So, what I wanted to add concerning that news article I linked - even if it might not be up to date, it touches on design decisions including the writing, after all, so it might be worth a general discussion (and of course, as always, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I'd like to contribute my view on it nonetheless):

I agree that there are aspects about TES3 Morrowind that would not work too well anymore today. Searching for places could be unnecessarily time-consuming and complicated, especially when descriptions like "walk North to that hut, then East to the big rock, then North to the lake and then West to whatever" were sometimes very unprecise. So for that the idea that we got a map (which could be explained through the story) and npcs mark locations for us, like we see it in ESO, is an improvement and makes sense. I'm not generally against map markers, but where it doesn't make sense for me is if searching for items in a room is part of the current quest or of a "puzzle". Because if searching a thing is the whole task and it's simplified by the map marker pointing at the item we should find - that's basically the equivalent to automatically doing a boss fight for us, because in the end, it's like playing the game for us.

Same goes for many "puzzles" we've seen in the later years of ESO which you could still solve while asleep, since the only thing you need to do is clicking a thing repeatedly until some npc yells you've solved it (you can't even click it more often, it will basically stop when it's correct, unable to move the item any further - of course I tried out of curiosity). That's not a puzzle. You can't even try to solve it on your own because upon clicking it several times it will tell you that you're correct. Now, why include such "puzzles" anyway, then? I do understand that some players might not enjoy this game activity at all, or some puzzles might get too complicated for some people, but I just don't think simplifying them so much that they basically lose their meaning is a good solution to this. I'd rather see real puzzles with a button to optionally skip them. So people who don't enjoy them, or don't find the solution and already annoyed after trying for a whole while, can hit "skip", while people who find them fun can try solving them.

Now, when it comes to the topic of time... I don't disagree with the idea of wanting to cater to different types of players and to also provide content for people who might only have 20 minutes of time. And I think that's achiveable by offering different types of game activities, including some that don't take long. A single duel or a tavern game match of some kind might be a thing that's feasible for that amount of time. But I don't think designing everything so people with just 20 minutes of time can easily play it is a good decision. Since the focus of this thread is the writing: Stories just take their time to develop. You can't tell a complex, epic story within just a few minutes. And with novels, movies or plays, no one would get that idea, right? You wouldn't shorten a 2-hour play to 10 minutes just because people who only have 10 minutes might want to see it, too. You don't shorten a Hemingway novel (or one by Tolstoi or Dumas, doesn't matter) consisting of several hundred pages, to only 10 pages because some people might not enjoy reading more than 10 pages. So why would all the quest design in ESO need to be written so that even someone with only a few minutes can play it? It might sound a little blunt, but if a story takes an hour, I need to either organize an hour of free time if I want to play it (just like with every other hobby, really; I also can't go hiking, climbing or playing soccer for just 10 minutes, either - I need to have enough spare time or find a way to schedule my stuff accordingly), or if I can't get the needed time, well, then I can't partake in this activity (and yes, I know it's sad, I had to limit or even give up some of my hobbies myself when I went from university studies to working full-time in my first job, due to less freetime; but that's how life is).

Now, from my point of view, ESO's quest system isn't even so "strict" in this regard - I can stop and log off at almost every situation and it won't reset the quest (there are some situations where it will set you back a bit, like back to a dungeon entrance, but it's usually not much; it's not like you'd need to repeat a huge part of the story or so). So, if you don't have an hour of time but only 20 minutes, the quest could still be designed for an hour or more of playtime - you can pause at any point of the story anyway. And while playing a whole quest without interruptions is still the best experience in terms of atmosphere and immersion, from my point of view, stopping a few times inbetween, if you just don't have enough time, well, that's a compromise one would need to accept, no? Give people optional dialogue bits so it's easier to remember where they last stopped, fine, but I don't see the need to design only short quests just because some people might not have enough time for longer quests. Especially if it leads to the design being superficial or bland in terms of lore, or if it causes implausibilities (think of the emotional chaos in the Solstice prologue - that was exactly such a situation where a longer timespan would have been needed to make things make sense).

I'm wondering: Do people even expect to be able to play an immersive epic story within just 20 minutes? Because I, personally, am aware that this can't function, so I wouldn't ever demand or expect that. Same goes for "playing something on the side" - does someone who plays a game "on the side" (while doing whatever) even care for a good story? Is this the situation for which a story should be written: To click through it while watching tv, listening to music, having a phone call or whatever? It might be that people are doing this. But I personally don't think that stories should be written with people not paying attention as the target audience. Because then the result can't be satisfying for people who do.

I never found TES 3 Morrowind to be designed only for hardcore gamers, by the way. It was, well, for average gamers. I still play Morrowind today and while I don't have as much time anymore than I had when I was 15 (that was when the game released in summer 2002), it's still playable for me now. Back then I might have played the whole afternoon and evening after school, now I might only have an hour sometimes, but it still works. If I have only an hour, then I might only do 1 quest, fine. It takes me more days to progress through the story, but does that matter? In case of ESO it wouldn't even be that bad, especially considering that it's usually at least half a year between two stories releases (the way it had been until now, at least). I don't even play that much per day, but still, I've usually finished the new story content within about 2 weeks, maybe 3 with some extra exploration. That's always a long waiting time until the next story is released.

Now the last question, since that terms especially caught my attention: Do players really expect "hand-holding"? In an open world game, I don't expect it. The opposite, I want to be able to explore, so too much hand-holding rather annoys me.

metheglyn wrote: »

This seems like one of those parts of world-building and lore that exists within the game but doesn't get a full explanation unless they decide to feature it as part of a story at some point. Deep background lore.

I don't think we'll ever come across the Rilis family again, so this case will probably remain a mystery. Unless they might generally do something about how people could be daedrafied, but that would also not clearly explain this specific case. It's a bit of a pity.

metheglyn wrote: »

The need for quest locations does rather drive things, doesn't it. I was pondering what might make sense from a civilization perspective rather than just a game play one.

Well, that depends. How many Argonians would even live in one average-sized pyramid? What kinds and how many non-residential buildings would they have? Could we take real-world South and Middle American pyramids as an example (although most of them were not inhabited, and the few that were were palaces, so not exactly representative for the average dwelling)?

metheglyn wrote: »

I remember the measuring work you undertook, and how the distances seemed to not make much sense. I had rather know the conceptual size places are meant to be when they aren't limited by the need for players to be able to quickly traverse them. Is the island of Solstice meant to represent a place equivalent to, for example, the size of Ireland. But perhaps searching for such equivalents is foolish, because it's just a map in a game after all.

In case of Tamriel, I think the most interesting aspect is that it has different climate zones. Not sure what the necessary size for that phenomenon would be? I know it depends on the size of the whole planet, but I'm no expert on that.

Now, I personally imagine Solstice as rather small, considering the claim that it was rather hidden, unknown and not found on most maps. Also, it has only few settlements. Ireland on the other hand has 32 counties and all of them have several settlements; those would never fit on Solstice. Solstice seems to be more the size of your average Dutch vacation island in the North Sea

metheglyn wrote: »

Lol, well remember the drawbacks, though! Any cult member is little better than fodder for Mannimarco's ultimate plans. Don't end up like Wormblood, who got to enjoy all that power for such a short time.

I have no plan in interfering with his plans. I just want to recycle my dead servants in peace without anyone scolding me for it.

metheglyn wrote: »

That would be really nice. I like small touches like that.

Maybe we'll see something like that one day. The announcements they made for the quest content of Part 2 show care for roleplaying and immersion aspects, after all.

metheglyn wrote: »

It's possible all the really eerie happenings were on the east side of the island. Maybe the storms and currents that surround the place tend to move ships to that side, so everyone who had a bad experience with the island was on the east. Yet no one who lives on Solstice spoke much about the east side unless to mention the wall. It's really a bit disappointing that there was very little npc gossip or dialogue about the east side.

Most people there seemed strangely indifferent about most things safe for maybe their own tiny village.