ESO Rant - Lore and Story

Sevalaricgirl

Ydrisselle wrote: »

Sevalaricgirl wrote: »

I agree with the people who say WOW quests are not memorable because they are not memorable. The only one I liked was the Lich King.

That's also a personal opinion. I know that I will remember for a very long time the Stalvan Mistmantle questline in Duskwood from vanilla WoW, the sleeping druid in Darkshore, the prisoner questchain in Blackfathom Depths (and the epic Onyxia fight in Stormwind after that), the Teron Gorefiend questchain in Shadowmoon Valley, Thrall's arrival in Nagrand, the Wrathgate-questchain, the finding of Muradin Bronzebeard, Ysondre's redemption in Feralas, the Watchers' story in Storm Peaks,the kidnapping of Thassarian in Western Plaguelands, the entire Mists of Pandaria with the Sha and the Celestials, and so on... Of course I was always reading the texts of the quests and listening to the NPCs' conversations during the events.

And I will remember in ESO, the first time I met Raz, the first time I ran a dungeon and everyone went down and I kited the boss with my Bosmer archer. I will remember when I first encountered the Duke of Camlorn and damn it, when I actually killed him, and that was with a werewolf character. It was accidental of course. Then there was Darien and of course Sheogorath. Get my meaning. To say that WOW lore is so much better than ESO lore is ridiculous.

Balticthunder

Sure there was stupid fetch quests in WOW, but later many were remade and new interesting ones added. I still remember the one in Durotar, when I rode with kodo caravan, shooting off orcs, who tried to stop us, resupplied at small stations and finally arrived at Crossroads - it was quite the fun! I remember how I prepared for my jorney on my rogue into Blackrock Depths, in hopes to catch that small wolf pet, it took hours and was really an adventure! There is nothing like that in ESO: when you enter delve, you see 3 or 4 players already there, all mobs dead, you rush to pick up skyshard, kill boss and leave, that's it, never to return or think about it again.

Most of ESO quests (like 90%) are like this: hey, you, come over here, we need your help - go there, do everything for us, while we hung here for a while and watch your back. Like really! No Fighter or Mage guild are capable of anything, everyone in Tamriel waits on some lone passing by adventurer to do their job. At least in WOW there was fights where NPCs fought alongside with you, you felt like a part of something!
Also the zones, they are small and in many cases it breaks all imersion: when Iam told about big battle ahead, where local army again needs me to do their job, while the main big city is just a few steps ahead and there no one cares about ""big battle"" outside.
Same for main key characters, camparing to WOW , ESO ones are bland generic randomly made NPCs with same faces and outfits (ok except just few) as all other NPC around you, how I can take them seriously for epic heroes they should be!?

It is nice that dialogues are voice acted, but in many cases they are long and winding text walls, which no one wants to hear, just go to the point! And they almost always end with : ""ok, now ask your questions". Oh my! Add to this how easy all the content is now, it all makes it even more boring and silly, when you listen to long dialogue about dangerous task ahead and then go 1shot all mobs and be done with whole quest chain in 5 minutes!
I really had no will to do quests here anymore, if I ever do, I just rush, skip all talking to get zone achievements and be done for good. I only play this game for dungeons, becasue in ESO they are really good!

Ydrisselle

Sevalaricgirl wrote: »

Ydrisselle wrote: »

Sevalaricgirl wrote: »

I agree with the people who say WOW quests are not memorable because they are not memorable. The only one I liked was the Lich King.

That's also a personal opinion. I know that I will remember for a very long time the Stalvan Mistmantle questline in Duskwood from vanilla WoW, the sleeping druid in Darkshore, the prisoner questchain in Blackfathom Depths (and the epic Onyxia fight in Stormwind after that), the Teron Gorefiend questchain in Shadowmoon Valley, Thrall's arrival in Nagrand, the Wrathgate-questchain, the finding of Muradin Bronzebeard, Ysondre's redemption in Feralas, the Watchers' story in Storm Peaks,the kidnapping of Thassarian in Western Plaguelands, the entire Mists of Pandaria with the Sha and the Celestials, and so on... Of course I was always reading the texts of the quests and listening to the NPCs' conversations during the events.

And I will remember in ESO, the first time I met Raz, the first time I ran a dungeon and everyone went down and I kited the boss with my Bosmer archer. I will remember when I first encountered the Duke of Camlorn and damn it, when I actually killed him, and that was with a werewolf character. It was accidental of course. Then there was Darien and of course Sheogorath. Get my meaning. To say that WOW lore is so much better than ESO lore is ridiculous.

I'm saying there are more memorable quests/events in a WoW expansion then in ESO. I didn't even mentioned Legion in my last post, which had something like that in every single zone: the death of Varian Wrynn and Vol'jin during the pre-expansion event, the death of Ysera, the duel for the val'kyr lantern between Sylvanas and Genn, proving your worthiness to Odyn etc.

And there are many missed opportunities in ESO too. Like Nidras in Greenshade: I expected to chase him through the zone, or at least run into him somewhere. Nope, as soon as he escapes from Marbruk, he is gone forever...

geekboy09

I only played WOW one month pre cataclysm and one month after cataclysm. Here’s what I remember. All the quests were kill these ten bears and whatnot. It was boring. I only made it to level 28 on my Druid elf. The only thing I found memorable was my purple armor on my Druid character, and meeting the undead queen Syllvanna on my undead character

Aliyavana

Balticthunder wrote: »

Sure there was stupid fetch quests in WOW, but later many were remade and new interesting ones added. I still remember the one in Durotar, when I rode with kodo caravan, shooting off orcs, who tried to stop us, resupplied at small stations and finally arrived at Crossroads - it was quite the fun! I remember how I prepared for my jorney on my rogue into Blackrock Depths, in hopes to catch that small wolf pet, it took hours and was really an adventure! There is nothing like that in ESO: when you enter delve, you see 3 or 4 players already there, all mobs dead, you rush to pick up skyshard, kill boss and leave, that's it, never to return or think about it again.

Most of ESO quests (like 90%) are like this: hey, you, come over here, we need your help - go there, do everything for us, while we hung here for a while and watch your back. Like really! No Fighter or Mage guild are capable of anything, everyone in Tamriel waits on some lone passing by adventurer to do their job. At least in WOW there was fights where NPCs fought alongside with you, you felt like a part of something!
Also the zones, they are small and in many cases it breaks all imersion: when Iam told about big battle ahead, where local army again needs me to do their job, while the main big city is just a few steps ahead and there no one cares about ""big battle"" outside.
Same for main key characters, camparing to WOW , ESO ones are bland generic randomly made NPCs with same faces and outfits (ok except just few) as all other NPC around you, how I can take them seriously for epic heroes they should be!?

It is nice that dialogues are voice acted, but in many cases they are long and winding text walls, which no one wants to hear, just go to the point! And they almost always end with : ""ok, now ask your questions". Oh my! Add to this how easy all the content is now, it all makes it even more boring and silly, when you listen to long dialogue about dangerous task ahead and then go 1shot all mobs and be done with whole quest chain in 5 minutes!
I really had no will to do quests here anymore, if I ever do, I just rush, skip all talking to get zone achievements and be done for good. I only play this game for dungeons, becasue in ESO they are really good!

atleast the main characters in eso are not written with such immense plot armor where each and every one of them is blessed by some god and is on some ridiculous powerscale. Wow's lore has become so convonluted since wod and with legion I cant really take it seriously since they gave everyone artifacts, made you the most important person of your class who sends the important npcs of your class to do fetch quests, and how forced the faction war is. OH the horde and the alliance are fighting again after they just made up last expansion? what a suprise

nemvar

Aliyavana wrote: »

Balticthunder wrote: »

Sure there was stupid fetch quests in WOW, but later many were remade and new interesting ones added. I still remember the one in Durotar, when I rode with kodo caravan, shooting off orcs, who tried to stop us, resupplied at small stations and finally arrived at Crossroads - it was quite the fun! I remember how I prepared for my jorney on my rogue into Blackrock Depths, in hopes to catch that small wolf pet, it took hours and was really an adventure! There is nothing like that in ESO: when you enter delve, you see 3 or 4 players already there, all mobs dead, you rush to pick up skyshard, kill boss and leave, that's it, never to return or think about it again.

Most of ESO quests (like 90%) are like this: hey, you, come over here, we need your help - go there, do everything for us, while we hung here for a while and watch your back. Like really! No Fighter or Mage guild are capable of anything, everyone in Tamriel waits on some lone passing by adventurer to do their job. At least in WOW there was fights where NPCs fought alongside with you, you felt like a part of something!
Also the zones, they are small and in many cases it breaks all imersion: when Iam told about big battle ahead, where local army again needs me to do their job, while the main big city is just a few steps ahead and there no one cares about ""big battle"" outside.
Same for main key characters, camparing to WOW , ESO ones are bland generic randomly made NPCs with same faces and outfits (ok except just few) as all other NPC around you, how I can take them seriously for epic heroes they should be!?

It is nice that dialogues are voice acted, but in many cases they are long and winding text walls, which no one wants to hear, just go to the point! And they almost always end with : ""ok, now ask your questions". Oh my! Add to this how easy all the content is now, it all makes it even more boring and silly, when you listen to long dialogue about dangerous task ahead and then go 1shot all mobs and be done with whole quest chain in 5 minutes!
I really had no will to do quests here anymore, if I ever do, I just rush, skip all talking to get zone achievements and be done for good. I only play this game for dungeons, becasue in ESO they are really good!

atleast the main characters in eso are not written with such immense plot armor where each and every one of them is blessed by some god and is on some ridiculous powerscale. Wow's lore has become so convonluted since wod and with legion I cant really take it seriously since they gave everyone artifacts, made you the most important person of your class who sends the important npcs of your class to do fetch quests, and how forced the faction war is. OH the horde and the alliance are fighting again after they just made up last expansion? what a suprise

One the topic of faction war. Why are the banners even still fighting is cyrodiil? The writers of ESO seem to have mostly forgotten about the war. It was barely mentioned in Morrowind and in Summerset we only got a single joke questline with Rigurt and a line from Raz that was along the line o"Ayrenn has invited armies from all three banners to take back the crystal tower". WTF? Did the queen just invite hostile armies into the hearthland of the altmer? If I were an altmer I would want to see her executed for treason after the crisis is over. I hope ZOS goes somewhere with the faction war in ESO because I still needs to last 70 years for this game to make any canonical sense.

Doctordarkspawn

Yeah, I stopped at 'anchors are too easy'.

This isn't a ESO problem, this is an elder scrolls problem. They've just never done scaling well in such a way that makes for smooth bossfights or big events when you get to them but barring that, the anchors were never ment to be.

Their honestly just a casualty of this games PVP origins.

Ratzkifal

Skyrim doesn't feel like the Dragons are a threat either. Not as much as the vampires or Miraak, in a way.

To me the main issue lies in the fact that TES games are never where "the action" is. Think of how the Argonian invasion in Morrowind and the war against the Aldmeri Dominion in Hammerfell seem a thousand times more interesting than the boring old civil war in Skyrim, just because you are there and can see how little is actually happening. And most of that comes down to the limited technical possibilities. Cyrodiil is as close as we'll ever get to large scale battles.

I hate playing WoW but I do it anyway with a friend who pays my subsciption, but if I like one thing about WoW it's the story telling and the cinematics and cutscenes.
When I saw the in-engine cutscene start to Summerset, I got a little excited. I haven't played anything of the main quests in Summerset yet, so I don't know if there are more, but it was certainly a step in the right direction to make everything more believable, high-suspense and threatening.
ESO definitely has characters as memorable as Illidan and the rest, if presented well. Divayth Fyr certainly is one of them, as are Razum-dar, Cadwell and Abnur Tharn.

DanteYoda

Azuramoonstar wrote: »

DanteYoda wrote: »

Uh i disagree.. I find the Lore of Elder scrolls kinda .. crap.. sorry.

Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer, Lord of the rings all had epic lore compared to here its their games are all garbage fires..

The real reason ESO is so hard to defend and get others to play is the costs and upkeep.. You must buy ESO, then the chapters then the ESO+ and then the crown store is nasty icing on the cake....

I can't justify explaining that to friends and have them give me the look.. You know that look.

only people giving you look are people who never played mmo, or games that had expansion packs.
MMo having sub costs, and expansions that also cost money is normal. The games need money to run. it only look abnormal due to the rise of "free" to play games that korea gave us, so people demanded MMO be free. (riot happen in dcuo to make it free to play and the game died cuz of it)

Disagree lots of my friends played mmo's, but ESO no chance the upkeep is far to expensive in the long term for most gamers.. And yes free to play have cash shops and expansions but they don't do it all at once.. ESO is buy, then Buy then Sub and a cash shop on top..

Lysette wrote: »

Azuramoonstar wrote: »

DanteYoda wrote: »

Uh i disagree.. I find the Lore of Elder scrolls kinda .. crap.. sorry.

Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer, Lord of the rings all had epic lore compared to here its their games are all garbage fires..

The real reason ESO is so hard to defend and get others to play is the costs and upkeep.. You must buy ESO, then the chapters then the ESO+ and then the crown store is nasty icing on the cake....

I can't justify explaining that to friends and have them give me the look.. You know that look.

only people giving you look are people who never played mmo, or games that had expansion packs.
MMo having sub costs, and expansions that also cost money is normal. The games need money to run. it only look abnormal due to the rise of "free" to play games that korea gave us, so people demanded MMO be free. (riot happen in dcuo to make it free to play and the game died cuz of it)

Yeah, and free 2 play is the most expensive form of MMO on top of it - but most do not grasp that until they are caught and invested so much time, that they do not want to stop playing and then they are drained of their money for relatively normal things already - take for example archeAge - you have to buy labor potions to be able to play a decent amount of the game, otherwise you will not even be able to open your loot and rather silly stuff like this - it is awful, free2play is horrible.

Disagree again ESO costs a lot more to play everything in the long run even compared to Free to play games.. I've done both mostly free to play while they are expensive ESO with everything outshines even those at costings..

DanteYoda

psychotrip wrote: »

Isn't it ironic that WoW (a cartoony, silly world that's not meant to be taken too seriously) has more of a memorable story than most Elder Scrolls narratives?

I say this as a die-hard fan of both worlds. We can argue all day about how "stupid" WoW is, but a story can be hokey and charming while still providing a cohesive, enthralling experience. It can also utilize its worldbuilding and characters in a better way.

Whether you like the cartoony silliness or not, WoW's world is dripping with atmosphere. It's also not afraid to be different or strange or...dare I say...fantastical. WoW is a world of martian Orcs, space-demons and talking cows. This throws a wrench in the theory that "casual fans are afraid of weirdness" and that "people want realism".

Meanwhile, ESO seems afraid to embrace the most unique aspects of its worldbuilding. Sure, there's a ton of stuff in the background, and they're definitely willing to ride on the coat-tails of previous games (see Morrowind), but when they're given a choice between a fantastical interpretation or a generic one, they always seem to go for the latter.

Matt Firor's claim that Tamriel is fundamentally a "mundane" world and that if magic disappeared most people wouldn't notice is very telling. They almost seem scared or ashamed of their own IP. It's like they think they won't be taken seriously unless they tone things down and make everything more grounded.

It's a shame too. I really thought they were going the right direction with Orsinium and Clockwork City. They even had some incredible ideas for the Altmer that got datamined a while back. But of course they threw it all in the garbage. Because that's what they do.

Because WoW copied Warhammer and it had a massive lore background.

geekboy09

DanteYoda wrote: »

psychotrip wrote: »

Isn't it ironic that WoW (a cartoony, silly world that's not meant to be taken too seriously) has more of a memorable story than most Elder Scrolls narratives?

I say this as a die-hard fan of both worlds. We can argue all day about how "stupid" WoW is, but a story can be hokey and charming while still providing a cohesive, enthralling experience. It can also utilize its worldbuilding and characters in a better way.

Whether you like the cartoony silliness or not, WoW's world is dripping with atmosphere. It's also not afraid to be different or strange or...dare I say...fantastical. WoW is a world of martian Orcs, space-demons and talking cows. This throws a wrench in the theory that "casual fans are afraid of weirdness" and that "people want realism".

Meanwhile, ESO seems afraid to embrace the most unique aspects of its worldbuilding. Sure, there's a ton of stuff in the background, and they're definitely willing to ride on the coat-tails of previous games (see Morrowind), but when they're given a choice between a fantastical interpretation or a generic one, they always seem to go for the latter.

Matt Firor's claim that Tamriel is fundamentally a "mundane" world and that if magic disappeared most people wouldn't notice is very telling. They almost seem scared or ashamed of their own IP. It's like they think they won't be taken seriously unless they tone things down and make everything more grounded.

It's a shame too. I really thought they were going the right direction with Orsinium and Clockwork City. They even had some incredible ideas for the Altmer that got datamined a while back. But of course they threw it all in the garbage. Because that's what they do.

Because WoW copied Warhammer and it had a massive lore background.

Very true

Ydrisselle

DanteYoda wrote: »

psychotrip wrote: »

Isn't it ironic that WoW (a cartoony, silly world that's not meant to be taken too seriously) has more of a memorable story than most Elder Scrolls narratives?

I say this as a die-hard fan of both worlds. We can argue all day about how "stupid" WoW is, but a story can be hokey and charming while still providing a cohesive, enthralling experience. It can also utilize its worldbuilding and characters in a better way.

Whether you like the cartoony silliness or not, WoW's world is dripping with atmosphere. It's also not afraid to be different or strange or...dare I say...fantastical. WoW is a world of martian Orcs, space-demons and talking cows. This throws a wrench in the theory that "casual fans are afraid of weirdness" and that "people want realism".

Meanwhile, ESO seems afraid to embrace the most unique aspects of its worldbuilding. Sure, there's a ton of stuff in the background, and they're definitely willing to ride on the coat-tails of previous games (see Morrowind), but when they're given a choice between a fantastical interpretation or a generic one, they always seem to go for the latter.

Matt Firor's claim that Tamriel is fundamentally a "mundane" world and that if magic disappeared most people wouldn't notice is very telling. They almost seem scared or ashamed of their own IP. It's like they think they won't be taken seriously unless they tone things down and make everything more grounded.

It's a shame too. I really thought they were going the right direction with Orsinium and Clockwork City. They even had some incredible ideas for the Altmer that got datamined a while back. But of course they threw it all in the garbage. Because that's what they do.

Because WoW copied Warhammer and it had a massive lore background.

Nope, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans was a Warhammer-"inspired" game. Since Warcraft 2 (which were released in 1995) the franchise has nothing in common with Warhammer. And most of the current Warcraft lore was established in Warcraft 3 and its expansion. However there are less people now in WoW who played any of the RTS games than those who didn't.

platonicidealgirlfriend

Rain_Greyraven wrote: »

The only issue I have with the story is the ridiculous insistence to view it through a progressive political lense lately. In Summerset we had to be bashed up side the head with the shillelagh of virtue signaling.

Honestly whoever was responsible for that cringy train wreck should be shown the door, no one wants the "Important message" or to be preached to on how we should feel about real world issues.

Save that BS for civics and Poly-Sci classes thank you very much.

Transgender people have existed in TES lore since at least Morrowind, if not Daggerfall; Michael Kirkbride specifically cited his appreciation of transgender individuals as being a huge inspiration behind Vivec, and the Daedra were already coming into form as Beings Beyond Gender in Daggerfall. Maybe you're just not a fan of the franchise...

Zardayne

Adernath wrote: »

@Eagleheart well said! I totally agree.

What we have:

We have many well written small stories, even an overall plot for every region, but it still feels as if one is taking care of a 'region' and the only world-threatening aspect is the deadric invasion. And frankly speaking, this is reduced nowadays to Molag-Bal just dropping his minions into a Thermomix.

What we need:

1) A continuation of the main story line. More epicness, more (or deeper) stories of lost civilizations, wars, invastions, drama! Something to remember and to be excited about in the next chapter. In my opinion the word 'chapter' should be reserved entirely for a continuation of the main story line. For the sake of the lore writers we also need a mechanism to avoid that people play such things in the wrong order.
2) An improvement of certain aspects of the old stories. In particular a stop in the power creep and careful adjustment of the main antagonists of quests and certain overland content. There is no feel of accomplishment if everything can be light attacked to death.
3) Fraction pride, for example with a timer to avoid fraction hopping in Cyrodiil. And maybe additional contested PvE/PvP territory in a future DLC. Who remembers the days when Outland in WoW was new and everyone was going there, doing quests while fighting people of the other alliance? And the story was exciting and spanning over all regions.
4) Class diversity, let it start with class specific themes, mounts, costumes, furnishment. Create paths which we can choose from the beginning but have to stick to it.
5) As in the OP was stated, a more dynamic world would be awesome, where NPCs slowly take over parts of regions and where choices of quests matter. Or where certain parts of the world are opened and made available in-game 'in real time'.
Offtopic here, but for completeness:
6) Appreciation of veteran players, like specific titles for old players.
7) PvP performance...

@ZOS: Do this and your playerbase will be 10x than what we have now.

I agree with all of this

geekboy09

The only thing I can commend anoint wow is it does update its old content

wishlist14

I played TES and fell in love with the Alien and fantastic landscape that was Morrowind aswell as the architecture and its peoples. I loved the lore and enjoyed following the questlines aswell as meeting the many intersting npc characters. I had many adventures and look back on Tes with fond memories. Other games have not had such an effect on my being as TES.

Now many years later I have moved into Tamriel and it has provided me with more years of fun and excitement. I love eso lore and it is always evolving. I own homes that I lovingly decorated, I craft, I collect my own crafting stations, I do dungeons, events for feathers and berries for my indrik mount and I also enjoy the holiday event achievements. I have my master angler and though it was challenging to say the least , i am extremely proud of it. I do trials, make gold, farm mats. I had a go at battlegrounds and loved those.. those led me to go to cyrodiil in midyear mayhem..i thought that if i could pvp in bgs then i could pvp in cyrodiil...now i make time to pvp on a daily basis.I love it.

I have created many characters and after a bit of frustration with the many class changes I decided to finally have 2 of each class, a mag and stam version. Most rpgmmos go through the whole class balancing thing so Im kind of used to it. So now i have more options as to what i play. Variety is the spice of life as they say.

There is no perfect game out there because they are created by humans and humans are far from perfect. The thing is that I believe i have high standards with games and I believe Eso is a high quality game. One of the best rpgmmos out there so Im not going anywhere.

I played wow for 10 years and by the end I was done but I did enjoy it. My history with TES goes further back than wow..TES was my first love. It's been 5 years since I started playing eso. Happy anniversary!!! I cant wait for Elsweyr, another exciting chapter. So many new characters to meet and adventures to be had.With change comes new beginnings so im looking forward to those too. Eso never stops evolving and expanding...it never disappoints. 💜💜💜

AerionMagnus

World of Warcraft story (as well as pretty much anything else connected with that game) is genuine trash, though, OP, so you shouldn't use it as an example of pointing out how bad ESO's story is.

But ESO indeed is bad in terms of story and writing and characters. The writing is horrible and the lore has been *** to the point that I am no longer interested in most things related to Elder Scrolls.

Minyassa

This is a YMMV situation. Everyone has different preferences, and some people like one sort of story and some like another. For my own part I never heard one single thing about WoW from the numerous friends and family I had playing it that made me even remotely interested in trying it, but hearing a few things about ES lore was what convinced me to jump in with ESO in the first place. ES lore has a feel of depth and logic to it for me while WoW struck me as tacky. That's just *my* personal preference, and I'm not saying everyone else should feel that way, but I'm saying that clearly the OP has different tastes. ESO is fine for people who like it this way.

sionIV

WoW has always had boring quests, characters and lore. It was boring back in 2004/2005 and it's still boring today. There are no quests in WoW that gets to you on an emotional level, or makes you stop up to think about it. There is no quest in WoW like the last mages guild quest, where you have to make a choice, and suffer the consequences of your choice.

I've never felt bad for a character in WoW, or gotten attached to that character, while in ESO there are several characters that I grew to like and care about. In the EP storyline, there is this Dunmer in Riften that gets captured by harpies, I've rarely felt as bad for a character as I did for her at the end of that quest line.

The overall story of WoW has gone downhill since Cataclysm, but even at it's prime (TBC/WotLK) the story wasn't very good. It was often bland, boring and didn't leave any impression. The Lich King was an exception to this, and that was because we followed his fall from grace story in WC3. None of the villains that have been introduced in WoW, has made any impact, as they've all been bland following the same formula.

There are quite a few things that WoW does better than ESO (especially performance and stability), but IMO there is no question of who has the highest quality when it comes to quests/story and lore.

None of these can compare to master pieces like Planescape Torment/Arcanum when it comes to characters, quests, story and lore. You shouldn't compare an MMO (ESO) to a Singleplayer game (Planescape Torment, etc), and for being an MMO, the quality of quests, characters and storyline in ESO is great.