I'm now at the second part ("talk to Gwendis") at the Bangkorai wayshrine and pass through all her dialogue.

At the end she is now telling me "Let's take the cart to the Bangkorai Garrison"... and there is no cart

The quest marker points me just a quick trot south of where she is standing.

This questline sorely needs to be updated... It seems so janky and unpolished for a multi-billion dollar company.

...aaaaaand here I am again.

At the end of the prologue, Gwendis tells me "we'll contact you."

And I'm like... okay, when/where/how?

So I look it up online, and the answer apparently is "literally never."

The only way to continue the DLC story is to just go to the Reach. (Once again, I discovered this information thanks to Google.) I tried to do so as immersively as possible, so I entered from Western Skyrim, as though I were travelling there on my own to investigate.

Now Verandis just happens to be literally at the exact location I entered the Reach, at the exact second I arrived. (Lucky me!)


I guess I'm done complaining. It's quite disappointing to start an entire DLC with such a sour taste in my mouth.

Most of the quests in this game are really well done... it's frankly mystifying to find one that is just so terrible and full of jank.

Benzux wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

...aaaaaand here I am again.

At the end of the prologue, Gwendis tells me "we'll contact you."

And I'm like... okay, when/where/how?

So I look it up online, and the answer apparently is "literally never."

The only way to continue the DLC story is to just go to the Reach. (Once again, I discovered this information thanks to Google.) I tried to do so as immersively as possible, so I entered from Western Skyrim, as though I were travelling there on my own to investigate.

Now Verandis just happens to be literally at the exact location I entered the Reach, at the exact second I arrived. (Lucky me!)


I guess I'm done complaining. It's quite disappointing to start an entire DLC with such a sour taste in my mouth.

Most of the quests in this game are really well done... it's frankly mystifying to find one that is just so terrible and full of jank.

I mean, that's how all the prologue quests are structured, to be fair. They're prologues, as the name implies, and become available to play in advance well before the actual DLC drops. NPCs can't contact you about content that doesn't exist yet. Did you try to accept the first DLC quest from the menu, as I recall that's a thing you can do nowadays? Maybe accepting it from there changes the quest log text and possibly Verandis' dialogue outside Markarth.

Dahveed wrote: »

Yeah, sorry to keep harping on this, but more shenanigans.

If you haven't started the zone's Ravenwatch quest yet, once I leave the castle (after Gwendis instructs me to wait by the cart), I immediately leave by the main gate of the castle and there is a soldier banging on the door yelling at Count Verandis to "open the door, we know you're in there!"

Like... buddy I literally just opened that door and left (didn't you see me six inches in front of your stupid face?), why are you still banging on it like a moron.

This is truly disappointing. It's the kind of weird jank I would expect from a half-cooked Skyrim mod made by some neckbeard wiping dorito crumbs off his beer gut... not from a professional game studio.

This needs to be fixed ASAP. Everything about it is ridiculous.

This one is just standard "doing quests in the wrong chronological order" stuff. Nothing exceptionally "jank" about it, it was your own choice to not do the base game House Ravenwatch quests before the Grey Host storyline involving them. And I mean, is it so much of a stretch of the imagination to perhaps RP that said soldier outside the castle is banging on the doors because they saw you leave?

This last paragraph is absurd.

I was doing this quest on an alternate character who hadn't done much of anything yet. According to your logic, every new character I make has to do every single quest in the entire game since its release 10 years ago, in chronological order, or else anything that doesn't make sense is my fault? Really?


Like... I dunno, they couldn't have forseen that perhaps some players would NOT do the Rivenspire quest chain before Markarth, and just force me exit the castle from the secret entrance I came in from. They couldn't possibly forsee that someone would exit from the front where a soldier is absurdly banging on the front door (which, by the way, I would have been hearing the entire time)?


You are correct in that I can "RP" this stuff away, which is what I usually do for stuff like this. "Head Cannon" is what they call it, I believe. I do it all the time. But having to "head canon" completely absurd and easily fixable nonsense from a company that makes billions of dollars in profit is pretty laughable. If this game were moddable, these issues could be fixed in an afternoon by someone who cared.

Benzux wrote: »

You say these are easy fixes, but I wouldn't be so sure. Editing an in-game book, yes, if there's something wrong then you should submit a bug report about it, and it might be fixable. Not sure how it might mess with the Lore Library, I can't remember if they've edited any in-game books in recent times. But, knowing more or less how the game engine works and what the developers seem to be capable of within it, some of the other things are a bit more tricky, if not simply impossible.

Dahveed wrote: »

This last paragraph is absurd.

I was doing this quest on an alternate character who hadn't done much of anything yet. According to your logic, every new character I make has to do every single quest in the entire game since its release 10 years ago, in chronological order, or else anything that doesn't make sense is my fault? Really?


Like... I dunno, they couldn't have forseen that perhaps some players would NOT do the Rivenspire quest chain before Markarth, and just force me exit the castle from the secret entrance I came in from. They couldn't possibly forsee that someone would exit from the front where a soldier is absurdly banging on the front door (which, by the way, I would have been hearing the entire time)?


You are correct in that I can "RP" this stuff away, which is what I usually do for stuff like this. "Head Cannon" is what they call it, I believe. I do it all the time. But having to "head canon" completely absurd and easily fixable nonsense from a company that makes billions of dollars in profit is pretty laughable. If this game were moddable, these issues could be fixed in an afternoon by someone who cared.

I was merely saying that, if you've played this game enough, you'll know that it lets you do things "out of order", and thus the choice to do the Markarth/Western Skyrim content before base-game content that involves the same characters is going to result in a few oddities here and there. If you don't want to do specific content on a character, you'll need to acknowledge the fact that you'll run into oddities and either simply ignore them, or build them into whatever story you're crafting for a character (assuming that RP is the main focus here, I can't think of many other reasons why one would want to specifically do the prologue and DLC content for a specific story, but not other content related to it).

There's a difference between "oddities" and utter jank that makes no sense whatsoever and removes you entirely from your immersion.

I began this post with what was originally a very forgivable "oddity", just one line in a note that sends you to the wrong place. It's pretty bad, but not game-ruining bad. I just thought I'd post it because it was a bit silly and probably an easy fix, just remove one line from a note. It wasn't a big deal.

Then five minutes later I find another one (the cart), and I'm thinking to myself, "really? Ok this should be embarrassing for them at this point." Neither of these instances have anything to do with the "order" of the DLC, but is directly related to sloppiness by the devs. At this point I am already irritated and disappointed. Two pretty glaring mistakes within five minutes of starting a DLC adventure.

I know it's the prologue, but it's tied to the introduction of an entire DLC. It's not just some throwaway side quest to save someone's cat in a tree in the middle of nowhere. They sell this DLC for crowns, i.e., real money. Meaning some people out there not on ESO plus had to pay real life money for it, and this is how it begins - with two obvious, glaring errors that ought to be easy to fix.

So by the third issue you can imagine my patience had completely worn out. If the guy banging on the door was the only "jank" I had seen, I would have brushed it off as an "out of order" oddity and never bothered posting. And at the end when Gwendis tells me "we'll contact you" and I had to go look it up in google, I was beyond exasperated, leading to this rant-filled post.

Why you are defending any of this is absolutely beyond me. Don't you want them to make things better? I guess @Pelanora is correct, some people just lurk in these forums trying to pick fights.

Benzux wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

Benzux wrote: »

You say these are easy fixes, but I wouldn't be so sure. Editing an in-game book, yes, if there's something wrong then you should submit a bug report about it, and it might be fixable. Not sure how it might mess with the Lore Library, I can't remember if they've edited any in-game books in recent times. But, knowing more or less how the game engine works and what the developers seem to be capable of within it, some of the other things are a bit more tricky, if not simply impossible.

Dahveed wrote: »

This last paragraph is absurd.

I was doing this quest on an alternate character who hadn't done much of anything yet. According to your logic, every new character I make has to do every single quest in the entire game since its release 10 years ago, in chronological order, or else anything that doesn't make sense is my fault? Really?


Like... I dunno, they couldn't have forseen that perhaps some players would NOT do the Rivenspire quest chain before Markarth, and just force me exit the castle from the secret entrance I came in from. They couldn't possibly forsee that someone would exit from the front where a soldier is absurdly banging on the front door (which, by the way, I would have been hearing the entire time)?


You are correct in that I can "RP" this stuff away, which is what I usually do for stuff like this. "Head Cannon" is what they call it, I believe. I do it all the time. But having to "head canon" completely absurd and easily fixable nonsense from a company that makes billions of dollars in profit is pretty laughable. If this game were moddable, these issues could be fixed in an afternoon by someone who cared.

I was merely saying that, if you've played this game enough, you'll know that it lets you do things "out of order", and thus the choice to do the Markarth/Western Skyrim content before base-game content that involves the same characters is going to result in a few oddities here and there. If you don't want to do specific content on a character, you'll need to acknowledge the fact that you'll run into oddities and either simply ignore them, or build them into whatever story you're crafting for a character (assuming that RP is the main focus here, I can't think of many other reasons why one would want to specifically do the prologue and DLC content for a specific story, but not other content related to it).

There's a difference between "oddities" and utter jank that makes no sense whatsoever and removes you entirely from your immersion.

I began this post with what was originally a very forgivable "oddity", just one line in a note that sends you to the wrong place. It's pretty bad, but not game-ruining bad. I just thought I'd post it because it was a bit silly and probably an easy fix, just remove one line from a note. It wasn't a big deal.

Then five minutes later I find another one (the cart), and I'm thinking to myself, "really? Ok this should be embarrassing for them at this point." Neither of these instances have anything to do with the "order" of the DLC, but is directly related to sloppiness by the devs. At this point I am already irritated and disappointed. Two pretty glaring mistakes within five minutes of starting a DLC adventure.

I know it's the prologue, but it's tied to the introduction of an entire DLC. It's not just some throwaway side quest to save someone's cat in a tree in the middle of nowhere. They sell this DLC for crowns, i.e., real money. Meaning some people out there not on ESO plus had to pay real life money for it, and this is how it begins - with two obvious, glaring errors that ought to be easy to fix.

So by the third issue you can imagine my patience had completely worn out. If the guy banging on the door was the only "jank" I had seen, I would have brushed it off as an "out of order" oddity and never bothered posting. And at the end when Gwendis tells me "we'll contact you" and I had to go look it up in google, I was beyond exasperated, leading to this rant-filled post.

Why you are defending any of this is absolutely beyond me. Don't you want them to make things better? I guess @Pelanora is correct, some people just lurk in these forums trying to pick fights.

I am not trying to pick a fight with anyone. I saw this thread and commented on what I could, offering a possible alternative that might bridge the gap between the prologue and the DLC proper and stating the fact that is ESO's freedom to complete quests in any order one wishes. I haven't done the prologue myself since it first came out so I can't recall any "jank" with any carts or notes, so can't comment on that, other than to bring attention to typos/inaccurate sentences so they can be potentially fixed. I do think the overreliance on carts and boats for a lot of the prologue quests is a bit humorously silly at times, but I accept it as there really aren't many ways for them to facilitate travel across Tamriel, which happens often during them.

Presuming I don't want the developers to make the user experience better is wild assumption. I see the issues you've raised and look at them from a different perspective, and try to find reasons or possible solutions for them based on my knowledge of the game.

Theoretically fine... But that is not the tone of your original post at all. You made excuses for them and basically blamed me for doing things out of order, without any acknowledgement of the issues I presented.

"To be fair..." to ZoS, excusing their jank.

"NPCs can't contact you about content that doesn't exist yet. " (Which was true four years ago, before Markarth existed, but that's another point.) Again going to bat for ZoS.

"Try grabbing it from the menu" - Implying in a roundabout way that it is somehow my fault that I found the note in the actual game instead of artificially grabbing the quest from the crown store... after I had already finished the entire prologue!

Ending with "it was your own choice", again implying it was my fault, and "just use your imagination" to excuse the jank.


Come on. Maybe not literally (or even intentionally) "picking a fight", but still being obstinate while not acknowledging (even a little bit) that this is messed up. Even when you yourself admit that you haven't done this content in years, so have no context as to how it currently plays out since they patched a lot of the prologue quests to remove NPCs from cities.

When you come onto someone's post pointing out flaws in the game that they want to see rectified, and put the onus on the player to modify their expectations and behaviour... well, if you're not picking a fight, what are you even doing here? Other than some kind of passive aggressive baiting? I am here posting my experience in the game in the hopes that they see this post and improve things for the future. What are you doing here?

Can you - at the very least - admit that I played this experience and had issues?

Did issue #1 not happen? Yes or no.

did issue #2 not happen? #3? #4? Did I imagine all this jank?

Is it not reasonable to expect that a PAID quest experience introducing an entire DLC makes narrative sense within their questing structure? Or does a company that makes literally BILLIONS OF DOLLARS of profit get a free pass to release sub-par products?

Dahveed wrote: »

Benzux wrote: »

Dahveed wrote: »

Benzux wrote: »

You say these are easy fixes, but I wouldn't be so sure. Editing an in-game book, yes, if there's something wrong then you should submit a bug report about it, and it might be fixable. Not sure how it might mess with the Lore Library, I can't remember if they've edited any in-game books in recent times. But, knowing more or less how the game engine works and what the developers seem to be capable of within it, some of the other things are a bit more tricky, if not simply impossible.

Dahveed wrote: »

This last paragraph is absurd.

I was doing this quest on an alternate character who hadn't done much of anything yet. According to your logic, every new character I make has to do every single quest in the entire game since its release 10 years ago, in chronological order, or else anything that doesn't make sense is my fault? Really?


Like... I dunno, they couldn't have forseen that perhaps some players would NOT do the Rivenspire quest chain before Markarth, and just force me exit the castle from the secret entrance I came in from. They couldn't possibly forsee that someone would exit from the front where a soldier is absurdly banging on the front door (which, by the way, I would have been hearing the entire time)?


You are correct in that I can "RP" this stuff away, which is what I usually do for stuff like this. "Head Cannon" is what they call it, I believe. I do it all the time. But having to "head canon" completely absurd and easily fixable nonsense from a company that makes billions of dollars in profit is pretty laughable. If this game were moddable, these issues could be fixed in an afternoon by someone who cared.

I was merely saying that, if you've played this game enough, you'll know that it lets you do things "out of order", and thus the choice to do the Markarth/Western Skyrim content before base-game content that involves the same characters is going to result in a few oddities here and there. If you don't want to do specific content on a character, you'll need to acknowledge the fact that you'll run into oddities and either simply ignore them, or build them into whatever story you're crafting for a character (assuming that RP is the main focus here, I can't think of many other reasons why one would want to specifically do the prologue and DLC content for a specific story, but not other content related to it).

There's a difference between "oddities" and utter jank that makes no sense whatsoever and removes you entirely from your immersion.

I began this post with what was originally a very forgivable "oddity", just one line in a note that sends you to the wrong place. It's pretty bad, but not game-ruining bad. I just thought I'd post it because it was a bit silly and probably an easy fix, just remove one line from a note. It wasn't a big deal.

Then five minutes later I find another one (the cart), and I'm thinking to myself, "really? Ok this should be embarrassing for them at this point." Neither of these instances have anything to do with the "order" of the DLC, but is directly related to sloppiness by the devs. At this point I am already irritated and disappointed. Two pretty glaring mistakes within five minutes of starting a DLC adventure.

I know it's the prologue, but it's tied to the introduction of an entire DLC. It's not just some throwaway side quest to save someone's cat in a tree in the middle of nowhere. They sell this DLC for crowns, i.e., real money. Meaning some people out there not on ESO plus had to pay real life money for it, and this is how it begins - with two obvious, glaring errors that ought to be easy to fix.

So by the third issue you can imagine my patience had completely worn out. If the guy banging on the door was the only "jank" I had seen, I would have brushed it off as an "out of order" oddity and never bothered posting. And at the end when Gwendis tells me "we'll contact you" and I had to go look it up in google, I was beyond exasperated, leading to this rant-filled post.

Why you are defending any of this is absolutely beyond me. Don't you want them to make things better? I guess @Pelanora is correct, some people just lurk in these forums trying to pick fights.

I am not trying to pick a fight with anyone. I saw this thread and commented on what I could, offering a possible alternative that might bridge the gap between the prologue and the DLC proper and stating the fact that is ESO's freedom to complete quests in any order one wishes. I haven't done the prologue myself since it first came out so I can't recall any "jank" with any carts or notes, so can't comment on that, other than to bring attention to typos/inaccurate sentences so they can be potentially fixed. I do think the overreliance on carts and boats for a lot of the prologue quests is a bit humorously silly at times, but I accept it as there really aren't many ways for them to facilitate travel across Tamriel, which happens often during them.

Presuming I don't want the developers to make the user experience better is wild assumption. I see the issues you've raised and look at them from a different perspective, and try to find reasons or possible solutions for them based on my knowledge of the game.

Theoretically fine... But that is not the tone of your original post at all. You made excuses for them and basically blamed me for doing things out of order, without any acknowledgement of the issues I presented.

"To be fair..." to ZoS, excusing their jank.

"NPCs can't contact you about content that doesn't exist yet. " (Which was true four years ago, before Markarth existed, but that's another point.) Again going to bat for ZoS.

"Try grabbing it from the menu" - Implying in a roundabout way that it is somehow my fault that I found the note in the actual game instead of artificially grabbing the quest from the crown store... after I had already finished the entire prologue!

Ending with "it was your own choice", again implying it was my fault, and "just use your imagination" to excuse the jank.


Come on. Maybe not literally (or even intentionally) "picking a fight", but still being obstinate while not acknowledging (even a little bit) that this is messed up. Even when you yourself admit that you haven't done this content in years, so have no context as to how it currently plays out since they patched a lot of the prologue quests to remove NPCs from cities.

When you come onto someone's post pointing out flaws in the game that they want to see rectified, and put the onus on the player to modify their expectations and behaviour... well, if you're not picking a fight, what are you even doing here? Other than some kind of passive aggressive baiting? I am here posting my experience in the game in the hopes that they see this post and improve things for the future. What are you doing here?

Can you - at the very least - admit that I played this experience and had issues?

Did issue #1 not happen? Yes or no.

did issue #2 not happen? #3? #4? Did I imagine all this jank?

Is it not reasonable to expect that a PAID quest experience introducing an entire DLC makes narrative sense within their questing structure? Or does a company that makes literally BILLIONS OF DOLLARS of profit get a free pass to release sub-par products?

Well, I apologize if my tone indicated something I did not mean. I wasn't "making excuses", I stated facts about how things work, especially given that your tone seemed to one of clear frustration (which, while I do understand and think you are 100% entitled to, I also feel it seems a bit blown out of proportion, but that's just my own opinion, as I couldn't ever see myself reacting this strongly), so I wanted to explain how these quests and the game in general is structured. I did also quite literally suggest that submitting a bug report about the incorrect note is a possibility, if you haven't already done so.

And as I stated before, I acknowledged your issues when I had something to say about them based on my own experiences. That doesn't mean I didn't ignore your other issues, I just don't have anything to say about them other than "I can't recall having this same issue".

I think you've misinterpreted my "grab the quest from the menu" bit. That wasn't the prologue quest I was referring to, but Markarth's zone quest, which should be possible to accept from the Collections -> Stories interface. I've always started DLC quests by going to the zone itself, so I don't know what it changes if you accept the quest from that menu, but it might change things like the quest log text to reflect that you didn't just pick it up from an NPC in the zone (which the quest will likely point towards as your first objective). At the very least, that could potentially serve as an RP hook to connect Gwendis' dialogue at the end of the prologue and starting the DLC proper.