markulrich1966 wrote: »

The "highlight" were the strange looking glasses of this mage woman. The only eyecatcher, but just because they looked so strange.

That's how they looked in the 15th century.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Conrad_von_Soest,_'Brillenapostel'_(1403).jpg

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

after playing through this i felt the overall story was interesting, but jakarn was kind of irksome to me
it felt like he was constantly hitting on/flirting with my male character the entire time

That's exactly what he's doing, and had been doing already in the base game. Back then to a lesser extent, though, which really makes a difference to me. Originally, I found him quite amusing at least, but now he's so over the top, it's more like a parody or caricature. Not the best character development in my opinion, since he was supposed to be charming and well-spoken (as a means for his criminal activity) not just plain annoying. The more I think about it, he's on par with Naryu now in terms of being obtrusive (and probably most players just didn't mind Naryu being pushy because she's an attractive young woman).

Pevey wrote: »

Valid criticisms, but I wasn’t expecting Hemingway or Margaret Atwood.

Why not, though?

Just for the sake of discussion in the context of "Gaming as an art", why can't we expect great story telling?

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

Valid criticisms, but I wasn’t expecting Hemingway or Margaret Atwood.

Why not, though?

Just for the sake of discussion in the context of "Gaming as an art", why can't we expect great story telling?

I have no idea why we get the kinds of stories we get in eso. They seem to be making a real effort to make this story “grounded.” (Rich said the word about a dozen times in the reveal.). My personal biggest criticism of the prologue was the eso tropiness of following the baddies in the delve and “overhearing” their ominous (ridiculous-sounding) conversation.

I have no idea why they can’t seem to escape these devices. Maybe they thing if they don’t billboard certain things, the players won’t get what’s going on. But the result is we are bored of it and tune out.

All of this said, I did notice some improvements. And if we want them to keep moving in the direction of telling stories meant for people of average or above intelligence, I feel we should show some positive encouragement. The prologue had some big improvements. Let’s hope they go even further over time and start telling real stories, not eso tropes we have already seen over and over and over and over and hurt our eyes with all the rolling.

Syldras wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

I have no idea why they can’t seem to escape these devices. Maybe they thing if they don’t billboard certain things, the players won’t get what’s going on. But the result is we are bored of it and tune out.
All of this said, I did notice some improvements. And if we want them to keep moving in the direction of telling stories meant for people of average or above intelligence, I feel we should show some positive encouragement.

I heard that, a few weeks after Greymoor was launched, there were users complaining that the map was so small - they didn't know about Blackreach. It's clearly visible on the map, it was in announcements, in was in the prologue and even the main quest leads you there, but still they couldn't find it. Since then, I've buried my hopes for storytelling and quests that require at least a bit of thinking from the player.

I see that differently. These people obviously did not do the story at all or they would have known about Blackreach. Another large subset of players do the quests but skip all dialogue and just go to the next objective on their map. This is pretty much me. And it's because the stories are so bad we stopped paying attention at all. This is why I'm very interested to see how the High Isle story plays out. Any improvement will be welcomed.

Malthorne wrote: »

Iselin wrote: »

It was OK and a nice set--up. My only gripe were a couple of boat assets for moving to the next area in the quest: a rowboat from Skywatch to the island? Another rowboat to Vvanderfell from the island? My shoulders hurt just thinking about it

Why are we taking boats back and forth across the world when we are helping mages who could easily portal us everywhere?

WHAT! You actually trust those portals???

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

My one criticism would be to stop recycling NPCs into DLC/Chapters. Tharn, Lyris, Sai, Eveli did nothing for me when they were recycled except make me dislike them. Jarkarn is already grating on me and I already disliked him. Though not a fan of Count Ravenwatch, recycling him into the vampirewerewolf invasion was pretty well done because he really fit into the story.

This 1000%, it's getting annoying that they keep bringing old NPCs in. I'd like them to bring in new characters instead of the lazy fanservice of reusing the same old characters.

The only time it made sense was for Verandis, since he Did the devs know that would be the case when they made his character? I highly doubt it, they probably came up with that plot point at some point during the planning of Greymoor. But the way they brought him back and the reason behind it made sense, unlike what they did with Sai and Lyris, or any other character they've brought back for the simple sake of them conveniently being in the same place and involved in the same thing as the Vestige.

Also they did Verandis super dirty at the end of all that Rivenspire stuff so I was glad they have him a Second Chance™, even if the poor guy did kind of get screwed over again at the end of Markarth.

Pevey wrote: »

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

Valid criticisms, but I wasn’t expecting Hemingway or Margaret Atwood.

Why not, though?

Just for the sake of discussion in the context of "Gaming as an art", why can't we expect great story telling?

I have no idea why we get the kinds of stories we get in eso. They seem to be making a real effort to make this story “grounded.” (Rich said the word about a dozen times in the reveal.). My personal biggest criticism of the prologue was the eso tropiness of following the baddies in the delve and “overhearing” their ominous (ridiculous-sounding) conversation.

I have no idea why they can’t seem to escape these devices. Maybe they thing if they don’t billboard certain things, the players won’t get what’s going on. But the result is we are bored of it and tune out.

All of this said, I did notice some improvements. And if we want them to keep moving in the direction of telling stories meant for people of average or above intelligence, I feel we should show some positive encouragement. The prologue had some big improvements. Let’s hope they go even further over time and start telling real stories, not eso tropes we have already seen over and over and over and over and hurt our eyes with all the rolling.

Strongly agree. I'm not even of the opinion it was bad at all, its just a topic close to my heart (I'm here for the story telling and world building) at its interesting to talk about. I often hear the opinion that because its an MMO it can't have good writing, period, and I wonder about that.

Sadly a lot of people really don't like the writing. I have a friend who laughs at us for doing the story content. Always thought that he's just one of those people not into reading and such but it turns out he absolutely loved Morrowind, and even Skyrim for their story, but found that ESO was cheesy, and hasn't been bothered since.

I see the same sorts of opinions of various forums discussing the game, where you've got the hardcore elder scrolls crowd that rejected ESO outright. It can be difficult to engage with them. Though its still good to do so, for the sake of insight.

FWIW, I agree that its far better to be constructive, because I feel that the developers do take criticism on board when its possible to do so. I also think that there are fundamental constraints to storytelling in the MMO format that I really hope they find ways to overcome going forward.

It was good to see some characters recognize your previous deeds though.

Having creepy Lothario Jakarn trailing me making sexist comments, well, I would have killed him had I had that ability just to shut him up.