Necrom/Gold Road Theory

NDReptiles · September 22

Let me preface this with: This is all speculation!

So I may be the last to realize this, but I have the feeling that Gold Road was initially the Q4 DLC for Necrom. It follows the same format since Elsweyr. You complete the chapter then the dlc and when both are complete you get an over arching finale. This would explain so much! First, it explains the size difference between the other chapters and West Weald. Gold Road is closer in size to a DLC. Second, it would explain why there were no companions in the Gold Road "chapter." After all dlcs do not get companions. My theory is that ZOS had to figure out a way/time to implement to the fixes and updates into the schedule. So they pushed it into Q4 of 2023. Now the couldn't bypass Gold Road and release the next planned chapter in 2024 because people would be upset about an incomplete story. So Gold Road was padded with other content (scribing) to make it a "chapter." Knowing that the community had grown accustomed to getting 2 companions every year, ZOS may have decided to fast track two future companions so that we didn't do without. That would explain why they are being released later in the year and why there is a duplicate race being released before all the other races have been introduced as companions. My belief that scribing was added as an addition to Gold Road after deciding it would be a chapter is because the scribing questline has nothing to do with the West Weald storyline. In fact, it takes place in Summerset and can be accessed in most major Mages Guild Halls outside of West Weald. Also all the scribing quest are located in the base game zones, and not the dlc, I mean "chapter." It would also explain why there is no Q4 DLC this year, because the next storyline to follow would be a full chapter. That leaves the perfect opportunity to introduce the PVP to 2024 Q4 they've been working on. The reason that people feel like 2024's chapter didn't live up to the 10 year anniversary is that it wasn't meant to! Does this make sense to anyone else?

Syldras · September 22

I've seen the theory of Gold Road originally being planned as the Q4 dlc for Necrom several times here at the forum, and I do find it plausible. Although I don't think there's any complicated reasoning behind that, it's just releasing less content for the same old price.

LunaFlora · September 22

i don't think it makes sense at all as Gold Road has everything you'd expect from a chapter, except companions but we got Scribing as a new feature so it's still equal to Necrom and High isle.

Scribing and Companions both give something new for combat and both have questlines.
even though past companions had their intro quests in the chapter zones, their extra quests were in base game zones just like the Scribing quests.

it's definitely bigger than q4 dlc zones like Murkmire, Southern Elsweyr, and Galen.
no clue how one would measure the zones, but it is pretty unlikely that West Weald is as small as Galen.

we were told in December 2022 that the 2023 chapter (Necrom) would be a multi year story so it cant be surprising that it is true.
https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/63363
Moving Forward to 2023

Given the above, 2023 will see us moving away from the "Year Long Adventure” 12-month storylines that we have featured since 2019's Season of the Dragon. I think these have run their course and frees us up to do some new and interesting content that we've been wanting to do for a few years now—and lets us return to expansive story arcs that unfold over multiple Chapters. This year-long strategy was a huge success and raised the profile of ESO, but now after four straight years, we're finding more and more that this cadence limits what we can do.

and i think it is awesome the new companions are not in the chapter so they are easier to obtain for people, the cost of 1 month of ESO Plus is way cheaper than a chapter and their intro quests are in base game zones.

Varana · September 22

While it may be that the Gold Road zone was planned as a DLC zone at some point in the far past, I think that people really underestimate the complexity of the Scribing system. That's not something that you quickly "tack on" to pad out a zone. That's a system that had to be a long time in the making, and which probably ate a lot of resources. If anything, the chapter content suffered rom Scribing, I would suspect.
It's also a good thing that Scribing isn't really connected to the chapter story. We see with the Warden what happens if you tie a game system too closely to the chapter - what should be a general class has very chapter-specific visuals that clash with the system's idea.

Pevey · September 22

In terms of just the quest story itself, yes, I think it’s pretty obvious it was originally developed as the 4th quarter conclusion of the Necrom expansion. And the change to make it a chapter wasn’t fully thought through, or ZOS just didn’t care that this is the first time you can pay full price for a chapter and not be able to complete it without also buying the previous year’s chapter or subscribing to ESO plus to get access to Necrom to unlock the last 3 Gold Road quests. This is very not okay.

Edit to Add:
I also noticed that the scribing quest lines require you to go to western Skyrim at one point. If you’re new to ESO and buy the base game with Gold Road, you get access to previous yearly chapters (although not previous DLC). But if you last bought the game years ago and did not ever buy the western Skyrim chapter, then you buy Gold Road, can you even complete the scribing quests without paying more to access the Western Skyrim zone? If not, this crosses some clear consumer protection lines.

TaSheen · September 22

Pevey wrote: »

Edit to Add:
I also noticed that the scribing quest lines require you to go to western Skyrim at one point. If you’re new to ESO and buy the base game with Gold Road, you get access to previous yearly chapters (although not previous DLC). But if you last bought the game years ago and did not ever buy the western Skyrim chapter, then you buy Gold Road, can you even complete the scribing quests without paying more to access the Western Skyrim zone? If not, this crosses some clear consumer protection lines.

All of these "extended" scribing quests (into older content) are instances. Those who don't have the content or ESO+ still do them, they just can't access the rest of the zones they don't "own" or sub to get access to.

NDReptiles · September 22

LunaFlora wrote: »

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/63363

Given the above, 2023 will see us moving away from the "Year Long Adventure” 12-month storylines that we have featured since 2019's Season of the Dragon. I think these have run their course and frees us up to do some new and interesting content that we've been wanting to do for a few years now—and lets us return to expansive story arcs that unfold over multiple Chapters. This year-long strategy was a huge success and raised the profile of ESO, but now after four straight years, we're finding more and more that this cadence limits what we can do.

I remember this (and before coming up with my theory) but seeing the quote makes me even more convinced I'm on the right track. After all, the pattern didn't change. It was still a story told in two parts with a joined ending, just spread out over two years instead of one. "Expansive story arcs"? It isn't any different than all the other story arcs since Elsweyr. Personally, I would have loved to see Ithelia's story take longer. I enjoyed the idea of a lost daedric prince and feel like there could have been a lot more potential stories if hers wasn't wrapped up so quickly. Anyway, I think their statement was an effort to mitigate the upset feeling many people would have when instead of an ending in 2023 Q4 they got bug fixes and the endless dungeon instead.

We will just have to disagree on how Gold Road compared in scope with other chapters vs dlc. I don't see it matching other chapters at all.

But I do accept that my theory is just conjecture and I maybe very wrong. I just feel the theory hasn't been disproven yet.
(Edited for grammer)

TaSheen · September 22

*shrug* I think most of us think that's exactly what happened, but at the end of the day, it doesn't make much difference. Those like me who still have YEARS of content to do will still be happy with the game; others probably not so much.

NDReptiles · September 22

Varana wrote: »

While it may be that the Gold Road zone was planned as a DLC zone at some point in the far past, I think that people really underestimate the complexity of the Scribing system.

You are right, and I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't a huge endeavor. I meant that it seems to have been created separate from any other story and could have been added to any chapter. As opposed to the Infinite Archive which is very much tied in with Necrom/Apocrypha. I think it was ready to go, and Gold Road needed more so they chose to include it there, but that it wasn't planned for GR specifically.

virtus753 · September 22

Pevey wrote: »

In terms of just the quest story itself, yes, I think it’s pretty obvious it was originally developed as the 4th quarter conclusion of the Necrom expansion. And the change to make it a chapter wasn’t fully thought through, or ZOS just didn’t care that this is the first time you can pay full price for a chapter and not be able to complete it without also buying the previous year’s chapter or subscribing to ESO plus to get access to Necrom to unlock the last 3 Gold Road quests. This is very not okay.

Edit to Add:
I also noticed that the scribing quest lines require you to go to western Skyrim at one point. If you’re new to ESO and buy the base game with Gold Road, you get access to previous yearly chapters (although not previous DLC). But if you last bought the game years ago and did not ever buy the western Skyrim chapter, then you buy Gold Road, can you even complete the scribing quests without paying more to access the Western Skyrim zone? If not, this crosses some clear consumer protection lines.

It would have been raised on the forums back when West Weald was released if you couldn’t complete the scribing quests without owning Greymoor to get to Skyrim.

That said, you can’t complete West Weald’s antiquities or their related achievements without current access to Greymoor. That’s always the case with any release that has antiquities. That part of the paid content is gated behind another piece of paid content. Just like how capper quests for Q4 stories have been gated behind Q2 Chapters/DLC since Elsweyr.

Supreme_Atromancer · September 22

I also had a conspiracy theory regarding the Necrom chapter. Just as deeply conjectured as OP's, very inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, and likely impossible to prove.

But just for the fun of speculation, I think that *IF* Telvanni Peninsula was meant to include FIREWATCH as a q4, naming the area "Telvanni Peninsula" would have made a lot more sense.

Geographically, Telvanni Peninsula is far more Firewatch, and far less "the area south of Necrom". And yeah, "things change over 1000 years" but if its not narrative in nature, then we start to look for other reasons.

Syldras · September 22

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

I also had a conspiracy theory regarding the Necrom chapter. Just as deeply conjectured as OP's, very inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, and likely impossible to prove.
But just for the fun of speculation, I think that *IF* Telvanni Peninsula was meant to include FIREWATCH as a q4, naming the area "Telvanni Peninsula" would have made a lot more sense.

Interesting. Just as interesting as the fact that they originally announced the name of the whole story arc as "Shadow over Morrowind" in the Necrom announcement stream (much later it was renamed to "Secrets of Apocrypha").

Ugrak · September 22

NDReptiles wrote: »

Let me preface this with: This is all speculation!

So I may be the last to realize this, but I have the feeling that Gold Road was initially the Q4 DLC for Necrom.

Yeah I think you're right. ZOS did publish a statement following the turbulence after update 35 that they would stop their almost assembly line approach of DLC production that went on for a bunch of years, as there is so much more content now than before, and the rapid pace was taking it's toll. Also that they would instead focus on quality and multi year story arches.

Of course what was in the pipeline at that time would still have been based on the old approach, so it makes sense parts of it still would fit that mold.

NDReptiles wrote: »

The reason that people feel like 2024's chapter didn't live up to the 10 year anniversary is that it wasn't meant to! Does this make sense to anyone else?

Remember that the 10 year anniversary is 2024 on PC, but 2025 on consoles, so it will continue, or rather culminate next year.

If 2024 got what was originally lined up for 2023, then presumably there would have been an originally intended anniversary project that we have yet to see, which further would mean it has been given extra time.

I was happy with Gold Road and Necrom though.

Syldras · September 22

Ugrak wrote: »

ZOS did publish a statement following the turbulence after update 35 that they would stop their almost assembly line approach of DLC production that went on for a bunch of years, as there is so much more content now than before, and the rapid pace was taking it's toll. Also that they would instead focus on quality and multi year story arches.

But did the quality improve?

In my opinion, the world design is perfect, as usual (also the music; art-wise I love this game and never could complain about anything). When it comes to the writing, I see an improvement within the last 2 chapters, but mostly because I found High Isle absolute horrid. And while it's luckily getting better again, it's still not on par with what Orsinium, Morrowind, CWC and Summerset had been.