Confirmed: more 'year-long story' style content coming after Elsweyr. (Please no, you can do better)

Hyperion616

BlackStormX wrote: »

Season of the Bug & Performance fixes, I'm up for that one.

An on going series of stories that will span at minimum 5 years.

WuffyCerulei

I’ve literally played all the story DLC in order, and I personally like the year-long approach. However, I wish got more to the story during those DLC patches.

Ohtimbar

I agree with the OP. This seems like cost savings for the developer dressed up as something beneficial to players. I would like to see at least one unique, stand-alone release every year. Murkmire (nerfs aside) felt refreshing because it was completely disconnected from everything that came before it.

Nemesis7884

bluebird wrote: »

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

I REALLY like this year long approach - it fits the story telling approach and makes for a better, deeper and richer experience!!
THANK YOU ZOS

Would you mind explaining why? It would be helpful to understand what exactly makes four-DLC-stories a 'better story telling approach' than self-contained stories from start to finish which don't depend on other purchases.

Could they not have made a Chapter that includes the story of Elsweyr and Dragonhold if it's so necessary to the plot, and told the entire story of the Khajiit in that? It would have been the same rich and deep story, but contained in a single DLC. Or could they not have had the Elsweyr storyline just end with Elsweyr? We restored peace to the province by vanquishing Euraxia, Khamira's story wraps up nicely, we removed the necromancers' threat, and we prevented the dragons from gaining the powers at the plane of Jode. Was it necessary for the story to add 'oh, but he escaped somehow, and there's more!' at the end so they can write another DLC about Khajiit and dragons?

Why don't we spend the rest of the year following Abnur back to Colovia and finding a resolution to the Empire's and the Tharns' storyline in an Imperial story DLC, or why don't we find new characters and places to explore like Skyrim or some plot with Meridia (who was hinted at in Summerset as well as the Depths of Malatar)?

If ESO had followed this year-long philosophy, we would have had a year with Orsinium and two other Orc DLCs, we would have had a year with Summerset and two more High Elf DLCs. Neither the Thieves Guild, nor the Dark Brotherhood, nor the Wolfhunter dungeons and werewolf updates, nor Murkmire would exist. Don't tell me that ESO would be a better game with those Orc, High Elf and Khajiit year-long stories told, when that would mean losing out on so much more?

longer more intricate story lines
recurring characters and their relationships
better build ups and conclusions
deeper character development

the same reason why a tv show can have a deeper story experience vs a movie

TheGreatBlackBear

Call me a cynic but a year of interconnected stories strikes me as just milking one plotline. Like they had one general idea for a story and couldn't be bothered to do more.

Faulgor

I agree on all points, but I'm afraid that ship has sailed.
Rich himself said that people come back for updates to check out something new.
Well, with this year-long approach it's not really something new, is it?

I also don't agree that their story-telling has improved. By tying too many things into one plot, the stories seem jumbled and unfocused, dropping the chance to actually flesh something out. Just looking at the Elsweyr main quest, it puts Khajiit, Dragons, and Necromancers together, because those are the "features of the chapter", but the story that could have focused on one of these aspects and explore it more deeply suffers for it.

I used to prefer the smaller DLCs for this very reason, that they had a smaller scope and thus more focus on the area and culture at hand (Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, Clockwork City, Murkmire). By tying these into a larger story, that has been lost.

If they actually dedicated every update in a year to one theme or thing, like Khajiit culture, it could actually be interesting, but they don't. Their new approach combines the worst of both worlds: They still have different themes and events from Elder Scrolls lore, but jumbled together and stretched out over a whole year, instead of focusing on one thing per update and doing it justice. Imagine if they had one update for Khajiit, Necromancers and Dragons each this year.

Synnastix

Gonna be honest - if the next chapter isn’t Skyrim then I’m probably done. I’m holding out hope for a nice house on the coast near Solitude where I can retire.

I can barely find a reason to log in these days anyway.

rumple9

OP makes some good points. I used to play guild wars 2. I gave up for 6 months or so, but with their living world theme when I returned I couldn't figure out what was going on and gave up for good. Tried going back a couple of times since but can't carry on

aedra

I can't say much else that hasn't been said, but Elsweyr felt underwhelming to me as an expansion and yeah I get it its part of the year-long storyline but all it comes off to me as a player is feeling like I'm being milked as much as possible, as if we already don't get that feeling with the crown store lol. An expansion needs to feel like a fully complete experience on its own and self contained enough. Summerset, Morrowind, Orsinium...well basically every other DLC/expansion at least felt like a complete adventure. Elsweyr doesn't give you this feeling. It feels like you took a tiny nibble of a cake. Also all those locked doors don't help either. Rush, rush, rush is the overall feeling despite it being probably the prettiest zone overall. I love this game but it makes me concerned about the future indeed.

bluebird

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

bluebird wrote: »

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

I REALLY like this year long approach - it fits the story telling approach and makes for a better, deeper and richer experience!!
THANK YOU ZOS

Would you mind explaining why? It would be helpful to understand what exactly makes four-DLC-stories a 'better story telling approach' than self-contained stories from start to finish which don't depend on other purchases.

Could they not have made a Chapter that includes the story of Elsweyr and Dragonhold if it's so necessary to the plot, and told the entire story of the Khajiit in that? It would have been the same rich and deep story, but contained in a single DLC. Or could they not have had the Elsweyr storyline just end with Elsweyr? We restored peace to the province by vanquishing Euraxia, Khamira's story wraps up nicely, we removed the necromancers' threat, and we prevented the dragons from gaining the powers at the plane of Jode. Was it necessary for the story to add 'oh, but he escaped somehow, and there's more!' at the end so they can write another DLC about Khajiit and dragons?

Why don't we spend the rest of the year following Abnur back to Colovia and finding a resolution to the Empire's and the Tharns' storyline in an Imperial story DLC, or why don't we find new characters and places to explore like Skyrim or some plot with Meridia (who was hinted at in Summerset as well as the Depths of Malatar)?

If ESO had followed this year-long philosophy, we would have had a year with Orsinium and two other Orc DLCs, we would have had a year with Summerset and two more High Elf DLCs. Neither the Thieves Guild, nor the Dark Brotherhood, nor the Wolfhunter dungeons and werewolf updates, nor Murkmire would exist. Don't tell me that ESO would be a better game with those Orc, High Elf and Khajiit year-long stories told, when that would mean losing out on so much more?

longer more intricate story lines
recurring characters and their relationships
better build ups and conclusions
deeper character development

the same reason why a tv show can have a deeper story experience vs a movie

Longer doesn't equal better. There are plenty of tv shows which should have ended after two seasons, but the showrunners decided to drag it out and water it down for four more seasons until fans just wanted it all to end already. And in the case of an MMO like ESO, dragging out one story means that others don't get written. That's like dragging out Game of Thrones season 8 for another season 9 and 10, but Stranger Things and the Witcher series never get made as a result.

Also, there are plenty of recurring characters in the game without needing year-long stories revolving around the same theme and location. Raz and Naryu appear in several DLCs, but Summerset/Morrowind have nothing to do with the Gold Coast or the base AD/EP storylines or Elsweyr. But the characters and their stories still have meaningful development throughout the game without repeating the same locations and the same enemies and the same themes for a year.

Faulgor wrote: »

If they actually dedicated every update in a year to one theme or thing, like Khajiit culture, it could actually be interesting, but they don't. Their new approach combines the worst of both worlds: They still have different themes and events from Elder Scrolls lore, but jumbled together and stretched out over a whole year, instead of focusing on one thing per update and doing it justice. Imagine if they had one update for Khajiit, Necromancers and Dragons each this year.

Omg that would've been awesome! I totally missed that point in my post - trying to tick every hype box does indeed dilute the DLCs and leads to less internal cohesion, even if they do link the story together for the sake of it. Great insight about a lack of story and theme focus. Elsweyr is indeed more of a 'hodgepodge', to quote Rich, than any of their previous DLCs!

Nerouyn

VaranisArano wrote: »

The Year of the Dragon is awful for new players who want to play chronologically.

Also veteran players.

I've been playing on and off since launch. Didn't love any of the original classes. Really wanted warden.

But mag warden is boring as hell. Necro is much less to my tastes thematically but mechanically far superior.

So here I am starting again. Cos story is ESO's strong suit and it should be experienced in order.

I've maxed their level, legerdemain, crafts, werewolf and vampire and started the horse feeding grind and may soon pick one to start playing. But then it would be a month or two before I hit Elswyr. Ugh. Do I just want to run my sorc through Summerset and Murkmire and take him to Elswyr. Or maybe play ESO a lot less and take one of my wardens. I do enjoy what little they have in small doses. I don't. Still pondering.

I've ridden through Elswyr to do some treasure maps and crafting surveys. Very pretty. But done no content there and probably won't for a while yet.

Lylith

logarifmik wrote: »

bluebird wrote: »

'hodgepodge of stories that didn't really connect to one another.'

LOL! Bad news, guys, your game is "fractured, but whole", and making year-long stories can't fix it. You'll only end up with even more stories without adequate connection to each other anyway. The best decision would be to hold back your greed to reconsider the Vestige story and find some way to make it more consistent.

jainiadral wrote: »

Bad news Solo players don't actually see half of the story because it's gated behind group content. Difficult, mechanic-heavy group content. I'd hoped this approach during Elsweyr was an abberation. To find out ZOS is doubling down on story gating is disapponting, to put it mildly. I don't have an issue necessarily with tying the chapter and zone content together, but shoving group dungeons into the whole process is exclusionary and unfair.

Agreed. We solo players need story-mode for the dungeons.

absolutely goddamned right.

yodased

The biggest problem is people keep asking for systemic overarching changes while they are resetting to give everything a baseline.

Everyone always points to wrothgar but we're you not here for lower and then upper craglorn? Split zone two dlcs.

Wrothgar and hewsbane and gold coast are holdouts from when their endgame was adventure zones tuned for 4 people.

This game has reinvented itself like 3 times already and people just cherry pick past items from versions that don't exist and want it to be a certain way.

The new art and code direction gives them a standardized workflow and version control which will give you a better product.

As far as people jumping in and not knowing tue story, that's only really relevant if 1. You care and 2. You just started the game and wabt to play the latest content without playibg the prerequisite story which means that 1. Doesnt apply so all good.

If you care about the story in proper chronological order you will follow it, if you don't you will jump into it and play the game.

idk

I find OP's opinion very odd. OP complains and says Zos can do better yet OP had no clue what the entire picture of this years story will be like once it is done. I find it hypocritical to say Zos can do better when you are coming up short on what this will look like in the end.

We essentially had 3 zones stories tied together by a lose string and it worked well. Morrowind, Clockwork City, and Summerset. Further, having an overall story expanded allows for a deeper story to be told while not sacrificing the story of the specific zone as we just saw with Elsweyr. The zone I liked the least this past year was the stand alone Murkmire.

Granted, I did not read the entire OP. The start of it said enough. OP claims to be making a case but they failed to get all the evidence so the case is rather void of information.

Mr_Walker

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

1. standard dungeons arent difficult

DLC dungeons are for a lot of people. Especially people with bad ping, due to the inane one shot mechanics.

NBrookus

I don't agree with the comments we'll be getting less content. Elsewyr feels like a full expansion, and the price for story playtime is very much in line with most single player games. It felt like a good value as a standalone product, plus of course it added to the rest of the game.

I don't like year if the dragon for a different reason. I'm happy to put on headphones and do the story and listen to all the dialog and let myself feel that sense of urgency to help the quest givers. But any more I have zero interest in dungeons and trials. Kill mobs, have boss encounter. Repeat. Snore. Some people love dungeons and they should totally get new content. But tying the story line itself to such a wide disparity of content is going to alternately annoy the people who prefer the RPG *and* annoy the people speed through overland dialog because they really want a tough boss instead.

Imagine, for a moment, in order to get the full story next year, PVE'ers had to win a difficult PVP engagement.

Providing lots of content and a strong carrot approach to at least try a bit of every kind of thing the game offers, IMO, is great. But I'm starting to agree with the people who want a story mode for dungeons. No set drops, no Undaunted points, no achievements... but a chance to linger through the story sounds like a good way to bring the longer story arcs to more of the playerbase in a way they enjoy.

I'd probably put on my headphones and actually go back and get to hear the dialog in all the old dungeons. Maybe with first person helmet mod!

Vehlir

I'd have to say I agree with some points on both sides of the argument. ESO's strength in setting (Especially in context to the other TES games) is it's diversity. I agree with OP that it was enjoyable & refreshing getting entire change of sceneries/cultures & narrative like in Summerset to Murkmire.

I think the big issue with entire year long themes would be if they are too heavily tied into SETTING. Like if we assume next year's "Theme" is Nords/Skyrim and it's just "SKYRIM, SKYRIM AND LATER THIS YEAR MORE SKYRIM!!" That will definitely get fatiguing.

Subjectivity of whether or not one likes the particular theme or not, it's not crazy to assume people could get burned out on "Too much of the same." You'd like to see entire year long releases have a little something for everyone, rather then "Sorry if you happened to not like this year's topic, maybe next year!".

Now if the theme is more Abstract then particular setting/culture, then I don't think I'd mind a year long theme at all. For example if it's a theme about "Year of Religions" or "Year of Rebellions" or something like that and it takes us to various different regions & cultures all mainly focusing on their respective take on the topic, then I think it'd be just fine. It can feel significantly different from each other while also focusing on a similiar topic. It'd benefit ZoS' desire for more focused narratives & while also preventing burnout from the players from things such as OP coined it "Cats & Dragons all year".

TLDR; I have no issue with Year Long "Themes" as long as it takes us to many different places & cultures, and avoids pigeonholing one specific culture/setting/Monster all year long.

bluebird

idk wrote: »

We essentially had 3 zones stories tied together by a lose string and it worked well. Morrowind, Clockwork City, and Summerset. Further, having an overall story expanded allows for a deeper story to be told while not sacrificing the story of the specific zone as we just saw with Elsweyr. The zone I liked the least this past year was the stand alone Murkmire.

Granted, I did not read the entire OP. The start of it said enough. OP claims to be making a case but they failed to get all the evidence so the case is rather void of information.

Perhaps read it then before commenting? I know, what a radical notion We have plenty of information about Scalebreaker and Dragonhold, they showed us during the Quakecon stream and earlier during ESO Live. Elsweyr is about cats and dragons (and necromancers). It takes place in Elsweyr, has Khajiiti structures. Scalebreaker is also about dragons. One of them takes place in Elsweyr and has Khajiiti structures, the other takes place alongside the Valenwood/Elsweyr border and has nature themes as well as Khajiiti structures. Dragonhold is about dragons and cats again. It takes place in Elsweyr and has Khajiiti structures.

All of the images on the left are from three different DLCs this year (I literally took the screenshots from the stream where they showed it off and gave us more information), and they are very repetitive, both in theme, location, enemies, and style. I posted three other DLCs, Orsinium, TG and DB on the right for comparison. But you could compare Morrowind CWC and Summerset as well, which had a story connection (I mentioned this in my post too) but were still very different in location, enemies, style.

idwilson

BlackStormX wrote: »

Season of the Bug & Performance fixes, I'm up for that one.

Do ZOS have the source code for the engine or are they limited to what the programmers made available in the scripting language?

bluebird

Vehlir wrote: »

TLDR; I have no issue with Year Long "Themes" as long as it takes us to many different places & cultures, and avoids pigeonholing one specific culture/setting/Monster all year long.

Well, theoretically, I'd agree with that! It's just somehwat alarming that ZOS seems to do exactly that pidgeonholing under the guise of story cohesion. Rich's comment that year-long stories 'lighten the load' on devs also seems to suggest that it's more about rehashing the same culture and style and monsters all year long, rather than developing a diverse set of DLCs around the same theme (as the Daedric Triad story was for example, with Morrowind, CWC and Summerset being quite unique).

Matt also mentioned that making cinematics for that year-long story are great which also reinforces that idea of wanting to milk one culture and location and one set of characters for an entire year, as they did with the Elsweyr cinematic broken into two parts, instead of creating unique cinematics for Morrowind and CWC, or Summerset and Murkmire for example.

blnchk

Sounds like a financial desicion at its core. It's a lost cause.

MLGProPlayer

Their former model was a story spanning multiple years

Morrowind > CWC > Summerset were all directly connected and released over a 2-year span. A new player jumping into Summerset would be totally confused. At least now the stories are confined to a single year.

Vehlir

bluebird wrote: »

Vehlir wrote: »

TLDR; I have no issue with Year Long "Themes" as long as it takes us to many different places & cultures, and avoids pigeonholing one specific culture/setting/Monster all year long.

Well, theoretically, I'd agree with that! It's just somehwat alarming that ZOS seems to do exactly that pidgeonholing under the guise of story cohesion. Rich's comment that year-long stories 'lighten the load' on devs also seems to suggest that it's more about rehashing the same culture and style and monsters all year long, rather than developing a diverse set of DLCs around the same theme (as the Daedric Triad story was for example, with Morrowind, CWC and Summerset being quite unique).

Matt also mentioned that making cinematics for that year-long story are great which also reinforces that idea of wanting to milk one culture and location and one set of characters for an entire year, as they did with the Elsweyr cinematic broken into two parts, instead of creating unique cinematics for Morrowind and CWC, or Summerset and Murkmire for example.

No, I definitely feel ya understand some of your points & concerns with their actual way of putting it as well. Especially since the focus on "Efficiency" and the way they described it kinda goes directly against my other posts.

I suppose all we can do is hope & see, and afterall there is lots of feedback to be received & given by players during this particular phase.

Vehlir

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Their former model was a story spanning multiple years

Morrowind > CWC > Summerset were all directly connected and released over a 2-year span. A new player jumping into Summerset would be totally confused. At least now the stories are confined to a single year.

True. I think they should also consider that stories can "Culminate" rather then have to be direct sequels.

Take the ever popular Marvel Cinematic Universe for example. Their portfolio is quite diverse with lots of different heroes that have drastically different feels, settings & personalities. Something like Captain America, feels refreshingly different then say Guardians of the Galaxy. And yet in the Infinity Saga, despite them both getting their own individual Spotlights and dedicated movies & stories, in the end culmination they were able to come together in an intertwined story.

I think a take similiar to that, where storylines can be intertwined & have effects on one another, while not also feeling like direct sequels that NEED to be experienced in sequence to properly absorb would somewhat suite both sides of the argument.

Players wouldn't be COMPLETELY baffled if they experience content "Out of Order" but there is still a sense of "Connectivity" to all of the narratives they are creating.

TelvanniWizard

It's just ZoS's way of working: work less, offer less, charge more.

Goren

I don't think that this concept is going to work very well in the future. Right now they release content a lot of people asked for and next year might be skyrim, which is also going to work. But there isn't much left after that and if someone is not interested in the theme, they won't buy any of these dlcs for the whole year. That's why I think this concept is too risky for ZOS. I, for example, love dragons but I'm not too keen on Khajits and their homeland, thus I haven't bought any of the dlcs yet. I might buy a season-bundle if they ever release one, though.

Adernath

Totally disagree with the OP's opinion. What you really could demand is to not having starter zones in the new content. Very simple. No need to create a large wall-of-text. (As a sidenote I highly doubt they will create a new starter zone for the Scalebreaker DLC anyways).

Thank you ZOS for this new approach which can create longer and better stories overall.

bluebird

Adernath wrote: »

Totally disagree with the OP's opinion. What you really could demand is to not having starter zones in the new content. Very simple. No need to create a large wall-of-text. (As a sidenote I highly doubt they will create a new starter zone for the Scalebreaker DLC anyways).

Thank you ZOS for this new approach which can create longer and better stories overall.

Creating 'better' stories (nothing says that the Season of the Dragon stories are better btw, they're just more interconnected) can be done without recycling 60% of their assets; they did that with the Daedric Triad storyline that still delivered three distinct and stand-in-their-own-right DLCs in Morrowind, CWC and Summerset. Wrathstone is connected to the story, but it involves no dragons and no cats.

And creating longer stories means creating less stories. Sure we spend 9 months on figuring out how to deal with the Dragon threat to Elsweyr, but we miss out on several other stories. ESO would be a far poorer game if we spent 9 months figuring out how to deal with the Orc religious/civil war (without having the Thieves Guild or Dark Brotherhood) or if we spent 9 months staring at High Elves and Sloads (without having theWolfhunter werewolf updates and Murkmire).Dragging out cats and dragons for a year doesn't make it a 'better' story than literally anything else they could have done instead.

Pick your favourite story DLC please. And then imagine that it never got made because your least favourite DLC story got dragged out over a year. Also, where people start the tutorial isn't the point of the post, it's clear you didn't understand any part of that 'wall of text.'

Adernath

bluebird wrote: »

Adernath wrote: »

Totally disagree with the OP's opinion. What you really could demand is to not having starter zones in the new content. Very simple. No need to create a large wall-of-text. (As a sidenote I highly doubt they will create a new starter zone for the Scalebreaker DLC anyways).

Thank you ZOS for this new approach which can create longer and better stories overall.

Creating 'better' stories (nothing says that the Season of the Dragon stories are better btw, they're just more interconnected) can be done without recycling 60% of their assets; they did that with the Daedric Triad storyline that still delivered three distinct and stand-in-their-own-right DLCs in Morrowind, CWC and Summerset. Wrathstone is connected to the story, but it involves no dragons and no cats.

And creating longer stories means creating less stories. Sure we spend 9 months on figuring out how to deal with the Dragon threat to Elsweyr, but we miss out on several other stories. ESO would be a far poorer game if we spent 9 months figuring out how to deal with the Orc religious/civil war (without having the Thieves Guild or Dark Brotherhood) or if we spent 9 months staring at High Elves and Sloads (without having theWolfhunter werewolf updates and Murkmire).Dragging out cats and dragons for a year doesn't make it a 'better' story than literally anything else they could have done instead.

Pick your favourite story DLC please. And then imagine that it never got made because your least favourite DLC story got dragged out over a year. Also, where people start the tutorial isn't the point of the post, it's clear you didn't understand any part of that 'wall of text.'

Well, one large story does not mean that this story necessarily would have to span two 'chapters' (i.e. larger DLCs), but something like small interconnections like Summerset and Morrowind are also not excluded in this new approach. Also many small stories (which in fact are always in the zones) are not necessarily better than a larger big story. It all depends on how these stories are made. I believe however that the new approach can provide the loremasters with more opportunities in particular in creating more epic stories. Sure the current dragon story is certainly not the most epic story, but it is still very well written in my opinion and the last part is not even out yet. You could come back in like 4 years if this does not work out and then we can discuss, but in my opinion we should be confident that we will continue to have good stories.

jainiadral

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

jainiadral wrote: »

Bad news Solo players don't actually see half of the story because it's gated behind group content. Difficult, mechanic-heavy group content. I'd hoped this approach during Elsweyr was an abberation. To find out ZOS is doubling down on story gating is disapponting, to put it mildly. I don't have an issue necessarily with tying the chapter and zone content together, but shoving group dungeons into the whole process is exclusionary and unfair.

That said, I prefer more varied content and smaller stories. I love kitties, but I am so frigging sick of dragons. Am not looking forward to next year full of whatever they're going to choke me with.

1. standard dungeons arent difficult
2. its an MMO
3. you can always just watch a youtube video for the 2min mostly non essential cut scenes

people really drive their complaining up to the powerlevel 9000 these days...

I REALLY like this year long approach - it fits the story telling approach and makes for a better, deeper and richer experience!!

THANK YOU ZOS

Considering the exceptionally large proportion of solo players who play this MMO--the one poll posted indicated almost 45% of forum posters prefer to run primarily solo-- gating story behind group content is ill-advised.

I am not going to watch a youtube vid of someone else's toon. I am *not* going to subject myself to PUGs so I can not-see the story in a rushing group. And considering that ZOS wants me to plunk down decent chunks of change for the vast majority of the story that is intended to be run solo, I think I'm not complaining loud enough.

STOP GATING MAIN STORY BEHIND GROUP CONTENT, ZOS

logarifmik wrote: »

bluebird wrote: »

'hodgepodge of stories that didn't really connect to one another.'

LOL! Bad news, guys, your game is "fractured, but whole", and making year-long stories can't fix it. You'll only end up with even more stories without adequate connection to each other anyway. The best decision would be to hold back your greed to reconsider the Vestige story and find some way to make it more consistent.

jainiadral wrote: »

Bad news Solo players don't actually see half of the story because it's gated behind group content. Difficult, mechanic-heavy group content. I'd hoped this approach during Elsweyr was an abberation. To find out ZOS is doubling down on story gating is disapponting, to put it mildly. I don't have an issue necessarily with tying the chapter and zone content together, but shoving group dungeons into the whole process is exclusionary and unfair.

Agreed. We solo players need story-mode for the dungeons.

Totally agreed and thumbs-upped