*SPOILER WARNING* Village of the Lost (Colharbour) is really, really, really stupid quest writing.

Dahveed

I know it's far too late, and probably useless, to complain about this. But I'm sorry I need to get this off my chest. Hopefully going forward ESO writers can avoid this crap going forward.

The Village of the Lost quest line starts off pretty standard, i.e. "Oh look, a hero, come on hero you must save us!"

Pretty bland if you ask me but pretty standard I guess for the MMO swill that passes for story these days.

But the ending. OMG the facepalm ending.

Quest Giver: - "Hello, person I literally met about 9 minutes ago! Want to die for me?"

Hero: - "Sure! Why not!"

QG: - "Okay! Jump off this cliff and kill yourself!"

H - "Derp, ok! Herp derp!" *jumps off cliff killing himself*

*4 seconds later resurrects inexplicably, standing in front of quest-givers ghost (???)

QG: - "Thanks for your sacrifice! K bai!"

H - "lol wut?"

-The End.

Please never, ever write another quest this bad again. It's absolutely cringeworthy.

Shaun98ca2

Really? I find that awesome LOL. Musta missed that one in coldharbour or simply complexly forgotten about it.

raidentenshu_ESO

Yeah I thought that was pretty stupid myself, but then again most of the quests are pretty stupid and poorly written. In fact one of major flaws in this game is that everyone is in damsel in distress panic attack mod, and incapable of dealing with their own set of problems in an intellectual level. They must rely on other people to do it for them...even with such simple task. It gets rather tiresome after a while being encountered and bumping into needy NPCs

Right now I'm doing Cadwell's silver (The rift) and I'm just bored out of my mind with this quest. I'm forcing myself to finish it so I can complete Cadwells' mission..... safe to say that I will NOT be doing the Gold part.

sadownik

raidentenshu_ESO wrote: »

Yeah I thought that was pretty stupid myself, but then again most of the quests are pretty stupid and poorly written. In fact one of major flaws in this game is that everyone is in damsel in distress panic attack mod, and incapable of dealing with their own set of problems in an intellectual level. They must rely on other people to do it for them...even with such simple task. It gets rather tiresome after a while being encountered and bumping into needy NPCs

Right now I'm doing Cadwell's silver (The rift) and I'm just bored out of my mind with this quest. I'm forcing myself to finish it so I can complete Cadwells' mission..... safe to say that I will NOT be doing the Gold part.

Right with you there. I never understood people saying the storytelling is great in ESO. Very few quests from hundreds I remember as decently written.

AntMan100673

Lol, I actually liked that. Probably because I did it after the other quest in coldharbour where someone tells you to jump off and they'll make sure you get to the ground safely, I thought I don't really trust you but I'll give it a go, they then bubbled me to the ground safely. In the lost village when I got asked to jump I just thought it was a test of faith kind of thing and they'd save me... SPLAT!!!

raidentenshu_ESO

sadownik wrote: »

raidentenshu_ESO wrote: »

Yeah I thought that was pretty stupid myself, but then again most of the quests are pretty stupid and poorly written. In fact one of major flaws in this game is that everyone is in damsel in distress panic attack mod, and incapable of dealing with their own set of problems in an intellectual level. They must rely on other people to do it for them...even with such simple task. It gets rather tiresome after a while being encountered and bumping into needy NPCs

Right now I'm doing Cadwell's silver (The rift) and I'm just bored out of my mind with this quest. I'm forcing myself to finish it so I can complete Cadwells' mission..... safe to say that I will NOT be doing the Gold part.

Right with you there. I never understood people saying the storytelling is great in ESO. Very few quests from hundreds I remember as decently written.

The only quests that I found slighty interesting was the main quest. The interaction with Molag bal and Mannimarco. I really like the dark scenery. I enjoyed having to explore the darkness of Coldharbour.

I am rather pissed off that I wasn't given the choice of either siding with Molag Bal or play the protagonist hero.

JD2013

Still more interesting than the usual "go and fetch me 20 boar tusks because reasons!" In most MMO's.

Tavore1138

Can you imagine how hard it is to write well over 1,000 'stories' given that the endings have to be careful not to impact significantly on the world we all share - unlike offline games which can really play with the game world and the consequences of each quest?

Sure there are a fair few quests that are pretty generic fetch and kill type stuff but there are also some memorable ones - most recently the Sweetroll Killer quest in DB but also some of the main quests through the various alliances and just some random small ones with oddly touching moments.

Given the constraints of having to write quests that basically don't actually change anything I think they have done pretty well.

sadownik

Tavore1138 wrote: »

Can you imagine how hard it is to write well over 1,000 'stories' given that the endings have to be careful not to impact significantly on the world we all share - unlike offline games which can really play with the game world and the consequences of each quest?

Sure there are a fair few quests that are pretty generic fetch and kill type stuff but there are also some memorable ones - most recently the Sweetroll Killer quest in DB but also some of the main quests through the various alliances and just some random small ones with oddly touching moments.

Given the constraints of having to write quests that basically don't actually change anything I think they have done pretty well.

You are right it is nearly impossible to write well over 1000 unique and entertaining stories. So why spending probably milions on doing very very genericfully voiced quests? Why not try something different? Thats one of the things i like in GW2 - maps are not packed with quests. Instead there are multiple event chains on the map. This way map and game feels "alive" and not so static like in ESO.

There are few very small events in ESO already. You walk on 2 mages fighting, you see few dremora appearing in front of you - why not expand this side?

Bonzodog01

For the large part, I think the main storylines in this game are fascinating. Yes, there are lots of "save person in distress from seemingly silly fate" or "kill x creatures for no real reason", but they are all side quests.

OP, the DC storyline coming up is one of the best in game. Its mega-easy to complete (a lot easier than the EP storyline you have been following), but it encompasses a lot of the games lore, and actually explains a lot of how things came to be how they are all over Tamriel. It even explains some pre-cursors to the Wrothgar storyline (for the main part, Wrothgar is essentially part of the Covenant).

Yes, there is a side line story about about Dominion invasion fleets, and you will be required to kill them off.

Glenumbra explains some of Tamriels history about the ayleids, Stormhaven is...meh (very disjointed, lots of bandits and goblins), Rivenspire is amazing, an entire story about vampires, the Alik'r is just a fascinating place to be even if its storyline is mediocre, and Bangkorai is about average.

High King Emeric is at this point the oldest ruler in game, and doesn't have a very high opinion of the other two rulers (describing Queen Ayrenn as a "spoilt child", and King Jorunn as a "good soldier, but all the brains of an imp"), and he has seen a LOT in his time. He has been a ruler for around 25-30 years at this point.

Turelus

I am just tired of making peoples life decisions for them.

I want every quest with a choice ending to have a third option of "sort it out yourself" so I can walk away but still get my quest exp.

Pendrillion

I loved village of the lost... When I played it the first time it was with some guildies... WE were the lost I can tell you that... And then after we almost threw the gauntlet in... We got to that part... and we were like WHAT??!!! And by end so much laughing about the absurdity... One of the few times we celebrated with emotes before leaving the dungeon.

Tan9oSuccka

The Quest dialog at the end is great when she tells you to jump off the edge.

Your response is something like,

"Very well. I'm off then."

GreenhaloX

It's ok to vent.. Colharbour, as a whole is my least favorite place. All the gloominess, the multilevels, the height, the trying to figure out how to get around all the jagged edges.

Tryxus

Well when you know you can't die, requests like that aren't crazy at all.

Found that last request pretty clever myself

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Tryxus wrote: »

Well when you know you can't die, requests like that aren't crazy at all.

^This. It's touching when random NPCs are like, 'no, you can't kill yourself! You're too important to the Dominion to die!', but extremely frustrating when my goal is to get everyone out alive and I'm immortal. I thought it was nice that we finally ran across some NPCs who took advantage of the fact.

Now, the side quest stupidity I couldn't stand was the Fading Tree quest. Spoilers ahead:

At the end of the quest, you need to help the husband decide whether he should stay behind while his (pregnant) wife and the rest of the village goes off to Bosmer paradise (so the rest of the village will eventually be able to come back) or if he should stay with his wife and strand the village in paradise, never to return to Tamriel.

The painfully obvious third option--which is not actually an option in-game--would be to have the wife stay behind ALSO. But not only can you not choose this option, they don't even bother to hand-wave a reason for why not.

Elloa

There is a lot of diversity in the quest. Some quest are not that interesting, but some have a lot of humour, and a lot of depth. There is even very cute quest, like this breton woman that marry a Khajiit, and is lost in the forest of Malabal Tor alone, cause her husband is doing Khajiit-stuff.
You have quest that are very moving and heartbreaking, some that are simply funny, or mysterious. There is a lot to learn about Tamriel by following the quest, and to learn about their inhabitant!

Not all quest are a chef d'oeuvre. But they are defining what Tamriel is, and teach us about the world!

TX12001rwb17_ESO

Well I ain't doing that quest, the person who wrote it should be fired.

Elsonso

JD2013 wrote: »

Still more interesting than the usual "go and fetch me 20 boar tusks because reasons!" In most MMO's.

... and at the end of the day you find yourself surrounded by a mountain of boar carcasses, and are still one short of tusks. It is loads and loads of fun when you have to get the 20 tusks from 5 available boars with a drop rate of 1%. Hopefully, ZOS never hires writers and quest designers from Blizzard.

sadownik wrote: »

There are few very small events in ESO already. You walk on 2 mages fighting, you see few dremora appearing in front of you - why not expand this side?

I would like this, but to emphasize what I think you mean, expand on making events that mean something, not disconnected encounters like the battling sorcerers, the inept summoner, the two people who can't light a fire, the bandit trap, etc. I would like to think that the Dark Fissures that they added just before launch could have had a bigger meaning than just being a solo dark anchor. The disconnected encounters are cute, the first few times, though, and I am glad they put them in the game.

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

At the end of the quest, you need to help the husband decide whether he should stay behind while his (pregnant) wife and the rest of the village goes off to Bosmer paradise (so the rest of the village will eventually be able to come back) or if he should stay with his wife and strand the village in paradise, never to return to Tamriel.

The painfully obvious third option--which is not actually an option in-game--would be to have the wife stay behind ALSO. But not only can you not choose this option, they don't even bother to hand-wave a reason for why not.

It was pretty obvious to me that the pact with the Wilderking is that one person is cursed to stay there so the rest of the village can go. Erunor is cursed by an oath to hang out there for the next 100 years. The rest of the village is cursed by the same oath to leave Valenwood and all of the other Bosmer for 100 years. If the caretaker breaks his oath and leaves with the village, there is no return to Valenwood because the link is broken. While they do not say so, it is certainly a strong hint that Laniriel must leave with the rest of the village or they cannot leave. The village has the choice to not leave, but must leave because the tree is sick and needs the full attention of the caretaker to nurse it back to health.

As for the OP, I will say that it is a grand tradition from Bethesda Game Studios to make quests where the writers make important decisions about what you are going to do and the player is just along for the ride. I cannot tell you the number of times in BGS RPG games where I have looked at my options and just groaned. ZOS has been true to the Elder Scrolls in this respect.

Moonscythe

There is one quest...out of how many?...where I got to say that I seemed to be doing all the heavy lifting and how about they offer some help, though I had to have persuade to get it. They said, oh, okay, here's an archer (or swordsman) they'll help.

I totally agree about wanting some choices. The Elder Scrolls games is black and white and all about might making right. I am a diplomatic, shades of grey, sort of person with tendencies to side with what's for the best overall and I don't get to do that even in single-player where it would be easier to offer that possibility. The "treaty" in Skyrim was a farce.

Yes, it is valid to ask "why play then?" and the answer is that there are things I do enjoy doing in an amazing game world, even Skyrim, where I did the fewest scripted quests and still managed to spend hundreds of hours with multiple characters over more than two years; but, it would be so much better and far more expansive if there were more choices with consequences available. And I mean more than just someone saying "So you're the one who saved the queen, huh? Funny, you don't look that special."

JKorr

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

Tryxus wrote: »

Well when you know you can't die, requests like that aren't crazy at all.

^This. It's touching when random NPCs are like, 'no, you can't kill yourself! You're too important to the Dominion to die!', but extremely frustrating when my goal is to get everyone out alive and I'm immortal. I thought it was nice that we finally ran across some NPCs who took advantage of the fact.

Now, the side quest stupidity I couldn't stand was the Fading Tree quest. Spoilers ahead:

At the end of the quest, you need to help the husband decide whether he should stay behind while his (pregnant) wife and the rest of the village goes off to Bosmer paradise (so the rest of the village will eventually be able to come back) or if he should stay with his wife and strand the village in paradise, never to return to Tamriel.

The painfully obvious third option--which is not actually an option in-game--would be to have the wife stay behind ALSO. But not only can you not choose this option, they don't even bother to hand-wave a reason for why not.

You would not believe how long I looked for a way for that last option that isn't one the first time I did this quest.

Now I've gone the "first one way, then the other" route. I'll use the first solution, then the next character I use the second one.

Dahveed

Some people seem to be assuming that I am groaning about ESO questing as a whole. This would be an entirely different discussion about ESO questing in general - there are pros and cons.

This thread was more to get something off my chest... I take a lot of stuff with a grain of salt, and I generally give the benefit of the doubt to video games in terms of what kind of story I can expect.

The Village of the Lost as a whole was a decent story - like I said, typical MMO stuff, nothing special, nothing bad - and the actual gameplay was the most riveting I've played in quite a while. (I didn't realize it was a group event and solo'd it, so it was pretty intense.... I even died once.)

The entire place took me well over an hour to clear, and I was having fun.

So the astronomically freaking STUPID ending was all the more disappointing. I mean normally I'm someone who thinks "it's the journey, not the destination" that counts (which is why I just recently finished the main quest after over a year of playing), but this was just so utterly moronic that I had to vent.

My only real gripe with ESO quests overall is that I am just ALWAYS the hero. Every single damn quest I am the hero who saves the day.

I wanted to roleplay as a rugged nord mercenary, but it's just impossible to do in any quest... you are just always the do-good hero who saves the day every three minutes.

I can understand and appreciate the difficulty of writing so many quests and trying to make them all interesting... but does EVERY. SINGLE. QUEST. have to end with me, the hero, saving the day? Can't I just be a guy doing stuff and getting rewarded for it?

People laugh about the "collect board tusks" quests in other MMOs, but honestly I think that is something that is missing in this game... not so much the literal collecting, but the "neutral" kinds of quests where you are just doing a task, checking something out, selling mats or relaying messages etc... Something that isn't just "hero please help us!" over and over again.

But whatever, that's a different rant.

Like I said, ESO questing is fine as MMOs go (as I said... nothing special, just typical "save the day" crap). But this quest is just so unbelievably awful that I needed to whine about it. Lol.

Legoless

Dahveed wrote: »

My only real gripe with ESO quests overall is that I am just ALWAYS the hero. Every single damn quest I am the hero who saves the day.

I wanted to roleplay as a rugged nord mercenary, but it's just impossible to do in any quest... you are just always the do-good hero who saves the day every three minutes.

In fairness, that applies to every TES game. At least in ESO it's entirely viable to play only in Cyrodiil if you want to avoid the hero stuff.

timidobserver

There are a lot of good things about ESO, but the quest line stories are not one of them. They need to hire one of the original writers from SWTOR. The game sucked but the story of just about everything, even the side quests, were great.

guul

But the players are soulless and never die really. that's why only the players can die for them.

Callous2208

sadownik wrote: »

Tavore1138 wrote: »

Can you imagine how hard it is to write well over 1,000 'stories' given that the endings have to be careful not to impact significantly on the world we all share - unlike offline games which can really play with the game world and the consequences of each quest?

Sure there are a fair few quests that are pretty generic fetch and kill type stuff but there are also some memorable ones - most recently the Sweetroll Killer quest in DB but also some of the main quests through the various alliances and just some random small ones with oddly touching moments.

Given the constraints of having to write quests that basically don't actually change anything I think they have done pretty well.

You are right it is nearly impossible to write well over 1000 unique and entertaining stories. So why spending probably milions on doing very very genericfully voiced quests? Why not try something different? Thats one of the things i like in GW2 - maps are not packed with quests. Instead there are multiple event chains on the map. This way map and game feels "alive" and not so static like in ESO.

There are few very small events in ESO already. You walk on 2 mages fighting, you see few dremora appearing in front of you - why not expand this side?

GW2 for me was just as bad as the basic mmo formula of "kill 10 boars, return." I commend them for trying something different, but it failed spectacularly for me. It was the same fetch system, you just filled that heart meter instead of interacting with every npc. The events just continued on and on at a rapid fire pace, until you realized you were doing the same thing you'd been doing in every other zone. This combined with the fact that nothing changed in those zones after "quest completion." Those villagers were still trying to stop the bandits from taking their livestock, long after you killed the prerequisite amount to fill the meter. I do wish we could see more large scale group events like GW2 had though. With a chance at extremely rare gear, gold, or motif rewards.

theroyalestpythonnub18_ESO

A better ending would be that you could refuse and she'd just push you off anyway

sadownik

@Callous2208

See thats my problem. For me 99% of quests in ESO ARE "kill 10 boars, return." just with much more annoying mechanism and some silly voiceover. I never seek story telling in MMOs, what i seek is game giving opportunities to play with others adn thats where ESO is terribly lacking.

Silver_Strider

Why must we always be the "nice" person?

I get asked by a complete stranger to make the "ultimate sacrifice" and kill myself in order to free her and her companions. Where is my option to separate her head from her neck and proceed to do the same to her friends? I want to be the biggest *** bag but this game doesn't let me.

MY IMMERSION!!!!!!!

Callous2208

sadownik wrote: »

@Callous2208

See thats my problem. For me 99% of quests in ESO ARE "kill 10 boars, return." just with much more annoying mechanism and some silly voiceover. I never seek story telling in MMOs, what i seek is game giving opportunities to play with others adn thats where ESO is terribly lacking.

I feel you on this. I just haven't seen it in any mmo to date. I think it's tough to find that balance of quantity and quality in such a vast world. Also, I believe it's a daunting task to come up with these things and suit everyone's needs. As many of us that are like you and I, wanting realistic and fresh reason's to group up and conquer, you've got just as many or more that want to be left alone completely in the vast game world. Silly if you ask me, I mean, it's an "MMO" rpg and I feel like a lot of folks would rather that second "M" be forgotten or removed. But, eh, what can you do?

PurifedBladez

sadownik wrote: »

raidentenshu_ESO wrote: »

Yeah I thought that was pretty stupid myself, but then again most of the quests are pretty stupid and poorly written. In fact one of major flaws in this game is that everyone is in damsel in distress panic attack mod, and incapable of dealing with their own set of problems in an intellectual level. They must rely on other people to do it for them...even with such simple task. It gets rather tiresome after a while being encountered and bumping into needy NPCs

Right now I'm doing Cadwell's silver (The rift) and I'm just bored out of my mind with this quest. I'm forcing myself to finish it so I can complete Cadwells' mission..... safe to say that I will NOT be doing the Gold part.

Right with you there. I never understood people saying the storytelling is great in ESO. Very few quests from hundreds I remember as decently written.

I remember none. By lvl 10 I was spamming A through chats.. worst thing ever if you ask me lol.