Best MMO story/lore hands down

cwp303b14_ESO · June 2019

So I came back and played Morrowind and the Summerset along with all the side quests I could find and man, whoever put these story elements together is brilliant!

It's so impressive because of the medium of the storytelling. In a normal story you follow a linear progression from beginning to end but in a game where you are allowed, even encouraged, to free roam and yet they still manage to craft a progressing coherent storyline... it blows my mind!!!

Books, characters, changing dialogue depending on where in the story you are, new messages or letters that appear depending on what has happened... the list goes on. Sooo many moving parts and to top it all off in an MMO! The quest crafters and storytellers are criminally underrated in praise about this game. There are so many ways you can play it and they still figure out a way to make the whole world feel connected.

Maybe the best part is that the story can be enriched if you want it or you can choose to neglect the after quest dialogue or random scrolls in the wild. You EARN the story.

My hat's off to the world builders who work on this game!

Sergykid · June 2019

glad some people like it, but for me it's not like this.

as far as i have noticed, and i did every single quest aside from Elsweyr, quests are "bad guy wants this, stop them" and with a twist at the end in the case of main quests. And that's pretty much it, in the rest NPC seem like stupid 10 y o babies. Or exaggerations like "you cannot defeat me, i am immor-" dead before finished the phrase.

SirAxen · June 2019

cwp303b14_ESO wrote: »

So I came back and played Morrowind and the Summerset along with all the side quests I could find and man, whoever put these story elements together is brilliant!

It's so impressive because of the medium of the storytelling. In a normal story you follow a linear progression from beginning to end but in a game where you are allowed, even encouraged, to free roam and yet they still manage to craft a progressing coherent storyline... it blows my mind!!!

Books, characters, changing dialogue depending on where in the story you are, new messages or letters that appear depending on what has happened... the list goes on. Sooo many moving parts and to top it all off in an MMO! The quest crafters and storytellers are criminally underrated in praise about this game. There are so many ways you can play it and they still figure out a way to make the whole world feel connected.

Maybe the best part is that the story can be enriched if you want it or you can choose to neglect the after quest dialogue or random scrolls in the wild. You EARN the story.

My hat's off to the world builders who work on this game!

I agree.

In my opinion, ESO has the best questing stories in the MMORPG genre. The lore is so rich and they do a great job of telling stories that incorporate it. The world feels lived in and everything has a purpose for being there. It's fantastic.

cwp303b14_ESO · June 2019

Sergykid wrote: »

glad some people like it, but for me it's not like this.

as far as i have noticed, and i did every single quest aside from Elsweyr, quests are "bad guy wants this, stop them" and with a twist at the end in the case of main quests. And that's pretty much it, in the rest NPC seem like stupid 10 y o babies. Or exaggerations like "you cannot defeat me, i am immor-" dead before finished the phrase.

(Spoilers ahead)

I dont find that is the case at all. The motivation for many of those "bad guys" is often shades of gray and even in some cases worthy of sympathy. I've researched ancient mysteries, solved murder mysteries, gone on time traveling adventures with strange repercussions.. many quests start as something mundane like in summerset with vagrants hanging out on some "haunted" land and take you so far from that initial narrative it's amazing. You find and ancient underground civilization supporting crazy old undead family members of the guy you went with who wanted to research what happened to his family's town and it turns out they need his blood to restore themselves from a plague. WHAT?! I didn't see that coming and I was genuinely interested in the story the whole quest. And it was a SIDE QUEST! I've never seen story like that in an mmo.

Syuko · June 2019

Threads like this make me happy. 🙂

anitajoneb17_ESO · June 2019

cwp303b14_ESO wrote: »

It's so impressive because of the medium of the storytelling. In a normal story you follow a linear progression from beginning to end but in a game where you are allowed, even encouraged, to free roam and yet they still manage to craft a progressing coherent storyline... it blows my mind!!!

They have 5 huge games of experience in "open-world story-telling", most of the time in the position of precursors in the genre, and it shows. It loses a bit when transposed into an MMO, but it's still great.

ArchMikem · June 2019

Sergykid wrote: »

glad some people like it, but for me it's not like this.

as far as i have noticed, and i did every single quest aside from Elsweyr, quests are "bad guy wants this, stop them" and with a twist at the end in the case of main quests. And that's pretty much it, in the rest NPC seem like stupid 10 y o babies. Or exaggerations like "you cannot defeat me, i am immor-" dead before finished the phrase.

That dialogue was written before Champion Points were a thing. In the first year or two of the game mobs used to be a lot more difficult. I'm sure many veterans still have PTSD from their fights with Doshia.

hope0burns · June 2019

I disagree, I generally found the various stories to be rather bland and predictable. Frankly, for me, they're much the same as what Sergykid claimed. Now, what I do generally like are the characters. They've made some pretty decent and compelling characters. Despite the fact some of the best characters in the game are rather trope-heavy they still kept them interesting for the most part, except for the EP characters. For me even they were all kinda dull, at least compared to the big ones of the other two factions.

There's a lot of good, yet tangentially, I don't like how there's so many things that break established lore, even if they're given in-lore reasons to do so, for example the myriad of books from future eras that have just been magicked into being via plot device. Back on track, there are a lot of things that happen and reasons for those things that feels cheap or that could have been done better with just a bit more effort. If it weren't for the characters and their personalities I feel like the stories would be complete washes, yet the characters really help make being in the stories interesting, even fun at times. Though, looking objectively, that they're fun to be in doesn't mean the stories themselves are actually interesting.

Obviously, that's just my take on the stories. Maybe it's my experiences, my age, or just my personality as there's still plenty of other people that enjoy the stories and that's perfectly alright. Nothing wrong with that, it's all pretty subjective, after all.

Van_Winkle · June 2019

I do not think, that quests where i can't choose any actions can be great.

Bouldercleave · June 2019

hope0burns wrote: »

If it weren't for the characters and their personalities I feel like the stories would be complete washes, yet the characters really help make being in the stories interesting, even fun at times. Though, looking objectively, that they're fun to be in doesn't mean the stories themselves are actually interesting.

But isn't that the case MOST of the time? You can make an average, predictable, and even repetitive story compelling if you have great characterization - and in this game's case with fantastic voice acting (for the most part)

The opposite can be true as well (and has been). You can have a FANTASTIC story and just kill it with lackluster delivery of said story.

I think for all of the small issues that persist in the game (and there are admittedly many) the one thing that they got absolutely right is the storytelling.

cwp303b14_ESO · June 2019

Kinda beside myself on some of these critiques.

(Spoilers ahead)

The fact that they have Veya's arc continue in a logical progression from Morrowind
To Summerset and yet create a way for new players who've not stepped foot into Morrowind to have a complete story within the larger narrative is impressive to me. They never hit you with, "this is Veya from Morrowind REMEMBER" but the clues build as you find notes and put it together with other character's dialogue. They made a sequel where it enriches a larger universe for the older players without compromising the experience for new players and I appreciate that aspect. You need to do a little, not a lot mind you, digging into the story and put in the effort to enjoy it in its entirety.

MartiniDaniels · June 2019

There are great quests in ESO for sure. But there are much more watered down MMORPG-ish quests like go close 4 portals.
And I think it's notable then dungeon quests and overall design, voicing and expression is much better then in overland (base game).
So I have feeling that ESO suffers from same open-world sickness as many other games on the market now - devs which excel at making small interesting stories/challenges were forced to pump out quests and content for 15 huge base zones in short time... so we have ton of those "close 4 portals" secondary quests which screw overall perception of questing in the game.

worrallj · June 2019

@cwp303b14_ESO there are some examples of good storytelling from time to time (my personal favorite was the Everfull flagon in Coldharbor). But even with the good stories I typically don't experience what I'd call player participation- I feel too much like a spectator on a story someone else wrote, just killing a few mobs periodically to trigger the next dialogue sequence. And a token "kill or spare NPC you'll never meet again anyway" choice as a quest capstone isn't what I'm talking about, haha.

EölMPK · June 2019

Agreed, and also think its the best mmo in those items: sound, gameplay, group dungeons and artwork

Aertew · June 2019

cwp303b14_ESO wrote: »

Sergykid wrote: »

glad some people like it, but for me it's not like this.

as far as i have noticed, and i did every single quest aside from Elsweyr, quests are "bad guy wants this, stop them" and with a twist at the end in the case of main quests. And that's pretty much it, in the rest NPC seem like stupid 10 y o babies. Or exaggerations like "you cannot defeat me, i am immor-" dead before finished the phrase.

(Spoilers ahead)

I dont find that is the case at all. The motivation for many of those "bad guys" is often shades of gray and even in some cases worthy of sympathy. I've researched ancient mysteries, solved murder mysteries, gone on time traveling adventures with strange repercussions.. many quests start as something mundane like in summerset with vagrants hanging out on some "haunted" land and take you so far from that initial narrative it's amazing. You find and ancient underground civilization supporting crazy old undead family members of the guy you went with who wanted to research what happened to his family's town and it turns out they need his blood to restore themselves from a plague. WHAT?! I didn't see that coming and I was genuinely interested in the story the whole quest. And it was a SIDE QUEST! I've never seen story like that in an mmo.

Oh yeah I was doing it but abanded it because I finished it before I read all of the dialogue options, where can I get the quest again.

jainiadral · June 2019

cwp303b14_ESO wrote: »

Sergykid wrote: »

glad some people like it, but for me it's not like this.

as far as i have noticed, and i did every single quest aside from Elsweyr, quests are "bad guy wants this, stop them" and with a twist at the end in the case of main quests. And that's pretty much it, in the rest NPC seem like stupid 10 y o babies. Or exaggerations like "you cannot defeat me, i am immor-" dead before finished the phrase.

(Spoilers ahead)

I dont find that is the case at all. The motivation for many of those "bad guys" is often shades of gray and even in some cases worthy of sympathy. I've researched ancient mysteries, solved murder mysteries, gone on time traveling adventures with strange repercussions.. many quests start as something mundane like in summerset with vagrants hanging out on some "haunted" land and take you so far from that initial narrative it's amazing. You find and ancient underground civilization supporting crazy old undead family members of the guy you went with who wanted to research what happened to his family's town and it turns out they need his blood to restore themselves from a plague. WHAT?! I didn't see that coming and I was genuinely interested in the story the whole quest. And it was a SIDE QUEST! I've never seen story like that in an mmo.

I loved that quest! A lot of the side quests are really interesting. I adored several of the side quests in the Alik'r that explored Redguard conceptions of faith. Like racing the sand storm and

feeding the goat to the serpent

. Or all of the spinner quests in Valenwood, the two Bosmers and the flowers... Really enjoyed

Vastarie's

quest chain in Elsweyr last night.

There are so many I've enjoyed-- it's impossible to list them all

grizzledcroc · June 2019

Honestly compared to ES quests they are usually on par or better than lets say skyrim to me. Compared to other titles maybe its different but I find myself remembering characters even in the base game.

TheShadowScout · June 2019

I also love the neat storylines crafted for this game! Yeah, a great many questings end up fighting some miniboss... what else to expect for a MMO game? Gotta feed the combat-fanatics, and with CP behind you, those fights are often a joke (I adore the ones where you need to use some mechanics tho - the "path of the lily" minibossfight was so much fun!). But generally the stories are way nifty, and sometimes they manage to be that even without any big fight...

The only gripe I have is that -some- stories are -clearly- written for "kid" NPCs, and then we only get adult looking people who act and are treated like children. That skews the immersion a little... (and the "my mom still treats me like a kid despite being all grown up" excuse only works that one time in koeglin village!)

ArchMikem wrote: »

I'm sure many veterans still have PTSD from their fights with Doshia.

For me its Mannimarco at Sancre Tor... took me a dozend tries and coming back ten levels later! of course, that was the very first time, I learned a lot from that one... and then it got nerfed.

Personally I wished battles would become more involved, without getting too hard. Adding stuff that you cannot just bull through with massive CP boost, but have to -think- your way around.
I also often wish they would have enemies with more pronounced strengths and weaknesses... like "don't bother bringing a fire staff for the flame atronarch, use an ice staff instead!" or "arrows won't do much against skeletons, bring a mace", but I guess that's the D&D remenescence in me...

Knootewoot · June 2019

SirAxen wrote: »

cwp303b14_ESO wrote: »

So I came back and played Morrowind and the Summerset along with all the side quests I could find and man, whoever put these story elements together is brilliant!

It's so impressive because of the medium of the storytelling. In a normal story you follow a linear progression from beginning to end but in a game where you are allowed, even encouraged, to free roam and yet they still manage to craft a progressing coherent storyline... it blows my mind!!!

Books, characters, changing dialogue depending on where in the story you are, new messages or letters that appear depending on what has happened... the list goes on. Sooo many moving parts and to top it all off in an MMO! The quest crafters and storytellers are criminally underrated in praise about this game. There are so many ways you can play it and they still figure out a way to make the whole world feel connected.

Maybe the best part is that the story can be enriched if you want it or you can choose to neglect the after quest dialogue or random scrolls in the wild. You EARN the story.

My hat's off to the world builders who work on this game!

I agree.

In my opinion, ESO has the best questing stories in the MMORPG genre. The lore is so rich and they do a great job of telling stories that incorporate it. The world feels lived in and everything has a purpose for being there. It's fantastic.

I think swtor had the best questing stories though. But Eso's are great too. But so was age of conan.

Hats of to all those writers.

Kotusha · June 2019

Sergykid wrote: »

And that's pretty much it, in the rest NPC seem like stupid 10 y o babies.

Compared to Vestige, they're like Einstein compared to monkey. As much as I love eso's story-writing, it just pains me to run errands for people who are clearly deceiving you.

Coatmagic · June 2019

Yupyup. Guessing those people were on vacation when Elsweyr was in production xD

rpa · June 2019

I myself find questing and storylines rather generic. Not necessarily bad but formulaic, predictable and unmemorable. I don't even hate it, its just have difficult time caring at all about the story when everything is so weirdly inoffensive and politically correct when its supposed to be a medieval society. Bane of AAA I guess.

maboleth · June 2019

rpa wrote: »

when everything is so weirdly inoffensive and politically correct when its supposed to be a medieval society. Bane of AAA I guess.

No, it's better to have hookers, brothels, swear words, ***, filth... THEN it would've been believable. /sarcasm

I love and always liked the LOTR-approach to magic in TES games. That's what fantasy RP is for me. I don't need above mentioned stuff to be "believable". Actually I hate it.

ESO is doing wonderful job at these quests. Voice acting, humour, story, very nice. It's an MMO so those quests cannot change the environment drastically, because of others. But they tried best they can to change NPCs and voice lines, depending on your actions. Much more than, for example, in Skyrim (that I also love).

I still didn't start Elsweyr, but generally I'm YET to be dissatisfied with the quest quality in ESO. From main quest to main alliance quests, to chapters and story DLCs. It's fantastic and getting better.

Knootewoot · June 2019

maboleth wrote: »

rpa wrote: »

when everything is so weirdly inoffensive and politically correct when its supposed to be a medieval society. Bane of AAA I guess.

No, it's better to have hookers, brothels, swear words, ***, filth... THEN it would've been believable. /sarcasm

I love and always liked the LOTR-approach to magic in TES games. That's what fantasy RP is for me. I don't need above mentioned stuff to be "believable". Actually I hate it.

ESO is doing wonderful job at these quests. Voice acting, humour, story, very nice. It's an MMO so those quests cannot change the environment drastically, because of others. But they tried best they can to change NPCs and voice lines, depending on your actions. Much more than, for example, in Skyrim (that I also love).

I still didn't start Elsweyr, but generally I'm YET to be dissatisfied with the quest quality in ESO. From main quest to main alliance quests, to chapters and story DLCs. It's fantastic and getting better.

Before TES became mainstream, there was nudity in the game, skimpy armors and brothels. At least in Arena and Daggerfall. Morrowind only had the house of earthly delights. But the first 2 TES games were for the adult audience.

Pourekos · June 2019

ESO is definitely great in terms of story, quests all that, but for The Best (tm) from all MMOs I still have to go with The Secret World as my personal favourite. I would put these two games and SWTOR as the kind of Holy Trinity of MMOs in that respect, each one with it's own strong points in comparison to the others.

Narvuntien · June 2019

I think in order to survive in the tough MMO RPG (and wider live service) genre you have to do something better than everyone else and I think for ESO that is the story content.

The base game is super hit and miss but the stuff that does work, works extremely well. I was enthralled by Auridion as a new player and Rivenspire is also amazing. The best zones are those you really feel have serious history which you are just stepping into rather than it being all contrived for you to solve.

The DLC area's are all extremely good at it even the earlier ones, you have stepped up to solve this crisis but there were many more before this one and they dealt with it without you.

There is still the lack of consequences for your choices but when the story pulls you in well the actually meaningless choices do have emotional weight to them.

rpa · June 2019

maboleth wrote: »

No, it's better to have hookers, brothels, swear words, ***, filth... THEN it would've been believable. /sarcasm

I would not mind some very light sprinkling of filth. Is the Real Barenziah Part III from Daggerfall really too much for a mature rated game? Does sight of breasts really cause Murricans melt to puddle of steaming brown liquid? Would change to flirt back to a flirty NPC cause Yellowstone supervolcano to erupt? Is the ugly underwear really necessary to prevent Sun going nova and vaporizing all life on Earth? Some odd taboos we rest of the world will not understand... But that's not the point.

There's no lasting clear consequences from character actions while questing. Why one should care about having to do the life and death bingo yet again when last 20 times it mostly meant an alternate line of dialog and nothing else. What is choice if there is no difference to fail or success? Just complete the questline no matter how and NPS's start to randomly remark your character was part of some heroic thing somewhere.

About only such choice I remember was

when character could either let an ally to sacrifice herself or trick an enemy prisoner to die instead and while being slowly led to certain death the poor guy nicely babbled how he was expecting get home to see his wife and kids.

As meaningless as all "choices" but that was one of the rare awesome moments in this game for me.

Edit: The choice of who lives with no consequence anyway would not be so bad - after all, consequence engine could mean a significant programming effort - if it was not one of the most used formulas. It's in main quest, once, fine. In some other questline, ok. But same like dozen or more times during Cadwell's gold, that is not fine.

No matter what one does there is no real change for a character to be an evil *** or a saintly good and supposedly evil NPC:s and even daedra feel also just doing their job as necessary foe and are never simply happily and selfishly evil. As Sheogorath it said: "Bo-ring!"

navystylz_ESO · June 2019

cwp303b14_ESO wrote: »

It's so impressive because of the medium of the storytelling. In a normal story you follow a linear progression from beginning to end but in a game where you are allowed, even encouraged, to free roam and yet they still manage to craft a progressing coherent storyline... it blows my mind!!!

I disagree. The story telling is good, in the same since reading a graphic novel is.

1. There are story arcs that you miss if you just jump around, it's these arcs that have the most interesting story.

Hood Figure (Original main story) which connects with Mages and Fighter guilds and a progression through each of your faction zones like: Bal Foyen > Stonefalls > Deshaan > Shadowfen > Eastmarch > the Rift > Cold Harbour
Orisinium / Craglorn / Dark Brotherhood / Thieves Guild / Murkmire story which can be done in any order, but takes place chronologically after the events of the main story. Orisinium (Wrothgar) has easter eggs for later story.
Daedric Wars arc with Morrowind > Clockwork City > Summerset.
Then the season of the Dragon with Wrathstone dungeons > Halls of Colossus > Elsweyr

2. You'd miss out on some continuity of story just jumping around. Though you can, but that is more for doing what you feel like than making the story better.
3. The overland is far, FAR too easy. The story will have you believe you're a hero taking down some real bad people, but these quest bosses drop in a couple hits. Gone are the days of Doshia and Molag Bal where you couldn't stand there and autoattack them to death. Did Molag Bal yesterday finishing Cold Harbour on my Necromancer and died a little inside how quick he is from when I did it way back.
4. Because there is no challenge for players who don't have crappy hardware or below average motor skills, you just feel like a passive observer with dialogue dropping every now and then.
5. Because the quests are gated behind all kill or click style play, this makes quest themselves to get the next drop of dialogue pretty boring. Escort a guy that will never die, the mobs don't even target them and if they do they are never in danger of dying. Kill X number of enemy, just mass pull and burn them all down.
6. Luckily the lore/story is good enough that I can, for now, be entertained enough to want to see the story arcs. But that's ALL you get out of it. Very simplistic combat that poses no challenge, drops of dialogue to entertain you, and no other reward.
7. And don't get me wrong, I'm not a buff overland/quest bosses and gimme better rewards kind of play. But ZOS pushes new content, has people pay premium prices for it. And the majority of content is these story lines with all the issues I speak of. If you want gear from the new content, it's generally the dungeons that provide the meta or close to meta sets. But if not chests, delves, WBs provides the others, without the need to do ANY of the questing. Any interesting skin, cosmetic, mount, useful piece is gated behind their crown store, and usually their crates so not only do they want your money, but they want you to gamble getting crap, useless items like potions vs something you'd really like.

TL;DR Glad you like it. There actually is a continuity of the story you miss out on jumping around. The story is a glorified graphic novel without challenge. The most interesting stuff in game is locked in the crown store; usually in the lottery bit. But they want people to pay premium prices for the Chapter and DLC/ESO plus.

navystylz_ESO · June 2019

cwp303b14_ESO wrote: »

Sergykid wrote: »

glad some people like it, but for me it's not like this.

as far as i have noticed, and i did every single quest aside from Elsweyr, quests are "bad guy wants this, stop them" and with a twist at the end in the case of main quests. And that's pretty much it, in the rest NPC seem like stupid 10 y o babies. Or exaggerations like "you cannot defeat me, i am immor-" dead before finished the phrase.

(Spoilers ahead)

I dont find that is the case at all. The motivation for many of those "bad guys" is often shades of gray and even in some cases worthy of sympathy. I've researched ancient mysteries, solved murder mysteries, gone on time traveling adventures with strange repercussions.. many quests start as something mundane like in summerset with vagrants hanging out on some "haunted" land and take you so far from that initial narrative it's amazing. You find and ancient underground civilization supporting crazy old undead family members of the guy you went with who wanted to research what happened to his family's town and it turns out they need his blood to restore themselves from a plague. WHAT?! I didn't see that coming and I was genuinely interested in the story the whole quest. And it was a SIDE QUEST! I've never seen story like that in an mmo.

And it doesn't even matter ...

because some random Vampire woman decides they all need to die, and you have zero options but to eradicate them all. I was so pissed as a Vampire Necromancer, that I had to just go in and wipe them out because she thought they fell off the wagon. All the while trying to make me feel something because they're like "oh, you can control your hunger, blah blah."

At least in Eastmarch you got to choose who you sided with.

navystylz_ESO · June 2019

ArchMikem wrote: »

I'm sure many veterans still have PTSD from their fights with Doshia.

Only in the sense that those who actually loved that fight, learning to use the mechanics to defeat her, and feel accomplished about it are likely gone. More new people and those who thought that was hard is left, because the current very easy overland questing doesn't bore them to death.

I love Doshia. Took me several tries to learn that fight, as a new player being in one of the first zones. By time Molah Bal rolled around the game had taught me to interrupt, block and dodge roll that he was a very fun fight that was challenging, but not impossible.