"Experienced" writers

thalosdaedra · September 2020

stop it

Jeremy · September 2020

Mystic_wolf479 wrote: »

So, any female over the age of 22 and any male over that age of 35 will know what I'm talking about here.
You can tell that a lot of the quests, stories and dialogue was written by younger people.
My main example here is that almost every random NPC complains...That's all they do is complain, now you prove to me that's not the writing of a young person and I'll cut off my own big tow and mail it to you lol.

Another example is;
idk if this is due to the lesions on my brain stem that cause random outbursts of hysterical laughter or crying [sometimes both lol] but there is one quest imparticular that hit my heart right in the nuts.
That's around the end of the Psijic quest when that woman's husband like sacrifices himself...I don't want to spoil the whole thing for anyone or not remember it right but pretty much it was really emotional and I liked that quest the most out of any that I've done in the game. And I've been playing since beta so I've done I think all of them by now lol.
It could also be ptsd lol any number of neurological things that's wrong atm but pretty much I'd like some more quests with some deeper writing and storytelling.

Lately, quests feel really similar. Like those application questionnaires that ask the same question multiple times using different words lol.
I've been through some [snip], I'll write some stuff and submit an application.

Does anyone have any starting off points or general quest ideas that could fit the bill?

[Edited for Censor Bypass]

I thought the writing was average as well. The story also skipped over some parts that could have made the story better... such as when Fennorian embraced his wild Vampire side to save them from the Harrowstorm before Lyris had to pummel him unconscious. I would have liked to see that scene play out instead of just hear about it later.

I still really liked Greymoor as an expansion though. Aesthetically it's impressive and introduced some interesting new systems into the gameplay. But it did suffer from lackluster writing and forgettable characters.

I think ultimately characterization is more important than the plot.

Ekzorka · September 2020

richo262 wrote: »

I figured, after the prologue eluding to a potential clash of kings, and the Skyrim theme song (I often listen to) oozing testosterone, and the previous story was a female heroine, I was somewhat expecting a to be joining a viking army of Ragnar Lothbroks but instead got lumped in with what felt like an "army" of Righurts. There was only 2 or 3 male NPC's and they were all quick to announce how much of a coward they are. I was beginning the think the secret of Blackreach was, all the men had left Skyrim and were getting drunk in a toolshed down there somewhere. I did find 1 male NPC in the middle town, he was naked for some reason, I guess that explains how West Skyrim has a population, poor *** must be exhausted.

This is one of the main chapter's problems. There is nothing wrong with making strong women. It's bad to try to make strong women by deliberately dumbing down the entire male population. I got the impression that all brave nord men had gone to some war, and their wives, sisters, and mothers were left to perform their duties. But who is Western Skyrim at war with?
It feels like I'm back to Cyrodiil where quests were existed only to exist - no lore, no location story, no significance. Maybe the story from Karthwatch will get an extension, I don't know. But the major part of a chapter didn't feels like Skyrim or even the work of the same people who made Elsweyr/Dragonhold. It feels for me like indriks of 2020: some kind of content just to fill in the time while more important content is being made.

Returning to the topic: devs shouldn't forget the experience of past DLCs. I can see how the plot, visual, and mechanics of the very first DLCs progressed, and some of these aspects are missing from the last DLCs.

thorwyn · September 2020

I can't say I agree with the OP. I've been working as a game writer for over 15 years and wrote more than 700 quests for one game as well as the main story dialogues. Game writing is always limited by the boundaries of the technical possibilities and assets in the game. Background, world design (night/day for example), word count, graphics, sound etc.etc.
Any decent writer is able to come up with fantastic plots and stories, but written words don't mean anything. The quest needs to be scripted and staged, special assets need to be ordered and go through the development process... all that for a quest that a good amount of players will never even read properly.
That's one of the reasons why developers come up with "fillers", generic quests which don't require a lot of extra work... basically "kill 10 rats"-quests. And there are only so many creative ways of telling a player to kill those rats.
That being said, in my opinion, the quests in ESO are very well written and the staging is usually very good as well. Keep in mind, we're not talking about a cinematic single player game like Witcher here... this is a MMO.

Aznarb · September 2020

richo262 wrote: »

You can tell the story telling is in the gutter atm.

Elsweyr had a princess hero story, that I actually think was done quite well. She had military loyalists training her, her skills were explained, the goal is to get her back on the throne (or at least remove what is now there). It didn't feel forced, or artificial and the story they had was something worth telling.

Greymoor - Exact same story, girl is a drunkard, turns into hero in 3 quests, explores half of Blackreach solo and ends up in a vampire camp in her pajamas. Dad is a buffoon, general scooby doo villian story. Very forced, felt like they were pushing a narrative and a particular agenda (no male nord NPC's?).

I figured, after the prologue eluding to a potential clash of kings, and the Skyrim theme song (I often listen to) oozing testosterone, and the previous story was a female heroine, I was somewhat expecting a to be joining a viking army of Ragnar Lothbroks but instead got lumped in with what felt like an "army" of Righurts. There was only 2 or 3 male NPC's and they were all quick to announce how much of a coward they are. I was beginning the think the secret of Blackreach was, all the men had left Skyrim and were getting drunk in a toolshed down there somewhere. I did find 1 male NPC in the middle town, he was naked for some reason, I guess that explains how West Skyrim has a population, poor *** must be exhausted.

I was expecting the story to be 2 strong headed kings going at it, then figuring out a mutual enemy and banding together to defend skyrim. Nope, just a generic rehash that felt like it was trying to score political points over telling any form of well thought out story.

I REALLY hope that the ESO writing team stays away from TES6. I do not have high hopes for the next DLC expansion.

Agree on this, I'm not a big fan on main story most of the time cuz they're very predictable (I think I liked only clockwork and summerset main story) but I usually do like side quest, lot of them (not all, some are pretty generic) are very fun (dialogue) or surprising.
But in Greymoore ? I liked the few side quest about the necro-girl, really well writted, but the rest ? No that much, but, still ok. The MQ of this chapter ? Hugh.. Everything was so fast and forced, people coming out of nowhere, almost no back story, etc..

The most sad thing ? No quest about old Nord lore like we add in Morrowind, Elsweyrs and summerset for exemple..
That a shame, I really like the nord story that are usually so epic with dragon magic, Shalidor, etc.., nop, close to nothing here.
Hope the next DLC will be better really.
The only good point for me is landscape, some very beautiful aera, but still not as much detailled as Elsweyr (south especially, my favorite), summerset, morrowind, clockwork..

themaddaedra · September 2020

thorwyn wrote: »

I can't say I agree with the OP. I've been working as a game writer for over 15 years and wrote more than 700 quests for one game as well as the main story dialogues. Game writing is always limited by the boundaries of the technical possibilities and assets in the game. Background, world design (night/day for example), word count, graphics, sound etc.etc.
Any decent writer is able to come up with fantastic plots and stories, but written words don't mean anything. The quest needs to be scripted and staged, special assets need to be ordered and go through the development process... all that for a quest that a good amount of players will never even read properly.
That's one of the reasons why developers come up with "fillers", generic quests which don't require a lot of extra work... basically "kill 10 rats"-quests. And there are only so many creative ways of telling a player to kill those rats.
That being said, in my opinion, the quests in ESO are very well written and the staging is usually very good as well. Keep in mind, we're not talking about a cinematic single player game like Witcher here... this is a MMO.

Well first of all, people are comparing ESO to ESO. I haven't played any other MMOs before this and can't say how good or bad the writing in MMOs are, but i've been playing ESO since launch and i can legitimately say that it has gone all time low in ESO.

I was actually complaining about something very similar in another thread about dungeon bosses. In zones we have examples like Wrothgar and Clockwork City, in dungeons we have examples like Dragonbones. Written like a pro, voiced like a pro. A simple comparison between Orryn the Black(Fang Lair) and Arkhesis the Mad Alchemist(Stone Garden):

Orryn: The clatter and scrape of old bones is music to my ears. Watch how the puppets dance. I'll teach you the steps soon enough.

Arkhesis: I love combustion ha ha ha!

And if you've seen both in game you can actually tell the obscure difference in voice acting as well.

So, i don't believe technical boundaries and assets are the problem here. It's more like ZOS realizing that they can hire like 1.5 young and inexperienced writers with the money they'd otherwise spend to 1 experienced one. Which is beyond sad for a company that's probably sitting on hundreds of millions.

vestahls · September 2020

thorwyn wrote: »

I can't say I agree with the OP. I've been working as a game writer for over 15 years and wrote more than 700 quests for one game as well as the main story dialogues. Game writing is always limited by the boundaries of the technical possibilities and assets in the game. Background, world design (night/day for example), word count, graphics, sound etc.etc.
Any decent writer is able to come up with fantastic plots and stories, but written words don't mean anything. The quest needs to be scripted and staged, special assets need to be ordered and go through the development process... all that for a quest that a good amount of players will never even read properly.
That's one of the reasons why developers come up with "fillers", generic quests which don't require a lot of extra work... basically "kill 10 rats"-quests. And there are only so many creative ways of telling a player to kill those rats.
That being said, in my opinion, the quests in ESO are very well written and the staging is usually very good as well. Keep in mind, we're not talking about a cinematic single player game like Witcher here... this is a MMO.

Sorry, but how come SWTOR has much better writing than ESO? It's an MMO too, it's much more technically limited, it's free-to-play meaning their revenue is (logically) less, and it's running on older technology than ESO as it came out three years earlier in 2011.
And yet the writing in SWTOR is much more immersive, more creative, the characters really feel like characters, and you are actually interested in doing the quests even when they're completely optional.

The reality is that the technical limitations of the game have nothing to do with whether the writing is good or not.

Taloros · September 2020

Anybody know what a game story writer earns in comparison to a tech guy/gal?

I always wonder why companies seem to get the technical stuff somewhat right, which seems very expensive and difficult to me, but then only use that to do tell sub-par stories. Is it that good writers are hard to find, are they expensive, does management believe that good stories are too hard to understand - or what is it?

ChaosWotan · September 2020

When I did Cadwell the first time, in 2014/15, I was enjoying the discovery of new maps and learning how to fight, so didn't reflect that much upon dialogues and storylines. But now that the game is old and I'm very familiar with all of it, the storylines and dialogues are not exactly impressive when replaying them.

The Wire is my second favorite tv-series, but in general: increased swearing (and nasty/cynical grittiness) will not improve the creative value of art.

A cheap wine doesn't become better by spiking it with more alcohol. Though you may become too drunk and stupid to no longer care about what you are drinking.

DarcyMardin · September 2020

I'm a professional author (published novelist for more than 30 years) and I must admit that I don't hold MMO writers to particularly high standards in terms of their plots and characterizations. It's a different medium with very different challenges from what I'm used to.

That said, I found the early stories in the 2014 release to be better in terms of plot and characterization than I've seen in many games. The main Molag Bal story was very well done. Some of the regional alliance stories were more memorable than others (the EP region storyline is my least favorite). I liked Summerset reasonably well, but wasn't too wild about the Morrowind story, especially when compared to the story in the original Morrowind game. The Thieves Guild was good. I haven't finished either Elsweyr or Greymoor, but so far I'm not excited by either. I agree that the quality of the storytelling has fallen off in recent expansions.

But I disagree with the complaints above about too many women's stories. We women have been living with far too much male-oriented storytelling all our lives. The more stories that focus on women, the happier I will be.

vestahls · September 2020

DarcyMardin wrote: »

But I disagree with the complaints above about too many women's stories. We women have been living with far too much male-oriented storytelling all our lives. The more stories that focus on women, the happier I will be.

Writing a stereotypically male character and putting it in a female-looking pixel composition does not make it a female oriented story. A big stronk independent warrior going "I know what's good, boomers move over", pretending to be a female-oriented anything, only makes me hate the character more. There's nothing about my perspective as a woman that is found in that writing, it's just insulting to me. And this is what we get in ESO.

If they focused just on good writing and less on their political ideology, we'd have better quests in this game.

Miragent · September 2020

Raisin wrote: »

As many have said, the age of the writers is hardly the issue here. It's just bad writing. Everything reads very stilted, the NPCs talk like their whole purpose is to shove exposition at you, etc. I love some of the quests and characters, but it requires a bit of... Well, interpreting, and attempting to see behind the awkward dialogue. The voice acting also often has this exact same problem as well. Just very cheesy and hard to become immersed in.
A big shock for me is often switching from this to a Dragon Age game. The quality dialogue and voice acting in DA:O just... hits you in the face. It's like real people talking; the complete other end of the spectrum.

Funny you should say that, hearing Zevran's voice in every corner of Tamriel and beyond and some Oghren here and there, as well as other voice acting legends all over the place (and made pretty much unenjoyable due to being tucked in group content where people focus on, well, group content instead of long voice acting, awesome it may be, but I digress). I love DA:O to bits, but I have a big problem with the other DA games: they feel and look like cosplay cons, like any generic TV show with costumes, there's nothing fantasy or otherworldly about them, despite the huge effort spent on codex building. Love the stories and dialogues, but they're very... everydayish. And DA:I looked like a huge love-hate letter to Skyrim.

TES story telling has always been different, it intricately creates the world with some notable but not overly fleshed out characters, but mostly it's about you creating your stories in that world, rather than strictly following the prewritten path. In ESO, it's obviously simpler and streamlinier than that, but I still find the writing and stories mostly good (haven't done them all yet though). As it usually is the case in TES games (save Morrowind), the main story/-ies is not as great as some of the side quests, plus there are tons of lovely and funny little touches, like trash item descriptions, recipe names, various easter eggs. Mircro-writing is absolutely fantastic in ESO, macro-writing (plots) ranges from great to fine.

To argue the OP point about writers' age, I think, a lot of quests are written by mature, seasoned people who've seen some *** in life. There are a lot of dark stuff like abusive relationships (CoH, also one of the public dungeons, i think, in Rivenspire? Orc female tales in general), midlife crisis, suicide (always been a thing in TES games), addictions (everyone's favorite Daedric prince shown in an ugly light in Shadowfen public dungeon), skooma and moon sugar theme etc. I absolutely loved the Sadrith Mora chain and especially the ending, it's very mature, not only in what's in it, but also because of what's not in it (the ending lacked a very popular trope). There is a lot of political correctness too in ESO that maybe slightly hurts the immurshun , such as Argonian and Dunmeri lovers etc, gay couples, political references, but that's OK, especially in an MMO - every bit helps towards educating people.

Miragent · September 2020

drkfrontiers wrote: »

Here's me thinking that every storyline treats men like either idiots or needing rescuing by their wives or some heroine... The feminist slant to it is a major source of eyerolling for me personally.

Welcome to female gamers' world for the past two or so decades.

I love that feminist slant. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes empowering, and hopefully educational, when certain life realities are shown in the reverse light. There's a side quest in Glenumbra i think, about a guy running from his overbearing military wife. Once you "safely" bring him back to "safety", she then proceeds to send him to an even more "safe" environment to her mother who would then take good care of him. It was a light and satirical quest, and I hope it got the point across to some people, though few people do the little side quests, so most guys' pure masculine eyes are still unhurt.

ZOS_ConnorG · September 2020

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