Now that Morrowind introduced a new tutorial, can we get the beta Wailing Prison back?

Eisotopius

Morrowind's new tutorial is pretty damn amazing. Decently in-depth, fun to play, and the first person you meet is actually regular sized. Only thing it really misses is it fails to explain skyshards and the beginning just feels weird.

That said, why have we got this great, new tutorial and we still have the absolute garbage that is the current Wailing Prison?

In Beta, the first character you met was not Lyris Titanborn. Instead, it was Er-Jaseen, the very obscure person after whom "Er-Jaseen's Worn Jack" is named. He can be seen for a little while pushing up against a door in a hallway during the tutorial. He says one line and then never appears again.

The first thing you did was you'd go to an armory so you could pick what kind of weapon you'd want to use during the tutorial. The current tutorial forces you to use a two-handed sword up until almost the very end, unless you decide you're going to grind out daedra or scavenge all sorts of random containers in the hopes of getting a different weapon. Morrowind tutorial is kind of similar, but at least there's a house you can go into that's full of weapons if you decide you want to go on a bit of an adventure.

And then from the armory it'd be more or less the same as it is now, with Lyris showing up after you've already learned how to handle yourself. She'd then take you through the rest of the tutorial, a lot of it pretty much what it is now.

Point is, the way Wailing Prison currently works is:

You get busted out of jail by a person twice your size (which means you have no idea if your height slider was fine, since you don't have an actual regular-sized person to compare to), pick up a two-handed sword, and then just poke two Dremora and then go try to bust out the Prophet.

It's fine, but the beta version was so much more detailed and, importantly, you could actually compare your character to Er-Jaseen, a rather average-sized dude that serves as a great frame of reference for how tall you actually are. Plus, since you don't see Lyris right away, it sets her up as a really important major character who you have to go meet, rather than just having her be some random person who comes up to bust you out of prison for some random reason.

So: Can we get the beta Wailing Prison back, as it's much more in-depth and allows for more variety with how you proceed with most of the tutorial?

Avalon

I'd love to have it back simply for the fact that I could pick what weapon I wanted to use. I know, kind of trivial in a lot of ways, but, for new players, with the new system that requires landing a killing blow to unlock the skill line? The way it is now, would force players to have, at the very least, the 2H line unlocked right off the bat... even if they are going to be a caster. And, pretty sure that the reason for the change was so that players wouldn't have unnecessary skill lines cluttering up and confusing them, so, that doesn't make sense. Plus, with an array of options, it lets new players not only choose the route they want, but let's them know WHAT routes there are.

Myyth

I think from a plot perspective its probably for the best to not have an obscure guy that only says one line and is gone with no other purpose.
It adds more continuity and interest if its a character that you escape with and then learn more about later becoming part of the story. For size you have other players and the draemora.

I do think that they should allow you to pick your weapon. It is dumb that you have to steal or have someone craft you a weapon of your choice.

And I do not like how they sneakily force the wailing prison tutorial on new characters now, with no option to skip!!
I created a warden, who travelled to Auriden and instead of seeing the usual prophet appear with the first harborage quest, some other person appeared. I went to ship, got knocked out, and was forced to do the wailing prison! Looks like every character I create from this point on will have to do the wailing prison now. I want option to skip wailing prison back.

ADarklore

Myyth wrote: »

I think from a plot perspective its probably for the best to not have an obscure guy that only says one line and is gone with no other purpose.
It adds more continuity and interest if its a character that you escape with and then learn more about later becoming part of the story. For size you have other players and the draemora.

I do think that they should allow you to pick your weapon. It is dumb that you have to steal or have someone craft you a weapon of your choice.

And I do not like how they sneakily force the wailing prison tutorial on new characters now, with no option to skip!!
I created a warden, who travelled to Auriden and instead of seeing the usual prophet appear with the first harborage quest, some other person appeared. I went to ship, got knocked out, and was forced to do the wailing prison! Looks like every character I create from this point on will have to do the wailing prison now. I want option to skip wailing prison back.

I like how it is now and I find the entire Wailing Prison important to the story... if there's an option to skip then you might as well say, "I want an option to skip the entire main quest storyline" too, because that's what the Wailing Prison is now, the beginning 'quest' in the Main Storyline quest chain. At least now everything is scaled so we get XP the entire time, get free skill point and Skyshard too and goes about as quickly as all other quests of the Main Story.

Magdalina

Wait...do you still only get 2h in Wailing Prison? That on top of being unable to see any weapon skill trees without killing anyone with it?

..../facepalm

Can anyone explain to me why they removed other weapons from the tutorial to begin with? I can't for the life of me imagine what was wrong with being able to choose what weapon you wanna start with. And why a 2h of all things?

Myyth

ADarklore wrote: »

Myyth wrote: »

I think from a plot perspective its probably for the best to not have an obscure guy that only says one line and is gone with no other purpose.
It adds more continuity and interest if its a character that you escape with and then learn more about later becoming part of the story. For size you have other players and the draemora.

I do think that they should allow you to pick your weapon. It is dumb that you have to steal or have someone craft you a weapon of your choice.

And I do not like how they sneakily force the wailing prison tutorial on new characters now, with no option to skip!!
I created a warden, who travelled to Auriden and instead of seeing the usual prophet appear with the first harborage quest, some other person appeared. I went to ship, got knocked out, and was forced to do the wailing prison! Looks like every character I create from this point on will have to do the wailing prison now. I want option to skip wailing prison back.

I like how it is now and I find the entire Wailing Prison important to the story... if there's an option to skip then you might as well say, "I want an option to skip the entire main quest storyline" too, because that's what the Wailing Prison is now, the beginning 'quest' in the Main Storyline quest chain. At least now everything is scaled so we get XP the entire time, get free skill point and Skyshard too and goes about as quickly as all other quests of the Main Story.

Ok when the wailing prison was the very first thing a new character did it made sense to have a tutorial.
But as it is now makes no sense having the wailing prison forced on you at a later time in the game after character creation.

Technically you could have a player go through the entire Morrowwind expansion and then afterwards get sent to the wailing prison "tutorial" quest with instructions telling them to press AWDS to move and teaching them how to block. When by this point in the game I am sure they have figured these things out.

If they are going to include the wailing prison now as the first part of the harborage quests then at least get rid of the tutorial instructions.

KerinKor

The most notable thing missing from the original version is the CS where you die, that IMO was always crucial to your initial understanding of the game .. and the fact the Wailing Prison was vastly longer than the hacked version on release and still a lot more involved than what it eventually became simply made the whole thing less fun.

Eisotopius

Magdalina wrote: »

Wait...do you still only get 2h in Wailing Prison? That on top of being unable to see any weapon skill trees without killing anyone with it?

The two-hander is the one the game forces you to pick up at the start, and you have no other options until the tunnels at the very end.

Alternatively, you could raid containers in the hopes of finding a different weapon, but if that's their excuse then they really gotta rethink how they start off the tutorial.

Sakiri

They also grossly shortened the prison too. I recall a section going through a mine.

Magdalina

Eisotopius wrote: »

Magdalina wrote: »

Wait...do you still only get 2h in Wailing Prison? That on top of being unable to see any weapon skill trees without killing anyone with it?

The two-hander is the one the game forces you to pick up at the start, and you have no other options until the tunnels at the very end.

Alternatively, you could raid containers in the hopes of finding a different weapon, but if that's their excuse then they really gotta rethink how they start off the tutorial.

That was the case last time I leveled a new character but I was kind of hoping they'd alter it - you know, with new players no longer being able to see even see what weapon skill trees there are without killing someone with that weapon first. I was naively assuming they wouldn't want a wannabe mage to run around with a 2h, totally unaware there actually are other weapons in game.

Silly me.

Stovahkiin

I really wish they would change it back. I've always hated the new version of the wailing prison, and it makes no sense whatsoever to keep it like this now that things are different because of Morrowind.

StormWylf

Frankly liked to Beta/first couple of months version as well. All I could figure was that too many youngsters did not have the patience for a length of the tutorial.

FluffyReachWitch

I miss that version of Wailing Prison. Lyris is cool and all but I liked choosing my weapon off the table and then combing the area for more starter gear with my partner.

max_only

Magdalina wrote: »

Wait...do you still only get 2h in Wailing Prison? That on top of being unable to see any weapon skill trees without killing anyone with it?

..../facepalm

Can anyone explain to me why they removed other weapons from the tutorial to begin with? I can't for the life of me imagine what was wrong with being able to choose what weapon you wanna start with. And why a 2h of all things?

What you plebs fail to realize is that Zos is really super PROUD of the Wrecking Blow animation and designs all their content around wrecking blow spammers. Look at all they do to change combat in the game: they want us using 2h heavy attacks all day err day.

Come out and admit it Zos, that animation is pretty nifty if you do say so yourself.