Sorry but the writing in the Necrom chapter is some of the worst in the game.

Btoop

ESO has never had particuarly engaging writing with the exception of a few stand out characters but now I've finished the latest chapter, I have to say; this is some of the worst story telling ESO has to offer.

Dialogue options:

Firstly, there are the dialogue options, or rather, the complete lack of dialogue options. This isn't anything new but it has become all the more apparent with this chapter. Instead of giving player's the opportunity to have their own input in conversations, we are instead provided with a single choice which can usually be boiled down to one of the following:

"Tell me what to do next",
"Can you explain something basic to me like I'm completely clueless?",
or "Can you repeat the information we just went over? I apparently wasn't listening."

Limiting choices for budgetary reasons is fine by the way but there is a line between 'limiting' and 'leaving completely abscent'.

Characters:

With the exception of Melm and Torvesard, the characters in the main quest line are the definition of 'uninspired', lacking any form of character development and failing to be anything more than the method in which you recieve quests.

Leramil and Gadayn are by far the worst and so genuinly bad that I struggle to express just how much I couldn't care less about them. I would say that their entire personalities consist of them developing a crush for one another but that would wrongly suggest you get to see them grow closer and watch as they form a bond. What we actually get is just two people who form an instant attraction for one another based on absolutely nothing (at least I think it is based on nothing, perhaps they just find one another so boring that they form a bond around how much they can relate to each other).

The Plot:

Now the plot does actually get pretty good towards the end with the promise of learning a secret of immense power (a secret which has so far payed off, which was quite the surprise). However that is also the issue, this is only towards the end of the main quest line, everything leading up to this point fails to move the plot forward in any discernible direction and clearly exists for no other reason than to extend the main questline to an acceptable length.

Closing Thoughts:

With the encroach of loot boxes, FOMO tactics, and a plethora of other questionable design choices that have been added to the game since launch, the promise of a continuously developing story is one of the few things that keeps me coming back to ESO (and I doubt I'm the only person with this perspective). I want to enjoy ESO as much as possible but this quality of writing can't be the standard going forward.

Elvenheart

Sorry but speaking for myself I enjoyed the Necrom storylines. I’m sorry if, in your opinion, they were bad and you did not enjoy them like I did.

Btoop

Elvenheart wrote: »

Sorry but speaking for myself I enjoyed the Necrom storylines. I’m sorry if, in your opinion, they were bad and you did not enjoy them like I did.

While I found these issues too big to overlook, I'm glad to hear you was able to enjoy the story regardless.

PieMaster1

Btoop wrote: »

Elvenheart wrote: »

Sorry but speaking for myself I enjoyed the Necrom storylines. I’m sorry if, in your opinion, they were bad and you did not enjoy them like I did.

No need for an apology! While I found these issues too big to overlook, I'm glad to hear you was able to enjoy the story regardless.

I don't think I ever played any story stuff after the main questline..I'm a grinder type by heart and having to read quests just for a 15th of an exp bar is soooo sloooowww. I only did main quest because of Dumbledore voice actor and the skill points. Afterwords I just kept making bank by selling mass amounts of gold mats for the last 4 years and following constant changing pvp metas

spartaxoxo

It can't be worse than Blackwood.

joergino

One would certainly hope so, but after the precedent set by Greymoor, everything is possible.

Silaf

It's not easy to write a good story if you have to reset the timeline every major dlc release to squeeze as much crowns as posible from new players.

For old players though this approch result repetitive an shallow.
Please allow our character to grow and the story of our adventure to continue outside the dlc episode.


This said on necrom Zos did try for the first time to introduce new unheard of lore (Mora's secret) and change a little the map composition so i'm hopeful...

Amottica

Btoop wrote: »

Elvenheart wrote: »

Sorry but speaking for myself I enjoyed the Necrom storylines. I’m sorry if, in your opinion, they were bad and you did not enjoy them like I did.

No need for an apology! While I found these issues too big to overlook, I'm glad to hear you was able to enjoy the story regardless.

It seems what they are saying is they are not seeing the issues. That the opinions on how we view the stories and writing are personal opinions and nothing more.

Heck, there are academy award movies I like and some I do not like. Just because I could not get into the dialogue, plot, etc, does not mean those movies I did not care for were bad. It was just my opinion just as you have yours about this chapter and @Elvenheart has theirs.

Arcturus

Honestly even the whole

Ithelia

affair was rather dissapoiting. We already knew there are more

daedric princes

we just don't know about.

adriant1978

Sounds like more of the same, considering that you largely summed up the last few Chapters as well, especially the dialogue options.

Please stop treating our characters like amnesiac morons who can't keep straight what they are doing from one quest to the next.

Snamyap

Not saying it's worth an oscar but I found it better than previous attempts. While dialogues that make the player look stupid or suffering from amnesia are annoying it is simply very hard to make a quest line with a lot of meaningful choices in an MMO. In the end all the players need to have more or less the same outcome. You can't for instance have one half of the player base make the decision to burn down an important town or kill a king and the other half decide to play the hero. For stuff like that you need a single player (or very limited multiplayer) game.

Ravensilver

I thought the story was ok. What really bothers me, though, is that we're not getting any more until the next expansion. I tried to pace myself, but I'm still done with the main story.
I don't raid, I'm not into trials (my physical handicaps making that quite difficult), same as with vet dungeons. So I'm pretty much done with this expansion, even though it's only August...
I always looked forward to the next quarterly content, but if I have to wait a year for new story content... then I need to look elsewhere. ;__;

PrimeSeptim

It all went downhill after Orsinium. All very samey, reskinned, repetitive, uninspired... Same old loop de loop. Always a big bad, a cult... Oooh, time to save the world again. But not even the world really, just places that leave me wondering, 'why do I even care about this place?'... Galen, for example. The only DLC I just upped and left because it was so boring and the annoying pirate wanna be didn't help, 'mate'.

The whole Planemeld/MQ was fine and Orsinium tied into that a little with the

Prophet making a reappearance

but everything since then has just been random and disjointed belly button fluff.

Elsweyr and Skyrim were cool once you got so far into the plot but to be honest for a long time now I'm always just glad to be finished.

It just feels like every chapter/DLC is its own main story with no relevance to the actual MQ (not even referenced) - at least some of them had Sai Sahan/Lyris/Tharn which helped. But yeah it's always just saving the world again and filling in the blanks on the world map.

We're off to save the world again!:

Warhawke_80

I'm enjoying the expansion... I look at it like this, there are a lot of older TSR (That's who owned D&D before WoTC) writers working on this game...so it's not going to be King Lear, it's going to be your Basic AD&D module...and that's cool.


.... and Before anyone brings up BG III that is some of the most cringiest dialog I have ever heard that game is flying off the shelves because of the "Private Scenes" not for the Nobel Laurette writing...which is creepy.....so...creepy

TaSheen

Bioware's dialog ALWAYS made me cringe - and not limited to the BG series either....

In all games I've ever played, I just make up my own dialog as I go along. That way it suits me. By now (played first CRPG in the mid 80s) I don't even see the dialog as I'm clicking through it because I'm hearing what I really want to hear in my mind. And no, I do NOT have voice dialog on - I'm entirely unfond of VA.

AzuraFan

I thought Necrom's story was one of the better ones in recent years. It kept me interested, and the big reveal wasn't predictable. I also enjoyed the main characters in the story and hope to see more of them.

SerafinaWaterstar

AzuraFan wrote: »

I thought Necrom's story was one of the better ones in recent years. It kept me interested, and the big reveal wasn't predictable. I also enjoyed the main characters in the story and hope to see more of them.

Agree with you.

No utterly obvious big bad and the actual story was interesting and made me want to find out what happens next - much better than the last couple of expansions, and pretty much on par with Orsinium (just ran my arcanist through that so speaking from recent experience & not just the ESO cliche that it was the last piece of good writing - though for the record I have enjoyed all the expansions, just some much more than others.)

SkaiFaith

I made a "controversial" post in November 2022 saying the Legacy of the Breton has been my absolute favourite story.
With that said, I very much liked Necrom main story quests, especially the fact they had more Boss fights and "the secret". Story wise I enjoyed it but I have to say that dialogues and characters were "meh" to me. Scroot and the Spirit Mage were the only nice exceptions imo.
Also, the fact the ending feels too much of a cut disappointed me, knowing an entire year has to pass before seeing a continuation.

All in all, more positives than negatives, but definitely improvable.

shadyjane62

Best part about the PTS is you can try out the new chapter and decide if you want to spend that much money on something you won't like.

I don't have Necrom and I didn't buy High Isle and I still regret Blackwood.

Number_51

adriant1978 wrote: »

Sounds like more of the same, considering that you largely summed up the last few Chapters as well, especially the dialogue options.

Please stop treating our characters like amnesiac morons who can't keep straight what they are doing from one quest to the next.

While I sorta understand where you, and others I've seen make this statement, are coming from it seems to me these dialog options are simply not meant for people just sequentially cruising through a quest line. They're there for the people who started the quest line, then took a 3 month break to grind out sets in AA or whatever. You don't have to select the option just because it's there. I think they've actually done a pretty good job of phrasing those options so you know exactly what you're going to get, as well as not adding new or additional info beyond those options that you would miss out on by not choosing them.

On topic, I actually have enjoyed this chapter far more then High Isle or Blackwood.

Necrotech_Master

my opinion is that necrom story was actually pretty good, my favorite characters were meln and scruut

for me blackwood was by far one of the worst chapters i have ever played

high isle wasnt too bad, but the follow on Q4 dlc for it dropped back into the "stop someone/something from destroying tamriel" again which was a bit disappointing considering it was supposed to be about political intrigue

Frogmother

I'm quite at the beginning of the main story and did some sidequests, the writing is a lot better than blackwood or high isle. There is still room for improvement but I did not feel like an idiot while playing. something I cant say about the previous two addons.

jtm1018

Baught it for the campanion craftable set.
Screw the [Snip] mora arc and apo-creep-ah!
Just want Mirri to be awesome.

[Edited for inappropriate content]

Wow

spartaxoxo wrote: »

It can't be worse than Blackwood.

It can be the same as Blackwood

Anumaril

As someone who has been waiting to delve into the new Chapter's questline, this is sad to hear. Especially so because I just finished the Wrothgar questline yesterday and was struck by how many options it gives the player, even if they're still less than I would've hoped.

In Wrothgar you had the opportunity to betray and kill one of your NPC friends, you could get information from an enemy and then choose to kill them anyway/let them live, you could choose to be rude to that annoying wood elf character or kind, etc. Like all ESO content I was yearning for more options in dialogue, and freedom in the questline (what if I agree with King Kurog and want to join him? Apparently that's not an option even though you can kill your NPC friend to prove your loyalty). But I was thankful that it had much more than what I was expecting.

Thinking back to when I did Chapter content, I don't remember nearly as many dialogue options or player choice events. Red dialogue options feel like a dying breed in this game. Even going so far back as Summerset, Clockwork City, or Morrowind, I just don't remember having as much choice as I did in Wrothgar or even (some of) the base zone quests.

YstradClud

As has been the case for quite a while now I have found some the side quests more entertaining than the main plot. Really liked The Rectory Corporea "library of minds" side quest in Apocrypha.

Zodiarkslayer

Storytelling has become a lost art. Movies, TV Shows or Videogames. The same problem everywhere.

I say ESO follows a popular trend here. Streamlined stories. Simple Characters, simple emotions (if at all), simple world building (not in the case of ESO). Its all bland and very similar to each other, because the producers have to invest ever increasing amounts of time and capital into every single venture. In return they demand content compatible to the masses. Which is absolutely understandable.

Artistry, complexity and innovation are seen as dangers to the product's success.

Additionally, the current generation of writers have never learned to create complex, peculiar or even mature characters. Let alone create them step by step over a prolonged period of time, episodes or quests.
The general swipe left mentality of media consumption plays a big role here, too.
But they perfected the art of variation of the same proven concepts, themes and ideals. That is because their own lives are full of the same sterotypes that have been popular since the sixties. Plus the inevitable wokisms and equal rights celebrations. Which isn't bad in itself, but since its everywhere nowadays, it has lost all its original importance and meaning.

And thus, immature writers have ruined nearly every bigger IP over the last decade.
The Witcher TV series was especially disappointing.
But this streamlined experience sells. Thats what it boils down to.

P.S.: I am dreading the One Piece life action...

shadyjane62

I have found going on the PTS for a new chapter to be invaluable. I hated Blackwood but knee jerk just bought it like I did all chapters before it. After all this time I have yet to to be able to force myself to get past that awful Stibbens .

Did not buy High Isle or Necrom as they were badly written and centering on things I don't do like card games and companions.

Reading about what is to come for the future, I anticipate trying out a lot of other games.

SithisKhajitiiLamae

PrimeSeptim wrote: »

It just feels like every chapter/DLC is its own main story

Because every chapter and dlc has its own main story. Every expansion and dlc of every game does that.


Skyrim had dlc that had its own main questline that had nothing to do with being the Dragonborn and no one complained. Why complain because eso does the same thing every game does?

ZOS_Volpe

Greetings,

We've had to remove a few non-constructive and baiting comments. Please remember that while it’s alright to disagree or even debate with each other, provoking conflict, baiting, inciting, mocking, etc. is never acceptable on our forums.

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Destai

In terms of writing quality, I'd put Necrom above Greymoor, Blackwood, and High Isle. It's not the worst, but far from the best. At least when talking about the main zone story.

It suffers from the same problem as the last few chapters. They do a lot of good world building with the dungeons and quests, but don't really let the characters grow in the main story. None of the MQ characters really make me care for them, Leramil especially. She felt so dry. I also don't like the cliffhanger ending. I thought we were getting away from that when they sunset the YLS approach.

It's not all bad though. The side quests were really good, which they usually are, and a few were quite memorable. The environmental storytelling was good too. Aprocrypha felt very alien, which was appropriate. The companions had really compelling stories too.