A lot of vanilla NPCs sorely need an update after their quests!

Dahveed · June 23

I was just running around Malabal Tor and came across the Silvenar... after already completing every vanilla quest on my main. (Including of course this entire zone's story...)

And the Silvenar was just chilling outside of Sleepy Senche Overlook. I talk to him and he's telling me "I'll just stay here a while and fully recover my magicka..." Along with an entire dialogue tree.

I completed his quest about 8 years ago

(Spoiler: I'm pretty sure he's actually dead.)

I see things like this from time to time and usually just ignore it, but boy does this ever take me out of the atmosphere. Like for example that one ordinator at the gate of Mournhold who STILL has this throw-away line of dialogue about going to see Almalexia. He's been saying the same thing to me for the past 10 years...

I get that dev resources are limited, but isn't it high time that a lot of the most egregious culprits like this are fixed? I can't stand the fact that I'll visit a zone I completed years ago and still have NPCs saying "Thanks for the assist! We'll stay here for a while and make sure the remaining survivors get out safely!" It really feels awful seeing nonsense like this...

katanagirl1 · June 24

I don’t know about the Silvenar, I haven’t seen that one.

The other npcs don’t bother me, game time is not continuous, but discrete. Time doesn’t move forward for them unless something new happens.

Dahveed · June 24

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I don’t know about the Silvenar, I haven’t seen that one.

The other npcs don’t bother me, game time is not continuous, but discrete. Time doesn’t move forward for them unless something new happens.

Yes but *something* should happen after *some* time has passed.

They change the placement and dialogue of NPCs to make it appear as though the player has impacted the world. This often works.

But in a lot of cases, it has the exact opposite effect, and it seems as though my actions didn't change anything. Those NPCs that I saved, or helped, or whatever are just going to stand there and "recover their wounds" or "gather their things" or "go back for the others" indefinitely, standing there forever with that goofy "I'm holding my left arm because I'm injured" pose literally forever.

There ought to be an internal (game engine) timer which fires off on these NPCs, so that if I don't interact with them for a period of "x" in-game hours (48? 72?) then they are eventually disabled, so that if I pass by there again I see the people I saved eventually left and got to safety or something.

They even actually do this with a few select NPCs... I remember running into a random nord at a tavern a while back who mentioned something like "hey remember me? You saved me from that place a while back." THAT I can respect, and makes my actions feel impactful. (I'm not saying they would have to do this with everyone, but I'd rather the NPCs I save just eventually disappear, rather than stand there forever.)

Elsonso · June 24

There seem to be lots of loose NPCs standing around in multiple places.

Another thing that bugs me is when they add stuff, but don't go back and update other zones to bring them up to date with what they added. It makes the older zones look even more dated.

If they aren't going to take the time to do it right, or don't have the time, then maybe they should do something else?

dcrush · June 24

It’s because everything in ESO happens on the same day. It’s essentially Groundhog Day Online. To you it’s eight years ago, but to the characters in the game it happened this morning.

Pelanora · June 24

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I don’t know about the Silvenar, I haven’t seen that one.

The other npcs don’t bother me, game time is not continuous, but discrete. Time doesn’t move forward for them unless something new happens.

Game time passes, else we couldn't do any zone stories. They take place in time. Then..... it stalls bizarrely.

Kings left standing around outside towns when they're also in throne rooms leagues away and years later...

Pelanora · June 24

dcrush wrote: »

It’s because everything in ESO happens on the same day. It’s essentially Groundhog Day Online. To you it’s eight years ago, but to the characters in the game it happened this morning.

If you think about this and all the stories we've been involved in, you'll see that can't be true. They all take place over time. They take time. It's just then they weirdly stall it.

spartaxoxo · June 24

Time isn't linear for the Vestige.

ADarklore · June 24

Pelanora wrote: »

dcrush wrote: »

It’s because everything in ESO happens on the same day. It’s essentially Groundhog Day Online. To you it’s eight years ago, but to the characters in the game it happened this morning.

If you think about this and all the stories we've been involved in, you'll see that can't be true. They all take place over time. They take time. It's just then they weirdly stall it.

And this is exactly the problem with ESO. Technically, all of the stories are happening at roughly the same time, which is how ESO explains away these glaring issues. Like, you sacrifice one of the companions during the MSQ, and suddenly they're asking for your help somewhere else. It's very jarring to say the least.

opethmaniac · June 24

If the status quo of each NPC is to be recorded individually for each player (e.g. NPC dead -> NPC gone), there would be paradoxical situations in group play at the latest.
Even if this were possible and each NPC reacted individually to each player, depending on the quest progress so far, I think it would be very complex and computationally intensive to implement.

Elsonso · June 24

dcrush wrote: »

It’s because everything in ESO happens on the same day. It’s essentially Groundhog Day Online. To you it’s eight years ago, but to the characters in the game it happened this morning.

They have said they want players to be able to start with the latest content, rather than buying the game because of a chapter. They don't want players to have to go through the whole game to get to the content they purchased. By establishing no canon order of events, they can allow this to happen.

However, this does not mean everything is actually happening on the same day, or even in the same year.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Time isn't linear for the Vestige.

Yes, the events in the game happen in the order that the player does them.

The continuity of this game is in the order of release. The writers are experiencing ESO in the order that they write it.

Doing content out of the order that it was written can introduce inconsistencies and paradoxes. Avoiding this requires restraint, attention to detail, and a willingness to revisit older content. They need rules. Stories need to be written to allow future stories that come before it. Older stories that were not written to come after a later story need to be updated. If those stories can't be changed, for whatever reason, then the new story needs conform to what is now an immutable story. If that is not possible, then a different story needs to be told.

When these things do not happen, then things are in conflict. In this game, they are in conflict. Not a great deal, but enough to show where they dropped the ball.

katanagirl1 · June 24

Pelanora wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I don’t know about the Silvenar, I haven’t seen that one.

The other npcs don’t bother me, game time is not continuous, but discrete. Time doesn’t move forward for them unless something new happens.

Game time passes, else we couldn't do any zone stories. They take place in time. Then..... it stalls bizarrely.

Kings left standing around outside towns when they're also in throne rooms leagues away and years later...

Recurring npcs have this ability to exist in multiple places in the game. I was referring to the ones left over at the end of those quests that don’t have an additional quest somewhere else. There is no event to cause them to change where they are. This was what was described at the first of the thread.

So the moving forward in time you spoke of happens as a sudden jump every time a quest is updated, otherwise nothing changes for these npcs. Discrete as opposed to continuous.