The writing for the upcoming story content - some thoughts on the latest news article
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metheglyn✭✭✭✭✭When it comes to the German translation of the letter, I found it a little weird. Generally, there's some strange inaccuracies with the translations which made me wonder. Did they change the localisation studio? Their personnel? Did they use some automatic translation software this time? It just felt like something was a bit different than usually and sometimes the meaning of words was a bit off, by a nuance. This is even stranger considering that the translation of the New Life festival quests is awesome and on par with the base game dialogues, so I'm wondering why East Solstice doesn't have the same quality.
Well, that's unfortunate, particularly if it changes the intended meaning of the dialogue. Obviously the translations aren't something I ever come across; I just get annoyed by typos and misspellings.Onto the mine! I came across a soul shriven chef--I couldn't talk to them, but was able to, I don't know, season a meal on the table? The object said "pour" but the animation looked like I was sprinkling seasoning over something. Whatever I did, it made the chef pretty happy.
Oh, that's from a zone achievement. And I missed this character - already found all others. Generally it's a nice achievement, a very interesting idea, good interactions, and the locations all looked very interesting (well, all that I've seen so far). Nice design, really.
There's another zone achievement with soulbound weapons, although I've only found one of them so far. Makes me wonder if there'll be a bit lore on that, since for now, there wasn't much, just those items you need to find, but with no details on them.
I did eventually find all of the soul shriven--that was some cool zone ambiance. Also made me wonder what/who else might have inadvertently ended up on Nirn due to this reverse planemeld.
For the soulbound weapons, I don't think it's a spoiler to say there will be a book to read at the end. I thought that one was really well done, too.Anyway, in the mine I found the note written by someone from "the court of Mannimarco." Well! Someone has lofty ideas of his station! The court of Mannimarco indeed.
That caught my attention too.It was interesting to see how much they go for the Worm King / nobility aspect this time. And of course they need their own furnishings then. I just wonder where it's suddenly coming from? The title "Worm King" isn't new after all, but it was nothing they ever made of much, not in the base game, not in later TES games. Now, I do like the idea of a necromantic court, and it would fit a Corelanya revivalist in a way (if they had made such a story out of it), but it's really strange it just comes up now while it was never a topic before, no? Honestly made me wonder whether it's a continuity error about the Worm Cult, just like, well, newer Jakarn isn't the same thing as older Jakarn.
Considering the lead up,the actual 'court of Mannimarco' wasn't anything that interesting. But maybe it was a court of the mind rather than a physical place with all the trappings.They clearly have creepy plans for Vanus--magic battery once again (sequel as repeat).
But this time......in direct interaction with Mannimarco. And to raise the dead. Oh, what a psychologically interesting situation this could have been, to have Vanny being forced to partake in a necromantic ritual against his will!
Very true, andall told, I was disappointed in the scene where we rescue Vanny from Mannimarco. I had hoped for more back and forth between them, or something. And, yes, they could have made much more of the intent behind using the Great Mage for such a purpose, given how firmly against necromancy he is.
Well, he does, technically.
We see Jeetra telling Darien he's worthless and then we talk to Darien. As someone who likes Darien, I have been enjoying his character moments in this story. I think it's pretty well done and I have found the player response options to be pretty well balanced if you like Darien. Once again, though, if you don't like him, or just don't care that he's having doubts about himself, there's no good response for you. I really think they could have added one more response option each time that was truly neutral/disinterested or even a bit brusque.
Exactly. That was my issue with that final dialogue of that quest, too. My character wasn't concerned, he didn't even care much, but there was just no fitting dialogue option for him. Why have a "neutral", a "friendly" and a "flirty" option if they basically all just mean the same, and nothing beyond that?
Definitely a limitation of the system so far. Hopefully they keep refining it/adding to it so that it gets closer to the single rpg aspect of giving us more control of what our character says/thinks/feels. I don't know what kind of limitations they are up against when it comes to this system, or how much more complex adding one more character response option would make the branching dialogue system. Our character's lines aren't voiced, but if the npc is going to react to each type of response, that could potentially lead to a lot more lines of dialogue that need to be recorded.Now, when it comes to the zone, random encounters, etc...I've come across the khajiit dealing with the elusive illusionist three times now (and solved her little illusion riddles each time).
I come across the three stages of this encounter all the time, and not always in the correct order. Actually I got the last one first which didn't make much sense. It's also strange this one appears ad nauseam and others that I find more interesting don't. I got the last encounter right, but when it comes to the first two riddles, I really found no way to solve them. Made me wonder whether it's a translation issue (they also got the gender of one of the daedra wrong, but that was not a hint, it turned out, but just a translation mistake), as there's really no hint that makes any sense.
I don't think I got them in order (I don't really know what the order is meant to be) but I haven't seen them repeat at all. If I remember correctly for the multiple choice options, there's always one of the npcs that says something a little off, and that's the clue. It's possible the hint just doesn't translate very well. All in all, I found them a fun little diversion and I'm glad I haven't run into them again, because that kind of repetition weakens the impact for me. I see the mage caught in a bubble in the water quite frequently, to the point where I now think, "Dude, this is all on you," and I don't even bother trying to help him.I inserted myself into an argument between a bard and a band of pirates--I told him I'd never heard of him and he replied that he'd never heard of me, which made me laugh.
There's no choice to be made there in dialogue, is there? To solve the situation somehow? It did feel a bit random to me.
No, and at first that took me off guard--I'm so used to walking up to strangers and solving their disputes. But I actually like this one better because there's nothing to solve--it's just me being super nosy and butting in where I have no place. Plus, I really like the Two-Shields npc's reaction when I ask him where his other shield is.I crossed a bridge and suddenly the entire skybox and landscape changed and I actually said to myself, "What's going on? Am I dead?" When I got to the other side of the bridge, a ghost boat appeared and sailed under the bridge. That was pretty neat.
That was a nice one. When I saw it the first time on PTS, I actually thought the skybox was bugged. It also seems to be easy to miss as it takes a whole while for it to appear, and some people have already left the location again before that happens. So it's a pity it only occurs once, so people who miss it the first time will not have the chance to see it again. I also wished it had a bit of background lore somehow, but I think there's nothing on it.
I think the background lore is in the achievement description. It's unfortunate if people don't realize there's something there to see and miss out on it, but I do like the utter surprise and uniqueness of it.When it comes to random encounters, there's another few I've come across:
- A lootable chest with a Maormer ghost attacking (basically like the group of bandits random encounter from the base game).
- An alchemist testing a potion on a group of stranglers.
- Two argonians of different tribes discussing their cultural differences. That's a nice one.
Generally, I usually come across the same few, though.
I've seen the first two of those once each, and the argonians in several places. I enjoyed chatting with the argonians. But I did run across Vyktor Varien quite often, and I enjoyed my conversations with him--though he doesn't seem to remember me in between them. Perhaps he's just that self-absorbed.I've done a couple more side quests, too, but only one I'll mention right now. It was the one called "Dubious Intentions."
While I like that we get different choices there, the whole thing felt too obvious somehow. I mean, even the quest name is obvious. The behavior within the dialogues also felt unnatural, clichéd - to make absolutely clear "This person is hiding something!!!" - I'd have prefered something more subtle. The end was also a bit strange - even if you get him to confess, you just let him stand there in the end, relying on his promise he'll go to town to confess to the guards alone, later... Why would one trust him after the things that happened?
Well, in my playthrough of it, there was no notion of him turning himself in. Basically, he didn't care that I found out the truth, he wasn't remorseful, and he was annoyed with me for not bringing him back any lizard-bear scales. He mostly just griped about how much harder his life was going to be, and he wasn't at all concerned that I might report him to the authorities.
I agree it was all quite obvious from the get-go, and I also would prefer a little more subtlety, but what I chiefly liked about it was the options we had on how to play out the quest. I want more of that type of mechanic in quests.Part 2! Now, the side quests...
"To Know the Void":While I personally have no problem with it, I think helping a Dark Brotherhood member might be a problem for some player characters? I also think it's too obvious who he is, even if he doesn't state it directly in dialogue (unless you're also a Dark Brotherhood member and have that extra dialogue option) - his diary directly next to him doesn't make a big secret out of it and everybody can just read it.
The dialogue also had a few weird questions we could not avoid asking; and while of course I appreciate that we could discuss the stone tablets at the end of the quest, I would have hoped for something deeper than what we got. A culture having a more positive interpretation of death isn't such a unique or alien thing, so it felt a bit weird to me that it was portrayed as such an astonishing lesson there.
The quest itself was a simple fetch quest, but I don't mind also having such quests in the mix, as long as there are also a few more complex ones. The delve was a little bland, no lorebooks, not many interesting things to see. It was also a bit bugged; the lorebook at the quest npc wasn't glowing, and all enemy names in the delve were untranslated in the German version.
Generally I think it was an okay quest, though.
You make some good points. I'll have to see how it playswith my non DB characters. I hope the dialogue doesn't give away any hint of it, so as to make it more plausible that they'd help. As for the lorebook--well, that's his personal journal, so if our characters read it, and are horrified to find out they helped a member of the Dark Brotherhood, maybe they shouldn't have been so nosy! As to the delve itself, I think I mentioned that I found all three delves had a similar empty feeling--so much space, so well-designed, and yet essentially hollow. And if I didn't mention it before, I meant to!College of Sea and Sword:
Location-wise, I loved this one! So much to explore, many different assets/furnishings to look at, lots of containers to loot, too. The quest itself was okay. What I disliked was the lore contradiction - the college just shouldn't be there. Other lore sources told us that no one from the West had set a foot on East Solstice in the past 40 years, after all!
Yeah, it is odd that it's there, and was never mentioned before by anyone on Western Solstice."Dismantling the Worm":I, personally, didn't really find the cultist's reasoning believable. I mean, fine, her village didn't approve of her interest in magic, but why join the Worm Cult of all things? Why not the Mages Guild, for example? Guild mages should also be easier to find than Worm Cultists... Also she claimed some weird thing like the Cult convinced her by telling her necromancy was "an art of make something greater of souls" of something like that... Why would a commoner believe that? If you told that some random person, wouldn't they be rather disconcerted instead of finding it plausible and agreeing to join? I also didn't like that "necromancy is always harmful" dialogue part in the end. Or that we needed to ask what the Order of the Black Worm is to be able to progress the dialogue. Or that asking us to decide over her fate, or all her worries about what her family might think - she's an adult, after all?! Didn't come across as mature to me at all. Anyway, I told her to just leave.
The location itself - visually beautiful, though sadly every single door of the whole village was locked. No lore either. This is really my main point of criticism for the whole chapter - there's a lack of lore. Quest design itself was okay.
Sometimes I wonder if the average Tamriel/Nirn denizen is rather clueless about the big events going on that we get involved in. I mean, in the base game, with dark anchors dropping in all the zones, and the Worm Cult everywhere, I'd think just about everyone would know who the cult is, what they're up to, and so forth. Yet this magewas really shocked by finding out they were evil. Of course, if that's the caliber of mind they typically recruit, no wonder they're so easy to defeat.Calindvale Gardens:
Not much to say here, indeed. The location was beautiful - as always - , it was also an interesting idea. Lots of space though, with not much to see. I found the boss designs visually interesting, too (I also managed to solo the group boss, it took quite a while, though). The quest itself was okay, but not too creative. Ending was good, I guess, for people who cared about these characters - now they're finally free. I could comment on having met them before, by the way.
I wonder why I wasn't able to. I mean, even if one chooses to side with the lamias in that Coldharbour quest, one still has to first deal with the Shadow Walkers and what's her name. It would have been cool if they were kind of hostile to people who had chosen to side with the lamias, actually. Honestly, I can't recall which side my main character chose--it was so long ago, and I've done that quest on multiple characters, and sometimes I choose one side, and sometimes the other.The dead mage:Yes, that one dialogue option to flirt with the widow was rather silly. Do you remember that news article where they stated they offer dialogue options about things people would not dare to say in real life? Again, I can only say I'd rather see them focus on serious roleplay options instead of options that only seem to serve some shock value. The whole quest seemed to have some weird "funny" undertone that I personally didn't find funny at all. It also had some text or translation mistake/contradiction: First that mage told us he wanted to take a restore health potion, and about 2 lines later he told you he didn't have magicka left, which sounds more like it was a restore magicka potion. Which made me wonder whether he's supposed to be lying, but context-wise, this doesn't make much sense, so I think it's rather a continuity mistake.The potion confusion is present in the English version, too, so I wonder if it's just a case of him being that absent-minded. As for the shock value component of the flirt response--I wonder if they wanted to give an option to players who want to role-play someone who has no social filters (for lack of a better term). Someone who would say something just to get a reaction, or maybe someone who can't help but flirt in all situations. I can appreciate them trying out all kinds of different responses to suit all kind of different players--and since it was just one option out of three (I think it was three) it's easy enough for me to not use it and role-play my character true to himself. But if it really is just 'hey, this would be shocking, let's put this in!' I'd also rather they put more thought into the responses."Roots in Stone":
This one was horribly bugged on PTS (so much that I could never finish it, after several attempts) and I was actually astonished it worked without any errors on Live - for me, at least. On PTS I got stuck at 3 different dialogue parts - the npc just became uninteractable. And the probably worst (and strangest) bug I came across was......when the Voskrona guardians at the end suddenly attacked me instead of the enemy, for unknown reasons. Which ruined the whole quest right at the end. And made me not try it again. I actually had feared that we'd see the same disaster on Live now, especially since several other bugs from PTS just carried over. But anyway...
It's, again, a very nice location, both inside the ruin as well as outside, but, yes, everything's locked and you can barely talk to anyone. That was disappointing. Locations really just feel like movie backdrops now. Well, actually, I think I found exactly one npc who was not directly quest-related who had some dialogue, and that was dialogue she should rather not have (yet), as she congratulated me on the victory before I had even started the quest...
Generally, it was a good story at an interesting location (of course you had to ignore the bookshelves inside the ruin - I really wish they'd seperate ancient shelves from the normal ones, so the Ayleid, Dwemer and whatnot ones in ruins wouldn't display books by Telenger! Or maybe they could just deactivate the ancient ones, as that would probably be the easiest solution technically).
Some comments were wrong again when you didn't do that pendulum task in the intended order.
The flirting between the two Argonians - they are amusing characters, but I'm not sure I found that realistic. It happened way too fast - they didn't know each other first, and after just a few minutes they're much too close already.
When it comes to the elder: Yes, Argonian player characters do understand what he says in the end. According to UESP, the translation is: "The great change draws closer". Might that be a hint on next year (they often hid some hint on the upcoming story, after all)? If so, is it fair to only provide it to players who play a specific race? I mean, not that it tells us much this time.
I'm glad those PTS bugs got worked out. As it was, this was the quest that had the most bugs for me (two, I think it was).A movie set/back drop is an excellent description for how some of the places feel. I really wish they would go back to making villages/towns more explorable. I can understand from a story perspective--the villagers have fled/gone into hiding to avoid the cult, and so locked up their homes--but even the regular towns are so limited these days.
The conversations between the two Argonians didn't seem outright flirtatious to me--I mean, yes, there were some teasing remarks that bordered on flirting, but overall I think it was just them realizing they aren't so different and actually do have something to learn from one another. I didn't find it too out of place, but it's possible I just didn't notice the flirtatious tones.
I think it's an interesting choice to have a line of dialogue that a character cannot understand if they aren't Argonian. Whether it's a hint of something more or not, I think it adds to the atmosphere of the world and makes the npcs seem more like their own persons with their own histories. As far as it being fair to only provide hints on future content to players who play a specific race: I don't have a problem with that. The way information gets shared these days, everyone who really wanted to know what was said can find it out. I didn't look it up on UESP--that is, I hadn't looked it up yet; I probably would have eventually, but for now I didn't mind not knowing. (I don't mind either that you told me, since I don't have any Argonian characters to take through the quest, so I would have had to look it up at some point.) I mean, I was never in that special club that got mailed hints or whatever for upcoming content, yet eventually I got to see what the special people got once they deigned to share it with us. At least this type of hint (if it is a hint) is in-game, and not reliant on social media. But basically I'm used to not seeing the future content hints, so this wouldn't have been any different for me.
I do have a few more thoughts to share about my overall impression of the story--things that have occurred to me since I first posted about it--but I'll wait until you've had a chance to share your impressions.
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Syldras✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭So, to continue (and finish) my notes on the East Solstice side quests...
"Blood on the Water":That was one I enjoyed. Although the start was a little irksome - realizing that the map of the cave system went missing again! It had been reported on PTS and got fixed there, but for unknown reasons, it was bugged again on Live. And that's not the only situation where a bug that was already fixed on PTS showed up again on Live, but I think I already mentioned that yesterday. Makes me wonder what happened there, probably some kind of mix-up?!
When it comes to the quest itself, I liked that it was a longer quest and most of all the variety of tasks. The running back and forth through the same location was a bit annoying (especially without a map...), I think I would have liked it better if the quest would have somehow progressed over several different locations. Also, I had expected something more akin to that base game naval battle from the Dominion main questline and not just fighting aboard a halted ship. Still, in total, the different tasks were fun.
When it comes to dialogues: Why were we called "pirate" all the time? At least in the German translation, there was never any line about joining their crew (not even temporarily).
I liked that you could talk to everyone at the end and that they all refer to events from earlier stories. On the other hand, it does feel a little artificial, no? Especially with that one Alfiq who was involved in events of 3 or 4 different chapters. It's nostalgia bonus, sure, but doesn't it make the world feel small (apart from it not being very realistic) if a single person is somehow involved in all these stories taking place across the whole continent?
"Lost Among the Ashes":Bluntly said, I totally hated this one on PTS. The more astonished was I when I noticed that some details had changed on Live, although I'm really not sure if it's an actual change based on criticism posted during the PTS phase, or a matter of dialogue options (I couldn't completely remember whether I choose the same ones this time - especially since "neutral" and "friendly" are often so similar!), or whether it's somehow a matter of translation (on PTS, everything is in English, so now on Live was the first time I've seen all German dialogues, lorebooks and such). I almost think some details were changed later, since during the quest there are still lots of hints that fit the earlier concept I've seen on PTS.
What was this earlier concept and what did I hate about it? There's still this build-up now about Sirilonwe getting angrier and angrier because she feels wronged by her partner (I personally found those dialogues super annoying! Her problems aren't mine, and also, she could just behave like a normal mature adult and talk with her partner, or just end the cooperation like a normal person if she's not content with it? They're both supposed to be scholars, but the way they acted was... well, it didn't really reflect that but felt more like a silly cliché. And it even felt like Sirilonwe was just power-hungry and therefore eager to get rid of her partner, instead of being an actual victim - what she said about him and what we actually got to see within those short conversations with him just didn't match up; something really felt off for me - this made the end even worse because it felt like he was the victim of the situation, and he becomes the victim a final time at the end, and we can't say anything about that). Mihinassi (Yes, I also wondered where those grapes and cheese were coming from!) also mentions at the beginning that there's some kind of conflict going on.
Anyway, on PTS this situation would basically lead Sirilonwe killing all vampires in a fit of rage - even if you've chosen to spare them in dialogue - , usually coming up with some excuse why she had to kill them (despite of being an expert on different strains of vampirism and their cure, as she states at the start of the quest). The random murder of vampires you just treated in a friendly, lenient way felt like it was supposed to be a running gag, and I really disliked that. Murder as a joke is a concept I find of really bad taste, but not only that, I also had the feeling it completely took away the player's agency. The way it played on PTS for me was really that I always chose to spare the vampires, just to see that a second later Sirilonwe incinerates them with a spell, followed by some excuse or "funny" comment. It was frustrating! Even the ending of the whole story was like that (and made me never want to play this quest again, actually).
Now, she still kills her partner and some of the vampires during the quest in the current version. But at least it's hinted on them attacking or posing a real threat now, instead of the PTS version where it looked more like she was just angry and her arguing was always something like "They could have become a threat one day!" I'm still not content with the end, because I think the player should have gotten a real choice to decide over that infected partner's fate. Doesn't matter that letting that vampire go might cause trouble for the common people of Tamriel - the player character should still have this choice. And it wouldn't be the first time we could make a harmful choice; there were several situations in the base game where we could choose to make the "bad" decision. I just really dislike having agency taken away from me where it's not absolutely necessary for the plot, and especially frustrating to me are fake choices where we can make some decision in dialogue but then the opposite happens anyway.
Location design was impressive, as usual. The puzzles were made easier on Live. Originally, there were no yelled comments about which seals to use (you just had to go by the lorebook), and if you made a mistake, it did reset. Now it doesn't reset anymore but you can just try the next thing, one by one, until everything is correct. Also, Sirilonwe yells at you what to do, in such detail that it's barely a puzzle anymore. As someone who enjoys doing them on my own, I do find that annoying. Help should remain optional, by choosing to ask a character through dialogue.
"Choice and Consequence":Maybe you already guessed, but this was my favorite of all East Solstice side quests. The different options and different endings - if more quests were like this, there was nothing to complain about! I tested this several times on PTS just to see the outcome of different decisions. It was really fun. I also appreciate that you can actually make an evil decision here, and also that you can spare that one cultist despite having been given different orders (only if you have the right dialogue option, though - if you have not finished base game content before, it's missing and the cultist can't be saved; actually I'm not entirely content with this, as I think such a big moral decision should not depend on having or not having finished other content before, but this roleplay option should always be available for every character) - finally it feels like our character can make actual decisions instead of just following whatever orders we got. I'd actually loved if the ability to choose a side would have been even more fleshed out. Honestly - why couldn't we just decide to turn Cariel in? Could have ended with her being able to flee, fine with me, but the option itself would have been appreciated.
And yes, the base premise of the quest seemed a little random. Well, it still feels a little random somehow (and I guess the only reason for Naemon's return was nostalgia, as there's no real background lore on it and it also doesn't really lead to anything else in the story, as a whole - I'm also not sure whether it can lead to anything as people will have made different decisions about his fate at the end of the quest; I let him live, of course). But I can accept it, I guess, as the quest itself was fun to play at least. Though it does lead to a lot of questions, sure. It just seems strange how someone could, by whatever means, just bring Naemon back while resurrecting Mannimarco was presented to us as a super complicated almost impossible thing?! I don't know how this makes any sense. Then again, do we even know if this is the real Naemon? Though I believe his slight character change (He was never that evil/cruel in base game or do I remember him wrong?) is more a continuity problem than a real hint on some obscure background story we've not seen or heard of yet. What's a Shackle, by the way?
Sneaking was fun, but there was so much space around the camp which made it easy. That beginning where we're supposed to throw a stone for distraction or something like that didn't make much sense in my case as there were no people around anywhere (probably another player had just killed them and they hadn't respawned yet). There was no real greeting either, or at least the dialogue felt like the beginning was missing somehow. Ah, who knows.
The disguise - yes, that was fun. I tried to remain consistent, though I don't get why they just don't deactivate the other one as soon as you've put on one of them? Would easily solve the continuity problem. And while we're at it: I dislike that you can't get the disguises anymore after the quest! You don't get access to the boxes anymore (Really makes me wonder why?!). This really annoyed me as I wanted to collect both disguises just for costume use. Yes, I know old disguises were officially made costumes with some update, but it doesn't happen automatically for the new ones. Well, looks like I have to collect them on a different character later (collect them and move them into the bank immediately). Couldn't do it yet as I don't have another character in East Solstice right now, and to get one to the other side, I either need to do Solstice main quest part 6 or teleport to someone else, but it was in the middle of the night, so there was no one else around, of course.
Oh, and I finally found the First Dialogue between Mannimarco and Vanny in that fortress! Interesting the Worm Cult keeps it there
That soup quest:
I think I didn't comment on that the last time. It's a nice little quest. Rather short. The atmosphere is fine, though. I think they could have added some animation that makes us actually share the soup with Hecicla, since it's only refered to in dialogue, but it doesn't "actually" happen. I mean, eating animations (also one sitting down and eating soup...) do already exist in the game anyway.
And... I think you actually missed two side quests. Or you forgot to list them. The titles are, according to UESP:
- An Ambition Fulfilled (that one is really fun!)
- Death Hound's Devotion (this one felt rather... well, not very meaningful)
You probably want to play them first before I write about them? The Death Hound quest can be picked up near Ashbound Hall and the other quest starts near that small pond South of the first wayshrine we get on East Solstice, in front of Gristmung Hold (or wait, I guess it's easier just to cross the Wall from Warm-Stone Village, it's immediately East of that location).
And that's it. It's only 13 side quests (at least that's all I found, and UESP also doesn't list more), and 4 of them are extremely short, another 4 are fetch quests,... Compared to what we got in Morrowind or Summerset, it's sadly really not much.
Of course, there are also a few dailies - I haven't done most of them yet. Somehow I usually get the old ones from the quest givers, which I find annoying. Boss quests also don't work well as there are rarely any people around and soloing takes too long. Now, an event would help to get the zone more populated, but I don't think we'll see any Solstice event again soon...
More later, or tomorrow. And yes, I still remember which of your posts I've not replied to yet
Ah, yes, this is one aspect that does annoy me somehow in East Solstice:
So many books one can't interact with everywhere!
When it comes to the main quest - not finished yet, but we're close!
@Syldras | PC | EU
The forceful expression of will gives true honor to the Ancestors.
Sarayn Andrethi, Telvanni mage (Main)
Darvasa Andrethi, his "I'm NOT a Necromancer!" sister
Malacar Sunavarlas, Altmer Ayleid vampire
Soris Rethandus, a Sleeper not yet awake0 -
metheglyn✭✭✭✭✭And... I think you actually missed two side quests. Or you forgot to list them. The titles are, according to UESP:
- An Ambition Fulfilled (that one is really fun!)
- Death Hound's Devotion (this one felt rather... well, not very meaningful)
You probably want to play them first before I write about them? The Death Hound quest can be picked up near Ashbound Hall and the other quest starts near that small pond South of the first wayshrine we get on East Solstice, in front of Gristmung Hold (or wait, I guess it's easier just to cross the Wall from Warm-Stone Village, it's immediately East of that location).
And that's it. It's only 13 side quests (at least that's all I found, and UESP also doesn't list more), and 4 of them are extremely short, another 4 are fetch quests,... Compared to what we got in Morrowind or Summerset, it's sadly really not much.
I totally missed those! And the funny thing (well, I find it amusing anyway) is that you had told me some of the quests were hard to come across, so I was doing my best to crawl all over the map and look out for them. Well! Looks like I wasn't as thorough as I thought I was. Guess I have a project for the next couple days (not sure when I'll have time to do them).Of course, there are also a few dailies - I haven't done most of them yet. Somehow I usually get the old ones from the quest givers, which I find annoying. Boss quests also don't work well as there are rarely any people around and soloing takes too long. Now, an event would help to get the zone more populated, but I don't think we'll see any Solstice event again soon...
I haven't bothered with the dailies since eastern opened up. I barely bothered with them in western--took them all once each just to find out if there was more lore--but I haven't gotten around to doing that for the eastern ones.Ah, yes, this is one aspect that does annoy me somehow in East Solstice:
So many books one can't interact with everywhere!
I was also noticing all the book-like objects that aren't books. I don't remember there being so many in previous areas, but memory being what it is, I can't say if that's actually the case. At any rate, I kept walking up to tables with books on them, expecting something to read, and nothing.When it comes to the main quest - not finished yet, but we're close!
Taking your usual casual strolling tour with wine, I see! 1 -
Syldras✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Not finished the main quest yet, but I thought I'd reply to the other parts of your messages first.Well, that's unfortunate, particularly if it changes the intended meaning of the dialogue. Obviously the translations aren't something I ever come across; I just get annoyed by typos and misspellings.
There's masses of typos this time, also in the German translation. It's really strange, isn't it? Never saw that in earlier chapters, well, not even last year. Many mistakes also seem to be cases where they made a mistake while copying text, so the first letter of a sentence is missing or some name is accidentally inserted into the text twice in a row.
But strangest are probably mistakes in meaning that actually should not have happened to a native German speaker (or at least not one you'd expect to work in a field where language matters a lot). There's this letter that starts with "Hail Mannimarco who's residing within his unworthy servant Wormblood!" or whatever it is in the English version (I can't remember exactly from PTS). The German word they used in the translation might at first glance look like it means "being inside a thing". But actually it only has one specific meaning: "being innate", as being a natural born part of something. And clearly not physical, but immaterial, as an idea, concept or aspect. So this usage in that context is incorrect. Mannimarco is not a naturally inborn part of Wormblood, after all. And there's several mistakes like that.I did eventually find all of the soul shriven--that was some cool zone ambiance. Also made me wonder what/who else might have inadvertently ended up on Nirn due to this reverse planemeld.
Who knows who will show up in upcoming stories. I'm also curious whether the character I let go at the end of the Aldwilne Citadel quest will show up again. I'd hope so but I'm sadly not sure about that as players could make different choices there. I'm also wondering whether the choice made there will ever be mentioned in another story, as at least the one I made could be considered rather scandalous And there's one witness who knows about that, after all.For the soulbound weapons, I don't think it's a spoiler to say there will be a book to read at the end. I thought that one was really well done, too.
How does the book show up? Is there a quest related to that? Or does it just spawn at the last location (not sure if that's technically possible)?the actual 'court of Mannimarco' wasn't anything that interesting.
Yes, sadly! I wish they had made more of that since they brought that topic up at all. I'd also enjoyed......actually taking a look inside all those buildings at Mor Naril instead of mostly just running through those courtyards. I mean, it did look like a palace in a way, one one could conveniently live in, with all those windows. Looked quite nice, actually.I was disappointed in the scene where we rescue Vanny from Mannimarco. I had hoped for more back and forth between them, or something. And, yes, they could have made much more of the intent behind using the Great Mage for such a purpose, given how firmly against necromancy he is.
I'll write more about that later, in detail, but yes, it's such a pity. They could have made such a dramatic and psychologically interesting situation of that. I'd actually hoped to see......Mannimarco forcing Vanny to actively and directly partake in necromancy. Not entirely sure how he could force him, but surely that would have been intense. Even worse if Mannimarco had commented on it afterwards, something along the lines of "See, it's not that difficult". Not that I want to hurt Vanny emotionally, but it would have been much more interesting than what we actually got - which felt strangely meaningless and not that emotional at all. Well, as I said - more later.Well, he does, technically.
But not in a meaningful wayDefinitely a limitation of the system so far. Hopefully they keep refining it/adding to it so that it gets closer to the single rpg aspect of giving us more control of what our character says/thinks/feels. I don't know what kind of limitations they are up against when it comes to this system, or how much more complex adding one more character response option would make the branching dialogue system. Our character's lines aren't voiced, but if the npc is going to react to each type of response, that could potentially lead to a lot more lines of dialogue that need to be recorded.
I understand that the number of options they can give might be limited because the more options, the more different outcomes need to be written and the more voice lines need to be recorded. But if the number of options is limited, I'd rather see them write them in a meaningful, interesting way, than "wasting" the few options they can include for silly jokes, completely contextless random flirting, or crass lines that only serve some shock value.I don't think I got them in order (I don't really know what the order is meant to be) but I haven't seen them repeat at all.
I think the one where the Khajiit gets "zombified" by an illusion spell is supposed to be the last one.I'm glad I haven't run into them again, because that kind of repetition weakens the impact for me. I see the mage caught in a bubble in the water quite frequently, to the point where I now think, "Dude, this is all on you," and I don't even bother trying to help him.
Yes, at some point I don't bother anymore. Unfortunately, that applies to many of the Solstice random encounters now - some seem to show up all the time. Bubble guy, Millie Reynaud, even the pirates. I'd rather see a bit more of the Argonians or perhaps the Maormer ghost as that encounter includes a chest at least I think there were more different random encounters some years ago? Back in Blackwood?I think the background lore is in the achievement description.
But it's only one short line. I would have hoped to learn more, maybe through some lore book appearing at random bookshelves in that zone. As the event itself is remarkable and well-made.Well, in my playthrough of it, there was no notion of him turning himself in. Basically, he didn't care that I found out the truth, he wasn't remorseful, and he was annoyed with me for not bringing him back any lizard-bear scales. He mostly just griped about how much harder his life was going to be, and he wasn't at all concerned that I might report him to the authorities.
Interesting. In mine, it ended with him saying, okay fine, he'll turn himself in, and it really bothered me a bit that we could only accept that and leave. While it really didn't seem like there was actual remorse, and we actually had no reason to believe him he would not just run off as soon as we turn our back on him.I hope the dialogue doesn't give away any hint of it, so as to make it more plausible that they'd help. As for the lorebook--well, that's his personal journal, so if our characters read it, and are horrified to find out they helped a member of the Dark Brotherhood, maybe they shouldn't have been so nosy!
His diary is already there from the very beginning, even before you accept the quest, though. So as soon as you read it, you know about his background. This does cause a bit of a problem, I find, since learning this would surely be off-putting for many player characters, so why would they still choose to help him? It shouldn't be so obvious from the start.Sometimes I wonder if the average Tamriel/Nirn denizen is rather clueless about the big events going on that we get involved in. I mean, in the base game, with dark anchors dropping in all the zones, and the Worm Cult everywhere, I'd think just about everyone would know who the cult is, what they're up to, and so forth.
They should not be clueless. I mean, the whole world also seems to know about every tiny thing you did in a side quest who knows where, after all.I wonder why I wasn't able to. I mean, even if one chooses to side with the lamias in that Coldharbour quest, one still has to first deal with the Shadow Walkers and what's her name. It would have been cool if they were kind of hostile to people who had chosen to side with the lamias, actually. Honestly, I can't recall which side my main character chose--it was so long ago, and I've done that quest on multiple characters, and sometimes I choose one side, and sometimes the other.
I guess that could be the issue there - that you sided with the lamias. My main character who got that dialogue option sided with the Bosmer tribe.I'm glad those PTS bugs got worked out. As it was, this was the quest that had the most bugs for me (two, I think it was).
I'm really not sure why but that quest seems to be a nightmare bug-wise. I've never seen a quest where you could get stuck at so many different stages. But at least it seems to be possible to complete it now. Or maybe I was just lucky this time.A movie set/back drop is an excellent description for how some of the places feel. I really wish they would go back to making villages/towns more explorable. I can understand from a story perspective--the villagers have fled/gone into hiding to avoid the cult, and so locked up their homes--but even the regular towns are so limited these days.
The whole chapter feels unfinished to me. Empty locations, most npcs have no dialogue, story ideas that start promising but don't really get any depth, lack of lore, reduced number of quests, ultra-short side quests that only seem to exist to increase the quest count, faulty or missing translations, typos everywhere, lots of bugs.I think it's an interesting choice to have a line of dialogue that a character cannot understand if they aren't Argonian. Whether it's a hint of something more or not, I think it adds to the atmosphere of the world and makes the npcs seem more like their own persons with their own histories.
Then again, why would or characters not be able to understand foreign languages (except for Cyrodiilic, which everyone seems to speak anyway)?I totally missed those! And the funny thing (well, I find it amusing anyway) is that you had told me some of the quests were hard to come across, so I was doing my best to crawl all over the map and look out for them. Well! Looks like I wasn't as thorough as I thought I was. Guess I have a project for the next couple days (not sure when I'll have time to do them).
Some are really a bit tricky to find this time. Not sure whether it helps if it's generally such a low quest number. Makes it feel even less for people who don't find them.I haven't bothered with the dailies since eastern opened up. I barely bothered with them in western--took them all once each just to find out if there was more lore--but I haven't gotten around to doing that for the eastern ones.
I also only have interest in doing them once. Unfortunately, I rarely get the new ones now, but the old ones pop up all the time. Which make me dislike this whole concept of the split zone even more. It caused nothing but chaos, also with all those map and achievement bugs we had. Didn't improve the narration either.I was also noticing all the book-like objects that aren't books. I don't remember there being so many in previous areas, but memory being what it is, I can't say if that's actually the case. At any rate, I kept walking up to tables with books on them, expecting something to read, and nothing.
I mean, those clearly are supposed to be books. Worm Cult books with forbidden knowledge, probably. Now, even if we assume these were written in some obscure code, it doesn't really make any sense. Why should these be coded but all other Worm Cult books documents we need to read within quests are not? It's just disappointing. And no, in all other chapters so far, every book was interactable. There were some random small stacks of books on desks at times, and even those basically functioned like bookshelves and displayed some random lorebook.Taking your usual casual strolling tour with wine, I see!
There's no reason not to make a pleasant little stroll out of all this!One might think you would know! Then again, I must remember how careless you are about the welfare of your assistants in general.
I'm actually a very caring person, but I only care for things that seem worth the careThere might be some journal entries from his earlier years the Great Mage wouldn't want anyone else reading. Might ruin the mystique.
Might be embarrassing, most of all.Shorter attention spans, maybe? I couldn't say.
I'd not be surprised if people's attention span has worsened. But should this be catered to? Wouldn't that just detoriate it further and worsen the whole situation even more? Who to write stories for, and what kind of stories, if people can't even follow a story for half a minute anymore?Ok, so being unfamiliar with the use of resin in that way, I want to know: after you collected it, what did you do with it? Was it ready to use in its raw form? Or did you have to process it somehow?
It needs to be dry, of course, but it doesn't need processing. You can just harvest tree resin right from the bark (or bark itself, or herbs, or dried flowers or dried fruit - all works very well as incense) and then put it on some coal or some type of heater. Or, of course, one could create an extract, but that's more complicated and not neccessary for this purpose (I've done extracts of all kinds of things for other purposes, though). I really enjoyed going on walks and just looking around whether there's something useful to harvest.I'm guessing flowers die real quick-like in the presence of so much necrotic energy.
Doesn't matter, they still emit their smell which might be helpful to mask the stench of decay (or perhaps not - too many roses at one place also smell horrible! Now imagine the whole Order of the Black Worm would smell like that). Actually that was one reason historically to cover coffins with strong-smelling flowers such as lilies (really, it wasn't just about the flowers' symbolism alone). Though the most funny thing probably is that lilies (and also other sweet-smelling flowers such as jasmine) naturally contain indole which is also present in corpses (its the chemical component that produces that strange sweetly smell).Bugs like that one always make me wonder: how did that happen? I mean, I wonder that with all bugs to some degree, but when it's a specific character giving the name of a different character as their own--a character that isn't even the same race, in this instance--it just seems even more strange. Still funny, though!
I guess in this case they just accidentally copied the wrong dialogue from some list. I do think it's some copy and paste task, as also some of the text bugs (as mentioned above) look like that.
I'll write about the main quest later. I mean, after I finish it - still two quests to go (including the epilogue).
@Syldras | PC | EU
The forceful expression of will gives true honor to the Ancestors.
Sarayn Andrethi, Telvanni mage (Main)
Darvasa Andrethi, his "I'm NOT a Necromancer!" sister
Malacar Sunavarlas, Altmer Ayleid vampire
Soris Rethandus, a Sleeper not yet awake0