Are there any deep/well written npcs?

Valabrog

I played through all covenant zones and made pact till Rift - the only npc character i fell in love is Naryu. She cought me from the very first quests in Deshaan. Well written, great voice actress and I meet her later on other quests - actually Im so happy to meet her every time!

Are there any well written characterse in dlcs or expantions? Except Razum dar (i heard a lot of good about that cat).

I know its not swtor, but experience in playing along such npc chatacters as Senya, Arcann or Theron makes me sad that its a bit hard to get emotionally tied to ESO.

Did they got better in writting since vanilla?

Jaraal

Naryu is good in Vvardenfell, but quite annoying in The Gold Coast, in my opinion.

Rigurt The Brash is a great recurring character. Nobody makes me laugh more than he!

One of the best written characters that comes to mind is Velsa from the Thieves Guild. In fact, I think the whole story line is quite good.

Hurbster

Valabrog

Jaraal wrote: »

Naryu is good in Vvardenfell, but quite annoying in The Gold Coast, in my opinion.

Rigurt The Brash is a great recurring character. Nobody makes me laugh more than he!

One of the best written characters that comes to mind is Velsa from the Thieves Guild. In fact, I think the whole story line is quite good.

Thanks! Lookin forward to meet your mentioned characters

Nemesis7884

if you want to go really deep look out for the lusty argonian maid!

Czekoludek

Darien from covenant zones got a lot of love later, great character development. Razz is good. Dialogues with Sotha Sił are one of greatest for sure. You really feel like you speak with tribunal god Overall there are a lot of good characters in ESO, it's a shame ZoS didn't try to create more connections to them (like character system from swtor or something similar)

stewhead2ub17_ESO

I love me some Stibbons!

bearbelly

I think Tilenra Sildreth, a Telvanni mage/alchemist in Suran (Vvardenfell) is another well-done character; probably my next favorite after Naryu. I run her quest on all of my characters.

RavenSworn

I have to say that I really like the wilder king storyline.

Thrasher91604

Larydel in Summerset.

Ohtimbar

Vivec, Fyr, Tharn et al

VaranisArano

Yes. But depth is where you want to find it. Its all a matter of personal opinion and which characters you latch onto.

For example, my favorite NPCs from the Pact are Aera Earth-Turner and General Tanval Indoril. I ran the Pact as my first questline, so the choice I had to make in Bal Foyen was wrenching and seeing her again in the Rift was like a punch in the gut. Tanval Indoril was exactly the sort of NPC I love to hate - sure and certain of his own rightness to the point that I wanted to help him and bring him to justice in equal measure.

This is basically a giant "your mileage may vary" sort of answer, in other words.

My favorite set of DLC specific characters are probably Valsirenn, Ritemaster Iachesis, and Leythen.

TheFM

ZoS does a very good job of having characvters you met before showing up in the dlcs.

Stibbons
Skordo
Lady Laraunt
The dark elf brother and sister
Neralmo

just to name a few.

TheShadowScout

Naryu is an easy Pact favorite.... from Deshaan to the quick meeting in eastmarch to the more involved interaction in Vvardenfell to the quick encounter in the gold coast... she is fun. Also the implied interaction between her and Razum-dar is neat to read between the lines...
Rigurt on the other hand... is a rumbling belly-laugh wherever you meet him! Rude, crude, and not very bright... but so good natured you just cannot fault him for it.
I also always enjoy meeting a certain dunmer brother and sister explorer pair specializing in dwemer ruins and clockwork discoveries...

Razum-dar makes up for Ayrenns somewhat bland demeanor all across the AD questline. So much that in the end, you are quite happy he escaped his "noble sacrifice" and you get to meet him again in summerset and elsweyr... most other AD people kinda pale in his shadow. I mean, who even wants to remember Telenger and his "oh, look, I am so great an artificer" arrogance?

On the DC side, Darien seems bland at first, gets more interesting... once you know.
Stibbons on the other hand... what a man! Daedra want him, ghosts want to be him...
Gabrielle Benele and Lady Laurent on the other hand... eh. I just find them grating sometimes... though the latter comes as a double act with Stibbons, and the former... might get some screen time someday trying to resolve the issue of recovering her designated boyfriend... (you know who... no, no, not THAT you-know-who, that's an entirely different universe! ;p )

Abner Tharn is also an interesting one, throughout the mainstory and for elsweyr... I suspect we haven't seen the last of him, despite his uncertain fate after Dragonhold...
Sai Sahan got his encore, and its entirely likely that Lyris might as well come a "Western Skyrim" expansion (which would make sense for the skyrim anniversary, yes?)

Eveli Sharp-Arrow also deserves a mention here, and many would love to see her again as well sometime (maybe with western skyrim since its near where we last saw her?)

Velsa from the thieves guild has been mentioned, and yes, she is very interesting and I almost would like to see more, if I didn't wish her happyness with her finally reunited girlfriend... there also is a certain somewhat flamboyant argonian in that guild if we want to talk about interesting NPCs...

And there are a few others that are interesting to listen to. Sothra Sil has been said, and I agree. Barbas the hound, also more interesting then one might think at first glance. Uncle Sheo, duh, he got all the butterflies! And several more NPCs as well, from a khajiiti princess to two argonians from different tribes in murkmire, from orc mercenaries getting around to a pirate crew in dragonhold, from a psijic elf to a argonian rising through wizardly ranks no matter the cost...

max_only

The Drake of Blades in Imperial City. It’s a shame that IC is pvp

redlink1979

Sotha Sil imo. One of my favourites.

TheFM

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Naryu is an easy Pact favorite.... from Deshaan to the quick meeting in eastmarch to the more involved interaction in Vvardenfell to the quick encounter in the gold coast... she is fun. Also the implied interaction between her and Razum-dar is neat to read between the lines...
Rigurt on the other hand... is a rumbling belly-laugh wherever you meet him! Rude, crude, and not very bright... but so good natured you just cannot fault him for it.
I also always enjoy meeting a certain dunmer brother and sister explorer pair specializing in dwemer ruins and clockwork discoveries...

Razum-dar makes up for Ayrenns somewhat bland demeanor all across the AD questline. So much that in the end, you are quite happy he escaped his "noble sacrifice" and you get to meet him again in summerset and elsweyr... most other AD people kinda pale in his shadow. I mean, who even wants to remember Telenger and his "oh, look, I am so great an artificer" arrogance?

On the DC side, Darien seems bland at first, gets more interesting... once you know.
Stibbons on the other hand... what a man! Daedra want him, ghosts want to be him...
Gabrielle Benele and Lady Laurent on the other hand... eh. I just find them grating sometimes... though the latter comes as a double act with Stibbons, and the former... might get some screen time someday trying to resolve the issue of recovering her designated boyfriend... (you know who... no, no, not THAT you-know-who, that's an entirely different universe! ;p )

Abner Tharn is also an interesting one, throughout the mainstory and for elsweyr... I suspect we haven't seen the last of him, despite his uncertain fate after Dragonhold...
Sai Sahan got his encore, and its entirely likely that Lyris might as well come a "Western Skyrim" expansion (which would make sense for the skyrim anniversary, yes?)

Eveli Sharp-Arrow also deserves a mention here, and many would love to see her again as well sometime (maybe with western skyrim since its near where we last saw her?)

Velsa from the thieves guild has been mentioned, and yes, she is very interesting and I almost would like to see more, if I didn't wish her happyness with her finally reunited girlfriend... there also is a certain somewhat flamboyant argonian in that guild if we want to talk about interesting NPCs...

And there are a few others that are interesting to listen to. Sothra Sil has been said, and I agree. Barbas the hound, also more interesting then one might think at first glance. Uncle Sheo, duh, he got all the butterflies! And several more NPCs as well, from a khajiiti princess to two argonians from different tribes in murkmire, from orc mercenaries getting around to a pirate crew in dragonhold, from a psijic elf to a argonian rising through wizardly ranks no matter the cost...

Stibbons and lady laurant are in both dc and ad starting areas.

themaddaedra

Could name a fair few but first... S E H T

[Edit to remove content that led to derailment]

SidraWillowsky

It's been said many times here already, but Sotha Sil is one of the most well-written NPCs I've come across in any TES game. I was pleasantly surprised by Darien as well.

themaddaedra wrote: »

Could name a fair few but first... S E H T

EXACTLY

vestahls

Sotha Sil, Divayth Fyr, even Vivec (but not if you're not familiar with TESIII, i.e. ESO is just riding its coattails with this one), poor Stibbons, Rigurt indeed for a good laugh, Raynor and Kireth Vanos, Tanval Indoril, Prince Naemon, Abnur Tharn, King Lalorian.

These are mostly well (i.e. fun) written, rather than having depth, because all of them are rather one-dimensional. You always know how they will behave and how they will speak, they don't have different faces for different situations, unlike people in real life.

Tanval is probably the best written and has the most depth, because he goes through such a change from the first time you meet him until the end, while still staying the same at his core. They for sure did a good job with him.

Sadly, the writing in ESO is not as good as it is in the single-player games, where you could genuinely see multiple dimensions per character from TESII Daggerfall up to maybe Skyrim, where it started to go down hill. Morrowind had the best writing, Oblivioin and Daggerfall tied second-best imo. Skyrim, although it did have its share of good writing, still didn't have someone like say, Uriel Septim VII who could be your friend and grateful ruler in TESII but plot to use you (for the betterment of the empire, of course) in TESIII. Even Mannimarco was better written in Daggerfall than in any subsequent game, because he was creepy and uncaring for your survival but also unerringly polite and considerate.

It would have been enough for him to treat you differently if you choose to rescue him at the end of the main quest in ESO, but nooo, the writers couldn't possibly have a baddie be a three-dimentional character.

Even characters like Naryu, who everyone likes and is fun, doesn't really treat you differently regardless of what direction you're coming from - and speaks to other NPCs pretty much the same way she speaks to you.

The said, SWTOR had kind of the same problem with NPCs, as do all the BioWare games.

Tommy_The_Gun

Some I could think of that are not mentioned often (I will update this post if I will think of something more):
Note: This is my personal list:

Base game:
Captain One-Eye - Base game argonian NPC, probably best "base game" argonian NPC. Sadly, she never appeared again (unlike Razum-dar or Darien for example) but overall "quality" of NPC design is on similar level.

Darj the Hunter - 1st met in Bleakrock and can be later met in Dhalmora. I mention him probably because I still remember that NPC, when I started this game back in 2014... have met a ton of Nord NPCs but somehow this one I remember the most. Weird.

M'aiq the Liar - how can no one ever mention this "meme" cat that appears in all "TES" games & in ESO ?

This year story:
Caska - imo the best khajiit NPC out of all introduced this year. I know it is weird, but she probably has the most personalty and is the least annoying... if fact she is not annoying at all, she is bad-ass !

Last year:
Choixth - Argonian Shadow-scale NPC that appears in Summerset & Murkmire.

Dark Brotherhood:
Green-Venom-Tongue - Argonian Assassin & shaow-scale.

Kor - Nord NPC, a protector of a fellow Brotherhood, Hildegard.

Hildegard - Nord NPC that also happens to be werewolf and has troubles in controlling her WW abilities / curse and it adds a lot of personality tbh. Both Her & Kor are outcast and they have found refuge in Dark Brotherhood.

Thieves guild:
Pretty much all of the members of the thieves guild NPCs. All of them are probably best designed NPCs in ESO with very rich personality & background.

Note: I know there are others that people mention often (like Razum-dar or Naryu) but I am trying to focus on "hidden gems" here that for whatever reason are not popular.

Valabrog

vestahls wrote: »

Sotha Sil, Divayth Fyr, even Vivec (but not if you're not familiar with TESIII, i.e. ESO is just riding its coattails with this one), poor Stibbons, Rigurt indeed for a good laugh, Raynor and Kireth Vanos, Tanval Indoril, Prince Naemon, Abnur Tharn, King Lalorian.

These are mostly well (i.e. fun) written, rather than having depth, because all of them are rather one-dimensional. You always know how they will behave and how they will speak, they don't have different faces for different situations, unlike people in real life.

Tanval is probably the best written and has the most depth, because he goes through such a change from the first time you meet him until the end, while still staying the same at his core. They for sure did a good job with him.

Sadly, the writing in ESO is not as good as it is in the single-player games, where you could genuinely see multiple dimensions per character from TESII Daggerfall up to maybe Skyrim, where it started to go down hill. Morrowind had the best writing, Oblivioin and Daggerfall tied second-best imo. Skyrim, although it did have its share of good writing, still didn't have someone like say, Uriel Septim VII who could be your friend and grateful ruler in TESII but plot to use you (for the betterment of the empire, of course) in TESIII. Even Mannimarco was better written in Daggerfall than in any subsequent game, because he was creepy and uncaring for your survival but also unerringly polite and considerate.

It would have been enough for him to treat you differently if you choose to rescue him at the end of the main quest in ESO, but nooo, the writers couldn't possibly have a baddie be a three-dimentional character.

Even characters like Naryu, who everyone likes and is fun, doesn't really treat you differently regardless of what direction you're coming from - and speaks to other NPCs pretty much the same way she speaks to you.

The said, SWTOR had kind of the same problem with NPCs, as do all the BioWare games.

I wonder why such games to not invest more i to storytelling? Every specialist will say that good story and chars in it will forge a big mental bonds between player and the game (they are still moaning for Kira to return in Swtor, after all these years). I mean hire some geeky rpg fans and let them write stories - pay them cents and they still be happy (they do that for free anywhere they can anyway) and then give those stories to eso loremasters to tie them to lore and insert proper character names...

It will cost you nothing to insert Darien into the "man's who lost his shoes on Riverspire" place and we will "wow, its Darien again, so cool, damn what a great drunkard he is lol" for us. But no..Show as coll xhar to discard him/her forever..Thats just a stupid and lazy quest design.

vestahls

Valabrog wrote: »

I wonder why such games to not invest more i to storytelling? Every specialist will say that good story and chars in it will forge a big mental bonds between player and the game (they are still moaning for Kira to return in Swtor, after all these years). I mean hire some geeky rpg fans and let them write stories - pay them cents and they still be happy (they do that for free anywhere they can anyway) and then give those stories to eso loremasters to tie them to lore and insert proper character names...

It will cost you nothing to insert Darien into the "man's who lost his shoes on Riverspire" place and we will "wow, its Darien again, so cool, damn what a great drunkard he is lol" for us. But no..Show as coll xhar to discard him/her forever..Thats just a stupid and lazy quest design.

The people who do most of the writing for ESO are actually big fans of it as well. If you read through old AMAs they did on Reddit, you can see they really have a passion for this series, and put a lot of thought into the characters they write. So they already have geeky RPG fans writing for this game.

The reality is that good writers don't typically make their way to the gaming industry, and are few and far between even in the professional literary world. There just isn't that much talent to go around.

Varana

You also have to keep in mind the constraints of real life. You may not have much time to re-write minor characters, every line has to be voiced so your character budget may be small, you can come across many characters in varying order so they simply cannot change too much, the character's role may be to only introduce you to a dungeon so a long-ish character arc isn't wanted for them in that instance, and so on.

That said, I don't think the single player installments from TES3 to 5 are that much better. ESO is absolutely massive so the gems may appear a bit rare in its ocean of content, but the amount of characters with an actual story arc is not really bigger in TES3 than here in ESO.

Watchdog

Sotha Sil is simply awesome. The voiceover is great.

Provost Varuni Arvel in Clockwork City is a very well written, very deep character. And her voice is lovely.

I enjoyed meeting Neramo, and the siblings Kireth and Raynor Vanos repeatedly. I consider them well written and deep characters.

tinythinker

Valabrog wrote: »

I played through all covenant zones and made pact till Rift - the only npc character i fell in love is Naryu. She cought me from the very first quests in Deshaan. Well written, great voice actress and I meet her later on other quests - actually Im so happy to meet her every time!

Are there any well written characterse in dlcs or expantions? Except Razum dar (i heard a lot of good about that cat).

I know its not swtor, but experience in playing along such npc chatacters as Senya, Arcann or Theron makes me sad that its a bit hard to get emotionally tied to ESO.

Did they got better in writting since vanilla?

There are fan favorites but it depends on what you mean by depth. Because ESO is limited to a very small period of TES history and also due to One Tamriel, devs can't assume a coherent linear story framework involving NPC not central to a "the year of" whatever. Let alone for the game as a whole.

So when a Stibbons or a Naryu pops up in new content, they may be programmed to give an extra line of dialogue if you've met before but that's it. Breadth of development? Yup! Depth... meh

Cavedog

Maiq not deep enough for you?

idk

Czekoludek wrote: »

Darien from covenant zones got a lot of love later, great character development.

I agree. At first he came off as a dumb jock in love with a mage but they did well by him later on.

Stibbons is funny. Queen Ayrenn was pretty good. Cadwell is great from the start and we do delve deeper into his story later on. Ofc he is voiced by the legendary John Cleese which probably helps.

For the most part we do not spend much time with most characters for their to be much character development apparent to us. I think it is good they are continuing to use some of the early characters to give the stories a little more depth.

Squeaky_Clean

I really liked the character and story of Aera Earth-Turner. From the beginnings on Bleackrock to meeting her later on in the story.

Varana

idk wrote: »

Ofc he is voiced by the legendary John Cleese which probably helps.

I'm not sure if I'm the only one, but his voice work in Elsweyr compared to his original appearance was making painfully clear that he is, let's say, aging.

Aliyavana

Sotha Sil