"Who Is Azura?": A Request at the Behest of a Lore-Obsessed Quester

opaj

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers and references to spoilers for Orsinium, Thieves Guild, Morrowind, and Elsweyr. All criticism should be taken as an expression of love, as I totally adore the writing in this game.

The following is an open letter to the ZOS writing team.

Introduction

Imagine that you are a typical young adult living in the United States and/or Canada. You don't know much about comic books, but you've been curious about them for a while, so you decide to go to a little meet-and-greet happening at the local comic book shop. You overhear some of the guests talking about Superman, the iconic superhero who you admittedly know little about. So you ask the obvious question:

"Who is Superman?"

Wait, of course you don't ask that. Even if you know almost nothing about the Man of Steel, it's a household name in English-speaking culture. You might ask "What's the deal with Superman?" or "What can you tell me about Superman?" or "Where should I start if I want to get into Superman?", but if you asked "Who is Superman?", they'd look at you like you'd grown a fourth head.

So why is my character always asking questions like "Who is Azura?"


But Really, Who Is Azura?

Elder Scrolls lore is a rich tapestry made up of countless cultures, religions, and historical figures, and it's reasonable to assume that no player knows it all. The average player probably knows very little of it, considering that there's enough to remember about our own world.

It's reasonable, then, that when you ESO doesn't expect you to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the lore. When you meet a priestess of Azura, you'll usually get to ask her about the Daedric Prince. The first Tribunal acolyte you meet in the Morrowind main quest is happy to bring you up to date on Vivec and the Great Houses. This is all well and good, and I appreciate hearing all of this dialogue!

But when I'm already playing a Dark Elf from Morrowind, it pulls me out of character when I stare at this acolyte, slack-jawed, and ask him, "Uh, who's Vivec?" When my character is supposed to be a Khajiit adept, I don't want her asking her fellow adepts, "What are the Sands-Behind-the-Stars?" And no matter who my character is, unless she was born under a rock, I don't want her uttering a question like, "Who is Azura?"


Then Don't Click on Those Options, Dummy!

First off, rude.

Second off, even if my character doesn't need that information, I might! I want to learn more about the lore, and even if I know all about Azura, maybe I don't know what this specific order believes about her.

Third off, sometimes I don't get a choice. Take, for example, a dialogue with Eveli Sharp-Arrow early in the Orsinium main quest: she makes an off-hand remark about Inspector Vale, and you have to ask her who Inspector Vale is before you can continue the quest. Here's the rub: this happened to me immediately after reading my first Inspector Vale story, but I still had to act like my character was suffering from horrendous short-term memory loss.


Pass the Idiot Ball

There's an added wrinkle to this issue. Sometimes, I swallow my pride and click on these kinds of questions, only to have the NPC berate me for my stupidity. Abnur Tharn likes to do this when I ask for a recap.

I don't mind NPCs being crotchety and picking on me. Heck, when they criticizes my crude approach to combat or brush me off for my comparative insignificance, I applaud them. I do mind being presented with dialogue options that are blatantly game-y, then getting insulted for choosing them. Yes, Abnur Tharn, I guess I did get boxed in the head too many times when I was fighting those necromancers! How else can I explain needing information that my character would naturally already have?

My point here is that the NPC's reaction is shining a spotlight on the weirdness of the question. If a question only makes sense if your character grew up under a rock, and the NPCs recognize it as such, why is it being included as an option? It places me in a position of having to choose between getting more juicy lore and having a character who isn't a complete fool.


A Question of Wording: Rewording the Question

So, what do I want ZOS to do about it? Not much. Just... rephrase the questions, please!

Instead of "Who is Azura", let me say, "Tell me more about Azura."

Instead of "What's Alteration magic", let me say, "I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on Alteration magic."

Instead of "What's this weird fleshy starfish on my arm", let me say, "My hand looks so weird right now." (Okay, maybe don't use that last one.)

While there is something to be said about having smart dialogue choices (I loved the custom dialogue for Khajiit in the Ashen Scar questline), obviously that isn't always practical for many reasons. Just phrasing questions so that they're background-agnostic would go a far way here, though.

And while you're at it, can you tell me more about Superman?

TL;DR: Please phrase character dialogue in a way that doesn't assume they're completely ignorant of the world they grew up in, e.g. "Who's Azura?" -> "Tell me about Azura."

faeeichenlaub

"Tell me all your thoughts on God, cuz I really want to meet her!"

I agree though such nuanced conversation could use work.
I generally do like when the option of "Who are you again?"
Cuz yeah// Sometime 5 years of in game senility really does set in.

Thevampirenight

Shes a Daedric Prince.
I would look up the lore on google. Uesp is a good choice. Here is the lore on Daedric princes and A link to Azuras Lore page. There are also books and Dialog in game that talks about her and what she is.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Daedric_Princes
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Azura
Also linking the page on the Aedra so you can learn about them as well.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Aedra

Basically elder scrolls reality is unique. Daedric Princes didn't give up to much to create the world as they didn't really get involved while the Aedra sacrificed their ability to reform after death to make Mundus.
There are sixteen princes which becomes officially seventeen after the Events of Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion which happens in the far future.
Its believed by mortals in Elder Scrolls Daedra are unable to create and Aedra can create but Aedra are stasis and Daedra are Change.
Many mortals in the Elder Scrolls's reality believe the Daedric Princes to be Evil and the Aedra good but in reality they are more above such concepts since the princes are above good and evil. Since they are the spheres they inhabit. Even the most evil of Princes like Molag Bal can be placed in this category. While some like Princes like Azura are considered to be more good.

faeeichenlaub

Did you read OPs post? Dunmer knows the lady of dusk and Dawn

ArchangelIsraphel

A very well thought out post. For some reason this annoys me far more on my Dunmer character than any other character. The text should give dialogue choices that make you feel as though your character has grown up entrenched in knowledge of their own society rather than making you feel as though you are an outsider visiting for the very first time.

Although some people do choose to RP their characters as though they did not grow up within their native culture (for instance, my bosmer doesn't identify with his own culture, although he is aware of it) the subtle rewording is unobtrusive enough to allow for whatever the player would like to imagine.

Thevampirenight

faeeichenlaub wrote: »

Did you read OPs post? Dunmer knows the lady of dusk and Dawn

Ah I should have read it better my bad sorry about that. I see what your saying and well I got it mixed up as if he didn't know anything about the Lore.

tomofhyrule

I've always taken the player dialogue as more of a suggestion, to be honest. When I play, I'm the kind of guy who will say my dialogue out loud, and I'll usually change it up a bit depending on what the character should/should not know. I've also been writing my character's story, and while I'll take a lot of the NPC dialogue directly, I'm changing the player dialogue 95% of the time.

...which backfires sometimes when I see something like "Who is Azura?" and I headcanon that into "What does Azura have to do with this?" or something, and then the NPC flat out tells me who she is, and then the next screen is a "what does she have to do with this?" or whatever. Oops. At least sometimes it works.

Then again, that shows the failing of the Fallout 4-style voicing: you get a snippet of a line, which may or may not be what you want ([SARCASTIC] having a 50/50 chance of being a friendly joke or a flat out insult).

GenjiraX

Thevampirenight wrote: »

faeeichenlaub wrote: »

Did you read OPs post? Dunmer knows the lady of dusk and Dawn

Ah I should have read it better my bad sorry about that. I see what your saying and well I got it mixed up as if he didn't know anything about the Lore.

Yes but thanks. Xbox Live is down and there's too much game to play for me to get into Lore properly, so yours was a serendipitous post and I'm enjoying reading about these things during the current downtime. I have some books (Tales of Tamriel and Skyrim books) but I haven't got round to opening them. Any other suggestions?

=============

I take my characters' ignorance of their own cultures and history, and indeed of tasks they completed mere minutes earlier, just as a convenience of gameplay so it doesn't bother me too much.

MartiniDaniels

I sleep... I am not here.. I see wastelands covered by red sand storm... and voice of middle-aged woman.. "Fear not, for I am watching"..
I am child of Morrowind and Azura is mother of Morrowind, so I perceive her as grandmother I inherited those red eyes from her.. actions. Somebody calls Almalexia a goddess? don't make me laugh, she is just power-hungry traitorous sorceress. It is Azura who created a vast amount of what we call The Elder Scrolls, and she appeared as an art of those people who... who no longer work at Bethesda or at least they don't work in ZOS.

Don't get me wrong, I like NEW lore created by ZOS team... but staple things like Azura.. they all remained there, in single player games and they'll never can be recreated in ESO. Simply because every writer or artist has his own style, his own life experience which he put into his work.. and completely another team can't continue that work seamlessly.

P.S. answers in this thread just shows why it is written that way, i.e. "Who is Azura?". Because L2R issue is what those writers are experiencing in their work. Because they know that 90% of players won't read/listen those dialogue lines and just skip them. Because even editors won't read them fully either and somebody will just check them for grammatics/morals and won't care about actual content. Because ZOS didn't have time... if you look at Skyrim, you can see that EVERY NPC has some personality, his behavior and speech is determined by his work, race, position in society... Whiterun is masterpiece because from the moment you step into, every NPC makes sense and adds to immersion. But there are only few cities in Skyrim, it was created by team who was working of TES for decades, and it took almost 5 years in production. Now ESO has dozens of cities even in original zones... it is MMO... ESO team doesn't have that deep connection to enormous lore.. and something tells me that when ESO was created ZOS was treated like secondary team, so you may guess how this dialogue lines were created. I bet there are few TES enthusiasts who are tasked with multiple things like lore consistency for everything - graphics, music, story, books etc.. and there are rotating stuff of writers who just create dialogues without knowledge of all universe.

TL;DR - NPC ask "Who is Azura" because writer who created this dialogue doesn't know it himself.

opaj

@faeeichenlaub - I definitely agree with that. Especially when they bring back a character who appeared in a single off-the-path side quest in the base game and they greet you like an old friend. "Who are you again?" is a totally fair question to ask.

@Thevampirenight - Ah, I really could have chosen a clearer thread title. Sorry for the confusion!

@ArchangelIsraphel - And that's my goal: write PC dialogue that can apply broadly to any background a player is likely to have chosen for their character.

@tomofhyrule - I actually do the exact same thing, but so often the NPC response doesn't match my new phrasing. Or worse, I change my phrasing to "Tell me about Azura" and the NPC replies with "You don't know who Azura is? What are you, some kind of moron?"

It makes it difficult to play a scholar who's hungry for knowledge.


@MartiniDaniels - Respectfully, I can't really agree with all of your points (in the PS section). Changing the phrasing of player dialogue (and adjusting the tone of the response, but not the content) will still allow mildly interested players to learn lore and won't impact the ones who don't care at all. And even if writers come and go--this is true at any company, Bethesda included--the fact that ZOS has a dedicated lore master like Leamon Tuttle speaks to their respect for the Elder Scrolls setting.

Everstorm

It would be impossible to have conversation options that are suitable for every conceivable fictional character background. I fully understand where you're coming from, I've been there as well but I see no easy fix for this.

MudcrabAttack

I'm willing to bet the receptionist at this hotel in Turkey is asked "Who is Azura?" all the time



A typical person in eastern Europe probably has little to no knowledge of any daedric prince. Perhaps the same could be true of the average citizen of Tamriel who is supposed to be all about that Aedric pantheon. All information about the daedra is just taboo to them.

But we don't play an average citizen, we play murder hobos who make deals with daedra like it's just a routine part of the day.

cyclonus11

Me, an Argonian: "What is the Hist?"

Are you *** kidding me?

Danikat

This topic reminds me of when I first started playing Morrowind (my first TES game). I had no idea about any of the lore or what anyone was talking about. For example for a long time I thought the good daedra and the divines were the same thing, but the Imperial Cult or whatever they called it was something different.

Fortunately I was playing a khajiit so asking about all this didn't seem too jarring because they were a foreigner too.

But in general I agree it would be nice if the questions could be worded more like your character is asking for clarification and less like they have no clue what the other person is talking about. More options which change based on your race, class, guild membership etc. would be amazing too.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Then again, that shows the failing of the Fallout 4-style voicing: you get a snippet of a line, which may or may not be what you want ([SARCASTIC] having a 50/50 chance of being a friendly joke or a flat out insult).

That's what initially put me off playing Mass Effect. There was nothing to tell you that the top option is always the nice one, the middle one is neutral and the bottom is rude or aggressive and the short versions you select are always fairly neutral wording so it kept throwing me off when I'd pick something I thought was non-committal and positive like "As long as everyone does their job we'll be fine" and my character snapped out "That's none of your business, all of you just do as you're told if you want to live through this!" Three or four dialogue options like that and I felt like this game wouldn't actually let me make choices for my character and stopped playing it until a friend explained how the system worked. Even then it felt like a gamble every time I picked something which wasn't an obvious compliment.

Hapexamendios

https://youtu.be/oJTpL__5rJ4

faeeichenlaub

I need one of those Hotel Azura statues IRL

Elsonso

opaj wrote: »

Then Don't Click on Those Options, Dummy!

First off, rude.

Second off, even if my character doesn't need that information, I might! I want to learn more about the lore, and even if I know all about Azura, maybe I don't know what this specific order believes about her.

Third off, sometimes I don't get a choice. Take, for example, a dialogue with Eveli Sharp-Arrow early in the Orsinium main quest: she makes an off-hand remark about Inspector Vale, and you have to ask her who Inspector Vale is before you can continue the quest. Here's the rub: this happened to me immediately after reading my first Inspector Vale story, but I still had to act like my character was suffering from horrendous short-term memory loss.

A Question of Wording: Rewording the Question

Instead of "Who is Azura", let me say, "Tell me more about Azura."

Rude or not, the answer should be that you don't click on it when you don't want that information. It is there for game play reasons, so that players who are unfamiliar with the game can pick up lore, or RPG players who know their character does not know the answer can pretend to learn. I generally just don't click on it, unless I have to, because when it is optional, I know this and realize the question does not apply to me.

But, yeah, they could change it to "Tell me more..." and it would be the same, just worded differently.

Kendaric

Elsonso wrote: »

Rude or not, the answer should be that you don't click on it when you don't want that information. It is there for game play reasons, so that players who are unfamiliar with the game can pick up lore, or RPG players who know their character does not know the answer can pretend to learn. I generally just don't click on it, unless I have to, because when it is optional, I know this and realize the question does not apply to me.

You're often not given the choice and have to take that answer to progress dialog/the quest and that's the problem. A more neutral wording would definitely help.

Bradyfjord

Personally I'd like to have persuasion/intimate options to cut through the monologues. Sometimes a fetch quest is just a fetch quest.

xxthir13enxx

MudcrabAttack wrote: »

I'm willing to bet the receptionist at this hotel in Turkey is asked "Who is Azura?" all the time



A typical person in eastern Europe probably has little to no knowledge of any daedric prince. Perhaps the same could be true of the average citizen of Tamriel who is supposed to be all about that Aedric pantheon. All information about the daedra is just taboo to them.

But we don't play an average citizen, we play murder hobos who make deals with daedra like it's just a routine part of the day.

Not gunna lie...
After finding out that this Indeed a Hotel...
I’m wondering
Who Is Azura!?!?

Syldras

@xxthir13enxx It really depends on who you're asking.

opaj

Everstorm wrote: »

It would be impossible to have conversation options that are suitable for every conceivable fictional character background. I fully understand where you're coming from, I've been there as well but I see no easy fix for this.

@Everstorm - I agree completely that it wouldn't be possible to have unique conversation options for every conceivable (or even likely) background. Fortunately, that's not what I'm asking for!

I'd just like lore/exposition dialogue options to be rephrased so they don't assign the character background of "ignoramus" to my character.


@MudcrabAttack - I've always wondered what inspired that hotel to adopt such a theme. Funny thing!

Anyway, I don't think your average "murder hobo" player will care how these dialogue options are phrased one way or the other. Those few of us who are playing characters with passing familiarity of the world they live in might appreciate the direction I'm proposing, however.

As for how familiar the average denizen of Tamriel is with Azura specifically--while she's no Aedra, I think @Hapexamendios 's video illustrates that most people will at least have heard the name, in the same way that TES V's Nords still swear by Shor's name even if they've adopted the Alessian pantheon.

Elsonso wrote: »

Rude or not, the answer should be that you don't click on it when you don't want that information. It is there for game play reasons, so that players who are unfamiliar with the game can pick up lore, or RPG players who know their character does not know the answer can pretend to learn. I generally just don't click on it, unless I have to, because when it is optional, I know this and realize the question does not apply to me.

But, yeah, they could change it to "Tell me more..." and it would be the same, just worded differently.

@Elsonso - "Rude" was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. My apologies for any confusion there.

I'm not sure that we actually disagree about any of this, since your second paragraph concludes that my change would be harmless from an information-gathering perspective. But here's why this is a problem for me: because I love this game's lore, I almost always want to click on those dialogue options, because there's always the chance I'll learn something new... even if the topic is a well-known deity like Azura. At the same time, because I'm so invested in the story and characters that Zenimax has created, I don't want my character to be treated like an utter fool by those very characters just because of my ignorance.

My Khajiit would already know about the Sands-beyond-the-Stars. My Orc would already know about the Ashen Forge. However, I'd never heard about either of these before I encountered them in ESO, so I still clicked on those dialogue options, fully realizing that my characters would never actually say such a thing. I think I could stomach making these two characters ask such basic questions as "What are the Sands-beyond-the-Stars" and "What is the Ashen Forge" if the NPCs simply gave direct answers without injecting their opinions on my characters' intelligence along the way, but when an NPC actively points out that my character is stupid for asking such a basic question... It kind of tears me out of the narrative, you know?

And, as @Kendaric pointed out, sometimes you're forced to select these dialogue options in order to advance a quest.

(By the way, I'm not really like... trying to argue with you here or anything, since it sounds like we don't really have a fundamental conflict of opinion. I'm just trying to explain why the current approach to these dialogue options bother me, partially in hopes of getting ZOS's attention, and partially in hopes of finding others who share in my conundrum.)


@Bradyfjord - I prefer when Intimidate and Persuade are used to simply skip a step in a fetch quest, but to each their own. If the writers are going to include an option to skip over the monologue, it should be a standard option, without an intimidate/persuasion check at all, in my opinion.

TheShadowScout

opaj wrote: »

"What's this weird fleshy starfish on my arm"

Do not ask which creature screams in the night. Do not question who waits for you in the shadow.

All Hail The Changer Of Ways!!!

opaj wrote: »

So, what do I want ZOS to do about it? Not much. Just... rephrase the questions, please!

Yeah, I get what you are saying, and i wish they would do exactly that. Small rephrasings would make it a lot more immersive, there are more then enough ways to formulate a query to fit both the informed asing for an NPCs opinion and the uninformed asking for basic details...

faeeichenlaub

Speaking of Azura the book modern Heritics speaks of a shrine to Azura in Cyrodiil. Spent the night looking for it based on the directions in the lore book, but had no luck. I guess there is one in Oblivion. Anyone know if it exists in ESO?

Best I got was some Hermaous Mora flags up by White Fall Mountains.

A Missed opportunity for questers if not.

Jackey

Good post OP, I completely agree.
Someone at ZOS should look into some of those dialogue options.

The_Drop_Bear

opaj wrote: »

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers and references to spoilers for Orsinium, Thieves Guild, Morrowind, and Elsweyr. All criticism should be taken as an expression of love, as I totally adore the writing in this game.

The following is an open letter to the ZOS writing team.

Introduction

Imagine that you are a typical young adult living in the United States and/or Canada. You don't know much about comic books, but you've been curious about them for a while, so you decide to go to a little meet-and-greet happening at the local comic book shop. You overhear some of the guests talking about Superman, the iconic superhero who you admittedly know little about. So you ask the obvious question:

"Who is Superman?"

Wait, of course you don't ask that. Even if you know almost nothing about the Man of Steel, it's a household name in English-speaking culture. You might ask "What's the deal with Superman?" or "What can you tell me about Superman?" or "Where should I start if I want to get into Superman?", but if you asked "Who is Superman?", they'd look at you like you'd grown a fourth head.

So why is my character always asking questions like "Who is Azura?"


But Really, Who Is Azura?

Elder Scrolls lore is a rich tapestry made up of countless cultures, religions, and historical figures, and it's reasonable to assume that no player knows it all. The average player probably knows very little of it, considering that there's enough to remember about our own world.

It's reasonable, then, that when you ESO doesn't expect you to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the lore. When you meet a priestess of Azura, you'll usually get to ask her about the Daedric Prince. The first Tribunal acolyte you meet in the Morrowind main quest is happy to bring you up to date on Vivec and the Great Houses. This is all well and good, and I appreciate hearing all of this dialogue!

But when I'm already playing a Dark Elf from Morrowind, it pulls me out of character when I stare at this acolyte, slack-jawed, and ask him, "Uh, who's Vivec?" When my character is supposed to be a Khajiit adept, I don't want her asking her fellow adepts, "What are the Sands-Behind-the-Stars?" And no matter who my character is, unless she was born under a rock, I don't want her uttering a question like, "Who is Azura?"


Then Don't Click on Those Options, Dummy!

First off, rude.

Second off, even if my character doesn't need that information, I might! I want to learn more about the lore, and even if I know all about Azura, maybe I don't know what this specific order believes about her.

Third off, sometimes I don't get a choice. Take, for example, a dialogue with Eveli Sharp-Arrow early in the Orsinium main quest: she makes an off-hand remark about Inspector Vale, and you have to ask her who Inspector Vale is before you can continue the quest. Here's the rub: this happened to me immediately after reading my first Inspector Vale story, but I still had to act like my character was suffering from horrendous short-term memory loss.


Pass the Idiot Ball

There's an added wrinkle to this issue. Sometimes, I swallow my pride and click on these kinds of questions, only to have the NPC berate me for my stupidity. Abnur Tharn likes to do this when I ask for a recap.

I don't mind NPCs being crotchety and picking on me. Heck, when they criticizes my crude approach to combat or brush me off for my comparative insignificance, I applaud them. I do mind being presented with dialogue options that are blatantly game-y, then getting insulted for choosing them. Yes, Abnur Tharn, I guess I did get boxed in the head too many times when I was fighting those necromancers! How else can I explain needing information that my character would naturally already have?

My point here is that the NPC's reaction is shining a spotlight on the weirdness of the question. If a question only makes sense if your character grew up under a rock, and the NPCs recognize it as such, why is it being included as an option? It places me in a position of having to choose between getting more juicy lore and having a character who isn't a complete fool.


A Question of Wording: Rewording the Question

So, what do I want ZOS to do about it? Not much. Just... rephrase the questions, please!

Instead of "Who is Azura", let me say, "Tell me more about Azura."

Instead of "What's Alteration magic", let me say, "I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on Alteration magic."

Instead of "What's this weird fleshy starfish on my arm", let me say, "My hand looks so weird right now." (Okay, maybe don't use that last one.)

While there is something to be said about having smart dialogue choices (I loved the custom dialogue for Khajiit in the Ashen Scar questline), obviously that isn't always practical for many reasons. Just phrasing questions so that they're background-agnostic would go a far way here, though.

And while you're at it, can you tell me more about Superman?

TL;DR: Please phrase character dialogue in a way that doesn't assume they're completely ignorant of the world they grew up in, e.g. "Who's Azura?" -> "Tell me about Azura."

Exactly this. My first elder Scrolls game was Skyrim and I didn't notice it at first, but in following playthroughs it started to be bother me, then when I played oblivion the same thing. Even when I dabbled with morrowind (couldn't get far as I found the mechanics too frustrating) it was the same. When In all these games are out characters brain dead and not know a single thing about the world around them.

And in ESO it's worse since there are so many basic acoyltes who can all give you the same info, and it's like why would my character keep asking this.

They really need to reword it like you suggested.

I would also like in future dlc and games that when our character interacts with a daedric prince that we haven't met before there is an option to state who they are rather than ask who are you.

parpin

it was worse when you character is asking who is silvenar or green lady from different npcs , i obviously did not choose option beyond first time, but the fact that the option of asking about silvenar and green lady is available from different npcs through out first part of aldmeri dominion is bothering me, it feels like writers of ZOS think that players of this game are suffering from short time memory lost, so they put that question about them in different npcs, specially if you are wood elf and asking that question feels really stupid the first time itself, now imagine the question is coming up over and over again, too much budget and voice acting wasted to tell same thing. i hope the conversation with npcs will get much better in upcoming skyrim.

Coppes

Other related options:

Bretons asking what the Direnni Order was.
Orcs with the Ashen Forge.
Redguards with Yokuda, Ra Gada, Far Shores.
Wood Elves with Silvenar, Green Lady (come on, that’s like not knowing what the president is while being American).
Argonians with the Hist
Dunmer with the Tribunal

MaleAmazon

Agree. I have learned to deal with it by tuning out. Really, only way for me to roleplay the slightest.

It is a major problem that the game is voiced though, since that makes it harder to change and harder to add more options (I assume voice actors get paid in pennies or biscuits per word or something).

Here are my gripes when playing, and why it is often bad writing:

-Constantly being called "vestige". First off it is just a dumb decision to dump players into the latest DLC and then act like the original intro happpened, only to have it actually happen once you manually start the MQ. Dumb. It frequently skips story - some story skipping might be unavoidable, but for crying out loud don´t deliberately misplace new characters! Also, the writing should have been better in the vanilla MQ. Simply having the companions call the player character 'our friend', 'our newest ally', or 'our most esteemed and valued ally who singlehandedly does all the work for us' would have been better. Or skip the pronoun altogether. "The vestige yada yada". Cringe.

-Consistently being forced to say obsequious lines. Dialogue with Queen Ayrenn is especially egregious when it comes to this. "Yes my queen". Something, trust me, my character would not say. It´s what people say to me.

-Nicolene being angry at me, then mending things in Rivenspire, then she´s mad again (if you destroy the relic which is the only sane choice). Fix this please. The crew of the Spearhead are some of the few characters I actually care about, and it´s been years now. Also, it makes no sense that Kaleen is super mad but says she´ll take you out of respect for chief Tazgol (IIRC). Tazgol, meanwhile, commends you for destroying the relic. So, weird.

Let Finedrin out while you´re at it.

SpaceElf

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

A very well thought out post. For some reason this annoys me far more on my Dunmer character than any other character. The text should give dialogue choices that make you feel as though your character has grown up entrenched in knowledge of their own society rather than making you feel as though you are an outsider visiting for the very first time.

Although some people do choose to RP their characters as though they did not grow up within their native culture (for instance, my bosmer doesn't identify with his own culture, although he is aware of it) the subtle rewording is unobtrusive enough to allow for whatever the player would like to imagine.

Right? I know the Altmer are jerks about this kind of thing as a cultural trait, but I love it when some snobby kinlady calls me an "Outsider" despite my seriously hawt High Elf features and being born on the Isles (In my head). WTF does SHE know?

opaj

The_Drop_Bear wrote: »

And in ESO it's worse since there are so many basic acoyltes who can all give you the same info, and it's like why would my character keep asking this.

@The_Drop_Bear (& @parpin , too) - I can actually kind of speak to this one, since I've been noticing it in Elsweyr. I'll keep having the opportunity to ask the same question over and over again in different places and different times... but a lot of these cases are optional, so it's entirely possible to completely miss it the first time around. Adding in that kind of redundancy is useful for players who are interested in lore/story but don't want to go over every dialogue option with a fine-tooth comb.

That said, I still stand by the recommendation of rephrasing the questions so that the player character doesn't seem like they're from another planet.

MaleAmazon wrote: »

-Constantly being called "vestige". First off it is just a dumb decision to dump players into the latest DLC and then act like the original intro happpened, only to have it actually happen once you manually start the MQ. Dumb. It frequently skips story - some story skipping might be unavoidable, but for crying out loud don´t deliberately misplace new characters! Also, the writing should have been better in the vanilla MQ. Simply having the companions call the player character 'our friend', 'our newest ally', or 'our most esteemed and valued ally who singlehandedly does all the work for us' would have been better. Or skip the pronoun altogether. "The vestige yada yada". Cringe.

@MaleAmazon - To be fair, at launch, you couldn't quest as anyone but the Vestige, and titles like that are helpful when you can't call the player character by name. It's a shame that the base game was written with a linear experience in mind, because a lot of the writing even from launch was really quite good -- but most of the narrative experience gets shattered by the go-wherever-whenever approach of One Tamriel.

There's an irony in the way I've played this game. Before One Tamriel, I was constantly trying to find ways to play things out of order to give myself a greater sense of freedom. After One Tamriel, I've been strict with myself about playing story elements in the original order so as to maintain the original level of story consistency. Of course, my new characters tend to avoid the vanilla content altogether, though I do wish the game wouldn't stick me with that first undroppable main quest...

MaleAmazon wrote: »

-Consistently being forced to say obsequious lines. Dialogue with Queen Ayrenn is especially egregious when it comes to this. "Yes my queen". Something, trust me, my character would not say. It´s what people say to me.

Heheh. That bugged me a little bit early on, but it's usually inconsequential enough that I can pretend that my character didn't say it. After all, the NPCs don't usually call out the fact that you're being so formal or subservient.

MaleAmazon wrote: »

Let Finedrin out while you´re at it.

I'll let Finedrin out when he shows that he's learned his lesson.

SpaceElf wrote: »

Right? I know the Altmer are jerks about this kind of thing as a cultural trait, but I love it when some snobby kinlady calls me an "Outsider" despite my seriously hawt High Elf features and being born on the Isles (In my head). WTF does SHE know?

@SpaceElf - This is a tradition dating back to TES III, when NPCs would call you "Outlander" even if you were a Dunmer. The developer explanation is that your Dunmer was born and raised in a different province, and the natives could pick up on your accent.

Annoying, but okay, I guess. The problem comes when you have a game that slowly adds more and more of the land. Eventually, we'll have all of Tamriel, with every NPC treating you as a visitor and an outsider. At that point, where will your character have come from? Maybe they really are from another planet, after all.