a study or something about how people these days engage with media in a different way (multiple screens) and drew certain conclusions about what media had to be like going forward in order to succeed in this new way of consumption.
I wonder if usually, people are hired exactly for this kind of writing, or if "normal" writers are pushed by directives to write like this. I clearly know I couldn't, and I wouldn't want to. The whole idea of writing for people who don't actually read or listen just seems so absurd to me. Like a waste of time, somehow. In any way, it's a weird development we see in mainstream media now.As to what, precisely, Sanguine wanted our characters to do, I can't say if that fit with the Sanguine character or not--the most I know of Sanguine was their Skyrim appearance, and that was just...well, I didn't care for it. I can say that ESO Sanguine doesn't seem all that much different to me than Skyrim Sanguine, but I'm sure there are details I'm missing.
I just know that the background lore is much more intense, usually very tragic for the people involved, and often even outright brutal. The actual depiction in game then being light-hearted and funny feels off to me. It's basically the absolute opposite to what Sanguine stands for lore-wise: He's not the funny party guy, he's the demon seducing people into addiction, and into an increasingly extreme moral decline (beginning harmlessly, until they end up at absolutely despisible acts - imagine it starting with a bit of overeating and ending with cannibalism, or starting with a bit of flirtyness and ending with assault and murder; Sanguine's theme as shown in background lore is basically always a downwards spiral from the maybe sometimes not entirely morally correct but still harmless fun, to the utterly horrid). I can even understand, of course, that they don't want to graphically depict the most horrible things in game. But acting like it all was just harmless fun and there were no consequences at all feels like it completely ignores the central point of his theme.
Which made me wonder if they did this deliberately because they might think people today don't enjoy any grim stories anymore, but want only light-hearted and funny content? I mean, there's a general shift in tone when it comes to ESO, or at least it feels like that to me; I have the feeling the older chapter stories were usually more mature and more serious.I have found it harder in recent years to figure out why my character would be doing some of the things that come up in the quests. And even in the quests where the decisions do fit my character, I can see how they wouldn't work for others. One recent example is all the support and help we give Darien in the Solstice quests. It seems to take for granted that the player character is invested in and cares about Darien's past/present/future and mental state. I know he's a popular NPC, but I also know there are people who don't care for him, and for those players, there's no way around being the super-supportive helpful Darien side-kick/buddy.
Yes, I absolutely don't like the game defining my character's stance towards other characters for me. A more vague and open depiction would be what I prefer over that. Or, now that there is a dialogue choice system, actually getting decent choices there. There had been some, yes, but too often they did not matter much. As I had been writing earlier: The choice of being either "funny" or "friendly" towards an npc isn't really interesting. Interesting would be options that are vastly different and actually portray a very different stance towards a character.Something to look forward to, for sure!
At least it's never getting boring here.emilyhyoyeon wrote: »Really happy to see you're back. And I hope you were doing ok during the crazy heat the past month.
It wasn't exactly pleasant, but I was more worried about my plants, to be honest. I'm not killed that easily.emilyhyoyeon wrote: »I've been having the same thought, honestly, about not being sure there's even going to be any more story content. Even before the news the other day, I've been worried about it. It started with the official announcement of chapters to seasons or whatever because, although I don't think chapters are necessary for new stories, I did not have faith that it would mean anything else for ESO.
Yes, it's the whole tendency. Ending the chapter concept and concentrating on cosmetics as the main source of revenue looked bad. The concept of the Night Market with completely random tasks, and the minimal lore and story only serving as some kind of backdrop, looked particularly bad (especially because I know that concepts often get reused, so if we see one thing coming up, it will usually come up again - more about that later). And now the next problem... It's disheartening.emilyhyoyeon wrote: »And the layoffs were disturbing to say the least. Someone posted an image list of the ESO devs in another thread here, and 6 of the 9 writers are confirmed gone. I've seen people throw around the idea that maybe there's going to be a shift towards AI written stories which would be disgusting and sad. Etc etc. So, yeah, it does feel like it would be silly to discuss this stuff at all anymore (but I like reading your insights regardless, so I don't want to suggest you stop lol, or anyone). I also feel this way about any kind of ESO suggestion at the moment, honestly, since everything about the game is seeming grim.
I'm not exactly positive about all this either. Especially since the writer I had most hope for - who wrote Zerith-var's story and Corelanya Manor, which were for me the best stories in the past few years, that still conveyed the "typical TES spirit" that I love about this fictional world - also lost her job.
But maybe it's a small comfort to remember that ESO only had a handful of writers and lore people when it started. The number went up, almost doubled, in the later years. And despite it having been a very small team in the beginning, those stories are often still considered ESO's best ones until today. So even with a small team, something great could be written, potentially. It would just take more time.
I'm more concerned about possible directives from decision-makers above. If the directive is to focus on cosmetics for sale, or on more or less lore-less replayable arcade-like content,... Well.
I've decided I'll still continue writing here, just for fun. Maybe until it all ends - though of course I hope ESO still has a future and many years ahead!emilyhyoyeon wrote: »RE the ESO fatigue: I'm feeling the same way too. I've been enjoying overland difficulty and redoing old zone quests, but all the actual new content is just not it. I've definitely played the least amount this year as I ever have since I started playing this game. Also the Sages Vault, from what I saw during the stream a few weeks ago, is, yeah, a pass from me. I'm just not interested in a platform (?) style game-within-a-game. It gives off the arcade vibe like the Night Market. I don't want to play that stuff.
They said they want to try new things, different approaches (Wasn't there something in their latest trial preview that reminded of some old Nintendo racing game?!)... And I think that's valid; But indeed, I now often miss what makes TES typical TES. Running around randomly killing enemies for points in some remote world isn't it. Solving random puzzles for whatever in some remote world isn't it easier. What motivation would my character have to do these things? How is this related to Tamriel, which should be a vast living world with so many different cultures and their individual ways of living, struggles and conflicts? I don't need a TES game to randomly shoot things or push levers. I wish there was a bigger focus on the strong points of The Elder Scrolls again. The world and the huge amount of background lore spanning several millenia has been what attracted so many people to the series. If it's about running around and earning points, there are enough other games for that.
So. I wanted to write a bit about my experiences on day 1 of Season 1.
First I checked the new Tome - and found nothing of interest for me at all (sure, I'll pick up the currencies and the crown crates, but there's not a single thing I really, really not want to miss). Now, such things are always subjective, but I somehow generally expected something more grand, after they had emphasized that this was the real start (being Tome 1), and the last one as Tome 0 was just some... Well, prelude to it, in a way, but not really it? I honestly even had the feeling that Tome 0 had better items than the new one. Generally, I'm not sure if trying to gain all revenue from this will work well. Not sure if most people just want random collectibles enough to be willing to spend that amount of money for them. I know I personally would only buy a Tome (ignoring the current chaos about how long ESO might or might not still last for a moment) if the items absolutely fit my taste. Which means of the hundreds of possibilities they could come up with - most are likely something I don't care for enough to be willing to spend any money on it. And even if there's something interesting, if it's just one or two things, I'd also find the price too high since I'd need to buy the whole bundle. But since battle passes seem to work for other games - I don't know.
The seasonal bazaar offers... I got 2 pets, a costume and 3 statuettes I was still missing. Also, there's 3 things I'm not interested in. Except for that, I already had everything. At least the currency doesn't expire, so I can save it for next season or when the Impresia returns or something.
Then I did the weekly chores, which were the same as last season. Dolmens, difficult enemies, collect mats. It was easily done - luckily, as it's just boring filler content. I'll only do those until I have bought everything I want, obviously.
Then, I wanted to try one of these new dynamic event things. I arrived at the one in Auridon, but unfortunately, except for masses of people standing around, there wasn't actually anything I could interact with - I think it had just ended. And I was told that these started only once every 30 minutes, and obviously I had better things to do than to wait there, so I left again (and didn't bother with it again the rest of the evening). That somehow reminded me of the Night Market skirmishes, just that the new things are missing a visible timer (unless I've missed that). I wonder why the respawn time was set to every 30 minutes and not about 5 minutes like dolmens and world bosses? A 5-minute wait I can justify, a 30-minute wait - no. I have limited free time for playing ESO, I don't want to spend a big amount of it just waiting somewhere.
After that, I looked into Favors. The writ boards are easy to find, but having that vampire quest guy standing next to it and babbling all the time was annoying. That npc could need a better placement - somewhere far, far away from that spot.
The tasks themselves were underwhelming, to be honest. It were two random "kill 1 delveboss in zone x" tasks, and one delivery task (basically like a fetch quest, but the other way round). I had expected the tasks to be more specific, and most of all something that really fits the character we're supposed to do these tasks for. This way, it just felt absolutely random again.
There's also absolutely no npc interaction. I had heard there was a courier so I thought there was specific dialogue at least; or maybe at the end of the delivery quest, having to take the item to an npc who would have a bit lore/flavor text - but nothing! You pick up the task from the writ board, it even always has the same text (the actual task text only shows up in the quest log), then you go kill whatever or take item whatever to location whoknowswhere, in case of the delivery quest, there's not even a npc you need to deliver the stuff to, but you also just throw it into another box at the target location - and then you run back to the writ board to click on the box there to get the reward. It claims you were "leaving proof" that you've done the task in that box, though it's never specified what that proof would be, and in case of the delivery quest, there's not really anything our character could have brought back anyway.
It's basically another iteration of the random Night Market daily zone quests: Take task from note, do random thing, get reward from random box. Fully unvoiced, no npc interaction at all. Despite one of the strong points of ESO always having been having so many npcs, fully voiced dialogues, and always at least some story/lore around quests, instead of just running from a to b, doing some random thing, and then having some random text displayed that you've done it and received whatever for it.
Now, we were promised thank you letters at least. So I had hoped those would be more interesting. The first one each was just an introduction of each character (Lady Arabelle, Urcelmo, Holgunn) - but I already noticed they're all written like we had never met that person before, despite our characters having worked extensively with all of them in earlier quests. Urcelmo's could at least be read as a general thank you letter and as if he simply doesn't know who has done the task, but the other ones somehow felt like they were trying to be personal,... so it felt particularly off. It was disappointing.
And if it feels rewarding to do random boring daily chores just to get a small letter (comparable to those short hireling letters) as the only story bit for doing them? Let alone getting a story snippet as a reward instead of actually playing a story feels like a weird concept to me.Edited by Syldras on 9 July 2026 14:18@Syldras | PC | EU
The forceful expression of will gives true honor to the Ancestors.
Sarayn Andrethi, Telvanni mage (Main)
Darvasa Andrethi, his "I'm NOT a Necromancer!" sister
Malacar Sunavarlas, Altmer Ayleid vampire
Soris Rethandus, a Sleeper not yet awake1 -
metheglyn✭✭✭✭✭
✭Well, now Syldras has it, and I'm sure nothing bad can come of that!
I've already planned experiments! I can say it has some sort of magic aura emanating from it, but I'm not sure which kind specifically (probably Ancient Mysterious Psijic Magic). As I also conveniently have a certain guest in a marble box in my basement, I'll test if there's any reciprocal reactivity.
Well, do let me know how that works out. Whatever 'that' might be....Yeah, I'd forgotten about that aspect. As someone who has done all the story content, in order, on my main, and who remembers fairly well what's going on in the world of Tamriel, I admit I sometimes don't consider what it's like to be new to this world and game and not know all the details. These days I know I can just skip the dialogue options that have my character ask questions like, "Who's Vivec?", though from a role-playing perspective I'm often slightly bothered by seeing them available in the first place (particularly when my character is a Dunmer who was born and raised in Balmora and hasn't stepped foot off Vvardenfell yet).
It should be taken into consideration if a player character has done certain quests before or not. I mean, sometimes this game does that (they've even changed some base game Hermaeus Mora dialogue to be different in case a character has finished Necrom before those quests) - but often, sadly, not.
And when it comes to native Dunmer player characters asking about the Tribunal - there'd always be the possibility to word dialogues in a more vague way or to just make those questions an optional side branch of a dialogue.
They are optional side branches. That's why I can choose to not select them and still progress the quest. What I really dislike is when the "dummy" response is the only way you can advance the quest. It becomes a case of: ask the most blindingly obvious question or don't finish the quest. Ideally ZOS would have the time and ability to have every branch of dialogue track player character progress, so the player isn't met with frustrating dialogue options like that, but I honestly don't know how feasible that ever was.Was there a Golden Pursuit with scribing? I don't remember. I don't think I did that quest right away, because scribing just wasn't that interesting to me. Regardless of those details, I understand your point: why do they feel the need to pair new story content with a Golden Pursuit? I don't know. It's possible it's just another marketing thing, a way to hype up the content. I'd heard there was going to be a Pursuit for the Thieves Guild story, but didn't pay it much mind. Depending on how long it lasts, I may or may not get it done--if it's only a week-long thing, I won't; if it's around for a couple of months, I might. The Pursuit for the Night Market ran for a long time, didn't it? For myself, I'd prefer to not have Pursuits tied to story content, but it's possible ZOS is trying to give people a wider variety of Pursuits/rewards instead of just having them tied to events/systems.
I need to correct myself: The new Thieves Guild questline didn't get a Golden Pursuit (at least I didn't see a new one yesterday) - according to some monthly roadmap I've seen now it's the Sheogorath questline at the end of July that will get one (lasting 2 weeks). Thieves Guild did get related seasonal chores in the chore book, through, also only lasting for 2 weeks. Though in that case, if one doesn't do them, the only thing "lost" are tome points, at least, and those aren't exactly scarce (last season I stopped doing chores immediately when I had unlocked everything, and still ended up with about 14k extra points at the end of the season - they were converted into gold, which was a useful plus). It will be different with Sheogorath, especially since I read that those Golden Pursuit rewards will thematically be closely related to the questline's theme, so people might really want to get those.
I'm guessing those rewards will be cheese-themed or something, in which case: I can do without. But regardless of how nice the Golden Pursuit rewards are, they aren't going to be nice enough to get me to rush through one of the few quest lines we're getting this year.In case of Scribing, it wasn't a Golden Pursuit, but one needed to complete achievements (from that achievement menu) to be able to claim a few items from the crown store for free. And these achievements were about reaching certain stages of the Scribing questline. So if one wanted to claim those items, one needed to rush through the questline right after release. It wasn't exactly pleasant.
I do understand they probably do that so there are high engagement numbers they can present somewhere (basically to show how much of a success the new content was), but for questers who want to immerse and experience stories in peace, it's really not fun. I'd go so far to say it's off-putting in a way.
I find it off-putting, too. When I log into the game to play, I generally have a plan or a goal of what I want to accomplish with my time. Sometimes I have time to just wander about, but generally I need to be careful with my game time, and doing content at someone else's behest doesn't sit well with me. Hah, I sound kind of like a grump here, don't I?As far as FOMO goes, they're never going to get rid of it entirely. Regarding the Season Zero ad text: in a charitable light, you could see it as reminding people to claim their rewards before the season ends (since the strange auto-claim feature doesn't, in fact, claim everything), but most likely it's to urge anyone who might have been tempted to purchase the upgrade to do so because this is their last chance. It's very much FOMO marketing in that regard.
It had a "Buy now!" button, so it clearly wasn't just a well-meaning reminder for people who already participated in it to claim their stuff. I just find it ironic that this is more extreme FOMO marketing than we ever had seen in old ESO ads, and that this has started right after they told us in a stream that they heard the playerbase's wish and reduced FOMO. It just doesn't match.
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply it was an innocent and well-meaning reminder. I just meant it could, if it you looked at it charitably, also be considered that. It was definitely utilizing FOMO as a selling point. But as to it not matching their stance, they didn't say they were getting rid of all FOMO (something they couldn't even do, since FOMO is very much a person's own thing), just that they were going to cut out some things that might induce it. The ad didn't bother me--I was never going to purchase the tome--but I do see how it could be considered a bit much.You'd better! And they better be the best notes you've ever taken! (Would use a smiley-guy of some variety here to indicate tone if the smilies weren't so very large and frightening.)
I really hope the sudden forum problems (Isn't it weird how they just started one day?) will get fixed soon. The invisible edit button is also slightly annoying.
If the problems haven't been fixed by now, I doubt they will be. Whoever is in charge of keeping the forum infrastructure sound isn't doing their job very well. I understand it's not under ZOS' control, so I just live with the inadequate forum tools.It is interesting how certain game components/features can alter our playstyles. I find myself sometimes speedrunning through content because I've just been speedrunning through my crafting dailies or event quests, and I have to actually check myself and slow down, because I don't actually like speedrunning through content. It's like the brain kicks into automation very easily, and overrides your own personal preferences.
I also think it's a factor that possibly needs to be considered when designing things. How encouraging one specific type of behavior in one heavily hyped event activity could change behavior in other parts of the game, or also shape the expectations and feelings of the players - for the better or for the worse. After fastly running through the Night Market maps and getting into more difficult fights all the time, I also could see some players suddenly finding all other parts of ESO boring in comparison, for example, even if they had been totally okay with them before. As in: Overland fights having felt easy before, but after playing the Night Market for a while, they might feel super-easy now (and yes, I know, we have difficulty options now). But it's also the way one moves through the maps. It's obvious there's a big difference not only in difficulty, but also in pace between the Night Market and most other ESO content. Compared to the Night Market playstyle, all other content feels slow in a way. I enjoy that much more than the constant running, but I did wonder if the Night Market experience could have made all other content feel bland to some players now. Of course I appreciate ESO offering different kinds of content to the very diverse playerbase, but I still wonder.
One of the things I didn't like about Night Market was how hectic and frenetic it was. That is completely opposite to how I prefer to play. I don't mind that places like that exist in game for people who enjoy that kind of gameplay--like has been mentioned, players have wildly differing things they like in this game--but I'm not going to partake of it and I hope that style of encouraged gameplay doesn't start to become part of everything they design.I know UI reorginization is a big plus for some players, so it's nice they'll be able to fiddle with it to their heart's content. LotRO has always had the ability to reorganize their UI in such a way, and it's nice to be able to put elements exactly where you want them, but I've never messed with it too much. I can't say I've ever been bothered by the UI layout of ESO, so I don't see myself using this new feature. What I want them to do is add a mini-map. I know there's an add-on for it, and I used it for a long time, but I much prefer for things like that to be part of the game itself. But, considering the new reality of the team, who knows what they'll be able to do regarding QOL updates, or anything, really. I really liked that ZOS had a team devoted to QOL/pain points, because those small things are valuable additions to the overall feel of the game. As you said: we'll have to see what the remaining team members are able to do.
What would be important to me is, if new UI items get added, they should be optional. I like my UI as minimal as possible (the way it is right now is okay for me). I personally would absolutely hate having a mini map on my screen. I can easily navigate by opening the normal map for the fraction of a second while riding (or mostly I just pin a location upon arriving in a zone and then just follow the compass marker), I just don't need it, and having it on my screen would take away visibility of my surroundings, especially since I don't have a super huge screen.
I fully understand the dislike for using add-ons, though. After every update, something breaks. It was okay for me when we had those 4 yearly updates - which meant not having to update all add-ons that often. Now, with more frequent smaller updates... Well, I am getting a little annoyed. Sometimes an add-on creator barely get their add-on updated before the next update drops that messes everything up again.
Options are always nice, and since they have made the UI so customizable, I would hope that anything else they might add in future would be equally so. But honestly, if they have gone this long without adding a mini-map, I doubt it's on their radar. I'll have to use your pin a location method and see how that works for me--I never considered that. I mean, I'll probably still get lost a lot, but it might help as a general guide.They seem to love bureaucracy, but have very poor organizational skills, since they never seem to be able to locate information they need when they need it. If the Vault of Moawita is anything to go by, they also lose important things quite easily. So now my question is: was this writ supposed to be in their archives and somehow went missing, or was this a copy given to Mannimarco as they kicked him out (assuming they write out copies of their edicts)?
I don't think Mannimarco received any documents when leaving - at least it never sounded that way. So I'd assume it was something for the Psijic archives, that miraculously got lost somehow. Like many loot/contraband items. Or perhaps it's even fake?
Ok, so going on the idea that Mannimarco wasn't given a copy of his writ of banishment, here's what I think could have happened. Mannimarco knew the document existed, and he wanted it. Why did he want it? To use in a scheme of revenge against the Psijics, of course! (Dude loves his revenge). He convinced someone to steal it for him (and then probably killed that person, because why not) and, once he had it, experimented with it, hence the indecipherable and bizarre runes. He never got to the end point of his revenge before other matters took his attention, however, and that's why we never learned about it before now. How did it then end up in the Night Market? Well, Mannimarco spent a lot of time in Coldharbour, so he probably had the writ there as he was conducting his experiments with it. Then, after he got sidelined by the Vestige and chained up by Molag Bal, his Coldharbour castle likely got plundered by any manner of daedra, one of whom took the writ as loot. At some point, that daedra ended up in the Night Market and lost the writ, and you found it. Case closed.Well, as we've seen plenty of times, creative endeavors are often harmed by the decisions of the people whose job it is to make the creativity profitable. Someone probably read a study or something about how people these days engage with media in a different way (multiple screens) and drew certain conclusions about what media had to be like going forward in order to succeed in this new way of consumption.
I wonder if usually, people are hired exactly for this kind of writing, or if "normal" writers are pushed by directives to write like this. I clearly know I couldn't, and I wouldn't want to. The whole idea of writing for people who don't actually read or listen just seems so absurd to me. Like a waste of time, somehow. In any way, it's a weird development we see in mainstream media now.
If you're a staff writer on a show, and the directive comes down to write a certain way, whether or not you fall in with that would likely depend on a number of factors, one of which being: you need this job. But I don't really know how writers' rooms work and how much interference from the executives is tolerated. I guess it depends on the show and the people involved in creating it.As to what, precisely, Sanguine wanted our characters to do, I can't say if that fit with the Sanguine character or not--the most I know of Sanguine was their Skyrim appearance, and that was just...well, I didn't care for it. I can say that ESO Sanguine doesn't seem all that much different to me than Skyrim Sanguine, but I'm sure there are details I'm missing.
I just know that the background lore is much more intense, usually very tragic for the people involved, and often even outright brutal. The actual depiction in game then being light-hearted and funny feels off to me. It's basically the absolute opposite to what Sanguine stands for lore-wise: He's not the funny party guy, he's the demon seducing people into addiction, and into an increasingly extreme moral decline (beginning harmlessly, until they end up at absolutely despisible acts - imagine it starting with a bit of overeating and ending with cannibalism, or starting with a bit of flirtyness and ending with assault and murder; Sanguine's theme as shown in background lore is basically always a downwards spiral from the maybe sometimes not entirely morally correct but still harmless fun, to the utterly horrid). I can even understand, of course, that they don't want to graphically depict the most horrible things in game. But acting like it all was just harmless fun and there were no consequences at all feels like it completely ignores the central point of his theme.
Which made me wonder if they did this deliberately because they might think people today don't enjoy any grim stories anymore, but want only light-hearted and funny content? I mean, there's a general shift in tone when it comes to ESO, or at least it feels like that to me; I have the feeling the older chapter stories were usually more mature and more serious.
If Sanguine is as brutal as you describe, there are ratings reasons they can't depict some of it. But also, if Sanguine is as brutal as you describe, I've never seen it depicted in the Elder Scrolls--or if I have, I don't remember it. I do remember Skyrim Sanguine, and he wasn't brutal at all. More of a trickster than anything else, it seemed. But, again, perhaps I'm misremembering.
As far as whether or not people want grim stories, I've seen nothing to indicate that they don't. I think ESO's stories are plenty grim, even the more recent ones. I will say I don't want to be met on all sides with grim-dark depressing stories. What I want are stories that fit the world of the Elder Scrolls and the people and cultures in it.So. I wanted to write a bit about my experiences on day 1 of Season 1.
First I checked the new Tome - and found nothing of interest for me at all (sure, I'll pick up the currencies and the crown crates, but there's not a single thing I really, really not want to miss). Now, such things are always subjective, but I somehow generally expected something more grand, after they had emphasized that this was the real start (being Tome 1), and the last one as Tome 0 was just some... Well, prelude to it, in a way, but not really it? I honestly even had the feeling that Tome 0 had better items than the new one. Generally, I'm not sure if trying to gain all revenue from this will work well. Not sure if most people just want random collectibles enough to be willing to spend that amount of money for them. I know I personally would only buy a Tome (ignoring the current chaos about how long ESO might or might not still last for a moment) if the items absolutely fit my taste. Which means of the hundreds of possibilities they could come up with - most are likely something I don't care for enough to be willing to spend any money on it. And even if there's something interesting, if it's just one or two things, I'd also find the price too high since I'd need to buy the whole bundle. But since battle passes seem to work for other games - I don't know.
I'm also not interested in the cosmetics/pet/mount from the paid portion of the tome, but the free track has plenty of items I want. I've seen people on the forum mention they are getting one or the other of the paid versions of the tomes, so there is definitely a market for it. I have no idea if there will ever be a tome offering that will tempt me to buy it, but so far there hasn't been.The seasonal bazaar offers... I got 2 pets, a costume and 3 statuettes I was still missing. Also, there's 3 things I'm not interested in. Except for that, I already had everything. At least the currency doesn't expire, so I can save it for next season or when the Impresia returns or something.
I haven't yet checked the bazaar, but since one of the main reasons it was implemented was to allow people to get things they might have missed in the past, I don't expect many of the items to appeal to me. That's fine--I can just save my trade bars for when something does show up. They don't have a cap and don't expire, which is really nice.Then I did the weekly chores, which were the same as last season. Dolmens, difficult enemies, collect mats. It was easily done - luckily, as it's just boring filler content. I'll only do those until I have bought everything I want, obviously.
The tasks are never going to be exciting, at least not for me. They'll be things I do until I'm finished buying from the tome, and then any points that I accrue after that will just be a bit of bonus gold. Really hoping ZOS will refine the auto-buy feature to let us opt out, because if I don't buy a collectible, it's because I don't want it. I promise to never come here and cry about missing a tome item if they let me opt out of auto-buy.Then, I wanted to try one of these new dynamic event things. I arrived at the one in Auridon, but unfortunately, except for masses of people standing around, there wasn't actually anything I could interact with - I think it had just ended. And I was told that these started only once every 30 minutes, and obviously I had better things to do than to wait there, so I left again (and didn't bother with it again the rest of the evening). That somehow reminded me of the Night Market skirmishes, just that the new things are missing a visible timer (unless I've missed that). I wonder why the respawn time was set to every 30 minutes and not about 5 minutes like dolmens and world bosses? A 5-minute wait I can justify, a 30-minute wait - no. I have limited free time for playing ESO, I don't want to spend a big amount of it just waiting somewhere.
I happened to be in Stonefalls when that one was starting up. It was so crowded with people spamming laser beams and other aoe that I literally could not see what was supposedly going on. If the npcs didn't have huge green arrows over their heads showing their location, I wouldn't have known what we were following along the road. At some point I realized there were chests to loot as we went along--I might have missed one along the way--and then at the end there was a fight with a mob I couldn't see other than it's rapidly dwindling health bar, and the npcs were talking a bit, but I really didn't know what the story was meant to be. "Sorry I gave you a fright," one of them said. I do know I was helping to escort someone named Bilsa and there was a grandmother involved in some way. I would like to experience the encounter again in less-crowded conditions, so perhaps in a week or two it won't be so crowded. Then again, it might become a big-time farming thing for whatever the chests drop. All in all, it wasn't fun or engaging--it was just there. But that's on me for participating in any new content on day of release--I know better than that.After that, I looked into Favors. The writ boards are easy to find, but having that vampire quest guy standing next to it and babbling all the time was annoying. That npc could need a better placement - somewhere far, far away from that spot.
Now, we were promised thank you letters at least. So I had hoped those would be more interesting. The first one each was just an introduction of each character (Lady Arabelle, Urcelmo, Holgunn) - but I already noticed they're all written like we had never met that person before, despite our characters having worked extensively with all of them in earlier quests. Urcelmo's could at least be read as a general thank you letter and as if he simply doesn't know who has done the task, but the other ones somehow felt like they were trying to be personal,... so it felt particularly off. It was disappointing.
And if it feels rewarding to do random boring daily chores just to get a small letter (comparable to those short hireling letters) as the only story bit for doing them? Let alone getting a story snippet as a reward instead of actually playing a story feels like a weird concept to me.
I haven't yet done any of the favor quests, but I have a couple of thoughts on them based on what you said.
Story/lorewise, since the NPCs are handing out these quests via a third party, it makes sense that the initial letter is pretty basic, as they don't necessarily know who is going to pick it up. (I'm assuming the letter was written to give to you upon completion of the task before you ever picked up the task). In gameplay terms, since anyone can do these at any time, they're likely covering the bases with an introductory letter so players who never met these NPCs get to know who they are.
From what I understand, these favor quests take place over twenty days, so hopefully the letters get more story-driven or have a stronger narrative focus. An article likened them to the hireling letters, and those always started out fairly basic with a "Hi, I'm the person providing you with materials," and eventually worked up to create a full story about the hireling's life. I much enjoyed the hireling stories, so if these letters follow a similar trajectory, I won't feel let down.
I'll try to find time to do one today and see how it feels in game.0 -
emilyhyoyeon✭✭✭✭✭
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A smaller number of writers doesn’t necessarily mean poorer or even less story content at all is true. It applies to more than just the writing too; I’ve seen a bunch of people point out that a greater number of people working on something can actually just lead to a more complicated and harder-to-get-things-done development process. I’m seeing a lot of people talk about this regarding specifically the Bethesda layoffs and how it’ll affect TES 6; pointing out how they’ve dramatically increased in size especially since the Morrowind/Oblivion days which are widely considered the peak era, especially Morrowind, with writing and roleplay, how so many developers needing to all make it through Todd Howard himself is not practical, etc etc. Not really sure how this might apply to ESO and ZOS, since I don’t work there, but, yeah, I don’t think team size matters in some ways.I'm not exactly positive about all this either. Especially since the writer I had most hope for - who wrote Zerith-var's story and Corelanya Manor, which were for me the best stories in the past few years, that still conveyed the "typical TES spirit" that I love about this fictional world - also lost her job.
But maybe it's a small comfort to remember that ESO only had a handful of writers and lore people when it started. The number went up, almost doubled, in the later years. And despite it having been a very small team in the beginning, those stories are often still considered ESO's best ones until today. So even with a small team, something great could be written, potentially. It would just take more time.
I'm more concerned about possible directives from decision-makers above. If the directive is to focus on cosmetics for sale, or on more or less lore-less replayable arcade-like content,... Well.
I've decided I'll still continue writing here, just for fun. Maybe until it all ends - though of course I hope ESO still has a future and many years ahead!
From the feedback I’ve read from players over the years, I agree with most people that the story quality dropped after Summerset/2018. There are still a lot gems IMO in the side content post 2018, but the main stories and some trends (bringing back characters and reducing them to single characteristics in ways that makes them not feel like real people, emphasizing quippy-ness, etc) were not good. And from what I’m understanding, this was all with a bigger team.
I could still see the story content suffering with the smaller team. It really comes down to how the writers approach making the content. I hope the recent team changes make the ESO developers not put narrative content on the back-burner; if the layoffs do anything, I think, it would be that. But I also would need to see it approached the ‘’right’’ way as well. And, even more, as you pointed out, if the higher ups don’t care about adding more story content, I don’t think it will matter if the developers want to and know how to. Even regarding the Night Market, we know that the developers who designed it intended it to be the replacement for this year’s dungeon content. I wonder if the developers themselves even truly liked it beyond ‘’this is the best we can do with what we are asked of/limited to this year.’’
On that point: I’m genuinely curious if the writing team (pre-layoffs) as a whole knows what story players are looking for. I’ve been thinking of this specifically regarding the new Thieves Guild release. I remember when it was announced on streams and stuff, IMO it was framed in a way where the developers recognized the first Thieves Guild zone and story was one of the really praised ones. I want to know if they know why.
I’m hesitant to make any real statements yet because I’ve just barely started the new Thieves Guild quest on my thief + considering the newness, I’m sure some people have completed even less than I have, and I don’t want to risk any kind of spoiler. But, basically, from what I’ve done and where I think the quest is going, I wouldn’t be confident saying that I think the devs know why the first Thieves Guild questline is considered good. I’ve been avoiding anyone else’s feedback until I finish it, and I’ve been trying to wait a bit to play the quests so that I don’t see floods of people.
And back to the point about higher-ups: I do wonder how much of the wanting to try new things is a genuine want from the developers. It’s funny, because I think when the players hear from the developers that they are stopping chapter + Q4 zone releases because they were getting stale and they want to try a new approach with Seasons, a lot of the players hear that as a switch in approach because of Mr. Top Boss. Of course the developers will try to market it as not that—this is not unique to ESO—because they are required to sell it. This isn’t to say that I think the new content without question is not what the developers themselves want to do, but I wonder how much freedom they really have based on what the higher-ups grant them.They said they want to try new things, different approaches (Wasn't there something in their latest trial preview that reminded of some old Nintendo racing game?!)... And I think that's valid; But indeed, I now often miss what makes TES typical TES. Running around randomly killing enemies for points in some remote world isn't it. Solving random puzzles for whatever in some remote world isn't it easier. What motivation would my character have to do these things? How is this related to Tamriel, which should be a vast living world with so many different cultures and their individual ways of living, struggles and conflicts? I don't need a TES game to randomly shoot things or push levers. I wish there was a bigger focus on the strong points of The Elder Scrolls again. The world and the huge amount of background lore spanning several millenia has been what attracted so many people to the series. If it's about running around and earning points, there are enough other games for that.
I think the racing game thing in the upcoming trial is the mounted combat feature, right? That’s something I can see the developers themselves truly wanting to invest time in. I just don’t want things to feel ‘’gamey.’’ Mounted combat, in a vacuum, is cool and appropriate for a TES world, of course. But the context matters. Using the mount combat as an example, I would want to see it enhance the world, like make it contribute to it feeling more authentic. Evoking Mario Kart for the sake of evoking Mario Kart doesn’t do that.
The Night Market incident is so interesting to me because part of the reason why I didn’t understand the appeal is that it’s so narratively hollow; but, I can understand that not every ESO player plays for the world and story. The other part is that it’s not special in what it does. I don’t know if you were also making this point on top of it, but there really are other, better games for contextless puzzle solving and enemy mowing. What were players getting out of the Night Market specifically, truly? I can’t believe that it was for a reason like that they specifically enjoyed the ‘’TES backdrop’’ for it, because that effectively wasn’t even there, beyond piloting your own character if they are lore friendly.
It was particularly confusing to me as someone who likes the ESO dungeons and bosses in their contexts and stories, because quite frankly, trying to look at it as good-faithly as possible, the Night Market ruins itself. Like why is Kovan Giryon here? Just standing here? Alright, maybe it could make sense he’s checking out the Night Market as a person with free will and thoughts, and wanted to check it out. Why is the nix-ox Roksa here?? Did Kovan bring her and she broke her leash and wandered off, and that’s why she’s in an entirely different district? I mean, we know why: it’s because the Skittering district was spider/bug/gross themed and Roksa is a nix-ox, so she has to go there. Kovan does time magic so the lights/shadows themed district ‘’matches’’ him. Like, this is so lame… It’s not only that there was no narrative substance in the Night Market, but what it does have breaks immersion. There’s a random giant incineration beetle in the Parch district. Okay then. I'm kind of just ranting here, but yeah.IGN @ emilypumpkin
Tullanisse Starborne altmer spellsword battlemage & scholar of the ayleids
Qa'Rirra khajiit assassin & dancer
Seliwequen Narilata altmer necromancer & debaucher3 -
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✭✭✭✭✭Well, do let me know how that works out. Whatever 'that' might be....
So, I have been testing for reciprocal reactions between that Psijic Writ of Banishment and the guest in my basement. I tried waving the document in front of his face, sticking it to his forehead, and, as a last option, stuffing it into his mouth (you know, how the people in Daggerfall do it if they want to deliver an important message). Sadly, it did not incite any reaction, not even a tiny angry ripple of interplanar energy right from his undead soul stuck in Coldharbor. In other words: That writ is either utterly useless, or fake.They are optional side branches. That's why I can choose to not select them and still progress the quest. What I really dislike is when the "dummy" response is the only way you can advance the quest. It becomes a case of: ask the most blindingly obvious question or don't finish the quest. Ideally ZOS would have the time and ability to have every branch of dialogue track player character progress, so the player isn't met with frustrating dialogue options like that, but I honestly don't know how feasible that ever was.
Indeed the biggest problem is if a quest can't be progressed at all without stupid questions. It's a bit sad we've seen it happen until recently (I remember it from the Solstice story), despite people having been criticizing it for years.
Anyway, with story content becoming more scarce now, who knows, maybe the smaller stories might get a bit more detail for the dialogues, at least? I don't know - I haven't started the new Thieves Guild questline yet, intending to wait until the masses of people have moved on (so I'll probably start it soon - the first 2 weeks are over now, and soon the Sheogorath story will start and people will probably move on to that one). I spent the past weeks doing Favors and chores (I've already claimed all the clutter up to page 8 of the Chore Book now - despite there still being 90 days left - , and guess I'll have it finished within the next 2 weeks at most; glad about that, so I won't have to look into it anymore until October). Have you started questing yet?I'm guessing those rewards will be cheese-themed or something, in which case: I can do without. But regardless of how nice the Golden Pursuit rewards are, they aren't going to be nice enough to get me to rush through one of the few quest lines we're getting this year.
Not sure if they're solely cheese-related. I'd guess they'd be related to Sheogorath and his Isles somehow, but not with such a narrow focus (even if that seems to be the case in writing, sadly - at least one gets that impression).I find it off-putting, too. When I log into the game to play, I generally have a plan or a goal of what I want to accomplish with my time. Sometimes I have time to just wander about, but generally I need to be careful with my game time, and doing content at someone else's behest doesn't sit well with me. Hah, I sound kind of like a grump here, don't I?
I don't think that's an unusual opinion on that topic. At least I know several people who have limited playtime each week and they all want to use those few hours for whatever they find fun - not for some task list set up by someone else, and even less so if it's things they don't really enjoy that much.
Though I guess what irks me most right now are all those waiting times. Waiting for the "dynamic encounter" - up to 30 minutes each time - , waiting for some boss or mobs to spawn for Favors, waiting for world bosses, dolmens or whatever to start for the Chore Book weekly chore list,... It almost saddens me when I think back at how playing ESO felt like when I started in February 2016 - when I just logged in, wandered around and quested, without a need to really wait anywhere (if a dolmen or world boss wasn't currently up, I could just see by the symbol on my map that I hadn't cleared it yet and would return later), and without any chore lists. Then again, how much does today's ESO still resemble the ESO of a decade ago anyway?! Back then, there weren't extremely generic writing and weird flashy exploding neon mounts either (I sometimes wonder if I ever had joined ESO had it looked like it does today back then, and I'm honestly not sure about that).Sorry, I didn't mean to imply it was an innocent and well-meaning reminder. I just meant it could, if it you looked at it charitably, also be considered that. It was definitely utilizing FOMO as a selling point. But as to it not matching their stance, they didn't say they were getting rid of all FOMO (something they couldn't even do, since FOMO is very much a person's own thing), just that they were going to cut out some things that might induce it. The ad didn't bother me--I was never going to purchase the tome--but I do see how it could be considered a bit much.
I understand they don't want or can't remove it entirely. I just find it ironic that they stated they want to lessen it, but at the same time, there's an increasing number of temporary content now (Wall event was the first time they did that, and I remember they made a statement after it wasn't well-received that they understand that the community doesn't want time-limited content, so they'd move away from that?! Still we got Night Market after that, and now High Seas, and who knows what next). Also, ESO online ads (on Reddit or similar) had also not been about FOMO until recently. It had always been about experiencing Tamriel, or about having a look at the new chapter story (that never was temporary) - not about "Buy XYZ from the Crown Store before it's gone!!!" or similar. It was never about hurrying. But now it's "Buy the Tome fastly before it's gone forever!", "Hurry! Play the Night Market before it's gone!" - I find that much worse than it had been before. The ads of the early years were an offer to people to explore the world of ESO - now it doesn't feel like an offer, but totally pushy.If the problems haven't been fixed by now, I doubt they will be. Whoever is in charge of keeping the forum infrastructure sound isn't doing their job very well. I understand it's not under ZOS' control, so I just live with the inadequate forum tools.
I'm not even sure how it could suddenly break. Such things don't just break on their own, someone must have changed something beforehand. So I don't really get why it can't be changed back, especially since a whole bunch of people has complained about it already.One of the things I didn't like about Night Market was how hectic and frenetic it was. That is completely opposite to how I prefer to play. I don't mind that places like that exist in game for people who enjoy that kind of gameplay--like has been mentioned, players have wildly differing things they like in this game--but I'm not going to partake of it and I hope that style of encouraged gameplay doesn't start to become part of everything they design.
What I hated most was grouping with random people, and coordinating them (through all character differences and language barriers), with felt like herding cats. It was extremely stressful, frustrating, and not fun at all. But running through the map also wasn't exactly appealing - not only for the pace, but because one can't really explore a place if one's just running all the time. Well, not that there was much to explore anyway - which was also one of the main weaknesses of the Market for me.
What I'd been thinking about lately: The Market was also called a testing ground. And now we can already see the first things that seemed to have been tested in the Market before showing up somewhere else. Those overland "Dynamic" Encounters clearly show elements from the Night Market Skirmishes (they just forgot one of the most central useful things about them: the visible countdown/timer...). Who knows what else will show up again? Some of the Night Market puzzles returning in the Sages Vault perhaps? Or perhaps within the next new trial? Anyway, in the end it's content recycling (just, sometimes, reskinned) and I'm also not entirely sure how to feel about that.
They also already announced that some aspects of the Night Market will change when it returns later this year - I fully expect to see those things again in whatever we're going to get in 2027.Options are always nice, and since they have made the UI so customizable, I would hope that anything else they might add in future would be equally so. But honestly, if they have gone this long without adding a mini-map, I doubt it's on their radar. I'll have to use your pin a location method and see how that works for me--I never considered that. I mean, I'll probably still get lost a lot, but it might help as a general guide.
Did it work? I never got lost in ESO.Ok, so going on the idea that Mannimarco wasn't given a copy of his writ of banishment, here's what I think could have happened. Mannimarco knew the document existed, and he wanted it. Why did he want it? To use in a scheme of revenge against the Psijics, of course! (Dude loves his revenge). He convinced someone to steal it for him (and then probably killed that person, because why not) and, once he had it, experimented with it, hence the indecipherable and bizarre runes. He never got to the end point of his revenge before other matters took his attention, however, and that's why we never learned about it before now. How did it then end up in the Night Market? Well, Mannimarco spent a lot of time in Coldharbour, so he probably had the writ there as he was conducting his experiments with it. Then, after he got sidelined by the Vestige and chained up by Molag Bal, his Coldharbour castle likely got plundered by any manner of daedra, one of whom took the writ as loot. At some point, that daedra ended up in the Night Market and lost the writ, and you found it. Case closed.
I've given up on searching explanations for random contraband/loot items long ago. Also, is anything in the Night Market even real? Isn't it just random replications made of daedric matter anyway?If you're a staff writer on a show, and the directive comes down to write a certain way, whether or not you fall in with that would likely depend on a number of factors, one of which being: you need this job. But I don't really know how writers' rooms work and how much interference from the executives is tolerated. I guess it depends on the show and the people involved in creating it.
I'm just wondering if one would already know what one gets into when applying for such a job. Perhaps they'd explicitly state that they require someone who can write in that "for people who don't actually follow the story, don't read, don't watch, don't listen" style? I mean, if someone was to be hired to compose muzak, that would probably require a muzak creator, not a composer of classical orchestral symphonies.If Sanguine is as brutal as you describe, there are ratings reasons they can't depict some of it. But also, if Sanguine is as brutal as you describe, I've never seen it depicted in the Elder Scrolls--or if I have, I don't remember it. I do remember Skyrim Sanguine, and he wasn't brutal at all. More of a trickster than anything else, it seemed. But, again, perhaps I'm misremembering.
Sure, they can't depict the most extreme aspects graphically in game, and they never did, only mentioned them in lorebooks. The problem for me is that all recent Sanguine lore, no matter if visually or through dialogues or other texts, completely omits the really dark aspects. It's like it's all just fun and games now, a bit drinking here, a bit dancing there, nothing bad, and even the Aedra priest doesn't mind. This is especially sad as it's completely ignoring the principle that Sanguine stands for, as well as what Daedric Princes are. Some aren't as horrible as others, sure, but they're still otherworldly demon lords or evil deities which should have something uncanny to them.As far as whether or not people want grim stories, I've seen nothing to indicate that they don't. I think ESO's stories are plenty grim, even the more recent ones. I will say I don't want to be met on all sides with grim-dark depressing stories. What I want are stories that fit the world of the Elder Scrolls and the people and cultures in it.
That's the most important thing. And it's a world with both dark and light, with funny or beautiful moments as well as huge dangers and tragedies. I, personally, have the feeling that, while there might still be grim stories, the emotional impact isn't the same anymore, compared to earlier years. Whether it's the many quips that immediately cut the atmosphere, or that the presentation of these stories feels trope-ier or shallower and therefore less serious and less emotional... I don't know. But in the end, that's what matters to me: If these stories are able to evoke emotions. A storyline can be horribly dark, tragic or scary, by the course of events, but still only come across as trope-y, or just crass, and therefore not very impactful emotionally, if the presentation isn't right.I'm also not interested in the cosmetics/pet/mount from the paid portion of the tome, but the free track has plenty of items I want. I've seen people on the forum mention they are getting one or the other of the paid versions of the tomes, so there is definitely a market for it. I have no idea if there will ever be a tome offering that will tempt me to buy it, but so far there hasn't been.
I wonder if leaning deeper into the lore would help to make it more appealing. Sure, this might appeal to an even more specific target group, but for me really one of the things that makes it less interesting is that the items don't feel really specific to their alleged theme. I mean, sure, there are a few thief/rogue-themed items this time, but how does a corgi relate to that (even if it's cute), or some random hyena, or some knight- and "forest archer"-themed face paint (the former's flavor text is completely generic, but at least a knight is a generic thing that exists in ESO, unlike the group mentioned in the latter item's flavor text, which is randomly made up for this item only and not rooted anywhere in ESO lore, or TES lore, at all)? I guess that would even be the problem if they ever released some tome with a Dunmer theme I enjoy (like Tribunal, CWC or even Telvanni): If only 2 items actually fit that theme, and the rest is generic, I would not find those 2 items that interest me worth the Tome's price.I haven't yet checked the bazaar, but since one of the main reasons it was implemented was to allow people to get things they might have missed in the past, I don't expect many of the items to appeal to me. That's fine--I can just save my trade bars for when something does show up. They don't have a cap and don't expire, which is really nice.
Yes, I really appreciate that they don't expire anymore, and that we get a decent amount of them through the tome. Though I sometimes wonder if it's not overly complicated with all those different stores, and currencies (some of which expire and some not, or have a cap or not) - at least I have the impression that it confuses lots of people, from what I've read.The tasks are never going to be exciting, at least not for me. They'll be things I do until I'm finished buying from the tome, and then any points that I accrue after that will just be a bit of bonus gold. Really hoping ZOS will refine the auto-buy feature to let us opt out, because if I don't buy a collectible, it's because I don't want it. I promise to never come here and cry about missing a tome item if they let me opt out of auto-buy.
It really should be a toggle somewhere in the menu.I happened to be in Stonefalls when that one was starting up. It was so crowded with people spamming laser beams and other aoe that I literally could not see what was supposedly going on. If the npcs didn't have huge green arrows over their heads showing their location, I wouldn't have known what we were following along the road. At some point I realized there were chests to loot as we went along--I might have missed one along the way--and then at the end there was a fight with a mob I couldn't see other than it's rapidly dwindling health bar, and the npcs were talking a bit, but I really didn't know what the story was meant to be. "Sorry I gave you a fright," one of them said. I do know I was helping to escort someone named Bilsa and there was a grandmother involved in some way. I would like to experience the encounter again in less-crowded conditions, so perhaps in a week or two it won't be so crowded. Then again, it might become a big-time farming thing for whatever the chests drop. All in all, it wasn't fun or engaging--it was just there. But that's on me for participating in any new content on day of release--I know better than that.
They're less cluttered now, but honestly: There's barely any story, and even what's there is rather shallow/generic without any big explanations or lore. I've done all 3 meanwhile. Auridon is about some group attacking a farm (I still have no clue why and who they are... as all npcs only have generic dialogue lines), and us needing to fight them, extinguish fires and save horses. I like the task, but wished there was more story to it.
Stonefalls is about escorting some Dunmer Little Red Riding Hood (to make it more blatant she even wears a red robe), and her donkey named Braylis (How original. Not.) to her sick grandma. When we arrive, grandma turns into a werewolf, and, when defeated, back to grandma. I was disappointed it's really just some funny take on the fairytale, with nothing TES or Dunmer about it. Also, the characters can't be interacted with in any way, there's no lorebook around, nothing. I'm not against an event about escorting an npc somewhere and doing some tasks and fighting enemies on the way, but if I follow a story in ESO, I want it to be something about the world TES takes place in. Little Red Riding Hood just with grandma being a werewolf is not an Elder Scrolls story. I don't really learn or experience a new part of this fictional world through it. Same problem as with the Night Market some months ago: Generic with no real new TES lore.
The last one is a vampire hunt. That one makes sense for what it is, at least. Though there's also no background lore to it.I haven't yet done any of the favor quests, but I have a couple of thoughts on them based on what you said.
Story/lorewise, since the NPCs are handing out these quests via a third party, it makes sense that the initial letter is pretty basic, as they don't necessarily know who is going to pick it up. (I'm assuming the letter was written to give to you upon completion of the task before you ever picked up the task). In gameplay terms, since anyone can do these at any time, they're likely covering the bases with an introductory letter so players who never met these NPCs get to know who they are.
From what I understand, these favor quests take place over twenty days, so hopefully the letters get more story-driven or have a stronger narrative focus. An article likened them to the hireling letters, and those always started out fairly basic with a "Hi, I'm the person providing you with materials," and eventually worked up to create a full story about the hireling's life. I much enjoyed the hireling stories, so if these letters follow a similar trajectory, I won't feel let down.
I'll try to find time to do one today and see how it feels in game.
I, too, enjoyed the hireling stories, but am much more critical about the new Favor letters. Too many inconsistencies and inplausibilities (especially considering context it's a mess), I don't really think some of them fit the character portrayed, I also dislike that we seem totally incapable of telling them who we are or are forced to keep it a secret for some reason... Anyway, lots of things I could say about them! On which day are you now and what do you think about them so far?emilyhyoyeon wrote: »From the feedback I’ve read from players over the years, I agree with most people that the story quality dropped after Summerset/2018. There are still a lot gems IMO in the side content post 2018, but the main stories and some trends (bringing back characters and reducing them to single characteristics in ways that makes them not feel like real people, emphasizing quippy-ness, etc) were not good. And from what I’m understanding, this was all with a bigger team.
In the end, it all comes down to writing quality, both what writers are capable of, as well as what they're allowed/supposed to write (not sure how much they might or might not get as instructions), no matter if it's 4 people, 10 or 20.
I actually think those news (not sure if you heard of them) about Bethesda's TES6 team and ZOS collaborating more closely in future are interesting. They did not specify that writing would be a part of this, but it would make sense (especially also considering how many people from ESO's writing team were laid off). I see it as a chance, actually. Bethesda's writers should be very familiar with TES lore, so who knows, maybe future writing will be leaning more into that direction again, instead of becoming increasingly simplified and generic over the years? We can't know, of course. But I think any type of support, when it comes to continueing ESO's development, is good news, especially if it comes from people who are no strangers to TES.emilyhyoyeon wrote: »I could still see the story content suffering with the smaller team. It really comes down to how the writers approach making the content. I hope the recent team changes make the ESO developers not put narrative content on the back-burner; if the layoffs do anything, I think, it would be that. But I also would need to see it approached the ‘’right’’ way as well. And, even more, as you pointed out, if the higher ups don’t care about adding more story content, I don’t think it will matter if the developers want to and know how to. Even regarding the Night Market, we know that the developers who designed it intended it to be the replacement for this year’s dungeon content. I wonder if the developers themselves even truly liked it beyond ‘’this is the best we can do with what we are asked of/limited to this year.’’
I sadly generally notice a tendency to more generic content short on writing depth and lore right now. Night Market was... a strange experience in its randomness, but also the new Favors just feel so generic, with the only real narrative content about them being the letters (which are also weird); and also those new world events don't really have any background, let alone lore, to them. An attack on a farm (by whom ever - it is never specified), a vampire hunt, and some fairytale retelling with some oh so funny twist but completely unrelated to Tamriel... The technical/combat aspects might be fun enough to play them a few times, but story- and lore-wise, they're vacuous. And this is all pre-layoff content. Really makes me wonder.emilyhyoyeon wrote: »On that point: I’m genuinely curious if the writing team (pre-layoffs) as a whole knows what story players are looking for. I’ve been thinking of this specifically regarding the new Thieves Guild release. I remember when it was announced on streams and stuff, IMO it was framed in a way where the developers recognized the first Thieves Guild zone and story was one of the really praised ones. I want to know if they know why.
I've been wondering about that too. Sometimes it really felt to me like there might be some weird disconnect or misunderstanding, despite story-focused players having stated quite often what they find appealing in ESO and what they care for in terms of writing. The vast majority of players stating that ESO's early years had the best chapters is also such a case - if I was the developer, I'd try to get back to that old writing style again, with more complexity, emotion and seriousness instead of silly quips, for example, and with deeper lore, and stories mostly closely relating to Tamriel's cultures. But I didn't see that happen yet. Instead, they even seemed to lean into the opposite direction lately: Generic simple stories not relating much to TES' different cultures, quips, clichéd depictions of characters, and moralizing dialogues despite one interesting aspect of TES always having been that it did not moralize.emilyhyoyeon wrote: »I’m hesitant to make any real statements yet because I’ve just barely started the new Thieves Guild quest on my thief + considering the newness, I’m sure some people have completed even less than I have, and I don’t want to risk any kind of spoiler. But, basically, from what I’ve done and where I think the quest is going, I wouldn’t be confident saying that I think the devs know why the first Thieves Guild questline is considered good. I’ve been avoiding anyone else’s feedback until I finish it, and I’ve been trying to wait a bit to play the quests so that I don’t see floods of people.
I haven't even started it yet. Planning to do that within the next few days, probably. What do I, so far, expect to find? Probably flirt options with Quen (because, of course, there always needs to be flirting with a popular character)? Other than that - I have no clue what we'll get. I'm not too optimistic after how the last few stories had been, but obviously I don't want to condemn it before I've finished it either.emilyhyoyeon wrote: »I think the racing game thing in the upcoming trial is the mounted combat feature, right? That’s something I can see the developers themselves truly wanting to invest time in. I just don’t want things to feel ‘’gamey.’’ Mounted combat, in a vacuum, is cool and appropriate for a TES world, of course. But the context matters. Using the mount combat as an example, I would want to see it enhance the world, like make it contribute to it feeling more authentic. Evoking Mario Kart for the sake of evoking Mario Kart doesn’t do that.
Yes, exactly that. I only know what we saw in the stream so far, of course, but somehow it didn't really evoke the feeling I'd expect from horse combat, if that makes sense? I can't fully remember it anymore after several weeks, but didn't it really look more like racing over some obstacle course instead of, well, actual mounted combat in a medieval fantasy setting? That's what makes a huge difference to me, and in the end a difference between an addition I'd welcome for this game, and something I, personally, wouldn't care for at all, or even find weird and unfitting.emilyhyoyeon wrote: »The Night Market incident is so interesting to me because part of the reason why I didn’t understand the appeal is that it’s so narratively hollow; but, I can understand that not every ESO player plays for the world and story. The other part is that it’s not special in what it does. I don’t know if you were also making this point on top of it, but there really are other, better games for contextless puzzle solving and enemy mowing. What were players getting out of the Night Market specifically, truly? I can’t believe that it was for a reason like that they specifically enjoyed the ‘’TES backdrop’’ for it, because that effectively wasn’t even there, beyond piloting your own character if they are lore friendly.
Indeed. Maybe some people just enjoyed the novelty effect (within ESO) of it? Or some might be happy about anything really, any chore, any activity, they can do in ESO. I don't know. For me, the only thing halfway interesting was actually exploring the place (as in looking at the landscape, and what enemies, items and such can be found there) right on day one - but as there wasn't that much to see, no real lore to explore, barely any npc to talk to, that bit of interest was gone fast. That's a thing to keep me occupied for an hour or two, not for weeks and months. It became dull so fast. And with that dullness, I still spent 2 weeks in there for those points/achievements/rooms... Wasn't fun.emilyhyoyeon wrote: »It was particularly confusing to me as someone who likes the ESO dungeons and bosses in their contexts and stories, because quite frankly, trying to look at it as good-faithly as possible, the Night Market ruins itself. Like why is Kovan Giryon here? Just standing here? Alright, maybe it could make sense he’s checking out the Night Market as a person with free will and thoughts, and wanted to check it out. Why is the nix-ox Roksa here?? Did Kovan bring her and she broke her leash and wandered off, and that’s why she’s in an entirely different district? I mean, we know why: it’s because the Skittering district was spider/bug/gross themed and Roksa is a nix-ox, so she has to go there. Kovan does time magic so the lights/shadows themed district ‘’matches’’ him. Like, this is so lame… It’s not only that there was no narrative substance in the Night Market, but what it does have breaks immersion. There’s a random giant incineration beetle in the Parch district. Okay then. I'm kind of just ranting here, but yeah.
I think those were supposed to be copies, basically like those things from Thoat Replicanum in the Archive? Because Ithelia's realm Fargrave. Or something. Why they're there? Well - for mysterious reasons, of course! It's a mysterious daedric realm, after all! So everything is possible there, I guess. Even arcade minigames from real world modern times. Random colorful beams of light, and rolling boulders coming from holes and disappearing somewhere again. Randomly. The whole thing was just horribly game-y and completely illogical if the things we see in ESO are supposed to be part of a fictional world. It made no sense at all, not even for some "mysterious daedric realm". Now, of course, ESO has always had some game-y aspects, especially when it comes to puzzles and other minigames, but I always had the impression they tried to somehow fit them into the fictional world at least. I didn't have that impression in the Night Market at all.
Edited by Syldras on 24 July 2026 03:10@Syldras | PC | EU
The forceful expression of will gives true honor to the Ancestors.
Sarayn Andrethi, Telvanni mage (Main)
Darvasa Andrethi, his "I'm NOT a Necromancer!" sister
Malacar Sunavarlas, Altmer Ayleid vampire
Soris Rethandus, a Sleeper not yet awake1 -
metheglyn✭✭✭✭✭
✭Well, do let me know how that works out. Whatever 'that' might be....
So, I have been testing for reciprocal reactions between that Psijic Writ of Banishment and the guest in my basement. I tried waving the document in front of his face, sticking it to his forehead, and, as a last option, stuffing it into his mouth (you know, how the people in Daggerfall do it if they want to deliver an important message). Sadly, it did not incite any reaction, not even a tiny angry ripple of interplanar energy right from his undead soul stuck in Coldharbor. In other words: That writ is either utterly useless, or fake.
I think you should try to decipher and then recite the runes--I'm not only sure that's the key to figuring it out, I'm positive nothing bad could come of recklessly reciting something you don't fully understand. Then again, if it's a counterfeit writ, the runes are probably counterfeit, too. Well, guess it's time to crumple it up and toss it on the pile of mysteries!They are optional side branches. That's why I can choose to not select them and still progress the quest. What I really dislike is when the "dummy" response is the only way you can advance the quest. It becomes a case of: ask the most blindingly obvious question or don't finish the quest. Ideally ZOS would have the time and ability to have every branch of dialogue track player character progress, so the player isn't met with frustrating dialogue options like that, but I honestly don't know how feasible that ever was.
Indeed the biggest problem is if a quest can't be progressed at all without stupid questions. It's a bit sad we've seen it happen until recently (I remember it from the Solstice story), despite people having been criticizing it for years.
Anyway, with story content becoming more scarce now, who knows, maybe the smaller stories might get a bit more detail for the dialogues, at least? I don't know - I haven't started the new Thieves Guild questline yet, intending to wait until the masses of people have moved on (so I'll probably start it soon - the first 2 weeks are over now, and soon the Sheogorath story will start and people will probably move on to that one). I spent the past weeks doing Favors and chores (I've already claimed all the clutter up to page 8 of the Chore Book now - despite there still being 90 days left - , and guess I'll have it finished within the next 2 weeks at most; glad about that, so I won't have to look into it anymore until October). Have you started questing yet?
I've done the first quest of the new Thieves Guild story. I'll wait to discuss details until you've done it, but I can say I liked it pretty well. Having just finished the original Theives Guild story on an alt, what I've seen so far of the new one matches in tone and general ambience. I have some minor dialogue quibbles, but that's more about the arrangement of the dialogue than the content of it--if that makes sense. If not, it will when we discuss it more fully.I find it off-putting, too. When I log into the game to play, I generally have a plan or a goal of what I want to accomplish with my time. Sometimes I have time to just wander about, but generally I need to be careful with my game time, and doing content at someone else's behest doesn't sit well with me. Hah, I sound kind of like a grump here, don't I?
I don't think that's an unusual opinion on that topic. At least I know several people who have limited playtime each week and they all want to use those few hours for whatever they find fun - not for some task list set up by someone else, and even less so if it's things they don't really enjoy that much.
Though I guess what irks me most right now are all those waiting times. Waiting for the "dynamic encounter" - up to 30 minutes each time - , waiting for some boss or mobs to spawn for Favors, waiting for world bosses, dolmens or whatever to start for the Chore Book weekly chore list,... It almost saddens me when I think back at how playing ESO felt like when I started in February 2016 - when I just logged in, wandered around and quested, without a need to really wait anywhere (if a dolmen or world boss wasn't currently up, I could just see by the symbol on my map that I hadn't cleared it yet and would return later), and without any chore lists. Then again, how much does today's ESO still resemble the ESO of a decade ago anyway?! Back then, there weren't extremely generic writing and weird flashy exploding neon mounts either (I sometimes wonder if I ever had joined ESO had it looked like it does today back then, and I'm honestly not sure about that).
There is a lot of waiting with dynamic encounters and, for the most part, I don't do it. I did do the waiting game just to experience all three from the start, so I could maybe get an idea of what the "story" was about them. But standing around with a group of players just to start an encounter that is all flashing aoe and a super hyper pace is not something I enjoy. My approach now is: if I'm in one of the maps that has a dynamic encounter, and if that encounter is active, and if I have the time, I might go participate.
As for the resemblance of current ESO to early ESO--it's changed, definitely. I disagree that there wasn't some generic writing back then, though. There have always been pretty formulaic quests in this game--it's just that the balance used to be on the side of the deeper quests. As for the mounts...yeah, some of them are a bit much. But you know what I also find a bit much? The jester personality. The way players can sprint everywhere. That stupid skelton polymorph. Those have been in the game forever, and bothering me forever--it's always taken me right out of whatever immersion I had in the game to see someone sprinting by in the jester personality, or to see skeletons just hanging out everywhere. (Granted, skeleton polymorph has disminished in use over the years, owing to how many more hideous polymorphs exist).
It's definitely gotten more over the top in later years, with all the cosmetic additions, but what I most wonder is: how much of the bills do these cosmetics pay for? Also, I'm someone who likes mounts and pets that probably don't really fit with the Elder Scrolls lore and world. I love my cat mounts, but they definitely weren't base game (though some now can be bought with gold rather than crowns). And I really like some of the cosmetics from the most recent crates. In fact, I used my seals and leftover gems to get a bunch of stuff from them, and now I have a character in the padomay outfit (which interestingly gives players a cloak-like effect on their back) and her companion in the anu outfit (which interestingly gives companions a head decoration) and I get a kick out of that combo. Someone might look at my character and companion in those outfits and think: that's too much, and doesn't fit with the world (especially when they mount up on their non-horses and ride off).Sorry, I didn't mean to imply it was an innocent and well-meaning reminder. I just meant it could, if it you looked at it charitably, also be considered that. It was definitely utilizing FOMO as a selling point. But as to it not matching their stance, they didn't say they were getting rid of all FOMO (something they couldn't even do, since FOMO is very much a person's own thing), just that they were going to cut out some things that might induce it. The ad didn't bother me--I was never going to purchase the tome--but I do see how it could be considered a bit much.
I understand they don't want or can't remove it entirely. I just find it ironic that they stated they want to lessen it, but at the same time, there's an increasing number of temporary content now (Wall event was the first time they did that, and I remember they made a statement after it wasn't well-received that they understand that the community doesn't want time-limited content, so they'd move away from that?! Still we got Night Market after that, and now High Seas, and who knows what next). Also, ESO online ads (on Reddit or similar) had also not been about FOMO until recently. It had always been about experiencing Tamriel, or about having a look at the new chapter story (that never was temporary) - not about "Buy XYZ from the Crown Store before it's gone!!!" or similar. It was never about hurrying. But now it's "Buy the Tome fastly before it's gone forever!", "Hurry! Play the Night Market before it's gone!" - I find that much worse than it had been before. The ads of the early years were an offer to people to explore the world of ESO - now it doesn't feel like an offer, but totally pushy.
I agree such ads can come across as pushy rather than inviting. I have seen those "hurry before it's gone!" messages, but I guess I just didn't pay them much heed. Since Night Market wasn't for me, any ad reminding me it was about to go away had me thinking "good" or "finally" rather than, "oh no!" Had I enjoyed Night Market, likely the effect of the ads would have been different.
I don't class Night Market and High Seas with Writhing Wall, though. Writhing Wall was annouced as one-time, temporary content and won't be back (unless, of course, they change their mind). Night Market and High Seas were announced as events, and events are always limited time but guaranteed to return, like New Life and all the other holiday events. The key difference is while we always know when New Life or Anniversary comes around, we don't have the exact schedule for Night Market or High Seas returns. I suppose it's possible that, if these two events aren't successful (and I don't know what metrics ZOS might use to determine such), they will get axed. It's possible that, in the name of "experimental content," these events get changed either subtly or drastically every time they come back. I think that uncertainty is the major difference for me, and not one I quite like.One of the things I didn't like about Night Market was how hectic and frenetic it was. That is completely opposite to how I prefer to play. I don't mind that places like that exist in game for people who enjoy that kind of gameplay--like has been mentioned, players have wildly differing things they like in this game--but I'm not going to partake of it and I hope that style of encouraged gameplay doesn't start to become part of everything they design.
What I'd been thinking about lately: The Market was also called a testing ground. And now we can already see the first things that seemed to have been tested in the Market before showing up somewhere else. Those overland "Dynamic" Encounters clearly show elements from the Night Market Skirmishes (they just forgot one of the most central useful things about them: the visible countdown/timer...). Who knows what else will show up again? Some of the Night Market puzzles returning in the Sages Vault perhaps? Or perhaps within the next new trial? Anyway, in the end it's content recycling (just, sometimes, reskinned) and I'm also not entirely sure how to feel about that.
Well, I don't know their development cycle, so I don't know that dynamic encounters were designed after Night Market--maybe they were lifted from it, maybe not. I had thought that the dynamic encounters system was meant to be something that could be built upon over time, to include more of them in other zones, perhaps iterating on design so they aren't all the same kind of thing. Same with favours--they were going to start small and be added to over time. Who knows if they can keep adding to these newly implemented systems now.
I don't necessarily mind them taking features from one system and using them in another. Not everyone does every bit of content, so taking puzzles from Night Market and placing them in another place would let more people experience them. I think the important thing with it, though, is that they don't just copy the feature wholesale from one type of content to the next, but adjust it so it fits and, ideally, iterate on it so it gets better. Dynamic encounters should have a timer (or a set time, but a set time makes them not quite dynamic, I guess), so in that case, if it was copied, they left out an important detail.Options are always nice, and since they have made the UI so customizable, I would hope that anything else they might add in future would be equally so. But honestly, if they have gone this long without adding a mini-map, I doubt it's on their radar. I'll have to use your pin a location method and see how that works for me--I never considered that. I mean, I'll probably still get lost a lot, but it might help as a general guide.
Did it work? I never got lost in ESO.
"Lost" is probably not the most accurate description. It's more like--I get turned around a lot and end up going the wrong way. But, yes, the pin location method did work, so thanks for sharing that!Ok, so going on the idea that Mannimarco wasn't given a copy of his writ of banishment, here's what I think could have happened. Mannimarco knew the document existed, and he wanted it. Why did he want it? To use in a scheme of revenge against the Psijics, of course! (Dude loves his revenge). He convinced someone to steal it for him (and then probably killed that person, because why not) and, once he had it, experimented with it, hence the indecipherable and bizarre runes. He never got to the end point of his revenge before other matters took his attention, however, and that's why we never learned about it before now. How did it then end up in the Night Market? Well, Mannimarco spent a lot of time in Coldharbour, so he probably had the writ there as he was conducting his experiments with it. Then, after he got sidelined by the Vestige and chained up by Molag Bal, his Coldharbour castle likely got plundered by any manner of daedra, one of whom took the writ as loot. At some point, that daedra ended up in the Night Market and lost the writ, and you found it. Case closed.
I've given up on searching explanations for random contraband/loot items long ago. Also, is anything in the Night Market even real? Isn't it just random replications made of daedric matter anyway?
You don't have to search for an explanation, though--I gave you one! ;-P
Is anything in the Night Market real? I don't know. Don't daedric planes have their own basic structure regardless of whatever gets created/imitated with creatia? Molag Bal likes to pull things into Coldharbour, and he couldn't do that if they didn't have somewhere to land, could he?If you're a staff writer on a show, and the directive comes down to write a certain way, whether or not you fall in with that would likely depend on a number of factors, one of which being: you need this job. But I don't really know how writers' rooms work and how much interference from the executives is tolerated. I guess it depends on the show and the people involved in creating it.
I'm just wondering if one would already know what one gets into when applying for such a job. Perhaps they'd explicitly state that they require someone who can write in that "for people who don't actually follow the story, don't read, don't watch, don't listen" style? I mean, if someone was to be hired to compose muzak, that would probably require a muzak creator, not a composer of classical orchestral symphonies.
No clue--I've never worked in the entertainment industry. I suppose it's likely to be varied, how much one knows about the job before getting hired on.If Sanguine is as brutal as you describe, there are ratings reasons they can't depict some of it. But also, if Sanguine is as brutal as you describe, I've never seen it depicted in the Elder Scrolls--or if I have, I don't remember it. I do remember Skyrim Sanguine, and he wasn't brutal at all. More of a trickster than anything else, it seemed. But, again, perhaps I'm misremembering.
Sure, they can't depict the most extreme aspects graphically in game, and they never did, only mentioned them in lorebooks. The problem for me is that all recent Sanguine lore, no matter if visually or through dialogues or other texts, completely omits the really dark aspects. It's like it's all just fun and games now, a bit drinking here, a bit dancing there, nothing bad, and even the Aedra priest doesn't mind. This is especially sad as it's completely ignoring the principle that Sanguine stands for, as well as what Daedric Princes are. Some aren't as horrible as others, sure, but they're still otherworldly demon lords or evil deities which should have something uncanny to them.
For me, the uncanny element to them diminishes when we're constantly running into them and working for/against them. No matter how well any of the Princes might be depicted, if we're seeing them all the time, they're not going to retain their otherworldly stature. For instance, I can't recall that we've ever actually seen Azura in the game. Anytime we interact with her, it's through a statue, or an intermediary--whether that be someone speaking for her, or her literally speaking through them with possession. So she still retains a sense of mystery and uncanniness. The others, though--they seem to be always showing up on Nirn, or we come across them on pocket planes, or their planes--and then it's just like: oh, hey, yet another Prince.I'm also not interested in the cosmetics/pet/mount from the paid portion of the tome, but the free track has plenty of items I want. I've seen people on the forum mention they are getting one or the other of the paid versions of the tomes, so there is definitely a market for it. I have no idea if there will ever be a tome offering that will tempt me to buy it, but so far there hasn't been.
I wonder if leaning deeper into the lore would help to make it more appealing. Sure, this might appeal to an even more specific target group, but for me really one of the things that makes it less interesting is that the items don't feel really specific to their alleged theme. I mean, sure, there are a few thief/rogue-themed items this time, but how does a corgi relate to that (even if it's cute), or some random hyena, or some knight- and "forest archer"-themed face paint (the former's flavor text is completely generic, but at least a knight is a generic thing that exists in ESO, unlike the group mentioned in the latter item's flavor text, which is randomly made up for this item only and not rooted anywhere in ESO lore, or TES lore, at all)? I guess that would even be the problem if they ever released some tome with a Dunmer theme I enjoy (like Tribunal, CWC or even Telvanni): If only 2 items actually fit that theme, and the rest is generic, I would not find those 2 items that interest me worth the Tome's price.
I didn't read the flavor text for any of the premium cosmetics. I don't like a lot of the face markings anyway, so just briefly checking to see how they look is all I've done. As for how the items relate to the lore/theme--very loosely, I would imagine.I haven't yet done any of the favor quests, but I have a couple of thoughts on them based on what you said.
Story/lorewise, since the NPCs are handing out these quests via a third party, it makes sense that the initial letter is pretty basic, as they don't necessarily know who is going to pick it up. (I'm assuming the letter was written to give to you upon completion of the task before you ever picked up the task). In gameplay terms, since anyone can do these at any time, they're likely covering the bases with an introductory letter so players who never met these NPCs get to know who they are.
From what I understand, these favor quests take place over twenty days, so hopefully the letters get more story-driven or have a stronger narrative focus. An article likened them to the hireling letters, and those always started out fairly basic with a "Hi, I'm the person providing you with materials," and eventually worked up to create a full story about the hireling's life. I much enjoyed the hireling stories, so if these letters follow a similar trajectory, I won't feel let down.
I'll try to find time to do one today and see how it feels in game.
I, too, enjoyed the hireling stories, but am much more critical about the new Favor letters. Too many inconsistencies and inplausibilities (especially considering context it's a mess), I don't really think some of them fit the character portrayed, I also dislike that we seem totally incapable of telling them who we are or are forced to keep it a secret for some reason... Anyway, lots of things I could say about them! On which day are you now and what do you think about them so far?
If I get them all done today, I'll be halfway through (so day 10).
My thoughts on the favour tasks themselves: some are fun, some are just chores, some are things I did years ago. I like that they don't take too much time and I like the ones that are different from the usual "kill X" style. It's interesting to me that some of them are pointing people towards side quests (that apparently were often missed) and, if you had missed that side quest, it's nice to get a bit of old-school questing. Of course, if you've done the quest, all you get is some letter from an NPC you may or may not remember, depending on how long ago you did the quest. One I recently did involved me 'scouting' a place in Stormhaven that contained a side-quest for that zone. I went to the 'scouting' spot, and the quest advanced to tell me to turn in my report, so I looked at the item in my inventory, but all it said was something like: "information from scouting." That was disappointing, because I'd done that side quest years ago, so I had hoped it would say something about the situation being resolved or something. I guess if you hadn't done that quest (though not sure how many people would have missed it--it's right outside Wayrest), you would then do it? I dunno. Anyway, the actual favours are hit and miss for me.
My thoughts on the letters: I like them. True, the set-up of the letter writer not knowing who we are, though they do know we're the same person doing all the favours, is clunky. But I think the letters themselves give us a look into these characters we haven't seen before. Well...not Lady Arabelle...she seems to be very much the same. But learning more about Holgunn is cool, and Urcelmo seems to be going through something, which has me a bit worried about him. It's providing some nuance to these NPCs with whom our interactions before were fairly one-note. (Again, the exception is Lady Arabelle, but that's fine--not everyone needs to have a great secret or tragedy or magnicent story or a hidden side). Should Urcelmo be telling us some of the things he's telling us? Probably not, but the fact that he is makes me think there's more going on there. That such an upright Altmer would do such a thing tells its own tale.He's feeling isolated and alone, his responsiblities might be too much for him at this point, and then he finds out his second-in-command is trying to undermine him. I think that might cause a lapse or two in pure Altmer judgment.
Anyway, once favours are done, what's next? When do rumours start? I'll be curious to see how those turn out, since they're supposed to require some actual in-game sleuthing (that is, not just a quest with a marker telling you exactly where to go and what to do). Oh, and then the Sheogorath questline, too. But I definitely won't be doing that right away. And I still have the rest of the Thieves Guild questline to do.
As for the tome, I'm on page seven. I think. I expect it'll be like last time--I'll get it done within a month and then just ignore the tasks. There's definitely some cosmetics/collectibles on the free track that I do not want this time, so I'm a little annoyed about the next end of the tome/auto-buy thing. But maybe they'll let us opt-out of it by then.0 -
Syldras✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I think you should try to decipher and then recite the runes--I'm not only sure that's the key to figuring it out, I'm positive nothing bad could come of recklessly reciting something you don't fully understand. Then again, if it's a counterfeit writ, the runes are probably counterfeit, too. Well, guess it's time to crumple it up and toss it on the pile of mysteries!
Recite them? Nah, that's absurd. The way those "runes" look, they seem more like some badly scribbled shopping list anyway.There is a lot of waiting with dynamic encounters and, for the most part, I don't do it. I did do the waiting game just to experience all three from the start, so I could maybe get an idea of what the "story" was about them. But standing around with a group of players just to start an encounter that is all flashing aoe and a super hyper pace is not something I enjoy. My approach now is: if I'm in one of the maps that has a dynamic encounter, and if that encounter is active, and if I have the time, I might go participate.
In general, I'd agree, but I was "lucky" to get those encounters as weekly chores twice already. Even tried to reroll, but only ended up with it changing to battlegrounds, then trial, then dynamic encounters again. So I already had to do them 8 times just for that - and unfortunately, those chores came after I had already waited about half an hour each just to try each one initially out of curiosity. So, I've waited 11 times already, and it was always a longer wait. Not sure if always 30 minutes, or sometimes "only" 20 or 25, but it's still too much. Maximum 5,5 hours of waiting... It's not a total waste of time as I read while waiting, but since I only play ESO between 1 and 2 hours per evening currently, I'd prefer to actually play the game while being logged in, not standing around somewhere and reading a book instead of actually doing something in-game. It really makes me wonder why they didn't include a timer/countdown, especially since we know that technically already exists in game (we've seen it during the Wall event and also in the Night Market). Anyway, I have no intention of doing these anymore unless I need to do them for chores, but considering I'm already on page 8 of Chore Book, I'll only get this chore again once or twice at most, until I'm done with it until the end of October anyway. I do think this is a very time-consuming chore.As for the resemblance of current ESO to early ESO--it's changed, definitely. I disagree that there wasn't some generic writing back then, though. There have always been pretty formulaic quests in this game--it's just that the balance used to be on the side of the deeper quests.
Of course there have always been some more generic ones. Simple fetch quests, too. But it has gone out of balance somehow, with especially the content of this year so far often barely feeling like they let us explore more about the world of TES through them.
Night Market had generic tasks with super generic vague quest texts (basically nothing more than "some group stole some item for some unknown reason, please return it" - I found it honestly shocking how vacuous it was, especially since I was used to it being different in ESO before, as even the stuff that wasn't well-written tried to somehow relate to Tamriel at least).
Dynamic encounters are visually fine and fun to play for a few times, but honestly, narratively they're also shallow and loreless (someone is hunting some vampire, someone is attacking some farm, and the Little Red Riding Hood story, which has a tiny bit of story, but not really a TES story either).
Favors are also mostly generic "kill random boss in zone x" and "take item y to location z" type of quests, repeating several times within only a few days (sometimes reskinned with feeding dogs or cliffracers instead of cats, sometimes not even reskinned - not sure of how many failed mammoth hunts I've already read), with some short two- or three-liner of flavor text perhaps, which is a bit better than nothing at all, but still not much. I've learned nothing new about Tamriel through them, and they weren't stories that actually made me think about something or relate to some character much, or evoke some feelings, either. Sure, feeding a few animals is cute for a second (until you do it for the 7th time in only a few days), and yes, it's nice that Urcelmo distributes sweets to the inhabitants of some town, or that we bring supplies to a Nord village that ran out of food after a failed hunt, but it's just nice for a short moment, and that's it. Admittedly, there are the questgiver letters which tell a story - more about that later.As for the mounts...yeah, some of them are a bit much. But you know what I also find a bit much? The jester personality. The way players can sprint everywhere. That stupid skelton polymorph. Those have been in the game forever, and bothering me forever--it's always taken me right out of whatever immersion I had in the game to see someone sprinting by in the jester personality, or to see skeletons just hanging out everywhere. (Granted, skeleton polymorph has disminished in use over the years, owing to how many more hideous polymorphs exist).
Jester wasn't added before April 2020. That was the Greymoor year, which is, to me, not early ESO anymore, but more on the middle of the timeline. I've already been in the game for over 4 years when it came up. And yes, I also found it annoying when it was added.
Skeleton was a basegame polymorph, some quest reward, I think? I also didn't find it that immersive when people just walked through towns like that, but they weren't neon-colored, sparkling and exploding, at least. Also, one could at least tell oneself this might be some poor cursed wizard still searching for a way to revert that condition, and the guards might not attack because they know that person. Lore-wise, some person cursed to look like a skeleton makes more sense to me than some weird ghastly colored creature that never shows up as a natural part of the world anywhere, and also doesn't feel like it could actually be a part of that world.
I don't mind a black senche or a white camel, because these creatures could plausibly, believably, exist somewhere in Tamriel. Or even a colorful indrik, as these seem to be bred for colorful variants by the Altmer, so if there's a new one with purple or pink feathers, that doesn't feel completely unrealistic. A fire-spitting lizard camel or a toxic green jelly bear, on the other hand...?It's definitely gotten more over the top in later years, with all the cosmetic additions, but what I most wonder is: how much of the bills do these cosmetics pay for?
Well, now they're the main revenue source, except for ESO+ perhaps... I still wonder if they really need to be that weird and flashy, or if people would enjoy, and buy, less flashy items just the same, if only more subdued designs had been offered.I don't class Night Market and High Seas with Writhing Wall, though. Writhing Wall was annouced as one-time, temporary content and won't be back (unless, of course, they change their mind). Night Market and High Seas were announced as events, and events are always limited time but guaranteed to return, like New Life and all the other holiday events. The key difference is while we always know when New Life or Anniversary comes around, we don't have the exact schedule for Night Market or High Seas returns. I suppose it's possible that, if these two events aren't successful (and I don't know what metrics ZOS might use to determine such), they will get axed. It's possible that, in the name of "experimental content," these events get changed either subtly or drastically every time they come back. I think that uncertainty is the major difference for me, and not one I quite like.
I've seen mentions on these forums, by users, of High Seas being a one-time thing. Whether it's really the case or just people's assumptions, I don't know. I've seen it being mentioned in threads in which devs replied, and no dev corrected these user statements, which made me wonder. What I also noticed is that isn't advertised like they usually advertise new events added to the festivity schedule, where it's absolutely clear that this is some holiday event that will return for sure. So who knows. I generally don't really like the concept of putting ressources into one-time content, especially if the ressources are scarce.
As for Night Market: It was also marketed as being a temporary 2026 thing, appearing only twice. I think there were statements later, because people were asking, that it might return more often if well-received, but originally, it was also announced as limited-time content. Which felt a little weird as it was presented right after so many people had voiced their discontent about the Wall event being limited-time and not a permanent addition to the world.
Anyway, these "it might or might not return" statements also sound FOMO-inducing to me, giving people the feeling they "need" to participate, since otherwise they might miss the whole thing and never get to play it. It's different with the usual holiday events where I clearly know that I can just play them next year if I miss them this year, and none of the quests will be gone.Well, I don't know their development cycle, so I don't know that dynamic encounters were designed after Night Market--maybe they were lifted from it, maybe not.
What I can say is that many of the Night Market Skirmish mechanisms and the Dynamic Encounter mechanisms are identical. Those crystal pillars in the werewolf hunt Encounter are 100% identical to the crystal pillars in the skirmish of that gloomy zone in the Night Market (they look exactly the same and also do the same thing). The mechanism of picking up water buckets and slow-walk them to fires in the farm Encounter is identical to the Skirmish in the Skittering zone, where the player had to pick up some rubble and slow-walk it to some brazier.
I don't mind it, if it fits. I'm just saying these things aren't entirely new, but basically reused content, and that it makes me guess that what we'll see in the Night Market next time might hint at what ever content will follow after that. Night Market basically looks like a test run to me.Is anything in the Night Market real? I don't know. Don't daedric planes have their own basic structure regardless of whatever gets created/imitated with creatia? Molag Bal likes to pull things into Coldharbour, and he couldn't do that if they didn't have somewhere to land, could he?
What I meant is that I think they might have tried to story-wise link everything we see in the Night Market (minus the npcs on the plaza - or perhaps not?) to Ithelia and that Thoat Replicanum replication shennanigans. All Night Market enemies, including the individually named bosses, are from all parts of Tamriel (they're all just copies of world bosses, trial and dungeon bosses from other parts of the game - basically recycled content), after all, and it doesn't really make any sense why they should be there - and just standing around doing nothing, until some player character arrives to kill them. I mean, they often do that, also in dungeons, but at least there, where they originally showed up, there's some background story for them being there. In the Night Market, they're... just there, without any motivation or reason. Which makes me think they're not real, but just daedric copies, illusions, or whatever. Not that it's ever elaborated on anywhere.For me, the uncanny element to them diminishes when we're constantly running into them and working for/against them. No matter how well any of the Princes might be depicted, if we're seeing them all the time, they're not going to retain their otherworldly stature. For instance, I can't recall that we've ever actually seen Azura in the game. Anytime we interact with her, it's through a statue, or an intermediary--whether that be someone speaking for her, or her literally speaking through them with possession. So she still retains a sense of mystery and uncanniness. The others, though--they seem to be always showing up on Nirn, or we come across them on pocket planes, or their planes--and then it's just like: oh, hey, yet another Prince.
I mean, in a way, it's part of Sanguine's theme to wander around in disguise and corrupt people (he's also stated to be the daedric prince who interacts the closest with mortals). Not through otherworldly magic powers, but just through seducing them with words. Or who knows, maybe these npcs aren't even him in person, but just possessed humans. I agree though that having him show up so often is a bit much.
As for the others, I personally also don't like it much that we saw them showing up in a corporal form that often. Especially the Ithelia story with all those flashbacks with them interacting and talking to each other as if they were just some funny-shaped humans... This was never how daedric princes had been described in lore. It reminded me more of the Ancient Greek deities on Mount Olympus, for example, who are depicted as quite "human" for being gods, quarrelling, intriguing, and having all kinds of very human emotions. This is not how the daedric princes were defined originally.I didn't read the flavor text for any of the premium cosmetics. I don't like a lot of the face markings anyway, so just briefly checking to see how they look is all I've done. As for how the items relate to the lore/theme--very loosely, I would imagine.
I think it's a pity since there are so many cosmetics that could be done about things we already have in lore. Something that actually looks lore-accurate and related to the fictional world. Lots of Dunmer clothing and hairstyles like we've seen them in TES3 Morrowind, for example. Or, whether one personally likes them or not, traditional Dunmer/Velothi face markings. The same for other cultures, of course, there's so much background lore already there.My thoughts on the favour tasks themselves: some are fun, some are just chores, some are things I did years ago. I like that they don't take too much time and I like the ones that are different from the usual "kill X" style. It's interesting to me that some of them are pointing people towards side quests (that apparently were often missed) and, if you had missed that side quest, it's nice to get a bit of old-school questing. Of course, if you've done the quest, all you get is some letter from an NPC you may or may not remember, depending on how long ago you did the quest. One I recently did involved me 'scouting' a place in Stormhaven that contained a side-quest for that zone. I went to the 'scouting' spot, and the quest advanced to tell me to turn in my report, so I looked at the item in my inventory, but all it said was something like: "information from scouting." That was disappointing, because I'd done that side quest years ago, so I had hoped it would say something about the situation being resolved or something. I guess if you hadn't done that quest (though not sure how many people would have missed it--it's right outside Wayrest), you would then do it? I dunno. Anyway, the actual favours are hit and miss for me.
I don't like the simple fetch or delivery quests much, as they feel quite uninspired. Feeding animals was cute, but even that gets repeated too much. They're generally all really horribly repetative. The "kill world boss", "kill delve boss", "kill enemy type x" in given zone tasks aren't super interesting either, and on top of that create frustration about waiting for respawns or fighting over a few enemies with a dozen of other players - that had been criticized about those "collect 12 hides/trollfat/whatever" quests during the Wall event last year already.
The only truly interesting tasks are those where you get sent to do some old base game quest - but those aren't new at all, and if you've already done them (and I think I've done all of them before - tomorrow is already day 20 for me, the last day, and so far I had not missed even one of these quests), it's nothing at all except for some letter. Since I've done these quests a decade ago, I can't even really remember most, and unfortunately, those letters are also too vague to actually make me remember what it was about. So it's basically just picking up the task, browsing the letter, and collecting the reward box for me, with no real narrative value. It might be a better experience for new players.
I mean, yes, some of them are very fastly done, and one might get a nice lead as a reward, but in general, I had hoped for less repetativeness and a bit more story to it. Simple side quests, or fetch quests, but actually a bit more than just running to some box to throw an item into it and then return to another box to get the reward. I guess I also dislike that there are no npcs involved at all, there's no dialogues at all, no new lore... These are the things I play this game for, and if there's nothing like this, just running from A to B and clicking a box isn't really fun to me, it's... nothing. In the end, it's basically a chore; something I only do for a chance for a nice lead, and the questgiver letter. Though those...My thoughts on the letters: I like them. True, the set-up of the letter writer not knowing who we are, though they do know we're the same person doing all the favours, is clunky. But I think the letters themselves give us a look into these characters we haven't seen before. Well...not Lady Arabelle...she seems to be very much the same. But learning more about Holgunn is cool, and Urcelmo seems to be going through something, which has me a bit worried about him. It's providing some nuance to these NPCs with whom our interactions before were fairly one-note. (Again, the exception is Lady Arabelle, but that's fine--not everyone needs to have a great secret or tragedy or magnicent story or a hidden side). Should Urcelmo be telling us some of the things he's telling us? Probably not, but the fact that he is makes me think there's more going on there. That such an upright Altmer would do such a thing tells its own tale.
I'm honestly really disappointed with the letters (the beginning was okay-ish, but I'm really not happy especially with the later ones). Not sure if it's also a translation issue, but some, or especially their sequence, comes across as quite chaotic, jumping from one topic to another and then back again, but not really in a way that seems authentic for letter writing. When sending someone a letter, even a short one, one doesn't randomly jump into the middle of some thought or some story without context, especially when (assuming to) talk to a random stranger who doesn't know the context, after all.
I also don't find it plausible what kind of personal, or in case of Urcelmo even important secret military info, we get - as an assumed random stranger who could be anyone, including an enemy! They basically all feel like they overshare, which doesn't really feel like it fits their character. Especially considering they're all supposed to be experienced older adults, veterans and experts in their field.
In case of Holgunn, the course of events also feels a bit random, and Urcelmo's story becomes more and more constructed and illogical in the later letters (with things happening exactly when they're convenient for the story to happen). We can discuss those in detail when you've read all of them, since I don't want to spoil them for you before you get to that point.
Ironically, I think the letters that fit the character best and at least have some congruent story, are Arabelle's. Unfortunately, I never liked her, and most (if not all?) letters mentioning either being drunk, wanting to drink, needing to drink (but obviously supposed to be the "cool wine lady" cliché instead of the poor alcohol addict), or some "nudge nudge sex hehe affairs" stuff isn't exactly interesting either (funny thing - seems to be very much the same trope as Tanlorin, just a little bit less infantile).
Considering this, I'm honestly not sure if I'd be happy seeing something like this done for other characters, including those I like, in the future. If it fits their character and is a well-written little story - sure. But so far, I've not been happy with what I've seen. I also don't like that we don't actually deepen our relation or friendship with them, but just remain a random stranger.Anyway, once favours are done, what's next? When do rumours start? I'll be curious to see how those turn out, since they're supposed to require some actual in-game sleuthing (that is, not just a quest with a marker telling you exactly where to go and what to do). Oh, and then the Sheogorath questline, too. But I definitely won't be doing that right away. And I still have the rest of the Thieves Guild questline to do.
According to this roadmap (not sure if up to date)...
https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/roadmap
...the next content drop with Vault, Rumors, High Seas, will be at the end of September. Not sure how long Thieves Guild and Sheogorath will take me, but I guess there will be a few weeks without much to do. Well, replaying old story content, probably. Or housing. No chores, at least!
In any way, I wonder what most players would prefer: A bunch of new systems dropping at once, or things being released one after another?@Syldras | PC | EU
The forceful expression of will gives true honor to the Ancestors.
Sarayn Andrethi, Telvanni mage (Main)
Darvasa Andrethi, his "I'm NOT a Necromancer!" sister
Malacar Sunavarlas, Altmer Ayleid vampire
Soris Rethandus, a Sleeper not yet awake0 -
metheglyn✭✭✭✭✭
✭There is a lot of waiting with dynamic encounters and, for the most part, I don't do it. I did do the waiting game just to experience all three from the start, so I could maybe get an idea of what the "story" was about them. But standing around with a group of players just to start an encounter that is all flashing aoe and a super hyper pace is not something I enjoy. My approach now is: if I'm in one of the maps that has a dynamic encounter, and if that encounter is active, and if I have the time, I might go participate.
In general, I'd agree, but I was "lucky" to get those encounters as weekly chores twice already. Even tried to reroll, but only ended up with it changing to battlegrounds, then trial, then dynamic encounters again. So I already had to do them 8 times just for that - and unfortunately, those chores came after I had already waited about half an hour each just to try each one initially out of curiosity. So, I've waited 11 times already, and it was always a longer wait. Not sure if always 30 minutes, or sometimes "only" 20 or 25, but it's still too much. Maximum 5,5 hours of waiting... It's not a total waste of time as I read while waiting, but since I only play ESO between 1 and 2 hours per evening currently, I'd prefer to actually play the game while being logged in, not standing around somewhere and reading a book instead of actually doing something in-game. It really makes me wonder why they didn't include a timer/countdown, especially since we know that technically already exists in game (we've seen it during the Wall event and also in the Night Market). Anyway, I have no intention of doing these anymore unless I need to do them for chores, but considering I'm already on page 8 of Chore Book, I'll only get this chore again once or twice at most, until I'm done with it until the end of October anyway. I do think this is a very time-consuming chore.
I had that tome task last week--taking up two of the slots. One showed up "naturally" and the other was a result of me rerolling away something else (probably a trial or pvp task). Anyway, since I had two of the same task, I kept it, and that's another reason why I went out of my way to do them. (I had forgotten I had that task until you mentioned having it). Anyway, in future I will probably reroll that task if it comes up. I did come across the Glenumbra one this morning, and to my astonishment only a few people were there, so it was actually more engaging and fun than when it's a zerg. By the time we got to the end, it was the usual massive crowd, but it was nice to start it with fewer people.
ZOS has said they are going to lower the timer to fifteen minutes rather than thirty, so that's something.As for the mounts...yeah, some of them are a bit much. But you know what I also find a bit much? The jester personality. The way players can sprint everywhere. That stupid skelton polymorph. Those have been in the game forever, and bothering me forever--it's always taken me right out of whatever immersion I had in the game to see someone sprinting by in the jester personality, or to see skeletons just hanging out everywhere. (Granted, skeleton polymorph has disminished in use over the years, owing to how many more hideous polymorphs exist).
Jester wasn't added before April 2020. That was the Greymoor year, which is, to me, not early ESO anymore, but more on the middle of the timeline. I've already been in the game for over 4 years when it came up. And yes, I also found it annoying when it was added.
Skeleton was a basegame polymorph, some quest reward, I think? I also didn't find it that immersive when people just walked through towns like that, but they weren't neon-colored, sparkling and exploding, at least. Also, one could at least tell oneself this might be some poor cursed wizard still searching for a way to revert that condition, and the guards might not attack because they know that person. Lore-wise, some person cursed to look like a skeleton makes more sense to me than some weird ghastly colored creature that never shows up as a natural part of the world anywhere, and also doesn't feel like it could actually be a part of that world.
I don't mind a black senche or a white camel, because these creatures could plausibly, believably, exist somewhere in Tamriel. Or even a colorful indrik, as these seem to be bred for colorful variants by the Altmer, so if there's a new one with purple or pink feathers, that doesn't feel completely unrealistic. A fire-spitting lizard camel or a toxic green jelly bear, on the other hand...?
The skeleton polymorph was from the Stillrise Village quest in Shadowfen. That entire village was cursed (or blessed, depending on point of view) with being skeletons due to a deal with Clavicus Vile and his "corrupt-a-wish" habit. That's a very specific reason for one specific place. Seeing a bunch of people wandering around towns as skeletons? Nope, doesn't work for me. At that point, it seems like a rather common thing that happens and therefore should have an easy remedy. None of the polymorphs in this game make sense to me, though. Not a single one.It's definitely gotten more over the top in later years, with all the cosmetic additions, but what I most wonder is: how much of the bills do these cosmetics pay for?
Well, now they're the main revenue source, except for ESO+ perhaps... I still wonder if they really need to be that weird and flashy, or if people would enjoy, and buy, less flashy items just the same, if only more subdued designs had been offered.
I would prefer more subdued designs for mounts and etc., but I think the reason we don't get them much is that the flashier stuff probably sells better. I mean, I don't know--I don't have access to that information. Although a couple of the mounts in the newest crates aren't over-the-top flashy. There's a white lion with all white barding/bridle/etc. And a stripey black and white senche that is beautiful. Sure, the radiant apex mounts are...well, radiant apex mounts...but the mounts in the tiers below it aren't flashy.I don't class Night Market and High Seas with Writhing Wall, though. Writhing Wall was annouced as one-time, temporary content and won't be back (unless, of course, they change their mind). Night Market and High Seas were announced as events, and events are always limited time but guaranteed to return, like New Life and all the other holiday events. The key difference is while we always know when New Life or Anniversary comes around, we don't have the exact schedule for Night Market or High Seas returns. I suppose it's possible that, if these two events aren't successful (and I don't know what metrics ZOS might use to determine such), they will get axed. It's possible that, in the name of "experimental content," these events get changed either subtly or drastically every time they come back. I think that uncertainty is the major difference for me, and not one I quite like.
I've seen mentions on these forums, by users, of High Seas being a one-time thing. Whether it's really the case or just people's assumptions, I don't know. I've seen it being mentioned in threads in which devs replied, and no dev corrected these user statements, which made me wonder. What I also noticed is that isn't advertised like they usually advertise new events added to the festivity schedule, where it's absolutely clear that this is some holiday event that will return for sure. So who knows. I generally don't really like the concept of putting ressources into one-time content, especially if the ressources are scarce.
As for Night Market: It was also marketed as being a temporary 2026 thing, appearing only twice. I think there were statements later, because people were asking, that it might return more often if well-received, but originally, it was also announced as limited-time content. Which felt a little weird as it was presented right after so many people had voiced their discontent about the Wall event being limited-time and not a permanent addition to the world.
Anyway, these "it might or might not return" statements also sound FOMO-inducing to me, giving people the feeling they "need" to participate, since otherwise they might miss the whole thing and never get to play it. It's different with the usual holiday events where I clearly know that I can just play them next year if I miss them this year, and none of the quests will be gone.
Night Market is guaranteed to return at least twice more. I never saw them say High Seas was a one-and-done deal. I did say the uncertainty around the longevity of these events is not ideal, but ZOS also did tell us at the beginning of the year that they were going to try out experimental content, see what works. Experiments can fail, so it's possible these two things might be considered failures, and not show up beyond this year. I guess my expectations were set by them stating that some of the new content going forward would be experimental.Well, I don't know their development cycle, so I don't know that dynamic encounters were designed after Night Market--maybe they were lifted from it, maybe not.
What I can say is that many of the Night Market Skirmish mechanisms and the Dynamic Encounter mechanisms are identical. Those crystal pillars in the werewolf hunt Encounter are 100% identical to the crystal pillars in the skirmish of that gloomy zone in the Night Market (they look exactly the same and also do the same thing). The mechanism of picking up water buckets and slow-walk them to fires in the farm Encounter is identical to the Skirmish in the Skittering zone, where the player had to pick up some rubble and slow-walk it to some brazier.
I don't mind it, if it fits. I'm just saying these things aren't entirely new, but basically reused content, and that it makes me guess that what we'll see in the Night Market next time might hint at what ever content will follow after that. Night Market basically looks like a test run to me.
Right, I just meant I didn't know if these mechanics were developed first for Night Market and then also used in Dynamic Encounters, or if they were sketched out first for Dynamic Encounters and then also added to Night Market. Either way, they show up in both places. But it is entirely possible that Night Market is the testing grounds for all these mechanics, since we do know it's the big experimental playground.Is anything in the Night Market real? I don't know. Don't daedric planes have their own basic structure regardless of whatever gets created/imitated with creatia? Molag Bal likes to pull things into Coldharbour, and he couldn't do that if they didn't have somewhere to land, could he?
What I meant is that I think they might have tried to story-wise link everything we see in the Night Market (minus the npcs on the plaza - or perhaps not?) to Ithelia and that Thoat Replicanum replication shennanigans. All Night Market enemies, including the individually named bosses, are from all parts of Tamriel (they're all just copies of world bosses, trial and dungeon bosses from other parts of the game - basically recycled content), after all, and it doesn't really make any sense why they should be there - and just standing around doing nothing, until some player character arrives to kill them. I mean, they often do that, also in dungeons, but at least there, where they originally showed up, there's some background story for them being there. In the Night Market, they're... just there, without any motivation or reason. Which makes me think they're not real, but just daedric copies, illusions, or whatever. Not that it's ever elaborated on anywhere.
Ah, I see. As you know, I didn't participate much in Night Market, but the little I did see of it gave me the impression it was a place for zerging, not exploring. Maybe the very nature of the Night Market just draws all these entities to it--since it's only around every now and then, and there's the possibility of treasure or knowledge or power to be gained. I could see various entities getting wind that the Night Market was in existence again and flocking to it. It's too bad there wasn't much in the way of interactable lore (books, or NPCs, or story quests) but if Night Market is meant to try out new and different things, maybe it's better off being light on lore. I don't know. I won't be going there again, so it basically doesn't exist for me.For me, the uncanny element to them diminishes when we're constantly running into them and working for/against them. No matter how well any of the Princes might be depicted, if we're seeing them all the time, they're not going to retain their otherworldly stature. For instance, I can't recall that we've ever actually seen Azura in the game. Anytime we interact with her, it's through a statue, or an intermediary--whether that be someone speaking for her, or her literally speaking through them with possession. So she still retains a sense of mystery and uncanniness. The others, though--they seem to be always showing up on Nirn, or we come across them on pocket planes, or their planes--and then it's just like: oh, hey, yet another Prince.
I mean, in a way, it's part of Sanguine's theme to wander around in disguise and corrupt people (he's also stated to be the daedric prince who interacts the closest with mortals). Not through otherworldly magic powers, but just through seducing them with words. Or who knows, maybe these npcs aren't even him in person, but just possessed humans. I agree though that having him show up so often is a bit much.
As for the others, I personally also don't like it much that we saw them showing up in a corporal form that often. Especially the Ithelia story with all those flashbacks with them interacting and talking to each other as if they were just some funny-shaped humans... This was never how daedric princes had been described in lore. It reminded me more of the Ancient Greek deities on Mount Olympus, for example, who are depicted as quite "human" for being gods, quarrelling, intriguing, and having all kinds of very human emotions. This is not how the daedric princes were defined originally.
I guess the lore on them has evolved as the game and its world has continued and expanded. That happens often in MMOs, with the constant need to give more lore and story. Things get changed or retconned and the lore moves along with it. Maybe Sanguine has spent too much time among humans and it's infected him, so to speak, with more human mannerisms and behaviors. Daedra imitate, after all--maybe Sanguine is imitating a boring human. Well, that's only partly a joke. Are the Princes immutable? Are they only ever one thing and one thing only? If that's the lore on them, it's pretty dull. I mean, Jyggalag changed. And another one: Trinimac became Malacath? (I've never been quite clear on that one). Can a Daedric Prince only change if it's down to some grand scheme and epic plot by other Daedric Princes? Or can they be changed slowly, over time, similar to how water will carve a canyon?I didn't read the flavor text for any of the premium cosmetics. I don't like a lot of the face markings anyway, so just briefly checking to see how they look is all I've done. As for how the items relate to the lore/theme--very loosely, I would imagine.
I think it's a pity since there are so many cosmetics that could be done about things we already have in lore. Something that actually looks lore-accurate and related to the fictional world. Lots of Dunmer clothing and hairstyles like we've seen them in TES3 Morrowind, for example. Or, whether one personally likes them or not, traditional Dunmer/Velothi face markings. The same for other cultures, of course, there's so much background lore already there.
What even is this season's name? Zero was "Dawn and Dusk" (which, to my disappointment, had nothing to do with Azura). Regardless, I agree that cosmetics put in game should be related to the game world.
There was one polymorph from awhile back--I think it was the first one introduced as part of a special 25 crate bundle. Anyway, I don't know what the lore on it is, but whenever I see someone using it, I think they look like a Nazgul from Lord of the Rings, and I always think: hey, what are you doing in this universe? It might be an extremely lore accurate polymorph, but all I will ever think when I see it is: Nazgul. I don't have any point to make with this--it's just a silly little story.My thoughts on the letters: I like them. True, the set-up of the letter writer not knowing who we are, though they do know we're the same person doing all the favours, is clunky. But I think the letters themselves give us a look into these characters we haven't seen before. Well...not Lady Arabelle...she seems to be very much the same. But learning more about Holgunn is cool, and Urcelmo seems to be going through something, which has me a bit worried about him. It's providing some nuance to these NPCs with whom our interactions before were fairly one-note. (Again, the exception is Lady Arabelle, but that's fine--not everyone needs to have a great secret or tragedy or magnicent story or a hidden side). Should Urcelmo be telling us some of the things he's telling us? Probably not, but the fact that he is makes me think there's more going on there. That such an upright Altmer would do such a thing tells its own tale.
I'm honestly really disappointed with the letters (the beginning was okay-ish, but I'm really not happy especially with the later ones). Not sure if it's also a translation issue, but some, or especially their sequence, comes across as quite chaotic, jumping from one topic to another and then back again, but not really in a way that seems authentic for letter writing. When sending someone a letter, even a short one, one doesn't randomly jump into the middle of some thought or some story without context, especially when (assuming to) talk to a random stranger who doesn't know the context, after all.
I also don't find it plausible what kind of personal, or in case of Urcelmo even important secret military info, we get - as an assumed random stranger who could be anyone, including an enemy! They basically all feel like they overshare, which doesn't really feel like it fits their character. Especially considering they're all supposed to be experienced older adults, veterans and experts in their field.
In case of Holgunn, the course of events also feels a bit random, and Urcelmo's story becomes more and more constructed and illogical in the later letters (with things happening exactly when they're convenient for the story to happen). We can discuss those in detail when you've read all of them, since I don't want to spoil them for you before you get to that point.
Ironically, I think the letters that fit the character best and at least have some congruent story, are Arabelle's. Unfortunately, I never liked her, and most (if not all?) letters mentioning either being drunk, wanting to drink, needing to drink (but obviously supposed to be the "cool wine lady" cliché instead of the poor alcohol addict), or some "nudge nudge sex hehe affairs" stuff isn't exactly interesting either (funny thing - seems to be very much the same trope as Tanlorin, just a little bit less infantile).
Considering this, I'm honestly not sure if I'd be happy seeing something like this done for other characters, including those I like, in the future. If it fits their character and is a well-written little story - sure. But so far, I've not been happy with what I've seen. I also don't like that we don't actually deepen our relation or friendship with them, but just remain a random stranger.
I agree that us remaining a stranger isn't great. I believe I called it 'clunky'. I had hoped that our identity would be revealed at some point and that the letter could have a touch of the personal with it--based on our completed quest history with these characters. And then players who hadn't met them in game would get a different letter. That was probably too much to expect.
The letters may not seem authentic to how real people write letters, but then neither did the hireling letters. No one writes only part of a story in a letter--they tell the story fully. Sometimes it came across as if the hirelings were writing these letters in the moment, which didn't make sense. They'd end on a line like, "Then the door opened and I couldn't believe who stepped through it." (That's not an actual line from a hireling letter, just an example of how some of them would end). Urcelmo and Arabelle writing us of events happening on a daily basis makes more sense than Holgunn telling us a story of the past in piecemeal.
I can't agree that these letters go against Urcelmo and Holgunn's characters, since we never really got to know them to begin with. In addition, they're both clearly dealing with heavy emotions/sentiments/situations, and that might make them act out of character (if, indeed, they are acting out of character). What I've read so far of Holgunn's letters show me he's still grieving the loss of his shield brother, Tanval, and grief can manifest in all sorts of ways. Urcelmo is in a very stressful situation, feels isolated, and has no one he can talk to. You're focused on the fact that he shouldn't be writing these things to stranger. No, he probably shouldn't be, but he is, and since he is, my mind goes to why he might be doing this. What would make him divulge such information (and I don't think that it's as important or secret as you do)? If he was still in his old job as Ayrenn's bodyguard, I'd really wonder why he was being so loose-lipped with a stranger. However, he's not. He's been reassigned (for reasons still unclear) and apparently isn't dealing too well with it. That makes him more interesting to me than if he was the perfect battlefield commander who never makes a mistake. It's entirely possible he's not cut out to be in charge of troops in Cyrodiil.
For me, the letters are adding nuance and detail to NPCs whom we barely got to know before. The exception being, as we've said, Lady Arabelle. We got to know her a little too well for my taste, and her letters reflect the person we quested with in High Isle, though they've actually gotten better after the first few where she was just telling us how magnificent she was.
Of course, I am only halfway through. It's possible that, when I reach the end of the favours, the stories in the letters won't hold up. I'll find out soon enough.Anyway, once favours are done, what's next? When do rumours start? I'll be curious to see how those turn out, since they're supposed to require some actual in-game sleuthing (that is, not just a quest with a marker telling you exactly where to go and what to do). Oh, and then the Sheogorath questline, too. But I definitely won't be doing that right away. And I still have the rest of the Thieves Guild questline to do.
According to this roadmap (not sure if up to date)...
https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/roadmap
...the next content drop with Vault, Rumors, High Seas, will be at the end of September. Not sure how long Thieves Guild and Sheogorath will take me, but I guess there will be a few weeks without much to do. Well, replaying old story content, probably. Or housing. No chores, at least!
In any way, I wonder what most players would prefer: A bunch of new systems dropping at once, or things being released one after another?
I prefer a steady stream of released content. I also like to take my time with anything new in game. I'm on the third Thieves Guild quest now, and so far I'm really liking it. It's a very well-done set-up, so I'm curious to see how it plays out. One thing that does bum me out about High Seas is that it's an event, so I'll have to do it right when it drops. Well, 'have to' is an overstatement, really. I don't actually have to do anything in game. I will be doing it right when it drops, though.0 -
Syldras✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I did come across the Glenumbra one this morning, and to my astonishment only a few people were there, so it was actually more engaging and fun than when it's a zerg. By the time we got to the end, it was the usual massive crowd, but it was nice to start it with fewer people.
ZOS has said they are going to lower the timer to fifteen minutes rather than thirty, so that's something.
I definitely appreciate the shorter timer!
Today I ran into one of them by chance...
(Azandar screaming "Disgusting!" was funny, at least.)
Does anyone find that chaos fun, I wonder? In any way, I was surprised to see so many people. I usually log in in the evening and always thought there were lots of players around, but in the afternoon it seems to be even much more crowded.None of the polymorphs in this game make sense to me, though. Not a single one.
And they got bigger, flashier and less believable from release to release. Yes, a skeleton might be weird, but a Harrowing Reaper? A Frost Troll? A Glass Atronach?!I would prefer more subdued designs for mounts and etc., but I think the reason we don't get them much is that the flashier stuff probably sells better.
We can't know. They didn't really try "ornate, but non-flashy" much before the exploding neon stuff started. I guess once there is flashy stuff, some people will make it some kind of competition and everything needs to get even more colorful and more flashy than the stuff before.I did say the uncertainty around the longevity of these events is not ideal, but ZOS also did tell us at the beginning of the year that they were going to try out experimental content, see what works. Experiments can fail, so it's possible these two things might be considered failures, and not show up beyond this year. I guess my expectations were set by them stating that some of the new content going forward would be experimental.
Everything newly introduced can be a success or a failure, experimental or not. I guess I just don't see how removing content again helps the game. The development time already went into it, after all. If something turns out not to be popular, they could just leave it in game and not make more or it? If, for example, Favors turn out to be unpopular, they likely wouldn't be removed either, after all. There would just not be more additions to the system.Ah, I see. As you know, I didn't participate much in Night Market, but the little I did see of it gave me the impression it was a place for zerging, not exploring. Maybe the very nature of the Night Market just draws all these entities to it--since it's only around every now and then, and there's the possibility of treasure or knowledge or power to be gained. I could see various entities getting wind that the Night Market was in existence again and flocking to it.
Nah, these enemies really make no sense. Not just random boars and dunerippers as mob enemies (How would these animals end up there, far away from their natural habitat?), but one of the bosses is Dranos Velador, for example, the founder of the Silken Ring. What would he do there? Vacation? Let alone he dies at the end of the dungeon story he's originally from, so he shouldn't show up anywhere else at all (unless as a zombie or ghost perhaps).
The Night Market enemies and their actions are really so random, lots of UESP articles about them look rather funny because of that:
I guess the lore on them has evolved as the game and its world has continued and expanded. That happens often in MMOs, with the constant need to give more lore and story. Things get changed or retconned and the lore moves along with it.
I just wished they did that in a sensible way that's not contrary to basic principles of the fictional world. The way the aedra and daedra are is basically like a law of nature for this universe, it can't just randomly change. The daedric princes are embodiments of a principles or a specific nature (basically almost like allegories), that's why Mehrunes Dagon couldn't suddenly come to the conclusion that building things instead of destroying them would be more fun, and Sanguine couldn't just decide that he prefers moderation, healthy food and tea over excess, gluttony and getting drunk (or more precisely: being nice and friendly instead of aiming to seduce people with the goal of corrupting and destroying them). Just like in the real world the sun couldn't just decide not to shine, the daedric princes can't change the core of their nature. They aren't actually people. If there was a change, there needed to be some special event for it, something coming from the outside, and that would absolutely be quite some event for that world, that needed to be told through a story.
When it comes to mentions of daedric princes changing in lore, another thing that needs to be kept in mind that these are stories or beliefs by specific Tamrielic cultures. They didn't actually witness it, or might not actually know much about it. It's just their interpretation of things or their attempt to understand the world. Like in the real world, when ancient people looked at the sun and said this was the sun god, or the home of the sun god - they didn't actually factually see that, it was just their idea. Or all those origin myths that our real world knows; Norse mythology has Ymir, the frost giant, for example, who was torn into pieces, and his flesh became Earth, his bones became mountains, his blood became the oceans, etc. There are similar stories in TES, the most well-known probably the one about the moons being the flesh of Lorkhan. Generally, TES borrows a lot from very different real-world mythologies.What even is this season's name? Zero was "Dawn and Dusk" (which, to my disappointment, had nothing to do with Azura).
There was no big announcement, but according to the banner on the schedule page:
And yes, I also hoped the first one would have actually leant into some Azura or Morrowind theme.I agree that us remaining a stranger isn't great. I believe I called it 'clunky'. I had hoped that our identity would be revealed at some point and that the letter could have a touch of the personal with it--based on our completed quest history with these characters. And then players who hadn't met them in game would get a different letter. That was probably too much to expect.
I had hoped the same. Then I thought: Maybe in the last letter at least... But no. Didn't happen. What makes it even worse is that our name actually shows up in one letter within one of these little quests (the last one), but in the end-of-quest letters we are still treated like strangers all the time.
Things just don't add up in many of these tasks, some aspects don't make sense logically, some are even contradictory, there are incongruencies between different aspects within one single task (Today the quest objective told me to search for a "lost courier" while the longer quest text told me to search for a "lost parcel" and that the courier was well and could give descriptions about where the bandits went) - so many mistakes that make it feel like 10 different people were working on these texts and didn't coordinate their parts so there's a congruent story in the end. Same with the question if the questgivers know who we are or not: It looks like they don't, but then suddenly our name shows up in one quest letter. It's really like there wasn't sufficient communication. And that makes the whole thing feel totally chaotic, which is one of my main points of criticism about Favors.The letters may not seem authentic to how real people write letters, but then neither did the hireling letters. No one writes only part of a story in a letter--they tell the story fully. Sometimes it came across as if the hirelings were writing these letters in the moment, which didn't make sense. They'd end on a line like, "Then the door opened and I couldn't believe who stepped through it." (That's not an actual line from a hireling letter, just an example of how some of them would end). Urcelmo and Arabelle writing us of events happening on a daily basis makes more sense than Holgunn telling us a story of the past in piecemeal.
The hireling letters told a congruent story at least, while the new letters get increasingly contradictory and jumpy from task to task. It's gotten increasingly chaotic after letter 10 (except for Arabelle's, those are fine, but on the other hand they also don't feel like they're leading to anything). Also, there's often such a weird lack of context in these letters. There are a few which start mid-thought. There's one which begins with "You should have seen his face when I told him!" (or similarly, I only know the German texts) - who, what, why? It's just confusing without context, and I don't think anyone would write like that. Something like "You should have seen npc-name's face when I told him about topic..." would have made more sense.I can't agree that these letters go against Urcelmo and Holgunn's characters, since we never really got to know them to begin with. In addition, they're both clearly dealing with heavy emotions/sentiments/situations, and that might make them act out of character (if, indeed, they are acting out of character). What I've read so far of Holgunn's letters show me he's still grieving the loss of his shield brother, Tanval, and grief can manifest in all sorts of ways. Urcelmo is in a very stressful situation, feels isolated, and has no one he can talk to. You're focused on the fact that he shouldn't be writing these things to stranger. No, he probably shouldn't be, but he is, and since he is, my mind goes to why he might be doing this. What would make him divulge such information (and I don't think that it's as important or secret as you do)? If he was still in his old job as Ayrenn's bodyguard, I'd really wonder why he was being so loose-lipped with a stranger. However, he's not. He's been reassigned (for reasons still unclear) and apparently isn't dealing too well with it. That makes him more interesting to me than if he was the perfect battlefield commander who never makes a mistake. It's entirely possible he's not cut out to be in charge of troops in Cyrodiil.
Stressful situation, or grief, or not, I'd have believed them to be reasonable enough not to share info - that they should know very well they shouldn't share - with a random stranger. It's true we didn't learn that much about them before, but what I got from interacting with them back then was that they were experienced in their field, reliable, dutyful. Even if they felt the need to share their thoughts with someone, I'd think their sense of duty would let them remain silent about critical info, if needed. And if they'd grow weak and still share some info they shouldn't share, then probably with a very close friend, not a random errand runner. In his later letters, Urcelmo tells us in detail about ongoing investigations, including the name of an individual they secretly observe. That's a bit much. I mean, I get it: This is the very storyline of these letters, but it doesn't make sense considering the context, which is: Letters to an unknown hireling.I prefer a steady stream of released content.
I've been wondering if these little content drops might not be a bit confusing for some players, especially since they're spread out all over Tamriel now, compared to the old chapters where we got a new zone and knew that this is the location where all new stuff can be found. I've seen messages in game chat about people not knowing there was a new Thieves Guild questline, for example. Or someone who got into a Dynamic Encounter and was confused what this was, where it was coming from, and if there's more of these. Which made me think: New content doesn't help if people don't know about it or can't find it. And not everyone is reading the news articles on this website or the forums (in fact I wonder which percentage of ESO players look on this website regularly, vs. people who just open the launcher and play the game, and don't do anything beyond that).I'm on the third Thieves Guild quest now, and so far I'm really liking it. It's a very well-done set-up, so I'm curious to see how it plays out.
I might start the questline later today. I've finished Favors, after all - well, except for Arabelle's last one, which is bugged and can't be continued - and from what I saw, most likely won't be fixed before update 51, which is at the end of September. Edit for update: Might get fixed earlier, in 2 weeks.
Edited by Syldras on 27 July 2026 19:00@Syldras | PC | EU
The forceful expression of will gives true honor to the Ancestors.
Sarayn Andrethi, Telvanni mage (Main)
Darvasa Andrethi, his "I'm NOT a Necromancer!" sister
Malacar Sunavarlas, Altmer Ayleid vampire
Soris Rethandus, a Sleeper not yet awake0 -
metheglyn✭✭✭✭✭
✭I did come across the Glenumbra one this morning, and to my astonishment only a few people were there, so it was actually more engaging and fun than when it's a zerg. By the time we got to the end, it was the usual massive crowd, but it was nice to start it with fewer people.
ZOS has said they are going to lower the timer to fifteen minutes rather than thirty, so that's something.
I definitely appreciate the shorter timer!
Today I ran into one of them by chance...
(Azandar screaming "Disgusting!" was funny, at least.)
Does anyone find that chaos fun, I wonder? In any way, I was surprised to see so many people. I usually log in in the evening and always thought there were lots of players around, but in the afternoon it seems to be even much more crowded.
I definitely don't like them when they are that crowded. Although there is something mesmerizing about those images.I would prefer more subdued designs for mounts and etc., but I think the reason we don't get them much is that the flashier stuff probably sells better.
We can't know. They didn't really try "ornate, but non-flashy" much before the exploding neon stuff started. I guess once there is flashy stuff, some people will make it some kind of competition and everything needs to get even more colorful and more flashy than the stuff before.
No, we can't know, but ZOS can. They had subdued and non-flashy mounts in the crown store for years; easy enough for them to compare how well those sold against the flashier ones. It does seem like a spiral (a very colorful one) where each new flashy mount has to outdo the previous flashy one in order to justify its existence.I did say the uncertainty around the longevity of these events is not ideal, but ZOS also did tell us at the beginning of the year that they were going to try out experimental content, see what works. Experiments can fail, so it's possible these two things might be considered failures, and not show up beyond this year. I guess my expectations were set by them stating that some of the new content going forward would be experimental.
Everything newly introduced can be a success or a failure, experimental or not. I guess I just don't see how removing content again helps the game. The development time already went into it, after all. If something turns out not to be popular, they could just leave it in game and not make more or it? If, for example, Favors turn out to be unpopular, they likely wouldn't be removed either, after all. There would just not be more additions to the system.
Of course anything can fail. Systems can be abandoned but left in game. (WoW was pretty bad at that--introducing a new system for an expansion, and then not keeping it current beyond that expansion). Intentionally experimenting with something is different, though.
As far as removing any failed content goes, you could consider it as cutting back on the confusion. If Night Market never came back, for example, would that really detract from the rest of the game? (Not that I think Night Market is in danger of going away). I guess I've just played MMOs long enough that systems/content being changed/removed or falling into obsolescence doesn't affect me the same way it affects you. Keeping a system updated/relevant also requires development time, too--not as much as the initial creation, of course--and so it might sometimes be a case of: we don't have the manpower to keep this going. If that's the case, is it better to keep an abandoned system in game or remove it entirely? I suppose players could still experience the original thing, but if it's not kept updated/relevant, it might seem like it's not worth player effort.
Say they had kept Writhing Fortress in the game. What chance would there be that enough people would be going through that particular stage of that particular quest line at the same time to make the Fortress a good experience? If ZOS changed it to accommodate solo players, that's not the same experience as the original, and that's more development time for something that probably won't get used much.
I don't know which of these situations is the better option, or if there's actually some even better middle ground that can be found regarding such things. I do know that the ZOS staff got insanely reduced and it's likely they have to re-prioritize the type and amount of content they can deliver.Ah, I see. As you know, I didn't participate much in Night Market, but the little I did see of it gave me the impression it was a place for zerging, not exploring. Maybe the very nature of the Night Market just draws all these entities to it--since it's only around every now and then, and there's the possibility of treasure or knowledge or power to be gained. I could see various entities getting wind that the Night Market was in existence again and flocking to it.
Nah, these enemies really make no sense. Not just random boars and dunerippers as mob enemies (How would these animals end up there, far away from their natural habitat?), but one of the bosses is Dranos Velador, for example, the founder of the Silken Ring. What would he do there? Vacation? Let alone he dies at the end of the dungeon story he's originally from, so he shouldn't show up anywhere else at all (unless as a zombie or ghost perhaps).
The Night Market enemies and their actions are really so random, lots of UESP articles about them look rather funny because of that:
Seems like it's a bit of a waste of a zone, then.I guess the lore on them has evolved as the game and its world has continued and expanded. That happens often in MMOs, with the constant need to give more lore and story. Things get changed or retconned and the lore moves along with it.
I just wished they did that in a sensible way that's not contrary to basic principles of the fictional world. The way the aedra and daedra are is basically like a law of nature for this universe, it can't just randomly change. The daedric princes are embodiments of a principles or a specific nature (basically almost like allegories), that's why Mehrunes Dagon couldn't suddenly come to the conclusion that building things instead of destroying them would be more fun, and Sanguine couldn't just decide that he prefers moderation, healthy food and tea over excess, gluttony and getting drunk (or more precisely: being nice and friendly instead of aiming to seduce people with the goal of corrupting and destroying them). Just like in the real world the sun couldn't just decide not to shine, the daedric princes can't change the core of their nature. They aren't actually people. If there was a change, there needed to be some special event for it, something coming from the outside, and that would absolutely be quite some event for that world, that needed to be told through a story.
When it comes to mentions of daedric princes changing in lore, another thing that needs to be kept in mind that these are stories or beliefs by specific Tamrielic cultures. They didn't actually witness it, or might not actually know much about it. It's just their interpretation of things or their attempt to understand the world. Like in the real world, when ancient people looked at the sun and said this was the sun god, or the home of the sun god - they didn't actually factually see that, it was just their idea. Or all those origin myths that our real world knows; Norse mythology has Ymir, the frost giant, for example, who was torn into pieces, and his flesh became Earth, his bones became mountains, his blood became the oceans, etc. There are similar stories in TES, the most well-known probably the one about the moons being the flesh of Lorkhan. Generally, TES borrows a lot from very different real-world mythologies.
I think the main difference is that the people of Tamriel actually do come across the Daedra. It's one thing to spin a tale about the sun being pulled across the sky by a chariot driven by a supernatural being because otherwise you don't know how the sun goes from one side to the other. It's a different thing entirely when the chariot and the driver come down to the world sometimes and cause trouble.
And I wasn't talking about Sanguine "deciding" to be different. I was talking about his direct interaction with the denizens of Tamriel affecting him on a subtle level that he might not even be aware of in the moment. That isn't random change. Just like a river carving a canyon isn't random, or sudden, or even neccesarily noticeable in the span of a human life.
As far as the sun being unable to decide not to shine--well, the sun isn't sentient. The Daedric Princes may not be people, but they're aware of themselves and others and they have motivations and emotions. The people of Tamriel didn't invent them, and while they likely don't know all the details of the Princes or their realms, there have been interactions.
If you say the Daedric Princes are immutable and one-note and cannot change, fine. If that's the way it is, then that's the way it is, but I think that's fairly dull, all told.What even is this season's name? Zero was "Dawn and Dusk" (which, to my disappointment, had nothing to do with Azura).
There was no big announcement, but according to the banner on the schedule page:
And yes, I also hoped the first one would have actually leant into some Azura or Morrowind theme.
Guess that's why there's a rooster fence/launderer in the premium tome. Oh, and a general 'rogue-ish' theme to the weapons. At least that's a little more on-theme than last season.I agree that us remaining a stranger isn't great. I believe I called it 'clunky'. I had hoped that our identity would be revealed at some point and that the letter could have a touch of the personal with it--based on our completed quest history with these characters. And then players who hadn't met them in game would get a different letter. That was probably too much to expect.
I had hoped the same. Then I thought: Maybe in the last letter at least... But no. Didn't happen. What makes it even worse is that our name actually shows up in one letter within one of these little quests (the last one), but in the end-of-quest letters we are still treated like strangers all the time.
Things just don't add up in many of these tasks, some aspects don't make sense logically, some are even contradictory, there are incongruencies between different aspects within one single task (Today the quest objective told me to search for a "lost courier" while the longer quest text told me to search for a "lost parcel" and that the courier was well and could give descriptions about where the bandits went) - so many mistakes that make it feel like 10 different people were working on these texts and didn't coordinate their parts so there's a congruent story in the end. Same with the question if the questgivers know who we are or not: It looks like they don't, but then suddenly our name shows up in one quest letter. It's really like there wasn't sufficient communication. And that makes the whole thing feel totally chaotic, which is one of my main points of criticism about Favors.
The tasks themselves are hit or miss for me in terms of enjoyment (though today I did find out via the task that cheese is Holgunn's favorite food). The mistakes are unfortunate and ideally some of these things will be cleaned up in time. Well, ideally they wouldn't have gone live with any errors, but that never happens in live service games. As I said, some of the tasks are just chores, meaning they are some form of tedium. That's the perspective of a long-term player who has done all the story content, though. It's possible that the tasks that send you to do a side-quest come across better to those who haven't done that side-quest eight years ago or so.The letters may not seem authentic to how real people write letters, but then neither did the hireling letters. No one writes only part of a story in a letter--they tell the story fully. Sometimes it came across as if the hirelings were writing these letters in the moment, which didn't make sense. They'd end on a line like, "Then the door opened and I couldn't believe who stepped through it." (That's not an actual line from a hireling letter, just an example of how some of them would end). Urcelmo and Arabelle writing us of events happening on a daily basis makes more sense than Holgunn telling us a story of the past in piecemeal.
The hireling letters told a congruent story at least, while the new letters get increasingly contradictory and jumpy from task to task. It's gotten increasingly chaotic after letter 10 (except for Arabelle's, those are fine, but on the other hand they also don't feel like they're leading to anything). Also, there's often such a weird lack of context in these letters. There are a few which start mid-thought. There's one which begins with "You should have seen his face when I told him!" (or similarly, I only know the German texts) - who, what, why? It's just confusing without context, and I don't think anyone would write like that. Something like "You should have seen npc-name's face when I told him about topic..." would have made more sense.
Not all of the hireling letters told a cohesive story. Pacrooti's were often just unconnected snippets of the trouble he got in, or the way he stole our materials, or jokey observations about life in Tamriel. Gavin Gavonne's were often just a brief telling of some mishap that befell him, unconnected to any larger story, and also with some jokey observations. Actually, in one of Pacrooti's letters, we find out Pacrooti won/stole some armor from a Breton; in one of Gavin's letters, we find out he lost his armor to a Khajiit. Behind the scenes hireling connections!I can't agree that these letters go against Urcelmo and Holgunn's characters, since we never really got to know them to begin with. In addition, they're both clearly dealing with heavy emotions/sentiments/situations, and that might make them act out of character (if, indeed, they are acting out of character). What I've read so far of Holgunn's letters show me he's still grieving the loss of his shield brother, Tanval, and grief can manifest in all sorts of ways. Urcelmo is in a very stressful situation, feels isolated, and has no one he can talk to. You're focused on the fact that he shouldn't be writing these things to stranger. No, he probably shouldn't be, but he is, and since he is, my mind goes to why he might be doing this. What would make him divulge such information (and I don't think that it's as important or secret as you do)? If he was still in his old job as Ayrenn's bodyguard, I'd really wonder why he was being so loose-lipped with a stranger. However, he's not. He's been reassigned (for reasons still unclear) and apparently isn't dealing too well with it. That makes him more interesting to me than if he was the perfect battlefield commander who never makes a mistake. It's entirely possible he's not cut out to be in charge of troops in Cyrodiil.
Stressful situation, or grief, or not, I'd have believed them to be reasonable enough not to share info - that they should know very well they shouldn't share - with a random stranger. It's true we didn't learn that much about them before, but what I got from interacting with them back then was that they were experienced in their field, reliable, dutyful. Even if they felt the need to share their thoughts with someone, I'd think their sense of duty would let them remain silent about critical info, if needed. And if they'd grow weak and still share some info they shouldn't share, then probably with a very close friend, not a random errand runner. In his later letters, Urcelmo tells us in detail about ongoing investigations, including the name of an individual they secretly observe. That's a bit much. I mean, I get it: This is the very storyline of these letters, but it doesn't make sense considering the context, which is: Letters to an unknown hireling.
They were experienced, reliable, and dutiful when everything was going according to plan, and when we were around to do all the heavy lifting and make sure everything followed that plan, sure. ;-P
Ok, seriously, I understand what you're saying. To you, the way they are sharing this information doesn't fit with what you think/know of them. To me, the fact that they are sharing this information tells me something has seriously rocked them off-balance. People handle stressful situations differently, and there's no one way that grief will affect someone. Some people will tell a stranger something they wouldn't tell their closest friend/loved one. If someone calls a hotline, for example, they're telling things to a stranger. Some people might feel that a stranger is the only one they can tell certain things to.
I do think the overall story would be better if they knew who we were--the good old Vestige, who takes care of everything and everyone in Tamriel--but I don't think the whole thing falls apart because they don't. Just from a technical standpoint, I don't know how easy or difficult it might have been for them to have letters more personalized based on each character's questing history--it could well be that making us all strangers was just the best option given the limitations of the system.I prefer a steady stream of released content.
I've been wondering if these little content drops might not be a bit confusing for some players, especially since they're spread out all over Tamriel now, compared to the old chapters where we got a new zone and knew that this is the location where all new stuff can be found. I've seen messages in game chat about people not knowing there was a new Thieves Guild questline, for example. Or someone who got into a Dynamic Encounter and was confused what this was, where it was coming from, and if there's more of these. Which made me think: New content doesn't help if people don't know about it or can't find it. And not everyone is reading the news articles on this website or the forums (in fact I wonder which percentage of ESO players look on this website regularly, vs. people who just open the launcher and play the game, and don't do anything beyond that).
I sometimes wonder if people just don't read patch notes. It's long been my habit to read the patch notes for the games I play, so I wouldn't ever just dive into a new update without first reading at least the patch notes. I can't recall if Dynamic Encounters were on the annoucement screen--you know, the thing that pops up when you first log in--but even if it was, I couldn't say how many people pay any attention to that or just dismiss it out of hand. It is hard to keep track of when new things go live with this new seasonal model--if I wasn't on the forums and didn't watch the streams and read the patch notes, I'm sure I would be a bit confused and/or blindsided by some of it. I wonder how ZOS could increase the visibility of the new content, given that some people might just log in and play and not pay heed to announcements.I'm on the third Thieves Guild quest now, and so far I'm really liking it. It's a very well-done set-up, so I'm curious to see how it plays out.
I might start the questline later today. I've finished Favors, after all - well, except for Arabelle's last one, which is bugged and can't be continued - and from what I saw, most likely won't be fixed before update 51, which is at the end of September. Edit for update: Might get fixed earlier, in 2 weeks.
I saw the threads about that bug--that's a pity, really. I'll probably reach the end before the fix is in, if I stay dedicated to doing them all every day. Side note: the thing that most turns me off of favors? Those stupid NPCs telling me I have a hunger or long for something more. I've taken to turning off the dialogue sound while I'm doing the favors. If quest NPCs could be on the receiving end of the Blade of Woe...oh, what I would've done!0 -
Syldras✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I definitely don't like them when they are that crowded. Although there is something mesmerizing about those images.
I can barely look at the screenshots. My eyes hurt from the brightness and if I look too long, I'll get a headache. Which is also a reason I usually avoid such situations in game or, if barely avoidable, just grab the loot and get out of them as fastly as possible. It also wasn't that extreme in ESO's earlier years.As far as removing any failed content goes, you could consider it as cutting back on the confusion. If Night Market never came back, for example, would that really detract from the rest of the game? (Not that I think Night Market is in danger of going away). I guess I've just played MMOs long enough that systems/content being changed/removed or falling into obsolescence doesn't affect me the same way it affects you. Keeping a system updated/relevant also requires development time, too--not as much as the initial creation, of course--and so it might sometimes be a case of: we don't have the manpower to keep this going. If that's the case, is it better to keep an abandoned system in game or remove it entirely? I suppose players could still experience the original thing, but if it's not kept updated/relevant, it might seem like it's not worth player effort.
A good dungeon is a good dungeon to me, no matter if it's added today, was already added 5 years ago or will be added next year. Sure, long-time players might not play it that often anymore, just because they've already seen it so often, so something new is more interesting. But for new players it's new and as interesting as any other new content. The same with any other content, really. If I imagine I would just have started playing ESO, base game quests wouldn't be less interesting to me just because they're over a decade old. If I enjoyed ToT type games, I'd also try and enjoy ToT, no matter if its introduction was 5 years ago. I guess I also don't see how just letting a dungeon remain in game means any maintenance efforts? It's just there.Say they had kept Writhing Fortress in the game. What chance would there be that enough people would be going through that particular stage of that particular quest line at the same time to make the Fortress a good experience? If ZOS changed it to accommodate solo players, that's not the same experience as the original, and that's more development time for something that probably won't get used much.
They could have put it in the dungeon finder, maybe add some leaderboard. People also still run old trials, arenas or that Archive in Craglorn, after all, and I don't really think of the Fortress of being much different from that, when it comes to the content style.I think the main difference is that the people of Tamriel actually do come across the Daedra. It's one thing to spin a tale about the sun being pulled across the sky by a chariot driven by a supernatural being because otherwise you don't know how the sun goes from one side to the other. It's a different thing entirely when the chariot and the driver come down to the world sometimes and cause trouble.
But also the people of Tamriel have some creation myths about things they have clearly not witnessed. Sure, the daedric princes are real in that world, but no human or elf has witnessed the creation of the moons, for example. Or actually seen what happened to Trinimac. Tamriel's people generally have plenty of origin myths about the time before Nirn or any mortal being ever existed.As far as the sun being unable to decide not to shine--well, the sun isn't sentient. The Daedric Princes may not be people, but they're aware of themselves and others and they have motivations and emotions.
Are they? Or do they only seem sentient, but in the end only act according to the nature they embody? Just because something talks in a way that seems like it's reasoning and like it's having some kind of character and thoughts, doesn't mean there's actually something behind the facade. People nowadays can have conversations with chatbots for hours which are logically congruent and seem to portray a personal viewpoint, opinions and character traits, a specific speech style, even personal quirks, but it's still just a machine reacting to interactions exactly in the way it has been programmed to react, without any sentience, or any capability of reacting against its programming.Not all of the hireling letters told a cohesive story. Pacrooti's were often just unconnected snippets of the trouble he got in, or the way he stole our materials, or jokey observations about life in Tamriel. Gavin Gavonne's were often just a brief telling of some mishap that befell him, unconnected to any larger story, and also with some jokey observations. Actually, in one of Pacrooti's letters, we find out Pacrooti won/stole some armor from a Breton; in one of Gavin's letters, we find out he lost his armor to a Khajiit. Behind the scenes hireling connections!
But they felt well-planned, which also shows in them sometimes refering to each other. With Holgunn I had the feeling he's jumping from one thing to another from day to day, then back, then forth again...They were experienced, reliable, and dutiful when everything was going according to plan, and when we were around to do all the heavy lifting and make sure everything followed that plan, sure. ;-P
Ok, seriously, I understand what you're saying. To you, the way they are sharing this information doesn't fit with what you think/know of them. To me, the fact that they are sharing this information tells me something has seriously rocked them off-balance. People handle stressful situations differently, and there's no one way that grief will affect someone. Some people will tell a stranger something they wouldn't tell their closest friend/loved one. If someone calls a hotline, for example, they're telling things to a stranger. Some people might feel that a stranger is the only one they can tell certain things to.
I could understand it if it was some personal sorrows Urcelmo would talk about. But there's a difference between sharing with someone to be unhappily in love, or depressed about early hair loss, or grieving the death of a family member - or sharing military secrets that could endanger people's lives. Someone calling a hotline and telling them "Hi, I'm John Miller from Military Regiment Whatever; me and my Secret Service buddy Ellen Thomas are currently investigating Peter Smith because we suspect him to be a spy! We've followed him to That Random Hotel yesterday and are curious what he'll do!" would get into real trouble if someone found out - and in a medieval setting probably end up at the gallows. I'd think Urcelmo would be aware of that, and smart enough to control himself and keep silent in that situation, no matter how much he might struggle emotionally for some other reason.I sometimes wonder if people just don't read patch notes. It's long been my habit to read the patch notes for the games I play, so I wouldn't ever just dive into a new update without first reading at least the patch notes. I can't recall if Dynamic Encounters were on the annoucement screen--you know, the thing that pops up when you first log in--but even if it was, I couldn't say how many people pay any attention to that or just dismiss it out of hand. It is hard to keep track of when new things go live with this new seasonal model--if I wasn't on the forums and didn't watch the streams and read the patch notes, I'm sure I would be a bit confused and/or blindsided by some of it. I wonder how ZOS could increase the visibility of the new content, given that some people might just log in and play and not pay heed to announcements.
I think most people don't really read up much about the games they play, and especially don't follow those notes regularly. Especially considering some people play ESO on and off and might play a dozen of others games at the same time, too.
Dynamic Encounters are mentioned on Page 0 of the new Tome, which is displayed right after logging in for the first time after the new Season began, but one click at the wrong moment and it's gone, and I'm not sure how many people know or don't know where they can display that overview again.
But there's also info that's not available in the game at all, but only here on the forums (or perhaps on Twitter or similar), especially if it's some kinds of changes from the old schedule. Lots of people missed the Fortress returning last January, for example, because it was never announced anywhere except for here. There's also no info about smaller content additions in game, for example about new furnishing plans (or any other drop) getting added to some quests (like it was with the Solstice dailies - furnishing plans only got added to them later), or new things available from Rolis, that master crafting reward merchant. Now I wonder how many people who never read the forums (or UESP, or any other sources outside of the game itself) might not even know that Filer Ool's wares in the Archive change every Tuesday, or that there's a luxury furniture seller in Coldharbor on the weekends (If someone quests through that zone within a few weekdays and then sees no reason to return, it might happen they never come across him, I guess?).the thing that most turns me off of favors? Those stupid NPCs telling me I have a hunger or long for something more. I've taken to turning off the dialogue sound while I'm doing the favors. If quest NPCs could be on the receiving end of the Blade of Woe...oh, what I would've done!
It's a bit annoying, but actually I somehow got used to that after 2 weeks or so - didn't notice it anymore the last few days. Still it would be better if they wouldn't babble around repeatedly, of course. And their placement and reaction range also isn't exactly ideal. It's a bit astounding that no one thought it would annoy players - after there were plenty of complaints about Stuga and later about that ToT ad person.@Syldras | PC | EU
The forceful expression of will gives true honor to the Ancestors.
Sarayn Andrethi, Telvanni mage (Main)
Darvasa Andrethi, his "I'm NOT a Necromancer!" sister
Malacar Sunavarlas, Altmer Ayleid vampire
Soris Rethandus, a Sleeper not yet awake0 -
metheglyn✭✭✭✭✭
✭As far as removing any failed content goes, you could consider it as cutting back on the confusion. If Night Market never came back, for example, would that really detract from the rest of the game? (Not that I think Night Market is in danger of going away). I guess I've just played MMOs long enough that systems/content being changed/removed or falling into obsolescence doesn't affect me the same way it affects you. Keeping a system updated/relevant also requires development time, too--not as much as the initial creation, of course--and so it might sometimes be a case of: we don't have the manpower to keep this going. If that's the case, is it better to keep an abandoned system in game or remove it entirely? I suppose players could still experience the original thing, but if it's not kept updated/relevant, it might seem like it's not worth player effort.
A good dungeon is a good dungeon to me, no matter if it's added today, was already added 5 years ago or will be added next year. Sure, long-time players might not play it that often anymore, just because they've already seen it so often, so something new is more interesting. But for new players it's new and as interesting as any other new content. The same with any other content, really. If I imagine I would just have started playing ESO, base game quests wouldn't be less interesting to me just because they're over a decade old. If I enjoyed ToT type games, I'd also try and enjoy ToT, no matter if its introduction was 5 years ago. I guess I also don't see how just letting a dungeon remain in game means any maintenance efforts? It's just there.
I thought we were talking about failed and abandoned content, not evergreen content. Systems that don't work out, not long-standing quests that people routinely play. Events that are one-time and the like. Quests and dungeons in the game for years do need maintenance sometimes in the way of bug fixes. Also, I'm not advocating for any content to be removed--just musing on why it might be, on what type of situation might call for it.Say they had kept Writhing Fortress in the game. What chance would there be that enough people would be going through that particular stage of that particular quest line at the same time to make the Fortress a good experience? If ZOS changed it to accommodate solo players, that's not the same experience as the original, and that's more development time for something that probably won't get used much.
They could have put it in the dungeon finder, maybe add some leaderboard. People also still run old trials, arenas or that Archive in Craglorn, after all, and I don't really think of the Fortress of being much different from that, when it comes to the content style.
I never ran the fortress because I wasn't interested in it. Could it have just been ported over to be like a dungeon? Did it have the types of loot/gear drops that dungeons and trials have? Wasn't it designed for a mass of people to be in it at once, entering at different times? If they had chosen to keep it in game as a dungeon/leaderboard thing, seems like they would have had to make some changes to it in order to make it work. They designed it to be a one-time special event (and I'm not getting into the success or failure of said design). Keeping it in game in any other form seems like it would have required quite a bit of work.
But hey, if they choose to bring it back so people can run it over and over until the end of time, fine by me.I think the main difference is that the people of Tamriel actually do come across the Daedra. It's one thing to spin a tale about the sun being pulled across the sky by a chariot driven by a supernatural being because otherwise you don't know how the sun goes from one side to the other. It's a different thing entirely when the chariot and the driver come down to the world sometimes and cause trouble.
But also the people of Tamriel have some creation myths about things they have clearly not witnessed. Sure, the daedric princes are real in that world, but no human or elf has witnessed the creation of the moons, for example. Or actually seen what happened to Trinimac. Tamriel's people generally have plenty of origin myths about the time before Nirn or any mortal being ever existed.
I didn't say they don't have any creation myths. I'm talking about the Daedric Princes in particular. They exist. The people of Tamriel did not invent them, unlike the various pantheons of our world.As far as the sun being unable to decide not to shine--well, the sun isn't sentient. The Daedric Princes may not be people, but they're aware of themselves and others and they have motivations and emotions.
Are they? Or do they only seem sentient, but in the end only act according to the nature they embody? Just because something talks in a way that seems like it's reasoning and like it's having some kind of character and thoughts, doesn't mean there's actually something behind the facade. People nowadays can have conversations with chatbots for hours which are logically congruent and seem to portray a personal viewpoint, opinions and character traits, a specific speech style, even personal quirks, but it's still just a machine reacting to interactions exactly in the way it has been programmed to react, without any sentience, or any capability of reacting against its programming.
Are you saying the Daedric Princes are the equivalent of AI chatboxes? Or do you think that animals that act according to their nature cannot be sentient? You think there's no internal thought or motivation or desire behind anything any Daedric Prince does? That Molag Bal didn't come up with the Planemeld plot because he wanted to, but because there was no way he couldn't do so? Or Mehrunes Dagon doesn't try to invade Nirn multiple times because he chooses to, but because there's literally nothing else he can do? If that's how the princes exist, they're less than dull: they're pointless. Why even have Daedric Princes if they have no agency at all?Not all of the hireling letters told a cohesive story. Pacrooti's were often just unconnected snippets of the trouble he got in, or the way he stole our materials, or jokey observations about life in Tamriel. Gavin Gavonne's were often just a brief telling of some mishap that befell him, unconnected to any larger story, and also with some jokey observations. Actually, in one of Pacrooti's letters, we find out Pacrooti won/stole some armor from a Breton; in one of Gavin's letters, we find out he lost his armor to a Khajiit. Behind the scenes hireling connections!
But they felt well-planned, which also shows in them sometimes refering to each other. With Holgunn I had the feeling he's jumping from one thing to another from day to day, then back, then forth again...
I don't know for sure that the Breton Pacrooti won the armor from was Gavin. That was just me making connections where they might not exist. But if it was intended, cool. Holgunn does seem a little scattered in his letters, but perhaps that's just how he is when he gets to writing, especially about highly personal matters.They were experienced, reliable, and dutiful when everything was going according to plan, and when we were around to do all the heavy lifting and make sure everything followed that plan, sure. ;-P
Ok, seriously, I understand what you're saying. To you, the way they are sharing this information doesn't fit with what you think/know of them. To me, the fact that they are sharing this information tells me something has seriously rocked them off-balance. People handle stressful situations differently, and there's no one way that grief will affect someone. Some people will tell a stranger something they wouldn't tell their closest friend/loved one. If someone calls a hotline, for example, they're telling things to a stranger. Some people might feel that a stranger is the only one they can tell certain things to.
I could understand it if it was some personal sorrows Urcelmo would talk about. But there's a difference between sharing with someone to be unhappily in love, or depressed about early hair loss, or grieving the death of a family member - or sharing military secrets that could endanger people's lives. Someone calling a hotline and telling them "Hi, I'm John Miller from Military Regiment Whatever; me and my Secret Service buddy Ellen Thomas are currently investigating Peter Smith because we suspect him to be a spy! We've followed him to That Random Hotel yesterday and are curious what he'll do!" would get into real trouble if someone found out - and in a medieval setting probably end up at the gallows. I'd think Urcelmo would be aware of that, and smart enough to control himself and keep silent in that situation, no matter how much he might struggle emotionally for some other reason.
Well, I haven't gotten to any part of Urcelmo's story that's like that. I just learned why he's no longer Ayrenn's bodyguard.
I understand you don't like the letters. I do like them. I think it's just a case of different tastes.
Of course, now I want to hear more of the adventures of John Miller and Ellen Thomas as they track down that nefarious evil-doer Peter Smith. I think you could have a bestseller on your hands!I sometimes wonder if people just don't read patch notes. It's long been my habit to read the patch notes for the games I play, so I wouldn't ever just dive into a new update without first reading at least the patch notes. I can't recall if Dynamic Encounters were on the annoucement screen--you know, the thing that pops up when you first log in--but even if it was, I couldn't say how many people pay any attention to that or just dismiss it out of hand. It is hard to keep track of when new things go live with this new seasonal model--if I wasn't on the forums and didn't watch the streams and read the patch notes, I'm sure I would be a bit confused and/or blindsided by some of it. I wonder how ZOS could increase the visibility of the new content, given that some people might just log in and play and not pay heed to announcements.
I think most people don't really read up much about the games they play, and especially don't follow those notes regularly. Especially considering some people play ESO on and off and might play a dozen of others games at the same time, too.
Dynamic Encounters are mentioned on Page 0 of the new Tome, which is displayed right after logging in for the first time after the new Season began, but one click at the wrong moment and it's gone, and I'm not sure how many people know or don't know where they can display that overview again.
But there's also info that's not available in the game at all, but only here on the forums (or perhaps on Twitter or similar), especially if it's some kinds of changes from the old schedule. Lots of people missed the Fortress returning last January, for example, because it was never announced anywhere except for here. There's also no info about smaller content additions in game, for example about new furnishing plans (or any other drop) getting added to some quests (like it was with the Solstice dailies - furnishing plans only got added to them later), or new things available from Rolis, that master crafting reward merchant. Now I wonder how many people who never read the forums (or UESP, or any other sources outside of the game itself) might not even know that Filer Ool's wares in the Archive change every Tuesday, or that there's a luxury furniture seller in Coldharbor on the weekends (If someone quests through that zone within a few weekdays and then sees no reason to return, it might happen they never come across him, I guess?).
Right, so how can ZOS increase visibility of these things? There is a help menu in game that has a lot of information, but of course you have to know it's there to look in it, and I don't know if it contains information about things like Zanil Theran or Rollis Hllalu. I mean, I know it's there, and I rarely ever use it. How do you reach people who aren't interested in reading about a game or don't check sources outside the game for information about it? Splash screens at log in can only do so much.
I'm not expecting you to have an answer, by the way. I'm just musing again.the thing that most turns me off of favors? Those stupid NPCs telling me I have a hunger or long for something more. I've taken to turning off the dialogue sound while I'm doing the favors. If quest NPCs could be on the receiving end of the Blade of Woe...oh, what I would've done!
It's a bit annoying, but actually I somehow got used to that after 2 weeks or so - didn't notice it anymore the last few days. Still it would be better if they wouldn't babble around repeatedly, of course. And their placement and reaction range also isn't exactly ideal. It's a bit astounding that no one thought it would annoy players - after there were plenty of complaints about Stuga and later about that ToT ad person.
I would love to not notice it. The thing is, I like NPC ambient dialogue, so turning off the dialogue bums me out, but these NPCs are just super annoying. I'm thinking their range and radius must be a mistake. Hopefully ZOS can fix it! But, if not, once I'm done with favours I won't have to worry about it anymore. I rarely go to Aldcroft, Ebonheart, or Skywatch in my normal course of play.0 -
Syldras✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I thought we were talking about failed and abandoned content, not evergreen content. Systems that don't work out, not long-standing quests that people routinely play. Events that are one-time and the like. Quests and dungeons in the game for years do need maintenance sometimes in the way of bug fixes. Also, I'm not advocating for any content to be removed--just musing on why it might be, on what type of situation might call for it.
I was talking about the Writhing Fortress. And when it comes to that one, I really don't see why people would not want to play it in the future if they like such kind of content, no matter how old it might be (given there's a way to find enough participants, but if it was in group finder, I think there would be people interested in it, since people are also still interested in old dungeons and trials and I don't think the Fortress is so much different to those - except for being more non-linear and needing groups to clearly split tasks). They could even have made it a part of a returning Solstice event (minus the crafting and fetch chores of the original Writhing Wall event), just like other zones had events, too. It would be more interesting to me to get the Fortress again (bug-free this time) instead of how most zone events look like: Just adding event writs/bars to the daily chores. Looking back at it, I do wonder if making it one-time-content was nothing more but FOMO marketing (I think with physical goods the strategy is called "artificial scarcity"). In any way, it didn't really seem to work as it had been planned, so they could as well bring it back a few years later.I didn't say they don't have any creation myths. I'm talking about the Daedric Princes in particular. They exist. The people of Tamriel did not invent them, unlike the various pantheons of our world.
The daedric princes do exist, but that doesn't mean Nirn's mortals know everything about them. They might have witnessed one thing or another in person, but big aspects of their nature could still be a mystery and open to interpretation, and also very much shaped by the imagination of the common people.Are you saying the Daedric Princes are the equivalent of AI chatboxes?
No, I'm saying that something can seem alive without actually being alive. Even something obviously non-living and non-sentient like a machine can imitate being a living, sentient person nowadays in real life. So how can we know if the daedric princes are sentient?Or do you think that animals that act according to their nature cannot be sentient?
They are living beings. Daedric princes are not.You think there's no internal thought or motivation or desire behind anything any Daedric Prince does? That Molag Bal didn't come up with the Planemeld plot because he wanted to, but because there was no way he couldn't do so? Or Mehrunes Dagon doesn't try to invade Nirn multiple times because he chooses to, but because there's literally nothing else he can do? If that's how the princes exist, they're less than dull: they're pointless. Why even have Daedric Princes if they have no agency at all?
If they are by definition embodiments of a specific principle, they need to act according to that principle, otherwise they wouldn't be its embodiment anymore. If they have agency and how much...? Some Tamrielans also called them arbitrary. Maybe they're really just a part of nature and as sentient as lightning, or any other weather, or any other force of nature: not at all. Why have them then? Why have weather or tides (yes, I know, no TES game had visible tides yet)? They're just there, part of the world, part of nature.Of course, now I want to hear more of the adventures of John Miller and Ellen Thomas as they track down that nefarious evil-doer Peter Smith. I think you could have a bestseller on your hands!
That would be a short story: John Miller loses his job and ends up in jail for babbling out secret info to the hotline person. The end.Right, so how can ZOS increase visibility of these things? There is a help menu in game that has a lot of information, but of course you have to know it's there to look in it, and I don't know if it contains information about things like Zanil Theran or Rollis Hllalu. I mean, I know it's there, and I rarely ever use it. How do you reach people who aren't interested in reading about a game or don't check sources outside the game for information about it? Splash screens at log in can only do so much.
How about an in-game calendar easily accessible through the UI? Just a weekly (or monthly) overview that shows if there's currently an active event, a small extra xp event, some new release, some new furnishing plans or leads (or any other drops) added to some reward boxes, or new wares at an npc merchant (then it would show new wares at the Archive on Tuesdays, and the luxury furnisher being in Coldharbor on weekends, for example)? They could even make it a bit customizable, so people could hide specific categories (like new wares, or new lead drops) if they're not interested in them.
Also, I'm astounded that this game, despite having so many story-focused players, still has no real quest list (officially; there is an addon that does it). I mean an easy way to check somewhere in the UI if all quests of a zone were finished or if there was still something left. Sure, there are achievements and the zone guide (or whatever it is called), but those do not cover all quests (they only track quests related to specific locations, or more precisely, they don't actually track the quest, but if a location was "cleared" or not; so they miss all side quests where the questgivers are not placed at locations that have a symbol on the map). With something like that they could have avoided some quests only having been found by 5% of players or so.I would love to not notice it. The thing is, I like NPC ambient dialogue, so turning off the dialogue bums me out, but these NPCs are just super annoying. I'm thinking their range and radius must be a mistake. Hopefully ZOS can fix it! But, if not, once I'm done with favours I won't have to worry about it anymore. I rarely go to Aldcroft, Ebonheart, or Skywatch in my normal course of play.
I think I've already read somewhere that the range was basically a mistake, so I think it will likely be fixed one day.
I got the Dynamic Encounter chore again this week, by the way - twice. And for some reason each one can be completed 8x this week, while it was only 4x each last week and the week before?! That's 2400 chore points in total (300 per completion). Not that it makes the chore more interesting.
Oh, another thing: I thought about starting the Sheogorath questline this night (also to get the Golden Pursuit off my schedule) - but even at 1 a.m. there were still so many people around! I had hoped it would be more or less empty at night. Well, looks like I really have to wait with it... No way am I going to play it with 20 people obscuring my view!
Looks like I "have" to play the Thieves Guild questline then. I'll likely write down my first impressions in my next post (we'll see how far I get).
Edited by Syldras on 29 July 2026 23:53@Syldras | PC | EU
The forceful expression of will gives true honor to the Ancestors.
Sarayn Andrethi, Telvanni mage (Main)
Darvasa Andrethi, his "I'm NOT a Necromancer!" sister
Malacar Sunavarlas, Altmer Ayleid vampire
Soris Rethandus, a Sleeper not yet awake0 -
metheglyn✭✭✭✭✭
✭I didn't say they don't have any creation myths. I'm talking about the Daedric Princes in particular. They exist. The people of Tamriel did not invent them, unlike the various pantheons of our world.
The daedric princes do exist, but that doesn't mean Nirn's mortals know everything about them. They might have witnessed one thing or another in person, but big aspects of their nature could still be a mystery and open to interpretation, and also very much shaped by the imagination of the common people.
I never said the people of Tamriel know everything about the Daedric Princes. My main (perhaps only) point was that, in contrast to the various pantheons of gods that have existed in our world over time, the Daedric Pantheon is comprised of entities that actually exist. The people of Tamriel didn't see a house burning down and invent Mehrunes Dagon; Mehrunes Dagon went around being destructive and people became aware of him.Are you saying the Daedric Princes are the equivalent of AI chatboxes?
No, I'm saying that something can seem alive without actually being alive. Even something obviously non-living and non-sentient like a machine can imitate being a living, sentient person nowadays in real life. So how can we know if the daedric princes are sentient?
Because some people of Tamriel (our characters included) have interacted with them personally. A simple definition of sentient: "capable of sensing or feeling : conscious of or responsive to the sensations of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, or smelling." Or, even simpler: "able to perceive or feel things." If no one had ever seen a Daedric Prince, or had only interacted with them like we do with Azura--through statues--we might have reason to doubt their sentience. But we've seen them in person, been to their realms, have confronted them and/or worked with them. We've experienced their sentience first-hand.
How are they not living? I mean, other than the fact that they are fictional creations.You think there's no internal thought or motivation or desire behind anything any Daedric Prince does? That Molag Bal didn't come up with the Planemeld plot because he wanted to, but because there was no way he couldn't do so? Or Mehrunes Dagon doesn't try to invade Nirn multiple times because he chooses to, but because there's literally nothing else he can do? If that's how the princes exist, they're less than dull: they're pointless. Why even have Daedric Princes if they have no agency at all?
If they are by definition embodiments of a specific principle, they need to act according to that principle, otherwise they wouldn't be its embodiment anymore. If they have agency and how much...? Some Tamrielans also called them arbitrary. Maybe they're really just a part of nature and as sentient as lightning, or any other weather, or any other force of nature: not at all. Why have them then? Why have weather or tides (yes, I know, no TES game had visible tides yet)? They're just there, part of the world, part of nature.
Lightning can't do anything but strike under specific weather conditions. The tides can't do anything but move according to the gravitational pull of the moon--no choice about when to be high tide or low tide. Dagon can be the embodiment of destruction and still choose how to destroy--he's not locked into one method of destruction only, or even locked into having to be destructive 100% of his existence. Everything he does might lead towards the end result of destruction, but not everything he does is pure destruction.
I'm not saying Dagon can wake up in the morning and think, "Do I want to destroy today or not?" But I think he can wake up in the morning and think, "What kind of destruction do I want to achieve today?" Then, depending on what kind of destruction he's going for, his actions reflect that. Just like Clavicus Vile decides which bargains to make and how to corrupt people's wishes. Or three of the Princes can decide to work together for a hot minute. That's the kind of agency I think they have. (And yes, I know: Daedric Princes don't sleep, and hence don't wake up in the morning.)Of course, now I want to hear more of the adventures of John Miller and Ellen Thomas as they track down that nefarious evil-doer Peter Smith. I think you could have a bestseller on your hands!
That would be a short story: John Miller loses his job and ends up in jail for babbling out secret info to the hotline person. The end.
Oh, come on! That's no fun!
By the way, I'm still waiting for Urcelmo to tell me super-secret information. Last letter, he specifically told me he couldn't tell me any details until their plan was accomplished. Kind of like how he didn't tell us about the military maneuvers until after they were successful.Right, so how can ZOS increase visibility of these things? There is a help menu in game that has a lot of information, but of course you have to know it's there to look in it, and I don't know if it contains information about things like Zanil Theran or Rollis Hllalu. I mean, I know it's there, and I rarely ever use it. How do you reach people who aren't interested in reading about a game or don't check sources outside the game for information about it? Splash screens at log in can only do so much.
How about an in-game calendar easily accessible through the UI? Just a weekly (or monthly) overview that shows if there's currently an active event, a small extra xp event, some new release, some new furnishing plans or leads (or any other drops) added to some reward boxes, or new wares at an npc merchant (then it would show new wares at the Archive on Tuesdays, and the luxury furnisher being in Coldharbor on weekends, for example)? They could even make it a bit customizable, so people could hide specific categories (like new wares, or new lead drops) if they're not interested in them.
Oh, yes, an in-game calendar would be great! WoW had one (well, probably still does). It did help for keeping track of events and such. I can't recall how customizable it was, but I think guilds could use it to help organize events. I think it was monthly, but the longer I'm away from that game, the hazier the details become. Like I didn't even remember about the calendar until you mentioned the idea here.Also, I'm astounded that this game, despite having so many story-focused players, still has no real quest list (officially; there is an addon that does it). I mean an easy way to check somewhere in the UI if all quests of a zone were finished or if there was still something left. Sure, there are achievements and the zone guide (or whatever it is called), but those do not cover all quests (they only track quests related to specific locations, or more precisely, they don't actually track the quest, but if a location was "cleared" or not; so they miss all side quests where the questgivers are not placed at locations that have a symbol on the map). With something like that they could have avoided some quests only having been found by 5% of players or so.
I wonder if it's an issue of such a feature would take up too much bandwith, so to speak. A list of every quest, and then the ability to know if it had been done per character--that would be a lot of information to store, sort, categorize. I'm talking about the technical limitations only here--I have no idea how much calculating resources something like this would take. I do know that, in LotRO, the quest log can list every single quest a character has ever completed, and loading that information in can take awhile, particularly on older characters. However, if there was a way for ZOS to implement something like this, it would be a handy tool for completionists.I would love to not notice it. The thing is, I like NPC ambient dialogue, so turning off the dialogue bums me out, but these NPCs are just super annoying. I'm thinking their range and radius must be a mistake. Hopefully ZOS can fix it! But, if not, once I'm done with favours I won't have to worry about it anymore. I rarely go to Aldcroft, Ebonheart, or Skywatch in my normal course of play.
I think I've already read somewhere that the range was basically a mistake, so I think it will likely be fixed one day.
I got the Dynamic Encounter chore again this week, by the way - twice. And for some reason each one can be completed 8x this week, while it was only 4x each last week and the week before?! That's 2400 chore points in total (300 per completion). Not that it makes the chore more interesting.
That is odd--I thought the double completion only came once you'd unlocked the bonus pages. Are you already that far along? You must've had some juicy weekly tasks, if so.Oh, another thing: I thought about starting the Sheogorath questline this night (also to get the Golden Pursuit off my schedule) - but even at 1 a.m. there were still so many people around! I had hoped it would be more or less empty at night. Well, looks like I really have to wait with it... No way am I going to play it with 20 people obscuring my view!
Looks like I "have" to play the Thieves Guild questline then. I'll likely write down my first impressions in my next post (we'll see how far I get).
From my perspective, the Thieves Guild questline is nice and quiet as far as other players being around goes--but I'm on NA server, and I understand EU is more populous. I don't know when I'll do the Sheogorath questline, but I'm not concerned at all about completing the Golden Pursuit. It certainly won't be the first one I've ignored.
Oh, I unlocked the new Rogues Refuge house today--it's pretty nifty. It comes with a lot of furniture, too. Anyway, I'm halfway through the Thieves Guild quest and enjoying it very much.0 -
Syldras✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Because some people of Tamriel (our characters included) have interacted with them personally. A simple definition of sentient: "capable of sensing or feeling : conscious of or responsive to the sensations of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, or smelling." Or, even simpler: "able to perceive or feel things." If no one had ever seen a Daedric Prince, or had only interacted with them like we do with Azura--through statues--we might have reason to doubt their sentience. But we've seen them in person, been to their realms, have confronted them and/or worked with them. We've experienced their sentience first-hand.
How can we know it's sentience and not just an imitation of sentience? A highly developed robot could also look human, walk around, react to its environment, hold a logical congruent conversation, make decisions based on its preset reasoning parameters, and imitate emotions without actually having any. I'm not saying the daedric princes are robots in the technical sense - what I'm saying is that things could look alive without actually being alive, and could look sentient without actually being sentient.
We also know that daedra can't create or invent anything, only imitate. Might there simply be no capability for thoughts, only some kind of imitation program? Like a strange echo: The output of mortals colliding with a mass of otherworldly energy, which then just reflects back, sometimes in a distorted way?How are they not living? I mean, other than the fact that they are fictional creations.
In real life, there are definitions about what makes a thing a living being, the most basic one being: A living organism is made of cells, has a metabolism, grows, reproduces, reacts on its environment, is capable of movement, is able to evolve. Doesn't look too good for the daedric princes.
Of course, in a fantasy world, things could be slightly different (then again, we could also argue if nature spirits in TES are actually living and sentient beings or not), but daedric princes don't even have a real physical form. They are energy. Some say they can manifest as whatever they want, others say mortals only see them as whatever makes sense for their mortal mind, but they don't actually have any form at all. It's like they're an energy pattern, or a specific wavelength, somehow emanating from their realm (we know they are closely connected to their realm, even defined by it). I don't think that necessarily sounds like a sentient lifeform.
Even if it looks like they can choose reasonable actions to do what their nature defines them to do, can we know that these are actually decisions they consciously make through a thought process, and not just automatised (yet very complex) action-reaction patterns that are just part of the cosmology of this fictional world?By the way, I'm still waiting for Urcelmo to tell me super-secret information. Last letter, he specifically told me he couldn't tell me any details until their plan was accomplished. Kind of like how he didn't tell us about the military maneuvers until after they were successful.
He told us the name of the guy he's observing and the name of his partner from the Eyes. Isn't that dangerous enough? Surely an enemy could have used that info to warn the observed person or somehow get the spy into trouble, and immediately the mission would have failed.I wonder if it's an issue of such a feature would take up too much bandwith, so to speak. A list of every quest, and then the ability to know if it had been done per character--that would be a lot of information to store, sort, categorize. I'm talking about the technical limitations only here--I have no idea how much calculating resources something like this would take.
That info is already there anyway. Every quest in game is either checked off or not, which defines if a quest npc has a funny marker above their head (if not checked off yet) or not (already checked off). Well, actually it's not only on/off, but every quest has a few different stages, so if someone logs out or leaves the location, it can just be continued when returning, without the need to restart the whole quest. The quest list addon does nothing but display this info as a list, which then looks like this (since I'm not logged in right now, a preview picture taken from the addon's download site):
That is odd--I thought the double completion only came once you'd unlocked the bonus pages. Are you already that far along? You must've had some juicy weekly tasks, if so.
Unlocked? Perhaps. I had claimed stuff up to page 8 already. Well, now, after having done more chores, I'm on page 10 and maybe everything will be completed this weekend; not sure how many house parts or planar keys I might find or not find while questing.Oh, I unlocked the new Rogues Refuge house today--it's pretty nifty. It comes with a lot of furniture, too. Anyway, I'm halfway through the Thieves Guild quest and enjoying it very much.
So, I started the Thieves Guild questline. Actually I did give the Sheogorath story a try first when it looked like there was no one around at the quest start location, but immediately at the next quest location, there was a big number of players again - at 4 a.m. (which is very unusual) - , and then the game crashed anyway. So I left and it's Thieves Guild first now. Shall I put it in spoiler tags? Well, why not:
Thieves Guild Quest 1:So, we have a humourous start already with the guard chasing Quen (I'm personally not such a big fan of that, but okay, that's just personal taste) - and the guard keeps standing around, but sadly, we can't really talk to him much, and he has only one line of text.
I was a bit confused by the guard's line, too, to be honest, which from German would translate to: "Where by the three princes' names did she go?" Who are the three princes? Is it supposed to refer to the Three Queens of Solstice? How likely is it that that random Daggerfall guard is even familiar with them? - Okay, now it's getting even weirder; I checked the English translation and that doesn't mention princes at all. Thinking more about it, the translator could have actually hinted at an older German proverb/curse, just TESified?! "by three devils' names" with "devils" being replaced with "princes" - as in "daedric princes" - because there are no devils in TES? An interesting choice of translation, if this was their idea. I wonder how obvious it might have been for other people, or not; I might be a little weird as I tend to forget about real world idioms when playing TES, because I somehow expect idioms in game to be TES-specific, unrelated to the real world, if that makes sense. Not that I mind to see real ones, if they fit - I just might not notice immediately because I don't really expect it.
Anyway, then that other criminal guy (or at least I had assumed so) offers us a reward for helping them, because we look like some outlaw or whatever... I found it a little strange he gave us so much detailed info about a new Thieves Guild chapter getting founded, etc, as we were a total stranger and we hadn't built any trust whatsoever yet (might have been better if he had only told us after we actually helped them out). But maybe he was well aware that this is an ESO and not TES6, so we can't whack him over the head and call the guard to arrest him, but only "decide" to support the Thieves (insert some funny smiley here). We do get different dialogue options, but all are humourous in tone and none really make a difference. Sure, the outcome needs to be the same - we need to help the Thieves - , but I still think different tones could have been possible with the different dialogue options, for example to include one about being reluctant or sceptical, or another one for selfish mercenary types about only caring for the reward, or similar. Well, same criticism as with the dialogue options in Solstice - having options now is nice, but I'd prefer them to actually make a difference somehow, and not basically only being "friendly, very friendly, funny".
When finally talking to Quen (Didn't she look at us while talking to us back in the first storyline? Now she only stares to the lower right somehow), the characters from the old Thieves Guild story get mentioned, and there's also a short dialogue option for both situations in which we've met Quen before (first Thieves Guild story, and that silly Galen druid totem quest), which wasn't unexpected as this is a sequel, but I still want to mention it as a positive aspect. I do wonder though how disappointing it is (or not) for many players who really liked the characters from the first TG story a lot, only to meet Quen again now, and none of the other thieves. I think it could have been a good opportunity to have them return and continue their stories and deepen their background lore. Then again it might be difficult to get the voice actors again after a decade, of course. And yes, there might be people of course who didn't like them. Maybe a balanced mix between old and new characters would have been the best solution.
But instead, there seems to be a big focus on Quen, I guess? And of course, we also got flirt options with her. Though somehow the first one didn't sound flirty at all to me (I still didn't use it because the game would register it as flirting, which is not my intention), and the second one, well, maybe a bit. I mean, I really appreciate that it was toned down and it weren't these silly over the top bawdy jokes like in Solstice. I'm just saying that "I love your approach" doesn't really come across as flirty to me.
So, getting into that mansion - I liked the interior, I think the new building assets and furnishings looked really good, I appreciate there's a bigger variety of places to hide in/behind now, it was generally a nice place, visually. The questmarker disappeared for a while, so there seemed to have been a little bug, but I got along, and I actually found sneaking around there quite fun.
The dialogue was a bit repetative and sometimes a bit obvious. The Cartel being ruthless murderers was no surprise, but actually exactly what I expected. Having a boss fight felt a little random, but I guess every quest "needs" one?
Then there was the part where the player character gets arrested by the Cartel guys - I'm not sure if it's the same for everyone, or only happens under specific circumstances?! It was a bit weird. I was pocketing those items that had a questmarker, and blade-of-woed my way out as it was obvious we're surrounded by murderers anyway (and there was no quest note about being stealthy, it was just about grabbing those items and leaving), and then suddenly I got a scripted scene about them overpowering my character out of the blue. Storywise, it's not bad, but I can see some players might not like such scripted scenes if there's no player agency and they just get sacked anyway, no matter what they do.
Quest #1 took me about 45 minutes, I think, with listening to all dialogues, and plundering plenty of containers. That was longer than I had expected. The end blended seamlessly into quest #2 - which started with repeating immediately what had happened just a few moments before; I still think this is awkward (already was in Gold Road and Solstice), especially since it couldn't be skipped. It would be better to make such repetitions optional and put them into an extra dialogue branch.
Some parts of the last dialogue were untranslated in text; speech in German, displayed text was in English. Interestingly, one passage did differ a lot between speech and text, which made me wonder if the text erroneously displayed might have been an early/initial version which might have been revised once or several times. The speech was more detailed than the text, where one whole part was missing, and instead of "ask Seline", the text said "ask Calisse".
Edited by Syldras on 30 July 2026 13:04@Syldras | PC | EU
The forceful expression of will gives true honor to the Ancestors.
Sarayn Andrethi, Telvanni mage (Main)
Darvasa Andrethi, his "I'm NOT a Necromancer!" sister
Malacar Sunavarlas, Altmer Ayleid vampire
Soris Rethandus, a Sleeper not yet awake0 -
AzuraFan✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭I just finished the thieves guild questline and I thought it was an improvement over the last few zone stories. I liked Edwane, Seline, and Abrasia. Apart from Quen's amnesia about who I was at the beginning (checking me out as a thief - er, we've worked together before, you know), I enjoyed questing with her again. Her amnesia seems to resolve as the questline goes on.
I can see how it would be frustrating when on a character that doesn't stealth well, but it is a thieves guild questline, after all.
Anyway, just wanted to chime in and say I was happy with the story and the characters. It was also at least as long as the zone stories we'd been receiving the last couple of years.
Now on to Sheogorath. I don't like him up front, so if I don't enjoy it as much, that'll be why.
(one niggle - please shut up the companions when NPCs associated with a questline are speaking. Yes, I know I can turn down companion chatter, but usually I don't mind hearing it. There was one time where Seline was saying something (out of dialogue) and Azandar said one of his usual lines over her. Shut them up when it's appropriate. This has happened other times too. If an NPC is saying something, zip the companion's lips.)
(random thought - if you go into a story determined to nitpick at it, you will find stuff to nitpick. Every story ever written has something to nitpick.)0 -
metheglyn✭✭✭✭✭
✭Because some people of Tamriel (our characters included) have interacted with them personally. A simple definition of sentient: "capable of sensing or feeling : conscious of or responsive to the sensations of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, or smelling." Or, even simpler: "able to perceive or feel things." If no one had ever seen a Daedric Prince, or had only interacted with them like we do with Azura--through statues--we might have reason to doubt their sentience. But we've seen them in person, been to their realms, have confronted them and/or worked with them. We've experienced their sentience first-hand.
How can we know it's sentience and not just an imitation of sentience? A highly developed robot could also look human, walk around, react to its environment, hold a logical congruent conversation, make decisions based on its preset reasoning parameters, and imitate emotions without actually having any. I'm not saying the daedric princes are robots in the technical sense - what I'm saying is that things could look alive without actually being alive, and could look sentient without actually being sentient.
We also know that daedra can't create or invent anything, only imitate. Might there simply be no capability for thoughts, only some kind of imitation program? Like a strange echo: The output of mortals colliding with a mass of otherworldly energy, which then just reflects back, sometimes in a distorted way?
May as well ask me how we can know if anything is real. Hey, maybe you're a robot. I wouldn't be able to tell. And if somehow I met you in real life, I guess I'd still have to doubt your very existence as a human being. You want to believe they aren't sentient, go ahead. I'm going to stick with my view of them as sentient beings.How are they not living? I mean, other than the fact that they are fictional creations.
In real life, there are definitions about what makes a thing a living being, the most basic one being: A living organism is made of cells, has a metabolism, grows, reproduces, reacts on its environment, is capable of movement, is able to evolve. Doesn't look too good for the daedric princes.
Of course, in a fantasy world, things could be slightly different (then again, we could also argue if nature spirits in TES are actually living and sentient beings or not), but daedric princes don't even have a real physical form. They are energy. Some say they can manifest as whatever they want, others say mortals only see them as whatever makes sense for their mortal mind, but they don't actually have any form at all.
You think a mass of tentacles with eyeballs is a form that makes sense for the average mortal mind?
As far as the definition of living goes: cells and metabolism--we don't know if the Princes have those or not, since no one has ever been in a position to confirm that, but I'm willing to bet they don't, since they are made of creatia. Grows, reproduces, reacts on its environment: if growth means 'was once a baby and is now an adult,' then no, they don't grow; Molag Bal at least is said to have children/spawn, so one of them at least has some level of reproduction; not sure what constitutes reacting to the environment, but every time we go to one of their realms, they do something about it. Obviously they are capable of movement. As for evolve: not in the classical Darwinian sense, they don't, but there have been a couple of notable evolutions/changes for a couple of them. So they're, what: half-living? Some weird space between living and not living?It's like they're an energy pattern, or a specific wavelength, somehow emanating from their realm (we know they are closely connected to their realm, even defined by it). I don't think that necessarily sounds like a sentient lifeform.
Even if it looks like they can choose reasonable actions to do what their nature defines them to do, can we know that these are actually decisions they consciously make through a thought process, and not just automatised (yet very complex) action-reaction patterns that are just part of the cosmology of this fictional world?
I suppose we can't, and since the powers that be who could explain it probably never will, I guess we'll always be in the dark. In your world, they can be non-sentient robots; in my world, they are going to remain individual princes who have their own motivations, emotions, and thoughts, because they are more interesting to me that way.By the way, I'm still waiting for Urcelmo to tell me super-secret information. Last letter, he specifically told me he couldn't tell me any details until their plan was accomplished. Kind of like how he didn't tell us about the military maneuvers until after they were successful.
He told us the name of the guy he's observing and the name of his partner from the Eyes. Isn't that dangerous enough? Surely an enemy could have used that info to warn the observed person or somehow get the spy into trouble, and immediately the mission would have failed.
I suppose an enemy could have tried such a thing. Taken that information, run to Cyrodiil with it, found the person in question, (who was hiding somewhere), warned them, and then gotten back to Skywatch in time for the next day's favour. Sure, why not. My character didn't do that. Did yours? I know you don't like Urcelmo--are you his enemy, too?
I've already agreed he probably shouldn't be telling us some of what he's told us. To me it comes across as an interesting character flaw rather than an unraveling of all logic. It gives this previously thinly-defined character some depth and nuance. You don't like the story and think it's nonsense; I like it.That is odd--I thought the double completion only came once you'd unlocked the bonus pages. Are you already that far along? You must've had some juicy weekly tasks, if so.
Unlocked? Perhaps. I had claimed stuff up to page 8 already. Well, now, after having done more chores, I'm on page 10 and maybe everything will be completed this weekend; not sure how many house parts or planar keys I might find or not find while questing.
You get one house fragment from the quest line. One comes from Dynamic Encounters. One comes from Thieves Troves, I believe. And...I forget where the fourth one comes from. Nothing too onerous, or I wouldn't have found it yet.Oh, I unlocked the new Rogues Refuge house today--it's pretty nifty. It comes with a lot of furniture, too. Anyway, I'm halfway through the Thieves Guild quest and enjoying it very much.
So, I started the Thieves Guild questline. Actually I did give the Sheogorath story a try first when it looked like there was no one around at the quest start location, but immediately at the next quest location, there was a big number of players again - at 4 a.m. (which is very unusual) - , and then the game crashed anyway. So I left and it's Thieves Guild first now. Shall I put it in spoiler tags? Well, why not:
Thieves Guild Quest 1:So, we have a humourous start already with the guard chasing Quen (I'm personally not such a big fan of that, but okay, that's just personal taste) - and the guard keeps standing around, but sadly, we can't really talk to him much, and he has only one line of text.
I was a bit confused by the guard's line, too, to be honest, which from German would translate to: "Where by the three princes' names did she go?" Who are the three princes? Is it supposed to refer to the Three Queens of Solstice? How likely is it that that random Daggerfall guard is even familiar with them? - Okay, now it's getting even weirder; I checked the English translation and that doesn't mention princes at all. Thinking more about it, the translator could have actually hinted at an older German proverb/curse, just TESified?! "by three devils' names" with "devils" being replaced with "princes" - as in "daedric princes" - because there are no devils in TES? An interesting choice of translation, if this was their idea. I wonder how obvious it might have been for other people, or not; I might be a little weird as I tend to forget about real world idioms when playing TES, because I somehow expect idioms in game to be TES-specific, unrelated to the real world, if that makes sense. Not that I mind to see real ones, if they fit - I just might not notice immediately because I don't really expect it.
Anyway, then that other criminal guy (or at least I had assumed so) offers us a reward for helping them, because we look like some outlaw or whatever... I found it a little strange he gave us so much detailed info about a new Thieves Guild chapter getting founded, etc, as we were a total stranger and we hadn't built any trust whatsoever yet (might have been better if he had only told us after we actually helped them out). But maybe he was well aware that this is an ESO and not TES6, so we can't whack him over the head and call the guard to arrest him, but only "decide" to support the Thieves (insert some funny smiley here). We do get different dialogue options, but all are humourous in tone and none really make a difference. Sure, the outcome needs to be the same - we need to help the Thieves - , but I still think different tones could have been possible with the different dialogue options, for example to include one about being reluctant or sceptical, or another one for selfish mercenary types about only caring for the reward, or similar. Well, same criticism as with the dialogue options in Solstice - having options now is nice, but I'd prefer them to actually make a difference somehow, and not basically only being "friendly, very friendly, funny".
When finally talking to Quen (Didn't she look at us while talking to us back in the first storyline? Now she only stares to the lower right somehow), the characters from the old Thieves Guild story get mentioned, and there's also a short dialogue option for both situations in which we've met Quen before (first Thieves Guild story, and that silly Galen druid totem quest), which wasn't unexpected as this is a sequel, but I still want to mention it as a positive aspect. I do wonder though how disappointing it is (or not) for many players who really liked the characters from the first TG story a lot, only to meet Quen again now, and none of the other thieves. I think it could have been a good opportunity to have them return and continue their stories and deepen their background lore. Then again it might be difficult to get the voice actors again after a decade, of course. And yes, there might be people of course who didn't like them. Maybe a balanced mix between old and new characters would have been the best solution.
But instead, there seems to be a big focus on Quen, I guess? And of course, we also got flirt options with her. Though somehow the first one didn't sound flirty at all to me (I still didn't use it because the game would register it as flirting, which is not my intention), and the second one, well, maybe a bit. I mean, I really appreciate that it was toned down and it weren't these silly over the top bawdy jokes like in Solstice. I'm just saying that "I love your approach" doesn't really come across as flirty to me.
So, getting into that mansion - I liked the interior, I think the new building assets and furnishings looked really good, I appreciate there's a bigger variety of places to hide in/behind now, it was generally a nice place, visually. The questmarker disappeared for a while, so there seemed to have been a little bug, but I got along, and I actually found sneaking around there quite fun.
The dialogue was a bit repetative and sometimes a bit obvious. The Cartel being ruthless murderers was no surprise, but actually exactly what I expected. Having a boss fight felt a little random, but I guess every quest "needs" one?
Then there was the part where the player character gets arrested by the Cartel guys - I'm not sure if it's the same for everyone, or only happens under specific circumstances?! It was a bit weird. I was pocketing those items that had a questmarker, and blade-of-woed my way out as it was obvious we're surrounded by murderers anyway (and there was no quest note about being stealthy, it was just about grabbing those items and leaving), and then suddenly I got a scripted scene about them overpowering my character out of the blue. Storywise, it's not bad, but I can see some players might not like such scripted scenes if there's no player agency and they just get sacked anyway, no matter what they do.
Quest #1 took me about 45 minutes, I think, with listening to all dialogues, and plundering plenty of containers. That was longer than I had expected. The end blended seamlessly into quest #2 - which started with repeating immediately what had happened just a few moments before; I still think this is awkward (already was in Gold Road and Solstice), especially since it couldn't be skipped. It would be better to make such repetitions optional and put them into an extra dialogue branch.
Some parts of the last dialogue were untranslated in text; speech in German, displayed text was in English. Interestingly, one passage did differ a lot between speech and text, which made me wonder if the text erroneously displayed might have been an early/initial version which might have been revised once or several times. The speech was more detailed than the text, where one whole part was missing, and instead of "ask Seline", the text said "ask Calisse".
What I like is that the Thieves Guild quest has three different ways you can start it. You can pick it up from the crown store, of course (which isn't something I like to do to start quests), you can just happen upon it if you use the Daggerfall wayshrine, or you can get it from Quen herself in the Abah's Landing Thieves Guild. I was there to do a heist, saw Quen had a quest marker, and so picked it up from here there.Unfortunately, if you do take the quest from Quen in the Thieves Guild in Abah's Landing, that isn't reflected in the dialogue with Skeever Nivo. You can say "Quen's a friend," if you knew her from before, but you can't say, "Quen told me to meet her here." And then, in the end, Skeever will tell you all about Quen as if you don't know her anyway. That's what I meant about the arrangement of the dialogue being a bit off. As far as how much he tells us--he's expositon NPC and, like all exposition NPCs in the game, he tells us all the details. I chose the neutral option with him as the others didn't feel like they fit my character.
I did like the animation in the background of Quen dashing up the side of the building and into a window--it fits with her previous ability to scale any building/wall that we saw in the original questline, and it looked pretty cool.
I enjoyed the conversation with Quen, and I don't mind that the other characters from the original quest aren't involved. It makes sense that the Guild sent one person to try to establish a new chapter, and as far as her being the one ZOS decided on: she's popular. I know some players don't like it when we just keep seeing the same NPCs all the time--makes the world feel small--and will be glad ZOS gave us new characters for the sequel. I'm sure other players would have liked to get into more shenanigans with the previous gang, and so might be disappointed.
I did choose the flirt options in this quest, because to me they didn't seem like flirting so much as teasing familiarity, and Quen's responses fit that, at least in my mind. There will be at least one more flirt option (haven't finished the quest line yet, so don't know how many more times one can flirt with her) that is more decidedly flirtatious (and so I didn't choose that one). I like that they gave some nuance to the flirt lines and I think they made sense for when they showed up.
I also got 'caught' by the cartel, but that was because I was too focused on taking the lootable things and the timer ran out. I knew it was a timed quest, but I thought I would be fast enough to grab a bunch of stuff and make it out. Next character I take through, I'm going to concentrate just on getting out unseen (maybe grab one thing) and see how that ends up.
I agree the reptition of information can be a bit much, but at least in this case the player wasn't required to say, "remind me" or give some kind of "dummy" response--Quen just sort of recited it at us in a kind of "let's evaluate the job we just did," kind of way.
It does sound like you got some sort of earlier version of text that hadn't been cleaned up/translated. What a strange and unfortunate bug.
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Syldras✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I just finished the thieves guild questline and I thought it was an improvement over the last few zone stories. I liked Edwane, Seline, and Abrasia. Apart from Quen's amnesia about who I was at the beginning (checking me out as a thief - er, we've worked together before, you know), I enjoyed questing with her again. Her amnesia seems to resolve as the questline goes on.
What does she say in the original text? I play a translation and to me it looked like she knew immediately, right when meeting her in the tavern, who my character is, was happy to see him again, also brought up the people from the first Thieves Guild story, and our meeting on Galen in Llanshara. The dialogue about having done a good job looked like a normal compliment to me, not being sceptical about my character's skill. There was a bit about suggesting us to cooperate, but for my character it fits: While having joined the Thieves Guild in the past, he hasn't interacted with them for many years, so they might have assumed he had moved on. Not sure if there are other situations where the player is treated like a stranger of newbie, as I have only played the first quest of the new storyline yet.(random thought - if you go into a story determined to nitpick at it, you will find stuff to nitpick. Every story ever written has something to nitpick.)
I'm just writing down what I specifically enjoyed, what I found a bit strange, a few things I'd love to see more/deeper development of in the future (in particular more distinctive dialogue choices and maybe even choices that actually change the plot a bit), basically general thoughts I get when playing the story. So far, I think the Thieves Guild questline really didn't have a bad start. Two small bugs (but nothing serious), a few choices I found surprising (like not having more characters from the first story return, but only Quen), but overall it looked good to me.
Looking at a work of fiction closely is part of the fun for me and brings me more hours of enjoyment than if I just watched or read a story without thinking much about it (let alone I wouldn't find that fun - it would feel like a vacuous experience for me, so what would I even watch/read it for?). Not sure if there's any cultural differences at play, but I consider taking the time to analyse a thing a sign of interest and actual care (also, I'm from a culture that, im comparison, seems to be rather direct and open when voicing opinions; beating around the bush instead of speaking plainly is seen as wasting people's time). If I think something is utterly stupid beyond saving, I would not write about it.
Edit: I've just seen your post, @metheglyn , will reply to it later!Edited by Syldras on 30 July 2026 15:15@Syldras | PC | EU
The forceful expression of will gives true honor to the Ancestors.
Sarayn Andrethi, Telvanni mage (Main)
Darvasa Andrethi, his "I'm NOT a Necromancer!" sister
Malacar Sunavarlas, Altmer Ayleid vampire
Soris Rethandus, a Sleeper not yet awake0 -
metheglyn✭✭✭✭✭
✭I just finished the thieves guild questline and I thought it was an improvement over the last few zone stories. I liked Edwane, Seline, and Abrasia. Apart from Quen's amnesia about who I was at the beginning (checking me out as a thief - er, we've worked together before, you know), I enjoyed questing with her again. Her amnesia seems to resolve as the questline goes on.
I can see how it would be frustrating when on a character that doesn't stealth well, but it is a thieves guild questline, after all.
Anyway, just wanted to chime in and say I was happy with the story and the characters. It was also at least as long as the zone stories we'd been receiving the last couple of years.
Now on to Sheogorath. I don't like him up front, so if I don't enjoy it as much, that'll be why.
(one niggle - please shut up the companions when NPCs associated with a questline are speaking. Yes, I know I can turn down companion chatter, but usually I don't mind hearing it. There was one time where Seline was saying something (out of dialogue) and Azandar said one of his usual lines over her. Shut them up when it's appropriate. This has happened other times too. If an NPC is saying something, zip the companion's lips.)
(random thought - if you go into a story determined to nitpick at it, you will find stuff to nitpick. Every story ever written has something to nitpick.)
I missed seeing your response before--guess you posted while I was typing up my long-winded reply to Syldras!
I'm halfway through the Thieve Guild questline and really enjoying it. I do like the new NPCs and the whole set-up and ambience fit with what I expect from a thief/sneaky story. Quen does have a couple lines that makes it seem like she doesn't remember all that we've done together in the past, but for the most part I think the dialogue is well done and the player character response options are an improvement over some we've had in the past.
I've been frustrated, too, by companions speaking over other NPC voice lines, but for this quest line, I'm not bringing a companion along. I feel more like a successful sneak-thief if I don't have someone trailing along after me. Not that I'm always so successful at it--the number of heists I don't complete in time tells its own tale.
It's true that, if determined, one can always find something to nitpick. I've done my share of it regarding certain stories, to be sure! I just enjoy discussing what people like and don't like about the stories in the game.
It will be hard for me to go into the Sheogorath quest line with an open mind, though. I really don't like Sheogorath. However, I mean to try my best.0 -
AzuraFan✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭What does she say in the original text?
I don't remember exactly what she says, but she doesn't do it as soon as you meet up with her. It's a bit later on in the questline.I'm just writing down what I specifically enjoyed, what I found a bit strange, a few things I'd love to see more/deeper development of in the future (in particular more distinctive dialogue choices and maybe even choices that actually change the plot a bit), basically general thoughts I get when playing the story.
I wasn't addressing my random thought at you specifically, but just stating it in general.I've been frustrated, too, by companions speaking over other NPC voice lines, but for this quest line, I'm not bringing a companion along. I feel more like a successful sneak-thief if I don't have someone trailing along after me. Not that I'm always so successful at it--the number of heists I don't complete in time tells its own tale.
I do chuckle sometimes when I'm supposed to be doing something quietly, but there's a companion with me, my big bear is just standing around, and there's a non-combat pet rolling around or being loud/flashy, depending on which one I have out.It will be hard for me to go into the Sheogorath quest line with an open mind, though. I really don't like Sheogorath. However, I mean to try my best.
Same. Someone said there's a lot of dialogue in the questline, which doesn't bode well...2 -
Syldras✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭May as well ask me how we can know if anything is real. Hey, maybe you're a robot. I wouldn't be able to tell. And if somehow I met you in real life, I guess I'd still have to doubt your very existence as a human being.
You could, why would I be bothered by it?
But seriously, in the end I assume other humans and animals to be sentient because I know that I am sentient, and these creatures have the same biological build as myself (it gets a bit tricky if we talk about protozoa). Some being sentient and some not, despite sharing the same biological structure, would seem strange to me. But in the end, we don't know for sure (there's a whole philosophical topic about this, called Solipsism) - but I can live with that. Even if the - to me unlikely - case would be true that some people were not sentient, how would it matter if I treat all of them the same anyway, sentient or not?
But, back to topic: The problem is that daedric princes don't actually have a biological physical body, but are basically made of energy, so one can't draw conclusions between them, and, say, the average Altmer, Breton or hound, because they're biologically really completely different things.You think a mass of tentacles with eyeballs is a form that makes sense for the average mortal mind?
More sense than a confusing pattern of impossible geometry formed from ever-changing rays of light or whatever they might "truly" be. In the end, every brain works with pattern recognition. It tries to make sense of the world, in ways it can comprehend. In some cases this leads to things not actually being perceived as how they actually look - think of optical illusions, for example. Also, colors don't truly exist. It's all just electromagnetic waves of different wavelengths, and our eyes make them look like colors. And eyes of other species see them differently.
So what a daedric prince truly is, and what is perceived by a mortal, might be entirely different things.As far as the definition of living goes: cells and metabolism--we don't know if the Princes have those or not, since no one has ever been in a position to confirm that, but I'm willing to bet they don't, since they are made of creatia. Grows, reproduces, reacts on its environment: if growth means 'was once a baby and is now an adult,' then no, they don't grow; Molag Bal at least is said to have children/spawn, so one of them at least has some level of reproduction; not sure what constitutes reacting to the environment, but every time we go to one of their realms, they do something about it. Obviously they are capable of movement. As for evolve: not in the classical Darwinian sense, they don't, but there have been a couple of notable evolutions/changes for a couple of them. So they're, what: half-living? Some weird space between living and not living?
In any way they do not meet the criteria for biological life (meeting just a few of them isn't enough per definition). What they are? Who knows. But them obviously not being the average lifeform comparable to humans or elves is the very reason I find it a pity that they are portrayed in such a "mundane" way, especially lately. There could be something more mysterious and hard to comprehend about them and their actions, considering they are supposed to be something mysterious and foreign.I suppose we can't, and since the powers that be who could explain it probably never will, I guess we'll always be in the dark. In your world, they can be non-sentient robots; in my world, they are going to remain individual princes who have their own motivations, emotions, and thoughts, because they are more interesting to me that way.
For me, they are forces of nature and parts of the cosmos, that imitate life, whose exact nature isn't entirely clear to mortals.I suppose an enemy could have tried such a thing. Taken that information, run to Cyrodiil with it, found the person in question, (who was hiding somewhere), warned them, and then gotten back to Skywatch in time for the next day's favour. Sure, why not. My character didn't do that. Did yours? I know you don't like Urcelmo--are you his enemy, too?
I don't dislike him, I just didn't find him particularly interesting in base game. He's also lucky that Great House Telvanni has no interest in the war, so I did not forward the info to the Pact.You get one house fragment from the quest line. One comes from Dynamic Encounters. One comes from Thieves Troves, I believe. And...I forget where the fourth one comes from. Nothing too onerous, or I wouldn't have found it yet.
I know I got the Dynamic Encounter one. And that's it so far.What I like is that the Thieves Guild quest has three different ways you can start it. You can pick it up from the crown store, of course (which isn't something I like to do to start quests), you can just happen upon it if you use the Daggerfall wayshrine, or you can get it from Quen herself in the Abah's Landing Thieves Guild. I was there to do a heist, saw Quen had a quest marker, and so picked it up from here there.
Unfortunately, if you do take the quest from Quen in the Thieves Guild in Abah's Landing, that isn't reflected in the dialogue with Skeever Nivo. You can say "Quen's a friend," if you knew her from before, but you can't say, "Quen told me to meet her here." And then, in the end, Skeever will tell you all about Quen as if you don't know her anyway. That's what I meant about the arrangement of the dialogue being a bit off. As far as how much he tells us--he's expositon NPC and, like all exposition NPCs in the game, he tells us all the details. I chose the neutral option with him as the others didn't feel like they fit my character.
I didn't know about the different start locations for the questline. When it comes to dialogue options, I mostly found myself choosing the neutral one so far, just like it had been in Solstice. But it was just quest 1, we'll see how it continues! I hope I'll be able to continue questing later today.I enjoyed the conversation with Quen, and I don't mind that the other characters from the original quest aren't involved. It makes sense that the Guild sent one person to try to establish a new chapter, and as far as her being the one ZOS decided on: she's popular.
It looks like it's still following the old pattern that we saw with chapters, with there mostly being one returning "host character" leading through the new storyline. Not all the time (Leramil was new, for example), but they did that quite often, with Eveli, Lyris, etc.I did choose the flirt options in this quest, because to me they didn't seem like flirting so much as teasing familiarity, and Quen's responses fit that, at least in my mind. There will be at least one more flirt option (haven't finished the quest line yet, so don't know how many more times one can flirt with her) that is more decidedly flirtatious (and so I didn't choose that one). I like that they gave some nuance to the flirt lines and I think they made sense for when they showed up.
I just found that dialogue option friendly, showing familiarity in a way, which especially makes sense for characters who have just finished the first Thieves Guild storyline before, or interact with the guild regularly. It would actually have been what my character would have most likely said, but since it was labeled the way it was, I thought I better don't choose it, not knowing if it might lead into a direction I didn't intend. It's a bit of a pity, but I'm really not sure how much weight choosing one such dialogue option might have or not.I also got 'caught' by the cartel, but that was because I was too focused on taking the lootable things and the timer ran out. I knew it was a timed quest, but I thought I would be fast enough to grab a bunch of stuff and make it out. Next character I take through, I'm going to concentrate just on getting out unseen (maybe grab one thing) and see how that ends up.
In my case, there was still plenty of time left, so it made me wonder if it was a scripted event that happens in any way. Or maybe using the Blade Of Woe counted as having been detected by the npc and a specific number of detections also leads to that outcome?! It still felt a bit weird as I had the feeling my character was getting along quite fine.It does sound like you got some sort of earlier version of text that hadn't been cleaned up/translated. What a strange and unfortunate bug.
For me, it wasn't that bad since I could also listen to the correct text, but for people who rely on the written text only, this indeed is an unfortunate bug.
Ah, right, I just remembered: The Night Market will not return at the end of this year. It's postponed to early 2017. Which again made me think that this is mostly a testing ground for upcoming content - if they didn't get the stuff ready to test yet, having the Market return also makes no sense.@Syldras | PC | EU
The forceful expression of will gives true honor to the Ancestors.
Sarayn Andrethi, Telvanni mage (Main)
Darvasa Andrethi, his "I'm NOT a Necromancer!" sister
Malacar Sunavarlas, Altmer Ayleid vampire
Soris Rethandus, a Sleeper not yet awake0