New player question about the chapter progression

Klad

So, I have finished the ESO vanilla, and Morrowind expansion, they were an incredible amount of fun I am now working my way through Summerset (more like slogging) and I feel like I have entered some progressive power point presentation and not the very fun escapist narrative I have seen up until now.

I have played all of the Elder Scrolls games and I understand the political nature of Tamriel, but I get the feeling this is just beating players over the head with feel bad politics, it's not fun, and if it wasn't for the gorgeous surroundings I would have left, not only because I detest moral allegorical storytelling, but it chucks a lot of established authoritative bases of races that historically kept slavery going long after the defeat of Molag Baal. My question can I expect to be beat over the head with the morality stick going forward? When you try to shoehorn your personal convictions in world with an already established history, especially with one that has such rigid modalities as Elder Scrolls, you lose the suspension of disbelief ability, and are left with Anderson Cooper in a Renaissance fair getup. ( which I think Anderson would appreciate being a huge D&D player )

I have to deal with current events on a daily basis...the world isn't Black and White, and blatantly asserting personal politics turns off people on both sides of the debate. I was told by many friends to stay away from Summerset or just do the dungeons and leave, "it's makes folks with good intentions look like preachy partisan hacks" is the most astute observation Iv'e had thus-far. This game up until Summerset was a very worthy addition to the Elder Scrolls, but I'm just not going to waste my time on corporate feel bad liberalism, because it's just so damned disingenuous.

If you are White Knighting for either side spare me, I would like to have a civil conversation and make my decision to stay or go from there.

Thanks in advance.

Donny_Vito

I enjoyed Summerset, but I usually skip most of the dialogue in the game so I can't account to the political nature of the conversations. But the main point you brought up, the visuals, is what kept me going back to Summerset even after I beat the storyline. The island feels peaceful and relaxing, where more of the mainland is grim and bleak. So for that, I enjoyed the expansion.

Klad

Donny_Vito wrote: »

I enjoyed Summerset, but I usually skip most of the dialogue in the game so I can't account to the political nature of the conversations. But the main point you brought up, the visuals, is what kept me going back to Summerset even after I beat the storyline. The island feels peaceful and relaxing, where more of the mainland is grim and bleak. So for that, I enjoyed the expansion.

I agree where your'e coming from, but for me the Story has always been a huge reason to play any ES title, to me without the compelling narrative I might as well be playing BDO or some other hack and slash game.

idk

I would suggest Clockwork City before Summerset as it sits in the middle of the story ark. Not totally dependent but still relevant.

While I have very much enjoyed much of the main story lines throughout the game there is not much of a choice in our actions which I am expecting that is what OP is getting at. However, in games where there was some semblance of choice where a character could be good or bad in the end it was all an empty shell as the story ends the same way regardless.

Klad

idk wrote: »

I would suggest Clockwork City before Summerset as it sits in the middle of the story ark. Not totally dependent but still relevant.

While I have very much enjoyed much of the main story lines throughout the game there is not much of a choice in our actions which I am expecting that is what OP is getting at. However, in games where there was some semblance of choice where a character could be good or bad in the end it was all an empty shell as the story ends the same way regardless.

Yeah basically, and while someone whose knowledge of geopolitics began in 1992 might see the story arch as an important message, anyone who can look back 35 years or so understands that no one sits on the right side of history, because their is no right side.

I have lived in Pakistan, and China...one thing that I have learned is good and bad is dependent on your cultural authoritative base, there are precious few absolutes. A great example is Che Guevara: he was a hero to some a genocidal maniac to others, there is no right answer on which side you come down on.

What I'm trying to say is a game developers can't just sound off on complicated geo-cultural issues without seeming to disingenuously virtue signal. Historically that has never went well.

Veinblood1965

Never let the facts get in the way of a good expansion.

Btw progeression is that a new word?

Klad

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

Never let the facts get in the way of a good expansion.

Btw progeression is that a new word?

Dyslexia can be hilarious sometimes....

Klad

Just to add...

I know this is unlikely because it would be stepping in a minefield, but It would be nice if a dev or CM weighed in on this, maybe I would look at it from a different angle if we could see the thought process behind it and what we can expect going forward.

Royaji

I'm not sure I understand the problem? ESO's stories are based on a simple black and white principle of "they are working with the daedra - they are the bad guys, we are not working with the daedra (or at least not the "bad" ones) - so we are the good guys". That's pretty much the whole story.

VaranisArano

Summerset does deal with a lot of seemingly modern topics...in part because the Altmer would have to deal with them. Allowing a bunch of foreigner players in to play along the sunlit shores of isolationist Alinor means that the Altmer were inevitably going to have to deal with how they treat foreigners and immigrants, for example.

Bottom line, I'd say that if you think it feels preachy and it annoys you now, it will probably continue to annoy you. Sort of like how something can be totally fine for a long time, and then you notice it annoys you, and now you can't ignore it.

Personally, I thought it felt pretty accurate to the Altmer and how they would act when faced with those issues. YMMV.

Klad

Royaji wrote: »

I'm not sure I understand the problem? ESO's stories are based on a simple black and white principle of "they are working with the daedra - they are the bad guys, we are not working with the daedra (or at least not the "bad" ones) - so we are the good guys". That's pretty much the whole story.

Hmmm so you don't see the allegorical "supremacist" talking points... that's odd given the fact that looking back there were quite a few Gaming journalist articles praising Zenimax for making a statement on current events.

But I guess I see your point of view...when I listen to a Rush album I pretend they are singing about Hockey and Beer instead of Randian Objectivism.

Royaji

Klad wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

I'm not sure I understand the problem? ESO's stories are based on a simple black and white principle of "they are working with the daedra - they are the bad guys, we are not working with the daedra (or at least not the "bad" ones) - so we are the good guys". That's pretty much the whole story.

Hmmm so you don't see the allegorical "supremacist" talking points... that's odd given the fact that looking back there were quite a few Gaming journalist articles praising Zenimax for making a statement on current events.

But I guess I see your point of view...when I listen to a Rush album I pretend they are singing about Hockey and Beer instead of Randian Objectivism.

You say you've played through the base game. The whole AD storyline has the exacts same talking points. But even despite that the bad guys are defined so sharply and blatantly like it's a children story and it is easy not to care about other points the game is trying to raise.

RaddlemanNumber7

The first time through wasn't much fun for me either. Now when I do Summerset I skip all the side quests and click through the dialogue for the daily quest givers. And take solace from the damage done to all those Altmer cultural institutions. That makes it moderately enjoyable.

fiender66

@Klad I get your point. For me Summerset is the visually gorgeous frame of engaging dolmens and a pair of entertaining dungeons. Besides, the Psijic quest is great as an excuse to travel around.
The political preaching I skip over.
But (at least for my tastes) things have gone to the worse: now we have a lot of kitten purring and meowing, it's like we had shifted from reading the WP to a tabloid (or instagram, at that). The visual keeps being astounding though

Hallothiel

Apologies for being a bit dense, but not sure what aspects of the quests in Summerset are the issue? Can you be a bit more explicit please?

azjuwelz

ESO merely takes the lore (and politics) of the races featured in other Elder Scrolls games, and the themes of empires vs. local cultures, slavery, and (mostly high elf) domination are inherent in all ES games. It's nothing specific to any real politics happening right now.

That being said, I've never liked the Altmer, and have been in no rush to do the Summerset story line, which chronologically takes place after Clockwork City.

I have a feeling you'll like the Elsweyr chapter and dlc better.

Ratzkifal

Personally I haven't felt that way in Summerset as much as I did in Morrowind. The fact that we were forced to side with the slaves instead of being able to play the bad guys was much more of a sore thumb to me. Maybe that's because I roleplay as a Telvanni.

When the game allows you to murder innocent (and not-so-innocent) people in the Dark Brotherhood or raise the dead left and right, or trap the soul of a child inside a flesh atronach, everything is fine, but shame on you if you want to do slavery or at least not actively oppose it.

Don't get me wrong, I still liked the quest chain and the writing wasn't too bad. Even had some twists, which, while predictable, were interesting. But even by the end of it, ultimately you are trying to free the slaves and that's the only option they are giving you. It may have been too much effort to write it with an alternate route in mind where you don't side with the slaves, but when you are introducing/representing/dealing with the Telvanni, you should maybe set your priorities differently and allow players to make that choice to make it the best experience possible.
It would have probably resulted in a totally different story, but one I feel is worth telling.
Alas, we will never know (until they possibly add more Telvanni territories as DLC).

Sylvermynx

The one thing I NEVER do with a game is think about it in relation to (or as explicative of) current events. If I did, I'd probably never be able to play a game again.

AlnilamE

Klad wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

I'm not sure I understand the problem? ESO's stories are based on a simple black and white principle of "they are working with the daedra - they are the bad guys, we are not working with the daedra (or at least not the "bad" ones) - so we are the good guys". That's pretty much the whole story.

Hmmm so you don't see the allegorical "supremacist" talking points... that's odd given the fact that looking back there were quite a few Gaming journalist articles praising Zenimax for making a statement on current events.

But I guess I see your point of view...when I listen to a Rush album I pretend they are singing about Hockey and Beer instead of Randian Objectivism.

You say you played all the Elder Scrolls games. Did you sleep through Skyrim? THESE PEOPLE ARE THE ANCESTORS OF THE THALMOR!

You played the base game. As someone pointed out, the Auridon questline is pretty much the same, with the Veiled Heritance trying to keep their dominion "pure".

These are Altmer being Altmer. They have always been like that, and the current events came after that lore was already established.

If anything the Summerset questline made me appreciate some nuance in Altmer society and the struggles some of them face because they don't quite fit the mold.

Sorry for the yelling. I never liked the Altmer, as I've always seen them as racist a-holes, and was actually pleasantly surprised with that expansion.

TheShadowScout

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Personally I haven't felt that way in Summerset as much as I did in Morrowind. The fact that we were forced to side with the slaves instead of being able to play the bad guys was much more of a sore thumb to me...

I often had the same feeling in different occasions. Not for slavery, though I reckon I will once my telvanni pyromancer gets to do morrowind... but there have been a few instances where I felt the choice my character would make was not allowed. Like very early in my gaming, on my first charatcer through stonefalls, where you get to Heimlin keep... and start cleaning uip the mess the covenant made there, get to the captured covenant soldier... and get no other choice but to let them go. Sure, many of my characters would have done that... but my ruthless assassin girl? Nah, she would have wanted to gut that enemy soldier and then throw the body off the tower to the nix-hounds... but, that seems to have been deemed "too evil" a choice for the games original "16" rating.

And there are several more places where a choice that should have been an option is missing. Often the "villain" choices, sometimes others...

Heck, I would have wanted a whole alternate "goody two-greaves" questline for TG and DB, allowing our "lawful" characters to play the same story from the other side...

But alas. Paths not taken.

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Maybe that's because I roleplay as a Telvanni.

Well, for your telvanni guy... don't think of it as helping the slaves, think of it as damaging a rival telvannis resources!

Klad

This has been a great discussion, with a lot of valid points of view...I was doing a little digging earlier on Reddit and there were a couple discussion that ZoS went back and edited some of the main story line to Summerset...that sounds highly suspect to me, can anyone confirm of deny that?


Also I started getting heavily into my Psijic quest line today and am really enjoying it, that (plus side quest that flesh out the main quest more) is changing my mind about some of my original assertions...my problem is a book has about One or two chapters to grab me (the wheel of time series was murder to get into but worth it) it is the same for Games and MMO expansions especially... I think my advice for Summerset going forward would be to give it time to set things up, as it's a slower moving content than say Orsinium or Morrowind which so far has been my favorite content.

Kel

Did you feel this way in the treatment the Nords showed the elves (especially the dark elves) and foreigners in Windhelm while playing Skyrim? Every other shout by a nord NPC being "Skyrim is for the Nords"?
That wasn't such a hot button issue at the time, but it still deals with the same issues you're now complaining about in today's, as you put it, "feel bad politics".

Perhaps it fits the narrative and lore of this in game world and universe, and any parallel to any real world political action is merely coincidental. It deals with an isolated population that is seeing its borders opened to others for the first time. Exactly how should that be played out? I found it to be an accurate representation of people's attitudes. Some were open, with or without trepidation...some were against it to various degrees. Some on either side had changes of minds and some sought political advantage of the situation.
I mean, how was it expected to go, narratively speaking? 🤷‍♂️

Vanos444

Klad wrote: »

Donny_Vito wrote: »

I enjoyed Summerset, but I usually skip most of the dialogue in the game so I can't account to the political nature of the conversations. But the main point you brought up, the visuals, is what kept me going back to Summerset even after I beat the storyline. The island feels peaceful and relaxing, where more of the mainland is grim and bleak. So for that, I enjoyed the expansion.

I agree where your'e coming from, but for me the Story has always been a huge reason to play any ES title, to me without the compelling narrative I might as well be playing BDO or some other hack and slash game.

Then you should try FFXIV a realm reborn and it's expansions. It's best game in the market, in terms of story, content and mmorpg feel...
What it lacks is PvP, it just sucks compared to TESO pvp.

Klad

Kel wrote: »

Did you feel this way in the treatment the Nords showed the elves (especially the dark elves) and foreigners in Windhelm while playing Skyrim? Every other shout by a nord NPC being "Skyrim is for the Nords"?
That wasn't such a hot button issue at the time, but it still deals with the same issues you're now complaining about in today's, as you put it, "feel bad politics".

Anthropologically speaking...I think the entire bogus logic takes the Kardashev scale and chucks it out the window, the civilizations on Tamriel reflect Dark age through Renaissance levels of society and their respective mythologies. A "what if Dragons existed during the Hundred years war" type approach. Applying current ethics and themes(which is going to be laughed at in thirty years like we laugh at the so called forward thinking ethics of the late 70's early 80's today) is just cringy, that was my point and maybe I should have articulated that better.

To more directly answer your question societal wise that is closer to that actual type of civilization, than being a step and fetch for a woke elf. The mythologies that ESO draws on were Xenophobic, superstitious and gave no thought to the brotherhood of man, or beast or imaginary beings we called Dwarfs or Elves. You are not going to have a Berkeley student in elf cos play shouting "supremacist!!!!"

Kel wrote: »

Perhaps it fits the narrative and lore of this in game world and universe, and any parallel to any real world political action is merely coincidental. It deals with an isolated population that is seeing its borders opened to others for the first time. Exactly how should that be played out? I found it to be an accurate representation of people's attitudes. Some were open, with or without trepidation...some were against it to various degrees. Some on either side had changes of minds and some sought political advantage of the situation.
I mean, how was it expected to go, narratively speaking? 🤷‍♂️

No it wasn't coincidence, the Zenimax devs have said as much and they even won an award for it...a couple actually. And you're right it is a representation of peoples attitudes... in early twenty first century earth, not the level of civilization Tamriel has had historically, Historically The races were backwards thinking and that's just the way things were .

I mean it's their world they can interchange them at will..they can, but it basically throws cohesion out the window.

How should it have gone? I can't tell how the last Star Wars movie should have gone I can only tell you it was a train wreck, if your asking how I would have done it...we would be here a while because it would start on the game engine, then we would discuss the current AI or lack there of and how things should play out in a more dynamic fashion, before we could get to the writing because it's all tied together...but, because my road in game design isn't their road, I think that's sorta superfluous.

To sum up as I said I feel better about the expansion now that have started other things within it, the narrative tried to convey current themes (like what the terrible things that are happening at the United States southern border) to hopefully make people think about what's going on in current events, only it was a very hamfisted preachy way that makes many players roll their eyes, or laugh at the after school special way it's being handled, and honestly I think Zenimax got the memo because from what I have been told there isn't a trace of that approach in the Elsweyr expansion.

AcadianPaladin

I disliked both Morrowind and Summerset because the whole time, my wood elf struggled to not hate the pompous Dunmer and Altmer who infested those places. On the other hand, she had no problem with the Orcs of Wrothgar, and found the Argonians of Murkmire positively enchanting.

As far as Summerset's parallels to current events, nothing under the moons is new. Whatever brilliant or buffoonish choices we see around us have all been tried (to success or failure) before.

Klad

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

I disliked both Morrowind and Summerset because the whole time, my wood elf struggled to not hate the pompous Dunmer and Altmer who infested those places. On the other hand, she had no problem with the Orcs of Wrothgar, and found the Argonians of Murkmire positively enchanting.

As far as Summerset's parallels to current events, nothing under the moons is new. Whatever brilliant or buffoonish choices we see around us have all been tried (to success or failure) before.

Excellent point

nightstrike

Generally speaking, every fantasy world that copies Tolkien elves give them the same snooty notion of superiority. D&D (especially Dragonlance) really cemented this, but it gets copied into even recent works (see Netflix's Bright). You can even see how many fictional universes not only have these same elven features, but they further insist on the distinction of "high elves". TES is no different, as far back as Arena.

What's distinct about Summerset is the absurdly written dialog to smack you over the head with what is painfully obvious anti-Trumpian politics and for which, as Klad pointed out, they've won awards. The robot devil said it best: https://www.quotes.net/show-quote/33812

Regarding the points on slavery in Morrowind, I think TES3 tackled this far better than ESO:MW in giving you choices, although even in TES3, you couldn't for instance own a slave yourself even if you played a Dunmer. You could buy them, but only to release them.