Helping New Players follow the Alliance Story

Enodoc · March 2015

With Tamriel Unlimited just around the corner, a number of new players will be coming to ESO for the first time. A lot of them will not be aware of the "Starter Islands" that are a good new-player playground and which also form the first section of the Alliance Story. ZOS attempted to address this by placing the first Alliance Story quest giver right outside the house you wake up in, but that is flawed - these "first quests" are listed as Level 4, while the first quest in the city, which should take place after the starter island quests (since the island quests set up the story) is Level 3.

Ways to Address This:

Very Easy: Change the level for A Beginning at Bleakrock, The Broken Spearhead and Storm on the Horizon to Level 3, and change the level for Legacy of the Ancestors, Blood and the Crescent Moon and Ensuring Security to Level 4. This implies (correctly) that the starter island quests should be done first.
Easy: Edit The Prophet's dialogue options so that you must ask How do I find whoever rescued me from the sea? before any of the other choices, and have this start A Beginning at Bleakrock, The Broken Spearhead or Storm on the Horizon directly without further action required.
Moderate: Start players on the islands directly, with the boatswain option of going to the city. This has the added bonuses of:
- Ensuring players know they exist
- Being in the right zone for the first quests
- The story progressing in the right order
- The potential to restore Gambon's original recorded dialogue for the Prophet, instead of that other guy they got when they changed it to the city, including the brilliant line of "unceremoniously dropped on our heads"

UrQuan · March 2015

I prefer the third option you give (that's the way it was in Beta), but failing that, doing one of the other options would be a start.

I firmly believe that the decision to change it so that players didn't automatically start on the starter islands was a mistake. ZOS listened to some vocal people who should have been ignored.

I know when I first started playing on launch day in Daggerfall I sure didn't realize that you were supposed to go off and do the starter island quests first. Instead I got involved in the Werewolf quest and the conspiracy against the King right away, and I got my butt kicked because I didn't know what I was doing. It was only after I went to Stros M'Kai that I started to really get what I was doing.

AlnilamE · March 2015

Yeah, the third option all the way!

RainfeatherUK · March 2015

As an AD player I can only really agree with @UrQuan. The way Khenarthi's Roost is accessed post Prophet/Coldharbour is absolutely abysmal. It just feels disconnected and more like a hidden location now, than a free flowing area like it once was.

Dropping out of the air and into the middle of things with the Maomer/Raz just seemed a natural turn of events (post anchor/escape). The whole affair now, with the boat, then happening across Sugar-Claws (when you can just as likely run into town and never bother with it at all) feels clunky - with little purpose for it to even exist.

Should a new player only find out about it later, after a fair bit of exploring around Auridon, theres very little point in visiting at all. The mobs are barely any challenge for a new character as it is. They should surely be overhauled back into what they were originally designed for - an introduction into the Alliance storyline, as per the OP.

Tandor · March 2015

I agree, and the third option is my preference - not least because of the voice disconnect which gives a poor impression early on.

Mr.Hmm · March 2015

They should make it again so that we start at the Starting Isles , that's the way it was in beta and personally alot of people in-game and in these forums desire it so.

If that is not possible I would like to see the second Option listened in OP's first post.

UrQuan · March 2015

RainfeatherUK wrote: »

Should a new player only find out about it later, after a fair bit of exploring around Auridon, theres very little point in visiting at all. The mobs are barely any challenge for a new character as it is.

To me that's one of the biggest problems. Not only do the starting islands really do a good job of teaching you various quest and general gameplay mechanics and such that will help you to be more successful in the first full zone, but they really start off your alliance's story. If you miss them, and come back later, like you say there's very little point to visit (aside from grabbing sky shards), and that means that you're going to miss out on the introduction of some very interesting characters who you will encounter again later, and you're going to miss some key events. For AD, you're going to miss the whole reason why the Greenshade questlines lead to the anointment of a new Silvanar, and why the Malabal Tor questlines lead to the joining of a new Green Lady with the new Silvanar.

Rune_Relic · March 2015

add me to the agrees. It does lose the story and feel disjointed compared to beta.
The starter island should have been default with an option to skip ....rather than skipped by default with an option to visit.

RainfeatherUK · March 2015

UrQuan wrote: »

RainfeatherUK wrote: »

Should a new player only find out about it later, after a fair bit of exploring around Auridon, theres very little point in visiting at all. The mobs are barely any challenge for a new character as it is.

To me that's one of the biggest problems. Not only do the starting islands really do a good job of teaching you various quest and general gameplay mechanics and such that will help you to be more successful in the first full zone, but they really start off your alliance's story. If you miss them, and come back later, like you say there's very little point to visit (aside from grabbing sky shards), and that means that you're going to miss out on the introduction of some very interesting characters who you will encounter again later, and you're going to miss some key events. For AD, you're going to miss the whole reason why the Greenshade questlines lead to the anointment of a new Silvanar, and why the Malabal Tor questlines lead to the joining of a new Green Lady with the new Silvanar.

The whole thing AD wise is just completely out of whack. I cant speak for the other factions (pure AD only player) but if they are anything like ours then the transition makes absolutely no sense story wise, exactly as you've said. The flow from Khenarthi to Auridon wasnt just good from a story perspective but its clear that it was purposefully built for that end from the ground up.

IIRC people wanted to skip the area because they wanted immediate access to a broader world from the get go and claimed KR and the starter Islands were too confined. I never found that at all, and like you find the gradual stepup - along with the lore - far superior. Why anyone thought the change made any sense at all (other than to appease lazy gamers) is beyond me.

With combat and other things being better now as they are, I can only imagine anyone new coming to the game fresh will notice this bizare arrangement as the 'new' weaklink in the opening game.

I'm not the biggest PvE'r by any sense but I shake my head (whilst on route to sugar claws) every time. Guess we're just lucky enough to remember the days when the order of events made sense lol.

UrQuan · March 2015

RainfeatherUK wrote: »

The whole thing AD wise is just completely out of whack. I cant speak for the other factions (pure AD only player) but if they are anything like ours then the transition makes absolutely no sense story wise, exactly as you've said. The flow from Khenarthi to Auridon wasnt just good from a story perspective but its clear that it was purposefully built for that end from the ground up.

I would say that the same applies to a lesser extent with the other alliances.

With EP the whole storyline around the invasion and evacuation of Bleakrock and then the subsequent invasion of Bal Foyen leads directly to the whole Stonefalls storyline around fighting a Daggerfall invasion and awakening (and dealing with) the Brothers of Strife. Many of the characters who you evacuate from Bleakrock also show up in quests in subsequent zones, right up to the Rift.

With DC the Stros M'kai storyline really only leads to uniting a crew of interesting characters, which then goes off to Betnikh. The Betnikh storyline doesn't lead to much in the subsequent zones, other than an acknowledgment that you've brought the orcs of Betnikh into the Covenant, but characters that you meet in the starter islands (particularly the crew you put together on Stros M'Kai) show up again in later quests in various zones, and their reactions to you will vary depending on what you chose to do on Betnikh (I'm still sad that my main made Nicolene mad at him).

tinythinker · March 2015

I've been asking them to start players on those islands again for a good while. It isn't that hard. The NPC positioning and dialogue is still set for it. Especially on Bleak Rock, where if you go upstairs in the main building an NPC is still facing your bed and exclaiming that you are awake.

I recall that some Beta reviewers said that they were bored, etc with those islands, but, even so why not just have someone on each island offer to take you to the first major city? If you want to skip it, then have that be an option for the first person you talk to ("So and so can take you to...").

It has just never made any sense to me why that wasn't the fix for people who didn't like the beginner area rather than starting you in a large busy city with tons of quest markers, NPCs, and players of all levels running around. Some new players, especially those new to MMOs, will be confused and put off by this.

RainfeatherUK · March 2015

Lol at this rate there will be a button on the Character Creator that says ''Skip whole game?'' instead of just ColdHarbour.

Appearing on a boat randomly is really quite infuriating from my perspective. I was quite happy being stranded with Sergeant Firion because it made the integration into joining them (and thus Raz and the Alliance) alot more believeable. Why anyone would alter an area to the point it literally breaks that opening flow is beyond me. Like you say @tinythinker a simple Npc ammendment for those determined to avoid things would have been much better.

Gives people clear notation that they are avoiding it by choice (rather than new players having no idea KR is even there) and would have saved them fixing up the Prophet and the convenient little drop in room on the boat.

I could rant about it all day lol and that coming from a mostly PvP orientated person. Sort it out ZoS

TheShadowScout · March 2015

I always through it would have been better to start at the island, and have an option to take a boat to the mainland instead of how its done now... wish they'd change that this was someday.

FadedJeans · March 2015

I agree that the player should land in the starter isles, and have the option to skip it right there on the dock.

Much clearer that way.

Even on alts I go through the starter isles anyway. They're fun, and I get needed XP and skyshards.

UrQuan · March 2015

FadedJeans wrote: »

I agree that the player should land in the starter isles, and have the option to skip it right there on the dock.

Much clearer that way.

Even on alts I go through the starter isles anyway. They're fun, and I get needed XP and skyshards.

I've gone through the starter islands on every alt I've made (I've got 16 of them), and every character that has made it to VR has done the VR starter islands for their next alliance.

In a lot of ways I actually think the starter islands may be the best-designed zones of the game. I always think it's such a waste when people skip them, especially when it's because they don't really realize that they should be doing them first.

Enodoc · March 2015

UrQuan wrote: »

FadedJeans wrote: »

I agree that the player should land in the starter isles, and have the option to skip it right there on the dock.

Much clearer that way.

Even on alts I go through the starter isles anyway. They're fun, and I get needed XP and skyshards.

I've gone through the starter islands on every alt I've made (I've got 16 of them), and every character that has made it to VR has done the VR starter islands for their next alliance.

In a lot of ways I actually think the starter islands may be the best-designed zones of the game. I always think it's such a waste when people skip them, especially when it's because they don't really realize that they should be doing them first.

Absolutely, and that's the biggest issue here. ZOS needs to do something that shows these quests both 1) exist, and 2) belong at the beginning of the chain.