Orsinium: The Forgotten DLC

Reverb

Orsinium was ESO’s second DLC, released in late 2015 just a few months after Imperial City. With a large map, 2 public dungeons, 6 world bosses, a solo arena, and a bunch of daily quests, it would have been a Chapter if Zeni had implemented that model by then. Instead it’s the largest and most complex DLC zone, and is largely forgotten and abandoned. It deserves better.

Because it’s a DLC and not a chapter, it doesn’t get included in new expansion pack purchases like all of the previous chapters do. Because it’s so large, it’s the most expensive standalone DLC to buy with crowns. All while Imperial City and Morrowind have been made free for all players, and the Murkmire, Deadlands, and Firesong DLCs were given to qualifying players for free. I say again, Orsinium deserves better.

I went there yesterday because it’s always been a favorite place to do boss dailies. All 6 can be done quickly with a group, and the motifs have a good drop rate. To my sadness there was nobody there. I rode from end to end and didn’t see a single other player, during prime time on a Saturday. A shoutout in zone revealed a few other players who said the never see anyone else there.

It’s such a rich map, with places never seen in a TES game, it’s got great story, good characters, and decent drops. But no players.

I’d love to see Zeni follow precedent and make this 8 year old zone free to everyone, to get new players in there. Or something else to make it alive again.

ArchMikem

Things get lost to time, and Wrothgar is quite old content now. ZOS is always emphasizing the new shiny to players, and there's been a lot of new lands since then, buy you're right, I should visit again, it's been a hot minute.

endgamesmug

Old orsinium was great for cp grind at one point, ive always enjoyed redoing the content in that zone. Also briarheart is still decent in my opinion, i still use it on various characters. If new players ive recently run into are anything to go by, they dont care about any content except for what will get them into raiding. Theyll give you a list of setups that they shouldnt deviate from yet they wont be able to fight their way out of a paper bag or stay alive in any normal content 😆

Dracan_Fontom

In my opinion, Orsinium remains the pinnacle of what a chapter/expansion should offer. It has by far the best standalone zone story. It beats even year long stories in its writing too in my opinion. A shame another zone like it won't be seen probably.

CE_Nex

In my opinion, Orsinium is the best DLC ESO has ever released. Phenomenal story writing, lots of great motifs, strong but balanced sets, rich expansion of orismer culture as more than just cartoonish brutes, fun solo content that was also challenging for endgamers in the form of Maelstrom Arena, an absolutely gorgeously designed overland and zone. And it's also when Lawrence Schick did the Fa-Nuit-Hen interviews, hugely expanding metaphyscial lore of TES.

Orsinium is the apex of ESO content.

SeaGtGruff

I don't know whether it will ever be given away for free like Morrowind, but one idea that might help would be if they included it with all of the older chapters in the Collection editions of the new chapters. That way new players who are starting out with the latest Collection edition that includes the base game, the newest chapter, and all of the older chapters will also be able to enjoy the Orsinium DLC without having to purchase it separately in the Crown Store.

Kendaric

Orsinium/Wrothgar is a zone I still visit frequently.

The writing is definitely very good and should be the standard to which chapter writing should aspire.

Udrath

I’m sure everyone knew about it… Struga made sure lol

Rowjoh

Sadly, there are no sets that are BIS. Sure, Briarheart is decent but its def not BIS and hasn't been for some time.

Not sure why Wrothgar, (and one or two other areas too) that were once vibrant, engaging and popular, haven't been refreshed in some way ?

whether that is updating the old and mainly redundant sets, adding a new mythic or two, new motifs, furnishings etc. or simply improving general rewards and loot...

Just something that would bring this amazing area back to life a bit.

FrancisCrawford

Dracan_Fontom wrote: »

In my opinion, Orsinium remains the pinnacle of what a chapter/expansion should offer. It has by far the best standalone zone story. It beats even year long stories in its writing too in my opinion. A shame another zone like it won't be seen probably.

Unfortunately the story drags a bit in the middle, when you go out to befriend various clans by doing dumb quests for them. But before and after that, it's awesome.

For me, the pinnacle of regional quest-writing is Rivenspire. But Orsinium -- which is after all slightly based on Rivenspire -- is a worthy contender for second place.

Freelancer_ESO

I think they'd have to do something about Stuga if they made it free.

Part of the reason I never bought the DLC was to avoid dealing with her on my characters.

MrGarlic

I just bought the collection pack (on special) so I can start again on a new account and was a bit disappointed that Orsinium isn't included, whereas all the other expansions are..

Wrothgar is awesome. It would be hard to create content of that quality a second time. (Here's a card game.........)

Destai

I think other than Summerset, there’s nothing better in terms of DLC. Elsweyr and Vvardenfell both had a lot to offer, but Orsinium is just so good.

Jhava

Udrath wrote: »

I’m sure everyone knew about it… Struga made sure lol

Who ??

Supreme_Atromancer

+1 I think the Wrothgar zone is absolutely gorgeous, and I always incorporate it into my farming rotation for that reason. Its not the most profitable zone for farming, but I still love it.

The quality of the artistry has not diminished over the 8 years.

I think these zones should be re-incentivized to give better reasons to be in them. And more connections between zones.


The Mage Guild dailies could be a good example- the theme and the (story) motivations are very good. But they only use boring old base game delves, neglecting all the absolutely beautiful handcrafted delves/pub dungeons they've made post launch. And the rewards are crap.

Jhava

For me the best part was rebuilding Orsinium. I would like to see this applied to a few other cities/zone where our quests rebuild the area.

Reverb

I think one big driver for the emptiness is the poor layout of the city. It’s beautifully designed, but not laid out well for a player hub. It’s terrible for doing writs (even worse than Wayrest!) and the guild traders are way off out of town. Without being viable as a crafting or trading hub it will never be a place that people hang out. It will always be a place people come for a specific reason and then leave.

But I’d really like to see zeni change that.

SeaGtGruff

I think Stuga will still be looking for you whether or not you buy the Orsinium DLC, won't she?

katanagirl1

I always say this about Orsinium, but the best thing about the zone is every door can be opened, none are chained up, and the interiors of many of the buildings are quite extensive. All with no loading screens, either. It’s pretty impressive. We can’t get a whole city in the latter chapters that doesn’t have 2-3 loading screens in it now, and those chapters are much smaller than Orsinium.

EDIT: clarification

virtus753

Rowjoh wrote: »

Sadly, there are no sets that are BIS. Sure, Briarheart is decent but its def not BIS and hasn't been for some time.

Maelstrom weapons are from the Orsinium DLC.

Faulgor

It's Chapter Zero, and hardly forgotten.

As has been said several times in this thread already, it's considered one of it not the best DLC to date. I'm already looking forward to make a new Orc to take through the questline again.

FluffWit

It was the third dlc, Craglorn was first.

I like how it's a bit different, took a newish player there for the first time yesterday for dailies and he got a bit lost with the way the two daily pick up spots are so far apart and the way the world boss daily secondary tasks are so spread out.

It's cool how the hostel just outside Orsinium where you pick up the world boss dailies has all the different NPCs responsible for the quests hanging out there, feels kinda realistic.

The main story is fantastic, felt much more grounded and realistic then later entries. And I really like the fun side quest chain to get all the recipes.

Gadamlub14_ESO

"Do you know how long i have been waiting for you!?"

Yes Stuga. i have been avoiding you for 7 and a half years.

SeaGtGruff

FluffWit wrote: »

It was the third dlc, Craglorn was first.

Craglorn was an expansion to the base game, but (as I understand it) was free and was automatically added to everyone's copy of the game, as opposed to a DLC that needed to be purchased from the Crown Store. I wasn't playing the game back then, so I have no firsthand knowledge of those times.

Hurbster

I'd say it's the best expansion/dlc/whatever they have done. Got the Maelstrom Arena and Briarheart is still a very solid set to have.

Monte_Cristo

I still think it's the best zone (story wise) in the game. Still got my favourite sidekick and villain.

I_killed_Vivec

It was simply too good, it broke the bank and caused ZoS to move to "chapters" because otherwise we would expect DLC to be that good all the time, and they simply couldn't afford it. Particularly when you think about the quality and quantity of Craglorn and IC, and then Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood delivered a couple of months later... Then compare that to the content of the chapters that we pay for now.

I still go back to Wrothgar regularly, I have one character who is dedicated to processing all the Wrothgar surveys I get, and I enjoy the dailies.

The main questline was a proper one, complete with typical TES run around mini quests among the clans, Hortator style. But it annoyed me the first time I went through it because I thought the ending had been telegraphed but my character was still being sent off to chase wild geese, while I was thinking "No, I need to be here to confront X".

But even that was nothing compared with the disappointingly obvious ending of High Isle

colossalvoids

It's definitely populated enough on pceu, not overcrowded though. See way less action in Blackwood or Skyrim zones comparatively.

Sticker book, vma weaps and other changes made zone less populated bit still wb's are done pretty frequently, you see people in all PD's, maybe way less in delves. For me it's still the best dlc ESO had to offer, it's easily best content of all "chapters" and one of the best stories and the way how it was weaved into.

Xarc

Because of Stuga.

Blood_again

I'm very surprised to hear that Orsinium is one of the most expensive DLCs now.
I've bought it in discounted 4-pack before IC went free. Well, I didn't check but I guess this pack no longer exists in store.

I really hope ZoS add some discount or pack for it, so more people would play it. Can't say zone is empty. I just envy a bit those newcomers who would try MA their first time. That was real struggle and fun, unforgottable experience. The best place to learn battle movement, survivability and mechanics awareness if you ask me.

Funny that modern ESO chapters have almost the same structure as aged Orsinium. 2 PD, 6 delves, 6 WB, daily quests for WB and delve.
It's hard to believe devs found that formula that early. I still found it well balanced.

I remember that astonishement, when I got a quest to kill a goblin and was just smashed by him and his band. After that I found that was quest for a world boss. I've never had a quest for world boss before that 0_o

jle30303

I agree that Orsinium is the best DLC of them all.

Precisely *because* its story is not about Yet Another World-Ending Threat. It's self-contained, within the zone. It's not even going to result in the destruction of the zone if you fail or ignore it (not that all the other World-Ending Threats would do so, they all wait on the player). Theoretically, if King Kurog and Forge-Mother Alga actually won, the rest of the world would go on as normal, indeed, mostly life in Orsinium would carry on but with different leaders. (Indeed, that's one thing I really liked about it: Bazrag, having to pick up the pieces after the fall of Kurog, actually discovering that there was enough good in Kurog's policies, which he had honourably opposed, that now that he himself is the one who has to look at the bigger picture, he has to carry them on, continue building Orsinium and keep its position in the Covenant.)

When they said that High Isle would be "a chapter dealing with some cut-throat Breton political intrigue", this is the kind of level of intrigue I was hoping for. Instead, we got a world-ending threat where we knew the actual enemy faction (although not its leaders) from the start, and they were literally planning to set fire to everything. I was disappointed.

Honestly, if Morrowind has now become free, they should also make Orsinium free - and the smaller Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood too.