is there a NARRATIVE way to start the blackwood main quest?

Arato

Like, a roleplay narrative way to start the main quest or go to blackwood at all.
usually there's a breadcrumbs quest that starts in one of yhe main hub cities that leads you to the new zone. I didn't see anything in Vulkhel Guard or Eldenroot
I'd prefer this to just.. porting into the new zone (why would my character go there he has not business there yet) or using the collections quest starter which is generic.
I even tried going to Eveli's brother's camp outside Elden Root from the prologue but it's empty.

Clyde_BlueSnake

For me I've been looking for a narrative, a manual way to go to Blackwood in the EP region, didn't saw a quest giver, but notice they added a wagon to travel there like they did for Western Skyrim, like in Deshaan near the Mastercraft Exchange. So it's like the Western Skyrim/Greymoor story, to do a roleplay/manual way of traveling there you'll have to go by wagon/caravan.

lethality_ESO

I too would like a quest starter character to do this properly... I'm pretty sure the prologue Eveli said she would "send word" from Leyawin (sp)... so, where do I hear from her?

Saucy_Jack

"Once upon a time, there was a nefarious plot afoot in the lands of Blackwood. Our intrepid hero[ine] ventured there to see what they could to help...."

There ya go; one made-to-order narrative to kick off the Blackwood questline. Enjoy!

Arato

nah that's not what I mean.
like for Orsinium, and all the other chapters there's a quest starting NPC

lethality_ESO

Saucy_Jack wrote: »

"Once upon a time, there was a nefarious plot afoot in the lands of Blackwood. Our intrepid hero[ine] ventured there to see what they could to help...."

There ya go; one made-to-order narrative to kick off the Blackwood questline. Enjoy!

[snip] I have NPCs running in my face yelling at me for every other storyline that I haven't started.

Makes no sense they are now phoning it in.

[edited for bashing]

Arato

It just feels more organic than "oh there's a new zone on the map"

Crazyprophet

lethality_ESO wrote: »

I too would like a quest starter character to do this properly... I'm pretty sure the prologue Eveli said she would "send word" from Leyawin (sp)... so, where do I hear from her?

Easy. You don't hear anything from her. You get worried and decide to travel to Leyawiin yourself, see how she's going.

Done. Narrative way to Blackwood.

tomofhyrule

Not gonna lie - as much as I like things story-driven, the last thing we need is another NPC standing around in every city with:

"Do you know how long I've been looking for you? There are Oblivion Portals, in my own homeland! What am I going to do?"

I'll take the narrative hit to not have to hear that every five seconds.

colossalvoids

Best you can do is to accept the quest from the collection menu as it probably makes it like you've received a letter again. Can abandon it if there's some issue.

I personally crossed the border in shadowfen and made my way through couple of quests there to meet a cart with a "helper of a main quest giver" looking for help so it was pretty much organic way. Just pretend you visited that region cause xyz, like all of tamriel is opened to your character and it's not there only for you irl, shouldn't be a problem to justify visiting a new place because some business or just as a traveler.

Clyde_BlueSnake

^To add of borders, while traveling through Blackwood I found a border to Northern Elsweyr, in Northern Elsweyr it's SE of Rimmen:


So, there's about three travel ways without taking the wayshrine.

Arato

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Not gonna lie - as much as I like things story-driven, the last thing we need is another NPC standing around in every city with:

"Do you know how long I've been looking for you? There are Oblivion Portals, in my own homeland! What am I going to do?"

I'll take the narrative hit to not have to hear that every five seconds.

That's true but, it just feels less contrived than just "I went into a menu and clicked accept quest" if there's an NPC interaction or letter from a character you know. The collection quest ... isn't even like, a letter from Eveli or something that'd make sense for you to go it's just "click here to start quest" not even an attempt at making it story driven.

Aertew

Arato wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Not gonna lie - as much as I like things story-driven, the last thing we need is another NPC standing around in every city with:

"Do you know how long I've been looking for you? There are Oblivion Portals, in my own homeland! What am I going to do?"

I'll take the narrative hit to not have to hear that every five seconds.

That's true but, it just feels less contrived than just "I went into a menu and clicked accept quest" if there's an NPC interaction or letter from a character you know. The collection quest ... isn't even like, a letter from Eveli or something that'd make sense for you to go it's just "click here to start quest" not even an attempt at making it story driven.

Eveli did say that she would expect to see you in Blackwood. Also you can just take a boat there or wayshrine travel. There should be a NPC waiting there.

anitajoneb17_ESO

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Not gonna lie - as much as I like things story-driven, the last thing we need is another NPC standing around in every city with:

"Do you know how long I've been looking for you? There are Oblivion Portals, in my own homeland! What am I going to do?"

I'll take the narrative hit to not have to hear that every five seconds.

This is the true reason, I'm afraid, and it's a valid reason.
If you have only one character and play everything along the way, you're clean, but if you start a new character you end up with half a dozen quest NPCs chasing you at every wayshrine and main city, it was getting clearly too much.

I, too, refused to take the quest voucher from the crown store, instead I noticed a new cart in Grahtwood and took it. Like "oh, a new airline to a new country, let's have a look". Roleplay-wise, it sounded quite reasonable, or at least reasonable enough to me.

Danikat

I think there can be a balance between literally nothing and an NPC in an already crowded area shouting at you to accept the quest.

In this case a simple solution would be if you've done the prologue quest you then get a mail from Eveli telling you to come to Blackwood and meet her. (There wouldn't even be the problem of getting the 'follow up' mail immediately, because mail doesn't arrive until you go through a loading screen anyway.)

Or keep the NPC but put them somewhere other than the starter city (the ones for Craglorn are in Wayrest, Elden Root and Mournhold I think) and keep them quiet until you approach.

ADarklore

Or perhaps, since Blackwood has launched, if you do the intro quest now, it just continues and adds another quest automatically to meet Eveli.

Ippokrates

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Not gonna lie - as much as I like things story-driven, the last thing we need is another NPC standing around in every city with:

"Do you know how long I've been looking for you? There are Oblivion Portals, in my own homeland! What am I going to do?"

I'll take the narrative hit to not have to hear that every five seconds.

I thought exactly the same quote ^^

Arato

Danikat wrote: »

I think there can be a balance between literally nothing and an NPC in an already crowded area shouting at you to accept the quest.

In this case a simple solution would be if you've done the prologue quest you then get a mail from Eveli telling you to come to Blackwood and meet her. (There wouldn't even be the problem of getting the 'follow up' mail immediately, because mail doesn't arrive until you go through a loading screen anyway.)

Or keep the NPC but put them somewhere other than the starter city (the ones for Craglorn are in Wayrest, Elden Root and Mournhold I think) and keep them quiet until you approach.

Guild Wars 2 does this, it works pretty well. You log in and there's new story content for you to do you get a mail from a character you know like one of the main story characters (in ESO's case it'd be a letter from Eveli).
I get now that if you JUST did the prologue after this dropped it'd make sense but if you did it months ago, you don't remember that it actually leads up to Leyawiin. So as far as your character is concerned... they haven't heard from Eveli so there's no particular reason to go to Leyawiin.

lethality_ESO

Danikat wrote: »

I think there can be a balance between literally nothing and an NPC in an already crowded area shouting at you to accept the quest.

In this case a simple solution would be if you've done the prologue quest you then get a mail from Eveli telling you to come to Blackwood and meet her. (There wouldn't even be the problem of getting the 'follow up' mail immediately, because mail doesn't arrive until you go through a loading screen anyway.)

Or keep the NPC but put them somewhere other than the starter city (the ones for Craglorn are in Wayrest, Elden Root and Mournhold I think) and keep them quiet until you approach.

Yep, I mean WoW has done this basic thing since day 1.

And to all those saying that another NPC flagging you down is a problem... why are you even here? This is what Elder Scrolls is about, it's why they take the time like no other MMO to voice all of the dialogue.

anitajoneb17_ESO

lethality_ESO wrote: »

And to all those saying that another NPC flagging you down is a problem... why are you even here? This is what Elder Scrolls is about, it's why they take the time like no other MMO to voice all of the dialogue.

You know nothing, Jon Snow. Especially not Stuga.

Enodoc

Arato wrote: »

nah that's not what I mean.
like for Orsinium, and all the other chapters there's a quest starting NPC

Pretty sure none of the Chapters have a quest-starting NPC in a base-game city.

The Prologue quests all appear in a base-game city somewhere, so the real problem is that there is no connection between the Prologue quests and the chapter content, despite that being the logical place to make a connection.

ThisOnePosts

If you take the quest from the Collections menu, it will lead you to the center of the City.

You can enter from other zones as well.

If you enter through North Elsweyr, head towards the nearest Wayshrine (East) and then head South towards a skyshard & you will stumble upon an NPC with the main quest (image below, showing the quest marker for the main quest above his head):

wishlist14

I've had 3 different npc quest starter npc scouts stalking me by a wayshrine 😭😭😭😭😅😅😅