Cadwell's Bronze - A resurrected concept

Enodoc

Original title: Cadwell's Bronze - An incomplete (and obsolete) concept
Resurrected: September 2016

This one has been sitting around in my drafts for a while now, not posted because I wasn't sure if it was really complete or fully thought out. Now with the announcement of One Tamriel, it's pretty much become obsolete anyway. But because of that, and since I spent a bunch of time thinking about it , instead of just leaving it to rot, I thought I'd post it as-is. There may be some points in here that could still be used in the upcoming changes to Cadwell's Silver and Gold that we will be seeing with One Tamriel.


Cadwell's Bronze
The primary idea here is to create an equivalent Cadwell's Almanac progression tracker for your first alliance, in the same way that Cadwell's Silver and Gold track your progress through the Veteran alliances. Obviously, this would be called Cadwell's Bronze. I decided on the "World" icon for Bronze because I though it would appropriately match the existing Moon and Sun icons we have for Silver and Gold. There are no prerequisites that would be changed as part of this suggestion (ie, you wouldn't need to do Bronze before Silver); it's solely to be used as a tracker, to indicate how much of the alliance story you have completed. The reward would be "Meridia's Amulet of the Night", a comparatively useless Level 50 blue amulet with a Health Recovery enchantment and the "Arcane" Increase Max Magicka trait (to match the Silver and Gold rewards which have Health Recovery and Healthy/Robust traits respectively).

Cadwell's Bronze would begin during the Main Quest "Castle of the Worm" at Level 20, since you meet Cadwell at least twice during this quest. The most logical point for the quest to be given would be during Cadwell's last discussion with you when you decide whether to take him back to Tamriel with you or not. Regardless of what you choose, Cadwell is interested in hearing more about what you get up to during your time in Tamriel (there is hopefully some dialogue that already exists somewhere that can be repurposed for this; that way, it's fully voiced by John Cleese without needing to get him in for more VO). The quest would end, as with Silver and Gold, once all of the required objectives have been completed. If Cadwell was brought back to the Harborage already, you'll be able to turn in the quest straight away. If not, you will need to wait for when he arrives there at the end of the Main Quest, or potentially you may be able to turn it in when you meet him around Coldharbour.

As mentioned above, Cadwell's Bronze would not become prerequisite for any other quest which already exists (for example, you'd still be able to start Silver if you haven't finished Bronze yet). What could happen though, is that Bronze, along with Silver and Gold, could become a requirement for the theoretical "Alliance Change" that is being considered. Essentially, you'd only be able to change your alliance if you had fully completed each of the alliance stories. Alternatively, alliance change could be a final in-game reward for completing all three Cadwell quests; having explored all of them, Meridia gives you the opportunity to change your allegiance to the alliance whom you identify with the most. This way, there's a tangible reward for completing all three Cadwell quests and a way to earn an alliance change in-game, while Alliance Change can still be offered in the Crown Store for anyone else. The progress through Cadwell's Bronze, Silver, and Gold would be adjusted appropriately for anyone who purchased alliance change through the Crown Store.


The primary things that could be retained for the One Tamriel change are the concept of having a tracker to record all three alliances, and not just two of them, and the rewards for completing each stage and all three. What becomes obsolete is the starting and ending point ideas, since with One Tamriel you will be able to visit all alliances immediately. This means that all three Cadwell trackers would need to be introduced at the same time, and probably earlier on in the story. There's also discussion about how to make sure the new versions of Cadwell's still make sense storywise, but that's a discussion for another thread.

Enodoc

I originally created and abandoned this thread (as Cadwell's Bronze - An incomplete (and obsolete) concept) as it seemed One Tamriel would remove the need for "Cadwell's Bronze". It turns out however that this was actually a presumptive and incorrect assumption. Cadwell's Silver and Gold have not been altered with One Tamriel, and remain a post-Main Quest undertaking. The story behind them remains the same, despite the fact that you are able to visit the other alliances as soon as you drop out of Coldharbour. The explanation for why you are not recognised by enemy alliance members also remains the same, and is still introduced after the Main Quest in Cadwell's Silver; this explanation isn't given if you travel to the other alliances before the story takes you there (but that's a discussion for another thread).

Because of this, Cadwell's Bronze remains a plausible, useful, and viable option for tracking your first alliance, with a setup that's pretty much as I suggested originally. Therefore, I have resurrected the thread (rather than creating a new one, as the concept is the same) under the new title
Cadwell's Bronze - A resurrected concept.

What's the point?
The benefits of Cadwell's Bronze are easy to see:

• Consistency: Considering Cadwell's Silver and Gold, it's a bit odd that you get a checklist for the other alliances, but not your own. This addresses that discrepancy.
• Story Progression: It would help people who are new to the game to follow the storyline. (Only peripherally though, since there's a lot more to the story chain that is not covered by Cadwell's Almanac.)
• Speedy Skill Points: It would help people who are only interested in the primary quests to get those done quickly, as (for the most part), the quests in the Almanac are the ones that give skill points.

But I don't want to do it!
Then ignore it. As mentioned in the original post, Cadwell's Bronze would not retroactively become a prerequisite for Cadwell's Silver. Also, with One Tamriel, everything is optional, and that includes this quest, and the whole of the Alliance Story that it documents. You don't need to do the Alliance Story to finish the Main Quest, and you don't need to do the Main Quest to access the other Alliance Stories. But if you decided you did want to do the Alliance Story, this would provide some nice reward for completing the main sections; something that's in-line with the new rewards for Silver and Gold (the motif and the hat). Maybe a costume, mount, or pet.

It's cluttering up my quest list!
Agreed, that would be an issue. Here's something pulled from a really old thread of mine concerning removal of Veteran Ranks. In that thread, I presented an idea for hiding Silver and Gold from the quest list (as well as making them parallel, thus removing the prerequisite of doing Silver before Gold). The quote has been updated from the original to fit the current quest setup:

Cadwell
Assume you are a member of the Daggerfall Covenant for this section.

• Cadwell's Silver will begin as it does now, following the end of the Main Quest. But:
  • As soon as you arrive in the AD territory, the following text appears on-screen: New Task: Cadwell's Silver - Experience the Aldmeri Dominion.
  • Cadwell's Silver is then removed/hidden from the Journal. This is so that the quest is not there hanging over you if you don't want to do it. (Progress tracking in Cadwell's Almanac proceeds as normal.)
  • A projection of Cadwell invites you to visit the Aldmeri version of the Harborage to return to your own alliance. There's a projection of him in the Aldmeri Harborage as well, with the same dialogue he would have if you met him in the normal (Daggerfall) Harborage.
  • Activating the Light of Meridia in the Aldmeri Harborage returns you to the Daggerfall Harborage, where Cadwell is waiting... with a new quest for you.
• Cadwell's Gold will begin as soon as you return to the Daggerfall Harborage after your initial trip to the Dominion lands. Cadwell's dialogue here ("Well, you've experienced two of the three alliances. Care to finish the set?[...]") does not need to be changed, as you have still technically experienced two alliances.
  • As before, as soon as you arrive in EP territory, you get a New Task: Cadwell's Gold - Experience the Ebonheart Pact.
  • Cadwell's Gold is removed/hidden from the Journal to avoid clutter.
• Returning to any version of the Harborage gives you access to the Light of Meridia. Activate it whenever you like to be given a choice of alliances to visit. eg, press E for Dominion, F for Pact or X for Covenant.
• If either section of Cadwell's Almanac is completed, you see Task Completed: Cadwell's Silver/Gold - You have completed the Dominion/Pact section of Cadwell's Almanac. At this time, the relevant quest reappears in the Journal for you to turn in to Cadwell in the Daggerfall Harborage. Turn in works as it does now.

Something to note in parallel, which needs to be addressed but is a discussion for another thread, is that even though the Tutorial at the beginning of the game now once again drops you on the starter island, Cadwell's Silver and Gold still drop you in the Tier 1 starter city of the new alliance, rather than their starter island. This needs to be fixed so the story can be followed correctly.

This setup can then be directly expanded to Cadwell's Bronze:

• Cadwell's Bronze will begin as implied in the original post above, following the discussion with Cadwell at the end of Castle of the Worm.
  • As soon as you leave the Harborage, and are back in DC territory, you get the following message: New Task: Cadwell's Bronze - Experience the Daggerfall Covenant.
  • Cadwell's Bronze is removed/hidden from the Journal to avoid clutter if you don't want to do it. Progress tracking in Cadwell's Almanac for the Bronze alliance (DC in this example) becomes available.
• Once the Bronze Almanac objectives are completed, you see Task Completed: Cadwell's Bronze - You have completed the Covenant section of Cadwell's Almanac. At this time, Cadwell's Bronze reappears in the quest Journal for you to turn in to Cadwell as indicated in the OP.

NewBlacksmurf

Just being honest.....the game should have a faction main story and that fixes it. Simple and sweet

Ald
EBon P
Daggerf

These would progress similar to Cadwell but they'd fall under the alliance for each.
I don't like Cadwell series at all and so I've always just wanted the faction story to progress exactly like the main story and fighters/mages guild quests.

If you're saying go anywhere and do anything in any order than having redone all vanilla zones should also involve this.

That's my preference

Enodoc

Do you mean that you shouldn't be able to jump around the story like you can now, and you should just get one single chain of Alliance quests, unlocked one after the other, with the last one being prerequisite to the next one? If so, I completely agree, and would also much prefer that.

The suggestion here though is simply to use the existing Almanac checklists for all alliances rather than having one alliance left out; it doesn't involve changing the story progression at all, just implementing a system to display the missing Almanac list. Would that not be a useful feature, given that the quest setup is unlikely to be changed?

Enodoc

Does anyone have a complete list of Cadwell's dialogue, or know how to get one? Cadwell's Bronze would obviously work best with a properly-voiced introduction and all that sort of stuff, and it's very unlikely that ZOS would hire in John Cleese again just for a couple of lines. But Cadwell has so much incidental dialogue already that it's possible that the necessary lines already exist, and would just need to be stuck together in a different order for this quest pickup.

If his dialogue is not easily accessible I guess I'll have to go through all the quests he's involved in directly, and find out that way whether anything works. His incidental Harborage dialogue (if you take him with you after Castle of the Worm) I think will be my best bet.

NewBlacksmurf

I don't mean you shouldn't be able to jump around so to speak but I do believe that similar to the Cadwell silver and gold almanac, One Tamriel should actually have changed all to Ald story, EP story, and DC story

that just makes sense and really it should've been that way as of TU.
The only adjustment is adding the starting faction quest log tracker in place of any cadwell almanacs

Enodoc

Oh I see what you mean, you think it would be better if each faction's "objective list" was presented under that faction's name, and not connected to Cadwell in any way. Yeah, that would work too. Either way, it still gives you a checklist for all alliances.
(I'm planning a collection of threads soon to discuss how these "critical path" quests, whether you call them Cadwell's or otherwise, fit into the greater Alliance storyline - for example, why is Cradlecrush in Eastmarch part of the critical path quest list when it's not actually in the story quest chain, and no pointer quest takes you there?)