Expanding the new expansion for Elsweyr?

Sega4life

I read from comments that there are hints that they may expand Elsweyr. Some players are getting hints from the storylines. Does anyone else believe that they may expand or add more to Elsweyr? I love the new expansion and I would love to see if more is added to the story line. Any hints or ideas?

aaisoaho

So far the hints mentioned in the forums:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/476498/suspicions-about-s-elsweyr-major-spoilers#latest
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/478771/spoiler-the-heir-of-anequina-quest-priest-haduras#latest

And I think there's a hint in the end of The lunacy of two moons -quest. In the end:

The priestess tells you about a prophecy she saw, it involved a two-headed man and the mouth of the world. I'm sorry I do not remember the exact quote.

RaddlemanNumber7

aaisoaho wrote: »

So far the hints mentioned in the forums:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/476498/suspicions-about-s-elsweyr-major-spoilers#latest
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/478771/spoiler-the-heir-of-anequina-quest-priest-haduras#latest

And I think there's a hint in the end of The lunacy of two moons -quest. In the end:

The priestess tells you about a prophecy she saw, it involved a two-headed man and the mouth of the world. I'm sorry I do not remember the exact quote.

I think the mad priestess's vision about a man with two heads refers to Zumog Phoom accompanied by the head of Cadwell the Betrayer.

ArchMikem

Tharn says the Mane requires help down south in Pellitine and he may be sending for you once he's investigated. That basically means the next Adventure zone may be the Tenmar Forest, or the city of Torval, the Khajiiti capital.

essi2

Or the references to Southern Elsweyr means we're getting another chapter for the rest of Elsweyr next year

The adventure zone dlc can easily be a smaller chunk of Elsweyr or a dragon related dlc not in Elsweyr.

UnseenCat

Pellitine style crafting motif has shown up in the Crown Store showcase, and Abnur Tharn out-and-out tells us where he's going next, so there's that...

There's been a tick/tock cycle of Chapter (full zone) / DLC area (slightly smaller zone) for two years now -- Morrowind (Vvardenfell)/Clockwork City, Summerset/Murkmire, and now Elsweyr (Anequina)/???.

This whole "Season of the Dragon" integrated cycle is Elsweyr-themed, so the Q3 DLC is going to be tied-in somehow.

The Q1 dungeon DLC was linked by way of the storyline, but didn't really contain much in the way of Elsweyr zone assets, which gave the main dev team for Elsweyr breathing room to get a lot done both for the Chapter as well as early-stage work for the DLC.

Don't forget that Murkmire wasn't 100% new content. It's been in on-again-off-again development since the early years of the game -- it was supposed to be the sequel to Craglorn as a group-based "Adventure Zone". While it's undoubtedly been re-worked from top to bottom, the raw basics were already done. Releasing Murkmire as a DLC may have given some additional "breathing" room for the Elsweyr projects. Not a lot, but some. Even 10% time saved last year is 10% time that can be put to use... Elsweyr. (Pardon the pun... )

So... Assuming that the Elsweyr project has had a little bit of extra time and resources carved out by having the last couple of projects being slightly more economical, plus, this being an important anniversary year for both ESO and the Elder Scrolls franchise which means that spending a little more on the dev budget to put out more lavish content than usual is likely to be marketable and profitable, then it's not unreasonable to speculate that the next DLC in Q3 will be Pellitine -- if not in whole, then a very big chunk. It's still the tick/tock cycle, but we could be in for a very big "tock" release this time. (But don't expect this to be the way things work going forward, this is an anniversary year after all.)

A Pellitine DLC can be large but doesn't have to be as complex to build as Anequina. Lore-wise, Pellitine is supposed to transition to grassland and forest -- and that kind of terrain has been done since the base game. Polish up / revise the appropriate assets and drop them into the new map. Less intense than building 100% all-new assets. Some of the Elsweyr concept art shows a farm scene that's set in a meadowland+forest backdrop -- we haven't seen anything quite like that in Anequina. That scene's environment looks lifted straight out of more-or-less the base game's interpretation of similar landscapes. Anequina has the dramatic terrain and mapping of the Scar. A Pellitine DLC doesn't have to have that dramatic of terrain-building. All it needs is a good re-hash of an existing terrain/biome design, and some interesting individual places and stories.

Since work on the DLC starts even before the Chapter is out, there's been plenty of time for a head start on a bigger-than average DLC. In fact, making the DLC a close tie-in to the Chapter is probably a more efficient and economical use of resources than what's been done in the past. Making a totally unrelated DLC means that the DLC project can't share as much in the way of resources as the Chapter project. In this integrated "Season of the Dragon", the process may be a good bit more unified than in prior years. There are ways to make the DLC project look and feel bigger and more impressive than the others before -- but in reality, it's possible to make it with less of a time and resources investment by piggybacking onto the larger project.

Just my thoughts, but as I work through the logic of how the development has gone before, they've actually got a lot in place that they can capitalize on to put out a pretty impressive DLC. Will people still complain that it's not enough? Absolutely. But as somebody who's dealt with big IT projects before, it looks like they're in a good spot to attempt to do more than the usual time and money budget would allow.