Summerset did it really well, as there are many dialogue differences when playing as an Altmer vs another race. There's no option to play as an Altmer from Summerset though and you are assumed to have been raised off the main Isle of Alinor.

That may have been in part because of the criticism of Morrowind where Dunmer characters were left going "What's a Tribunal?"

Because alot of people get offended nowdays 😭

Ratzkifal wrote: »

There are definitely quests where it bothers me greatly but I also get why it is always assumed your character has no idea what's going on. Solving that issue would take a lot of effort (which I think would be worth it and is definitely a consideration for players who want to buy DLC) and making it fit for every character will be impossible without adding a feature to choose a background for your character.
For example you could choose to be a Great House Dunmer, an Ashlander Dunmer or a Dunmer raised outside of Morrowind and depending on that choice you will get different dialogue options that reflect this choice. But sadly I think this idea is very hard to pitch and it's not immediately obvious to executives how this would increase sales numbers.

Ideally we'd also have lots of different ways to complete the majority of quests, potentially even with different outcomes, but those times are probably gone for good, sadly.

I think our character dialogues also lack their race-related comments/options, but I agree that the assumption that our character is a dumb who can get a clue right is very annoying.

Somehow ZOS writers or executives decided that ESO will not give us a real race immersion in dialogues. I still think this is completely incoherent with Elder Scroll supposed immersive experience. With such a rich lore, why don't give all stories dialogues addressed to our characters racial background?

Well, considering the lack of ppl engagement in the thread, I think this subject is obvious not interesting to most ESO players. It's sad to see how few RPG players still value character's immersion. I guess this part of role playing was lost when we migrate from board games to virtual gaming.

The imagination has shrink in the new generation. Another bummer.

Many thanks to the players who took time to answers my thread.

Actually, they already do this somewhat in High Isle, just not with race though. But this would require some work for new dialog options. I'd rather ZOS adds one more unique quest, than have our race stand out in some quests.

In High Isle there is one quest, where a necromancer is trying to steal the prize after some tests. When you go on a non-necromancer character, she is just hostile. When I was there on my necromancer, she spoke to me about me knowing how she feels, about being able to relate to her as a necromancer, and she asked me to help her(ofcourse that was not possible though). Was a fun surprise.

I accidentally made myself a clan chief in Wrothgar because I'm an orc, that was a fun surprise! Other than that, I can't really think how my race comes up in the game other than to be insulted a lot..

I think it's just the nature of this game that requires it to be a little generic, unfortunately. If this were a solo game with decisions that mattered, then I'd be really disappointed in the race options.

Scaletho wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

There are definitely quests where it bothers me greatly but I also get why it is always assumed your character has no idea what's going on. Solving that issue would take a lot of effort (which I think would be worth it and is definitely a consideration for players who want to buy DLC) and making it fit for every character will be impossible without adding a feature to choose a background for your character.
For example you could choose to be a Great House Dunmer, an Ashlander Dunmer or a Dunmer raised outside of Morrowind and depending on that choice you will get different dialogue options that reflect this choice. But sadly I think this idea is very hard to pitch and it's not immediately obvious to executives how this would increase sales numbers.

Ideally we'd also have lots of different ways to complete the majority of quests, potentially even with different outcomes, but those times are probably gone for good, sadly.

I think our character dialogues also lack their race-related comments/options, but I agree that the assumption that our character is a dumb who can get a clue right is very annoying.

Somehow ZOS writers or executives decided that ESO will not give us a real race immersion in dialogues. I still think this is completely incoherent with Elder Scroll supposed immersive experience. With such a rich lore, why don't give all stories dialogues addressed to our characters racial background?

Well, considering the lack of ppl engagement in the thread, I think this subject is obvious not interesting to most ESO players. It's sad to see how few RPG players still value character's immersion. I guess this part of role playing was lost when we migrate from board games to virtual gaming.

The imagination has shrink in the new generation. Another bummer.

Many thanks to the players who took time to answers my thread.

Whoa, that's a conclusion to jump to.

Honestly, I think the imagination ends up having to do more of the work of immersion in a game like this. Part of my roleplaying experience is filtering the presented quest through the lens of my character's backstory and roleplaying.

I do both D&D and videogaming. ESO is a different type of roleplaying, but not necessarily that much less imaginative than playing a particularly railroaded campaign. So if the reasons ESO's writers give don't satisfy, I just make up my own reasons for why I'm going along with Abnur Tharn's latest stupid plan.

This is maybe going to sound a bit bizarre, but I don't think it's super helpful to put the burden of immersing the player entirely on the writers or the DM. Player immersion is first and foremost on the player, and the more imaginative that the player gets with their character, it quickly outpaces the ability of the writer/DM to cater to that imagination.

That's pretty well illustrated in Dunmer roleplaying. House Dunmer or Ashlander? Pro or anti slavery? Redoran, Telvanni, Hlaalu, Dres, Indoril or none? Tribunal or heretic?

ESO writers tend to stick to a very vague vision of the Vestige because if they get too specific, they risk trampling on our imagination.

My Vestige, Varanis Arano, is a minor member of House Redoran, anti-slavery, and disillusioned with the Tribunal due to quest events. There are thousands of other Dunmer players who would answer those questions differently. The writers have to make a story that can accommodate all of us. They don't always succeed, but they do a pretty good job.


TES games tend to take the general stance of "You're one of us, but not from around here" in your native country and "You're a foreigner" when you're not the native race. That's more or less how the writers for ESO operate too.

I can't expect the Devs to write ten different scripts for each race and record ten different voice lines when needed. TES 3 was as immersive as it was because most of the dialogue wasn't voiced.

Would it be nice? Yeah! Are they going to use the budget for that? No. So we get small scenes and a few quests that play out with minor differences by race (there's a Orsinium quest where male orcs can become chief of a clan, for example).

In the Elder Scrolls universe, race just tells people a bit about your mother. If you are a Khajiit, your father could be an Orc or a Breton and it would not be apparent. You would more likely be judged by your attire, accent etc. as these tell the other person more about you. If you are wearing a full suit of plate, you might be a knight. If you are a Khajiit who talks like an Orc, you might be Zhasim.

I'm immersed in my characters, not their races; I have backstories for them, and they act in game according to those "set piece" backgrounds.

I'm not bothered that no one says anything about races.

Scaletho wrote: »

You simply don't care? Or don't bother you at all?

This.
I know that I'm playing a game, and that therefore "game things" will happen, so I just let them go.
I don't really "do" immersion. /shrug

Just as I mentioned before about different dialog for a vampire and me not having any to see them, you would have to go through every storyline on every possible race and class to see all of the possibilities. Otherwise the options are there but you don’t know about them.

There was one side quest somewhere in a delve or something one time where I was playing and I met this Bosmer woman that I had to help out and I could swear that she recognized my character as being a Bosmer as well, and she said something like, "I never expected to meet another Bosmer out here!" or something similar.

Other than that there hasn't been anything else that I can recall. The main AD storyline doesn't really recognize you and does the whole "outsider" thing for the most part, even in the major Valenwood zones, but it didn't really bother me that much because there are parts of the story that do focus on Wood Elves from outside.

I think that the only other things that I've been recognized for is being a part of the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood, and the rare occasion that my character is recognized as a female.

DP99 wrote: »

I think that the only other things that I've been recognized for is being a part of the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood, and the rare occasion that my character is recognized as a female.

ESO has been pretty good about recognizing guild membership...with absolutely hilarious results in Blackwood for players who'd joined the Dark Brotherhood.

So there's Varanis Arano, who roleplay-wise would never sign up with a bunch of Sithis-worshipping assassins but who gameplay-wise totally joined up for the mounted aggro passive for Cyrodiil, wound up having to confess to Eveli Sharp-Arrow, "Surprise, I'm one of the assasins that have been murdering the people we're trying to save..."

Combined double-post

VaranisArano wrote: »

Honestly, I think the imagination ends up having to do more of the work of immersion in a game like this. Part of my roleplaying experience is filtering the presented quest through the lens of my character's backstory and roleplaying.

I do both D&D and videogaming. ESO is a different type of roleplaying, but not necessarily that much less imaginative than playing a particularly railroaded campaign. So if the reasons ESO's writers give don't satisfy, I just make up my own reasons for why I'm going along with Abnur Tharn's latest stupid plan.

This is maybe going to sound a bit bizarre, but I don't think it's super helpful to put the burden of immersing the player entirely on the writers or the DM. Player immersion is first and foremost on the player, and the more imaginative that the player gets with their character, it quickly outpaces the ability of the writer/DM to cater to that imagination.

That's pretty well illustrated in Dunmer roleplaying. House Dunmer or Ashlander? Pro or anti slavery? Redoran, Telvanni, Hlaalu, Dres, Indoril or none? Tribunal or heretic?

ESO writers tend to stick to a very vague vision of the Vestige because if they get too specific, they risk trampling on our imagination.

My Vestige, Varanis Arano, is a minor member of House Redoran, anti-slavery, and disillusioned with the Tribunal due to quest events. There are thousands of other Dunmer players who would answer those questions differently. The writers have to make a story that can accommodate all of us. They don't always succeed, but they do a pretty good job.


TES games tend to take the general stance of "You're one of us, but not from around here" in your native country and "You're a foreigner" when you're not the native race. That's more or less how the writers for ESO operate too.

I can't expect the Devs to write ten different scripts for each race and record ten different voice lines when needed. TES 3 was as immersive as it was because most of the dialogue wasn't voiced.

Would it be nice? Yeah! Are they going to use the budget for that? No. So we get small scenes and a few quests that play out with minor differences by race (there's a Orsinium quest where male orcs can become chief of a clan, for example).

Exactly.

This is more or less the type of roleplaying that ESO encourages the player to engage in.

Recent Bethesda games are built upon the idea that "No choice = Infinite choice".

When you play a game like Dragon Age or even a CRPG like Divinity Original Sin, the developers can only write so many different choices.

There may be a dialogue where your character is asked about their backstory. Which region they hail from, is their family still alive, did they leave on good terms or not, that sort of stuff. Usually you'll have 2-3 options, maybe 5-7 if the game has a really in-depth conversation system. This greatly limits your options, and encourages you to build a character to fit a certain framework..

But in a TES game your character is never asked such questions. Or they are asked in vague, non-committal ways, like an NPC saying it out loud while you're outside a conversation UI. That means you are free to come up with any number of possibilities, far more than any quest designer could plan for, and so unique that not even the most seasoned writers could imagine them.

This is what it means for your character to be a blank slate. It doesn't mean they're boring, dull, or uninteresting. It just means that you, the player, gets to decide what they are like. You get to fill in that slate.

The only limit is your imagination.