Elsweyr and Greymoor have the same main story line

Efaritay · June 2020

I feel ZoS are too scared to break Lore so they keep it simple and as effective as possible.

Nemesis7884 · June 2020

one of the issues with creating dramatic twists and changes is that you have to be able to make them persistent for everyone regardless of world stat...thats quite a challenge

finehair · June 2020

If i ever have to bring back some argonian's lost guars i will be making my nord new boots and a bag.

VaranisArano · June 2020

I've been watching a play through of Greymoor and I've got two questions for people who are playing it:

1. Does the Investigation portion of the plot really drag on? It seems like Greymoor retreads a lot of ground that was kind of already covered in Harrowstorm/the Prologue and that way too much time is spent trying to gather evidence to convince Svargrim to act. Did it seem that way to you?

2. Anyone have any thoughts about Svana being a mirror/foil for Serana, since Greymoor and Dawnguard both seem to focus on family dynamics?

So far the heavy emphasis on investigation is differentiating it from Elsweyr for me...but not in a good way. At least in Elsweyr I was taking concrete action right away.

Faulgor · June 2020

VaranisArano wrote: »

I've been watching a play through of Greymoor and I've got two questions for people who are playing it:

1. Does the Investigation portion of the plot really drag on? It seems like Greymoor retreads a lot of ground that was kind of already covered in Harrowstorm/the Prologue and that way too much time is spent trying to gather evidence to convince Svargrim to act. Did it seem that way to you?

2. Anyone have any thoughts about Svana being a mirror/foil for Serana, since Greymoor and Dawnguard both seem to focus on family dynamics?

So far the heavy emphasis on investigation is differentiating it from Elsweyr for me...but not in a good way. At least in Elsweyr I was taking concrete action right away.

1. Yes, absolutely. But what annoyed me most is that it doesn't really lead anywhere. Even after the main quest, we still don't really know anything about the villains' motivation or their goals. It just drags until the predictable twist, and then it's over. It also doesn't seem a good fit for Lyris' story, the poor girl needs more action.

2. I don't see a lot of similarities between the two, to be honest. The family dynamics in Greymoor don't feel particularly developed, we just know that Svana doesn't get along with her father and that's that. After meeting him we assume it's because he's just difficult to get along with in general. Not because of something like Harkon did to Serana.

depravity_influence · June 2020

the msq storylines in this game is as bad as the servers. there are a few side quest storylines that are ok most most of the time i really dont care.

NotaDaedraWorshipper · June 2020

Iccotak wrote: »

there are not really any moments with any characters that feel emotionally engaging

there are no moments like when in WoW when Varian Wrynn dies because WoW is over-the-top soap opera storytelling
Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLUOTNkGVho

WoW focuses on characters to invest players but Elder Scrolls has historically been only about you the player so they never really put any effort into engaging characters. When there aren't really any characters to engage players the story wilts.
You need to have consistent characters for players to connect.

One of the reasons WoW is still king MMO is because they understand the value of presentation. I don't care how good your story is - if you have poor presentation then people will not care.

Still king of MMOs? Ha!

Loads of people have left and it has gotten so much *** the latest years because of horrendous story and character writing, non-consistent characters, gamemechanics, and Blizzard's behavior as a whole, that is far from truth.

ShadowHvo · June 2020

Faulgor wrote: »

Khenarthi wrote: »

Finedaible wrote: »

Wrothgar main story is still best in the game.

Thieves Guild *ahem*
Best story, best characters

You are both correct. Orsinium and Thieves Guild are the best DLC, story-wise, to this day. Which is just baffling to me.

They also have the lowest stakes. Nothing world-ending, just interesting characters and good presentation.

I still remember that moment when King Kurog impaled a chieftain in his throne rome, out of the blue. I just finished Greymoor and I don't remember anything.

I honestly think that is part of the reason.

We as the Vestige is constantly the center of attention, the hero to save them all, to end the larger conflict. Both Orsinium, Thieves Guild (and to a smaller extend, the Dark Brotherhood) focused more on character development, rather than a deadly world-ending threat.

I kinda miss it, honestly. In particular with the Thieves Guild, as that is arguably the DLC with the best character development to date. I've never cared more about what happened to the NPC's in ESO, than I have in Hews' Bane outlawis society.

srfrogg23 · June 2020

Lyserus wrote: »

Also, glad to see I am not the only one noticing and discussing this.

There are some hints about where the story is going in ESO:

If a king/queen has a daughter:
Chance of the old daddy gonna die one way or another: 90%
Add it to 100% if said daughter expresses strong desire to NOT inherit

If a king/queen has a son heir in game:
He will be the protecting light of his royal parent,
but at the same time 90% useless,
do things like be a racist
getting captured over and over again
or turn to daedra

If someone (especially a noble) act like an ass:
90% that's the traitor
And if he/she turned traitor he/she will deal with daedra, vampire, steal candy from kids, sleep with animals etc so any chance of redemption is gone (because, ZOS is not gonna make another option to redeem, two options are too many options)

Yes, the storytelling is very formulaic, but it's not any more formulaic than most Disney movies, imo. I just think Zos' stories tend to be a bit more obvious about it because they try so hard to show the rest of the world that they're forward-thinking progressives who support marginalized peoples that they've kind of painted themselves into a literary corner. They don't want to offend people by putting the inherently privileged straight white males in a position of power in too many quest lines, but there's only so much you can do with the product when you have to adhere to the SJW checklist for fictional characters and what they're allowed to do. /shrug

Shantu · June 2020

The best thing I can say about ESO story lines is that I am relieved when they are over. Even the stories feel like a grind.

maboleth · June 2020

They also said Skyrim main story was bland or short, yet it's one of the best ever for me. Or Dawnguard, how I immensely loved the story and Gothic setting, everything around that DLC was thrilling.

If anything I learned about playing adventure (rpg) games, it's about how you, as a character invest into it. The story (quests) are main turning plots and pivots, but how YOU treat all, how you approach the sites, settings, fights and searching based on the findings also matters.

I'm on a 2nd main quest and so far I love it very much. I'm totally connected with Lyris and trying to know better Fin. Together with prologue quests, it's exciting and has a dose of mystery and suspense with humorous bits from Lyris.

OmniDo · June 2020

lol...
When is everyone going to realize that "Tropes" are based upon psychology and human behavior.
Humans themselves are this predictable, and so our mainstream entertainment reflects this.
None of this should be surprising.
There are only so many roads to Rome, no matter how many roads we roam.

Aliyavana · June 2020

Finedaible wrote: »

Wrothgar main story is still best in the game.

Agreed, wasn't a world ending threat so it was nice

Czekoludek · June 2020

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

Iccotak wrote: »

there are not really any moments with any characters that feel emotionally engaging

there are no moments like when in WoW when Varian Wrynn dies because WoW is over-the-top soap opera storytelling
Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLUOTNkGVho

WoW focuses on characters to invest players but Elder Scrolls has historically been only about you the player so they never really put any effort into engaging characters. When there aren't really any characters to engage players the story wilts.
You need to have consistent characters for players to connect.

One of the reasons WoW is still king MMO is because they understand the value of presentation. I don't care how good your story is - if you have poor presentation then people will not care.

Still king of MMOs? Ha! Loads of people have left and it has gotten so much *** the latest years because of horrendous story and character writing, non-consistent characters, gamemechanics, and Blizzard's behavior as a whole, that is far from truth.

Check popularity of eso and wow videos and streams on yt and twitch, you will see that there is a huge gap between this two titles. Agreed, BfA was week af, blizz also had a lot of bad pr recently but new dlc looks great, from alpha looks like devs are listening to feedback and if they won't [snip] it up, it will probably be better then Legion which was praised by community.
So yeah, there was a lot of wow refugees because of BfA. Many of them tried ESO but game failed at keeping most of them

[Edited for Censor Bypass]

VaranisArano · June 2020

OmniDo wrote: »

lol...
When is everyone going to realize that "Tropes" are based upon psychology and human behavior.
Humans themselves are this predictable, and so our mainstream entertainment reflects this.
None of this should be surprising.
There are only so many roads to Rome, no matter how many roads we roam.

Of course tropes are. They can still be used well or poorly in storytelling.

"The rightful heir returns to reclaim the throne" is a fantasy staple all the way back from King Arthur or Robin Hood. Even earlier, if you count Odysseus and other myths. Tolkien used it with Aragorn. ZOS isn't breaking new ground with Khamira in Elsweyr, but we can absolutely evaluate how they handled their version of that trope.

Or in the example I gave earlier of "child dies, parent turns evil," its one thing to use it occasionally. In the Ebonheart Pact questlines, ZOS uses it in four out of the five zones. By the time I saw an evil NPC in Summerset getting the sympathetic treatment, I called that motivation immediately, and was later proven correct. It gets predictable and not in a good way, like playing rock, paper, scissors and choosing scissors every time.

Ultimately, evaluating stories is going to be a case of YMMV, like most lit criticism. Some people are going to love how ZOS used tropes in their storytelling. Others will find those same tropes stale and overused. There are only so many roads to Rome, after all. Sometimes the tour guide is great and sometimes they bore you to tears.

Finedaible · June 2020

Iccotak wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

Khenarthi wrote: »

Finedaible wrote: »

Wrothgar main story is still best in the game.

Thieves Guild *ahem*
Best story, best characters

You are both correct. Orsinium and Thieves Guild are the best DLC, story-wise, to this day. Which is just baffling to me.

They also have the lowest stakes. Nothing world-ending, just interesting characters and good presentation.

I still remember that moment when King Kurog impaled a chieftain in his throne rome, out of the blue. I just finished Greymoor and I don't remember anything.

ESO needs to work on their presentation in writing and creating emotionally engaging moments for the player.
Score emotional scenes, use the player camera for dramatic moments,
Kurog killing the guy in the throne room was a shock.

An issue I see is that there are high stakes but no consequences. At least in Elsweyr Tharn faced some consequence for seeking out the “Demon Weapon”.

But more importantly there is no consequence to you the player. ESO has to find ways to make them personally invested in the story. Like Mannimarco and Molag Bal, they took your soul - there’s your motivation.

If Elsweyr ended with my character losing the fight, or losing someone, then I would be more invested in the proceeding Dragonhold story.
Imagine if Cadwell died, and it was because of Kaalgrontiid. It just got personal.

Look at Destiny 2. A fan favorite character was killed in an expansion, and it wasn’t done lightly it was a dramatic and dark moment. Players were motivated to find his killer - they were invested in the story.

Elder Scrolls isn’t Warcraft.
WoW is about the cast of characters while you’re there for the ride.
ESO is about You, you’re the main protagonist and the rest of the cast are supporting characters.
Don’t copy WoW, engage players the Elder Scrolls way.

(Summerset spoilers ahead):

Concerning high stakes, I find that the best stories are the ones where beloved or interesting characters have some degree of vulnerability and don't have "plot armor." 'Save the world ploys' are cliché at best. For example, playing through the Summerset story-line, you know Nocturnal is definitively NOT going to succeed in her plot in destroying and recreating Nirn simply because this whole event is taking place in a past era in the Elder Scrolls history; So the 'threat' feels empty and meaningless as it unfolds. The one character i might have cared about in Summerset was Veya Releth had they given a chance to redeem her, because we (the player) had some involvement with her fate in Vvardenfell. However Veya turned out to be a very one-dimensional character that was decidedly evil for some oddly obscured motivations which honestly didn't make any logical sense. Like, turning on Naryu and yourself literally after asking you to take care of Naryu when you parted ways in Vvardenfell? What? Maybe the betrayal was intended to be a shock factor in the story or something but it definitely didn't feel that way to me, it was just oddly played out.

Now for an example of what I think is a great quest and story structure, it would have to be something like the quest-line for Stormhaven, especially the "Sir Hughes' Fate" one. That quest-line is an emotional roller coaster with a lot at stake and then asks you to make a hard choice at the end with real consequences (well, seemingly more impactful consequences).

Lyserus · June 2020

Aliyavana wrote: »

Finedaible wrote: »

Wrothgar main story is still best in the game.

Agreed, wasn't a world ending threat so it was nice

Indeed, I was hoping Muirkmire would be another one, then in the end I was like "oh you [Snip] what"

[Edited for minor profanity bypass]

kind_hero · June 2020

I finished the Greymoor story yesterday.

My opinion in the spoiler section:

My last story chapter was Elsweyr (both zones), so helping another princess take the throne and save her kingdom was quite fresh. Anyway, Svana was OK. I like that the devs are reusing the companions.

I just did not get enough build up for the high king to become a vampire and help the Grey Host destroy his kingdom which he was so obsessed to protect. Why be so protective when you have a plan to turn everyone into zombies or vampires. If he was a vampire then he should not allow Lyris and the vestige in the city from the start. His motives were not explained at all... We just see that he was this grumpy king who was getting too old for his crown and had issues with his family. Seemed to me more like he had a drinking problem than a power complex.

The Grey Host decide to kill Svagrim's wife, the queen... why? If the king was already a vampire and part of their great plan, why take such a bold action which will alert everyone and make the heroes intensify their searches? Here it seemed to me that the plot was edited by many people and each one saw things their way. If he wasn't a vampire when his wife was killed, why turn? So most likely he was with the Host from the start.

I felt like the climax to the story was chasing Tzingalis, the mad genius vampire. I expected a way more detailed lab, cluttered with experiments, visual clues, and even more interactions with Tzingalis, which was supposed to be a very elusive and powerful enemy. Yet, we get to kill him quite easy and too quickly to feel any payoff. I wanted a fight in several stages in which he teases the heroes. First he send his minions, next he traps the heroes into a poisoned room, after he fights them and runs when at 30% health and in the end he tries to self destruct the tower and kill the heroes with him. I would have been fun to have some chain reaction destroy his tower, right before the heroes jump through a portal or some window, because I did not feel there was an important achievement by defeating Tzingalis.

The harrowstorms are maybe the most interesting concept of this expansion. The graphics, the feeling you get when you see one, everything is spot on (except not seeing on the map where they happen). But the story does't live up to these harrowstorms. Seeing Svagrim refusing to see reason so many times just made my eyes roll, like come on, the jarls would jump at your throat and depose him if the high king would ignore such evidence. Actually there was only one jarl and a retired court mage, so the high king had almost no opposition, which was odd. I thought the high king was elected by a moot, and that involved more than the jarls of two holds.

Some people said this is a gothic story... well, it did not feel gothic or dark to me, the Rivenspire quest is darker than this, and baron Montclair had way more reasons to become a vampire and use the cursed artefact than Svagrim, who had all the power and everything in order. Doing the Rivenspire quest, I even felt sorry a bit for the Montclairs, but none for Svagrim, he was an old fool who was scripted like a baddie that we need to kill in the last bit of the questline.

I just hope they will give us a better story arc with the next DLC.

I would rate this story 6/10

P.S. Fenn is a cool new char, but I also liked the old crone because she is weird.

Rukia541 · June 2020

Jacarranda wrote: »

Iccotak wrote: »

there are not really any moments with any characters that feel emotionally engaging

there are no moments like when in WoW when Varian Wrynn dies because WoW is over-the-top soap opera storytelling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLUOTNkGVho

ok but this is awful sorry

It was the only good point in WoW story aside from lich king, varian is actually a badass character. RIP.

I definitely don't think we should be drawing inspiration that game to ESO which has far far superior story telling, our regular fetch quests are written 10x better than main story in WoW.

craybest · June 2020

I think it's harder to convey emotion in Eso compared to other games, because other games use cinematics, camera changes, music changes. All things that help a lot for mood. In eso you see people crying and all but it just feels empty because music is same as always, can't see their face expressions, and they only take a small part of the screen.
I think if eso used cinematics for important parts experience would be vastly improved. But that ship sailed a long ago and most people prefer it to be like older es games rather than use today's tech that makes it able to make a good cinematic.
Imagine if Witcher 3 had no cinematics at all and did it like eso does events. It would je much less immersive.

red_emu · June 2020

I agree. I just finished the main story and it felt very shallow and very predictable! Plot twists? Every twist was so obviously coming on I was facepalming through the entire game.

With exception of Fennorian, all the characters felt flat and uninspired. I agree, the plot feels similar to Elsweyr but somehow Elsweyr had me glued to the screen, thanks to Abnur Tharn and a feeling of an actual threat to the game world. Harrowstorms feel like an afterthought. Maybe it's because Lyris is a very predictable character and all the antagonists are still as unknown as they were during prologue quest? Maybe because Justin Bieber.... sorry, Svana is as cliche as they get? (at least the Kitty Girl Princess had some personality).

I kinda miss the Daedric plots as Main Story. It always made more sense, that the prices of Oblivion can pose an actual threat to the world. To this day, Summerset is my favourite expansion (although a lot of that has to do with incredibly great voice acting and dialogue).

Fingers crossed Q4 ending to the story will be much better written.

wnights · June 2020

I still don't understand though how Reachmen became part of the "team vampires". It feels like the main quest was cut short for some reason.
I would love to get a quest with just Svana to get to know her better as a character.
I don't undestand at all why Lyris had to be brought back for this story line (I sacrificed her to Molag Bal because I don't like her/ I would like her to stay dead pls lol)

The King being the bad guy was soooo cliche. But his reasoning even worse: I want to be powerful/

Would love to see some multi-dimentional characters that aren't just black or white. Naryu is a good example, as she is an assassin but she fights for good causes using arguably not so good methods.

So far all the stories seem to be very cliche: a princess that is an only heiress to a throne and then her parents die. I hope the next stories are a lot less predictible.

Summerset was really good because
1)the story had the perfect length
2)a lot of different characters that aren't just bad or good, they have their own issues and have made their own mistakes
3)we knew who the main enemy was but all the steps before actually fighting her were interesting and there was even an unexpected encounter from a previous chapter
4)best side quests (Alchemy of course)

So far I have only encountered 1 really interesting side quest in Greymoor (I've done 30 quests in WS): about a missing girl in Morthal. All other quests were mostly just "go there get this"

I would say the story-telling so far this year had been on a weaker side. Love antiquities though and Proudspire manor

AlAbaster · June 2020

In order to write an interesting story, you must have lived a life and experienced the fullness of what it is to be a human being.

20-something techno geeks who still think pink hair is cool don't qualify.

Margha_Ralmoren · June 2020

The type of story I really dislike is the Gaïa quests ("The spirit of the forest is corrupted, go pray at those four shrines to lift the curse !""You did it, the forest is happy now

").

I liked Orsinium because magic was not part of the story for once. The villains are written well enough so that you can see where they are coming from.

The king hoped the orcs would be safer and more respected if they emulated the bretons and the redguards and stoped living like "savages". Him wanting to reach that goal by any means necessary is what made him a villain, he was not just a"I'm eviiill and I want powaaaar !" kind of character.

Summerset would have been another good place for this type of magic-less story. I would have found it cool if Ayrenn's politics and how they are perceived in Summerset had a more central role in the main story.

It starts a bit like that but then you learn that the immigrants were kidnapped for some eviiilll daedric experiment, plus the Daedric war story arc had to be finished so: magic, another end of the world, another most evilest villain that had ever eviled, explosions, etc etc...

Faulgor · June 2020

kind_hero wrote: »

Seeing Svagrim refusing to see reason so many times just made my eyes roll, like come on, the jarls would jump at your throat and depose him if the high king would ignore such evidence. Actually there was only one jarl and a retired court mage, so the high king had almost no opposition, which was odd. I thought the high king was elected by a moot, and that involved more than the jarls of two holds.

That's how it should be. Problem is they apparently retconned Whiterun and Falkreath hold out of Western Skyrim (what are they, then? Middle Skyrim?), so there's just Haafingar and Hjaalmarch, one of which is Svargrim's hold anyway, and the recently established (and lost before we get a chance to experience it) Karthald. Quite pathetic for a High King indeed.
I'm now curious if they consider Winterhold and the Pale part of Eastern Skyrim? Or have they been retconned out of the province, too?

kind_hero wrote: »

Some people said this is a gothic story... well, it did not feel gothic or dark to me, the Rivenspire quest is darker than this, and baron Montclair had way more reasons to become a vampire and use the cursed artefact than Svagrim, who had all the power and everything in order. Doing the Rivenspire quest, I even felt sorry a bit for the Montclairs, but none for Svagrim, he was an old fool who was scripted like a baddie that we need to kill in the last bit of the questline.

Yeah, precisely. There aren't any particularly gothic side quests, either. They are basically retelling Skyrim's Dawnguard DLC, but do it even less "gothic" than one of their base game zones, while claiming the tone of the chapter is gothic. A friend who recently started playing again said that the Rivenspire quest was much better than Western Skyrim, and he's right. Why are we paying for a new chapter that offers less of an experience than we had 6 years ago?

I don't really understand why they wanted to do another Vampire story anyway, in Skyrim no less. They did a worse job both than Dawnguard and their own base game, and didn't have anything new to add to the theme (except a Vampire castle below Solitude, I guess?). This is not the failing of any particular writer in my book, ZOS' writers have proven more than capable over the years to create memorable characters and interesting stories and lore. This was somehow bungled in the early design process for Kyne knows what reason.

kind_hero wrote: »

I just hope they will give us a better story arc with the next DLC.

I was really looking forward to the Reach DLC, almost more than to Greymoor. Now i'm not so sure. Either the continued story will be a burden on the DLC, or the DLC could make the story interesting after all. Which would make Greymoor a lackluster 1st act to a good movie. We might see some previews soon, as they usually would show us what they are planning at E3.

I also have a hunch we'll eventually see Snow Elves / the Forgotten Vale appear again. They usually don't create assets like the vale deer and snow elf furnishings if they don't intend to reuse them somewhere.

robertthebard · June 2020

Grianasteri wrote: »

This seems, lazy.

If ZOS needs some creative writing, there are many of us capable of producing fantasy content that is not so heavy on worn on tropes.

Hit me up ZOS, I am available

So you of course noticed right out of the gate that ESO is essentially Oblivion online? No? Maybe they should avoid hiring you? I mean, the only difference is anchors instead of portals, and we've got a much wider setting here. Other than that? Yeah, it's a bit late in the game to be going "but it's the same thing"...

colossalvoids · June 2020

Well, after playing through the main story all i can say it is underwhelming.
No likeable/relatable characters, no characters to hate, or care at least. Like whole lot of nothing. Plot feels forced, dumbed down and too predictable more like a simple side quest. Sadly enough nordic culture suffers the most here being ignored fully compared to what we had in summerset or morrowind for example.
Some side quests or delve/public ones feel more solid to be honest.

Also i see a trend here writing our character lines making us more dumb with every expansion, forced caring for npcs we can't care less about etc. This direction probably aimed on children (18+ game anyone?) or people unaware about any lore tes universe had to offer, which might be good for some but a complete turn off for me personally.
Writing lines about us caring for a character that did completely nothing and was more of an annoyance ( should work out great when playing some rogue/assassin or a mercenary) is not helping to get into the story either.

Finedaible · June 2020

I still don't why Lyris is even needed for Greymoor without Abnur Tharn there for some entertaining banter. Unless they have some grand 'family reunion' planned with Mannimarco later, but everyone getting sudden and unexplained plot armor all the time is going to get pretty cliché.

TheImperfect · June 2020

I'm waiting to see what happens in the next part, a lot could change. Too early to judge. I've enjoyed it so far.

Lyserus · June 2020

mrsrobot wrote: »

I'm waiting to see what happens in the next part, a lot could change. Too early to judge. I've enjoyed it so far.

I hope I can share your optimism.... but knowing ZOS the story dlc probably is already in production and it's too late to change the story

And a rushed story might make things even worse