OtarTheMad wrote: »

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

While exploring Apocrypha, I came across a little abandoned mage laboratory "Study of the Lost Cipher", one of the zones Striking Locales.

Inside it is a portal into a land with an open, shrubby field, and a prominent mountain in the background.

I have no idea what land this vista represents. The palette is unfamiliar, and the mountain not recognisable.

It looks rather verdant, not foresty. And definitely not snowy or ashy. Which knocks out all my first guesses.


Is this nothing? Did I miss a clue somewhere?




ETA: My wacky theory is Fields of Regret... its not quite the same as what you can see in Redguard or ESO's Summerset, but its a big open field, and it would be funny if it also possessed a "Mountain of Regret"... The lorebook inside (I can't remember the details) was something about a bunch of siblings making wishes, and it gives the sense that they were a bit monkey-pawy.

I have to admit that place is weird. For me, as soon as I enter the Study the portal to my left has one book floating around and another standing still. The thing in front lit up green but there is a similar spot on my right and nothing there.. no books, no open portal. It's almost like we are supposed to find some way to unlock this and maybe even use the portal but idk how.

Haha yeah, the books are weird. I spent longer than I'd like to admit looking into the portal and squinting trying to make something of it. It could be cut content, but I mean, its really the ideal sort of "Striking Locale", really- some place you that's really interesting to explore, and probably has a story you have to try to understand by exploring it. There's a story there somewhere between the book and the portal. I guess the author ended up entering it? I don't know what else.

If it *were* FoR, maybe the mountain is the one from which Umbriel is pulled? I don't know, reaching at straws here. But I also have to add that I had a theory years ago now that FoR would make a fantastic daedric plane in which to set Falinesti, if ZOS were so inclined. Like, maybe Rhajiin made some terrible deal with the God of Bargains, and now the city is lost in the forests of Viles realm. The Bosmer are in sore need of content, after all, and the mystery of the Wandering City needs a resolution.

The issue with Falinesti, and I would love to go there, is that it already has a return date in TES History. My other big question about doing Bosmer next year is- Are the Bosmer a big enough draw for a 10th Anniversary chapter? I think the answer would be no.

From the UESP Falinesti lore page:

By the late Second Era, Falinesti had returned and continued its cycle across Valenwood. In 2E 830, heirs of the Camoran Dynasty vied for control of the throne and it came down to two claimants

The portal could have a very simple answer... it is a dormant portal that should lead to Ithelia's Daedric Realm. We only have a little of it unlocked because we haven't finished the story yet. It could also be the Throat of the World mountain with the distortion from the portal hiding the snow.

We don't have a return date on Falinesti; that UESP is a logical conclusion, but there's nothing there that says a date specifically. Just that if it was available to be vied for control of by 2E 830, it must've returned before then.

TinyDragon wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

While exploring Apocrypha, I came across a little abandoned mage laboratory "Study of the Lost Cipher", one of the zones Striking Locales.

Inside it is a portal into a land with an open, shrubby field, and a prominent mountain in the background.

I have no idea what land this vista represents. The palette is unfamiliar, and the mountain not recognisable.

It looks rather verdant, not foresty. And definitely not snowy or ashy. Which knocks out all my first guesses.


Is this nothing? Did I miss a clue somewhere?




ETA: My wacky theory is Fields of Regret... its not quite the same as what you can see in Redguard or ESO's Summerset, but its a big open field, and it would be funny if it also possessed a "Mountain of Regret"... The lorebook inside (I can't remember the details) was something about a bunch of siblings making wishes, and it gives the sense that they were a bit monkey-pawy.

I have to admit that place is weird. For me, as soon as I enter the Study the portal to my left has one book floating around and another standing still. The thing in front lit up green but there is a similar spot on my right and nothing there.. no books, no open portal. It's almost like we are supposed to find some way to unlock this and maybe even use the portal but idk how.

Haha yeah, the books are weird. I spent longer than I'd like to admit looking into the portal and squinting trying to make something of it. It could be cut content, but I mean, its really the ideal sort of "Striking Locale", really- some place you that's really interesting to explore, and probably has a story you have to try to understand by exploring it. There's a story there somewhere between the book and the portal. I guess the author ended up entering it? I don't know what else.

If it *were* FoR, maybe the mountain is the one from which Umbriel is pulled? I don't know, reaching at straws here. But I also have to add that I had a theory years ago now that FoR would make a fantastic daedric plane in which to set Falinesti, if ZOS were so inclined. Like, maybe Rhajiin made some terrible deal with the God of Bargains, and now the city is lost in the forests of Viles realm. The Bosmer are in sore need of content, after all, and the mystery of the Wandering City needs a resolution.

The issue with Falinesti, and I would love to go there, is that it already has a return date in TES History. My other big question about doing Bosmer next year is- Are the Bosmer a big enough draw for a 10th Anniversary chapter? I think the answer would be no.

From the UESP Falinesti lore page:

By the late Second Era, Falinesti had returned and continued its cycle across Valenwood. In 2E 830, heirs of the Camoran Dynasty vied for control of the throne and it came down to two claimants

The portal could have a very simple answer... it is a dormant portal that should lead to Ithelia's Daedric Realm. We only have a little of it unlocked because we haven't finished the story yet. It could also be the Throat of the World mountain with the distortion from the portal hiding the snow.

We don't have a return date on Falinesti; that UESP is a logical conclusion, but there's nothing there that says a date specifically. Just that if it was available to be vied for control of by 2E 830, it must've returned before then.

That's also very true, that the lore is bendable. This game has added more to the lore of TES series than any other honestly. However, I think Falinesti deserves its own multi-year story. How would it tie into this one? Did Ithelia take it to get attention and that's why we can't find it because it's in a Daedric Realm we didn't know existed? I don't know I think after this one finishes we should explore Falinesti but we have to get through this one first.

TinyDragon wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

The storyline is called shadow over morrowind isnt it? That would indicate another morrowind zone, maybe the nothern penninsula or at least a zone near morrowind such as skyrim, cyrodiil or blackmarch

Other than that i saw 2 region being mentionned and another player told me of a 3rd.

-An npc sait she will go to winterhold next.
-The second one is likely a typo but in the quest for sharp as night where we go thio windhelm, while the voice over said windhelm, the text was whiterun.
-a player told me a npc plan to travel to the realm of boethia but i avent founfd that npc or didnt read that part.

Winterhold would be the perfect opportunity to add the remaining staff weapon skill line. Conjuration could be centered around atronach(non perm sommon), illusion could be cc based with touul such as fear, agro, etc the alteration would be buff based with stuff like resistance and shield. And bonus point to staff for using already existing model, meaning wuch easier for the motif problem

shadow over Morrowind is just this year
we haven't been given a name for the multi year story.

characters saying where they are going next does not guarantee we will also go there next.

for example Lyris said she would go to Skingrad in Markarth in 2020, we have not gone there yet.

There‘s always a hint from an NPC or something else for the upcoming year that‘s right. We had this basically for every Chapter since the very beginning with Morrowind back in 2017. Why would it be different this time? It‘s a neat mystery to unravel. And yes, alluding to wrong locations is, too.

Shadow over Morrowind as a the name for the multi-year arc makes little sense in my opinion. I am 100% certain we‘re not going to Northern Telvanni Peninsula next year. They never did back to back Chapters in the exact same place and it would just feel lazy.

But there‘s more to Morrowind…. on the western side of Vvardenfell. And that‘s where Solstheim, Blacklight and even Winterhold would fit into the entire narrative.

By the way: a base game refresh makes little to no sense. It‘s way too much work, would achieve not much and for new players each Chapter is already treated as a tutorial or entry into the series. It‘s just a lot of wasted work overall. It‘s way easier to just create new Chapters for the next decade. I‘m not saying that I’m against it, I would love if the story somehow moves on with Molag Bal and the Three Banner War, but ZOS is usually very lazy when it comes to things like these and the Chapters itself are not particularly content-rich or special either.

solstheim isn't apart of Morrowind until the fourth era and Winterhold is always Skyrim. I'd love to go to those places, but if the multi year story is Shadow over Morrowind then why anywhere else but Morrowind?

The chapter name is Shadow over Morrowind. It's said to be the start of a multi year story. But that doesn't mean the multi year story is called SoM, I haven't seen that made explicit anywhere.

The next chapter could be a continuation with a completely new chapter name.

This.

Even if the name for the entire arc is Shadow over Morrowind, that doesn’t mean it has to take place in Morrowind all the time for the next year(s).

It makes no sense either, Morrowind is already the most fleshed out area in ESO with two Chapters taking place there already and to get another Chapter next year that‘s replicating this would be a waste of time and turn off players.

And I do know that Solstheim isn’t a Dunmer island in ESO‘s timeline, but location-wise it would fit well with it‘s proximity to Morrowind and the implications we might go to Winterhold. Who knows, maybe it‘s a two-parter next year, the Chapter taking us to Winterhold / Blacklight and the zone DLC being Solstheim or whatever.

SilverBride wrote: »

I enjoyed every story quest chain in the game until this one. I found the Necrom story to be confusing and tedious and I did not enjoy a single thing about it.

I'm not looking forward to any more of this story.

It did require a lot of suspension of belief, that's for sure. I found the whiny voice of that little Scruut especially annoying. I just followed went along with the plot for the scenery and challenges of building a new arcanist in a new environment.

Ravensilver wrote: »

So we're not getting any new content for the next 11 months or so? >.>

No story content until June 2024, probably. But there will a some new "endless dungeon" mechanic in Q4 and probably 2 new dungeons in Q1 2024 (if they don't change their schedule again).

Ravensilver wrote: »

Hm... ok. That's a pretty long stretch...

I don't really do dungeons. The regular ones usually once, just to see the story and the sights. And then never again. The endless one doesn't really thrill me.

So... unless I get the urge to do a *lot* of housing, I will be occupied... elsewhere... ^^;;

Same here. And as we're probably not the only ones who are mainly here for new story content, I'm not sure if it was a good decision by ZOS.

Hoghorn wrote: »

this endless dungeon doesn't sound to me like it's something that will have much shadows over morrowind story, if it's supposed to be a perpetual feature like the single player arenas.

I think it's basically an Apocrypha themed dungeon; which fits, as according to lore, structures in Apocrypha move and change all the time - makes me wonder though, what lore explanation they'll give for the upcoming ones, as I also understood it as being a perpetual feature, a new dungeon type. Anyway, I don't really expect much story content with this dungeon, maybe even less than with the usual 2 Q1 dungeons that include at least one small (complete) story roughly related to the year's theme.

Since it's the tenth, I'm expecting:

Whiterun - the Shadow over Morrowind becomes the Shadow over Skyrim (could also be Winterhold, a smaller area to go along with the zone suggestion below) (edit: Solstheim works for this too, keeping it Shadow over Morrowwind)

An entirely new zone to ES lore: the Daedric domain of Ithelia,

Storyline: A Torvesard/Lyranth team-up to rescue Ithelia from ignominy - or maybe Lyranth will once again team up with us to stop Torrvsard? She snatched up the Mysterium Xarxes at the end of Blackwood to do something...

The return of Molag Bal (Malcolm McDowell)

The price of defeating Ithelia is the final shattering of any hope of peace among the three alliances (begun in High Isle)

Mammoth dual mounts

Naryu guest

Ghost Scuttler pets

BoloBoffin wrote: »

An entirely new zone to ES lore: the Daedric domain of Ithelia,

Would be nice, but then again, not to mess too much with established TES lore, at the end of the storyline she must have vanished out of history again to restore the status before the events of Necrom. So having her realm accessible permanently would make less sense.

TaSheen wrote: »

I'm just not happy about this at all. Yes, I'm only one person. But I didn't play through the previous "3 year story arc" because that just doesn't appeal to me, never did.

So this is what will happen. I will play everything but the zone MQs. Because I don't care about that sort of "mega-story" arc....

I want to go back to the year long story setup. Yeah. Not happening. And I'm not happy about it at all.

I would have continued to enjoy the year long story format if the writing and quality didn't go down to rush out product. I generally liked the story ideas and I loved the characters, but the execution needed more refining and polish with some rewrites and more polish.

If they can deliver this in the multi-year format, I'm all for it. I want good polished well written content with better RP interactions. Hoping they bring back dialogue trees and variable endings to minor quests like base game has.

LunaFlora wrote: »

there's some quests in dlc that has different endings based on choices
like the Balmora quest line in Vvardenfell, the Farmer's Nook quest in Blackwood, and the Tel Dreloth quest in Telvanni Peninsula, Necrom

A few, yes. But they're an exception now and were much more common in the base game.

runa_gate wrote: »

South of the peninsula is Morrowind as well... Dres in the city of Tear, trading slaves from Thorn to the Sload, and also the HQ of the East Empire trading company.

In the second era?

You know what? No content for a while is fine, what with BG3, Phantom Liberty, etc coming out soon. My main is in Elsweyr, due to my old main being unable to switch class for ome unknown reason. So I'll just give the 'ol sub a rest for a few months. And see what happens.

What I would personally love to see is something to do with the Dwemer.

I would love to finally learn exactly what happened to them, whether they are extant, whether they are still on this plane of existence or not.

Ever since TES 3 I have been fascinated with the Dwemer, their culture, and their steampunk-like manufacturing and automatons. It's one of the biggest mysteries in all of Tamriel, where did the Dwemer go? Did they all die? Did they transcend this plane of existence? Did they travel to a distant realm? I would really like to know what happened to them and I think it would make for an interesting new chapter with lots of opportunity for new gameplay features like automaton pets, guards, companions, etc.

How about this;

A whole new type of crafting => Automation - where you can build manufacturing lines of all different sorts...

You could mine the depths of the underground for minerals/ore that are processed and refined in your manufacturing facilities. Then you can build automata that do that mining for you and then you can build far more complex automata and manufacturing facilities that you use to build all manner of wondrous creations - from practical objects like armor and weaponry, or furniture and war-machines, built at scale to be sold on the market or for the ongoing war effort - as a way to contribute to your alliance, for those who don't like to participate on the battlefield.

How about "pet" automata that help you in your travels and can be built to perform all manner of functionality.
Or "mech-like" suits you can wear to give you a boost in stamina or defense.
Maybe you could build defense systems for your "factories" that are under constant attack from looters for the stockpiles of materials you have.
This progression of manufacturing complexity could continue all the way up to the pinnacle of manufacturing excellence - humanoid automata, which could be used for companionship, or for their physical labors.
Perhaps you could capture the essence of the souls of your friends and guildies, and use them to give your automata intelligence, and by that, yes I do mean capturing the data on your friends play styles and using AI to create automata that emulate your friends...
How about being able to transfer our own consciousness into the shell of an automaton and then placing that automaton into extremely perilous situations, like travelling beyond our atmosphere, or to the bottom of the oceans, of course, by travelling in vehicles we have created...

The whole "factory" thing could be a kind of micro-management game where you need to provide your facilities with a constant flow of materials and power, where the power is generated by machines that rely on materials and the labor of automata, and it's all a fine balance of interplay between the core components of these systems that are continually growing ever more complex. Eventually you could have trained up some automata that use the data from the way you keep your factories running in their AI's to be virtual YOU's, that tend to the manufacturing facility in the same way that you would. You could begin a training session, and in it you go about your business and teach it how to look after things in your particular way, and you could then create a "library" of training data sets that you can then use to train at a higher level of abstraction, piecing together those lower-level training models to create a more complete and further reaching series of training points, so that eventually, your data models have not just an understanding of how to complete individual low-level functions like building cogs, but how to put together complex automata that requires the creation of dozens of pieces of equipment that you have trained your automata how to build.

How about some "cage fighting" with automata, like Robot Wars, with simple creations - at the early stages, but at the high end - more sophisticated shaped creations fighting, either based on pre-programmed functionality, or directly controlled via remote, or controlled through a real-time connection - like I said, in essence, transferring our own consciousness into the automaton.
Maybe a new mini-game could be made for the simpler automata fighting, where you have "tactics" that you can load into the automata, different categories of tactics, different "attachments" that can be installed on your fighters, that determine the tactics available, and you level up your automaton with a small progression tree that represents the core "programs" and movements - which are also based on the attachment types you have installed... You could use some sort of AI system to train up your fighters like the factory automata.
How about a whole underground gambling enterprise that is illegal because people are questioning whether the Automata might actually be starting to develop sentience. There's a whole story-line for you - two opposing views - the automata are simply regurgitating the commands they have been programmed to perform, or, the automata are doing the same thing that we the people are doing, using what we have learned to navigate our way through the world... Perhaps there is a revolution brewing, maybe that is what led to the disappearance of the Dwemer. There is soooo much possibility with this.

These are just a few ideas, there are many more where they come from, I could sit here and spit this out all day, every day...

BoloBoffin wrote: »

Since it's the tenth, I'm expecting:

Whiterun - the Shadow over Morrowind becomes the Shadow over Skyrim (could also be Winterhold, a smaller area to go along with the zone suggestion below) (edit: Solstheim works for this too, keeping it Shadow over Morrowwind)

An entirely new zone to ES lore: the Daedric domain of Ithelia,

Storyline: A Torvesard/Lyranth team-up to rescue Ithelia from ignominy - or maybe Lyranth will once again team up with us to stop Torrvsard? She snatched up the Mysterium Xarxes at the end of Blackwood to do something...

The return of Molag Bal (Malcolm McDowell)

The price of defeating Ithelia is the final shattering of any hope of peace among the three alliances (begun in High Isle)

Mammoth dual mounts

Naryu guest

Ghost Scuttler pets

I...

..Wait, what was that mammoth one again?