ESO Writing Team: Please...stop it.

JemadarofCaerSalis · February 5

Syldras wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

However, while I do think the lack of expanding student's horizons in school with various books is part of the issue, I think a larger part is the fact that people no longer want to be confronted with anything that might give a different perspective on their beliefs. They want echo chambers. They don't *want* morally gray, or nuanced characters. At least not 'heroes'. They are fine with the 'redeemable villain who just wants a hand to reach out to save them' trope it seems.

I have the feeling that them being okay with "redeemable villains" is also just a consequence of that other thing you described in your earlier post: They want a "happy world where everyone gets along and no one is (actually) evil". So of course the baddie is also actually not that bad, or becomes not that bad at least, and can be easily explained and then "healed"/corrected, so everyone is happy afterwards and everyone is friends.

In the end it's the idea that everything that could feel slightly uncomfortable about the depicted fictional world can - no: must - be corrected, so in the end everything is "good". Inoffensive, nice, and of course following their specific moral ideas. Which is horribly boring when it comes to a fictional world; even fairytales, which is probably the genre that has the clearest and unchanging good/evil schemes, have evilness lurking somewhere in their world, after all!

And to be honest, it's not only boring, it's also slightly creepy. Not when murderers stop murdering and thieves stop stealing, of course, but the demand seems to be that everything that they don't agree with (that they feel "uncomfortable" about) is unacceptable and must be changed. How can I be sure that this demand is only about things that are illegal or actually harmful to others, and suddenly stops at things that are just about an individual way of living and aspects like mindset, personal habits, beliefs, philosophies, etc? I don't believe they're tolerant about those.

I agree, and what I find disturbing about that is how they seem so willing to forgive pretty much all a villain has done if they have a tragic enough backstory. I like watching anime, and there have been a couple of anime that, while I consider them very good, often use this trope way too much. Poor villain was so abused as a child, so they just have to grow up hurting others. No matter how much they hurt others, there is always someone who goes 'well, maybe if we just reach out a hand to them, they will change their ways' and in the magical way that stories have, the villains often do.

Which absolutely can work! I like a redeemable villain at times. But, I don't believe that every villain IS redeemable, or should be, and oftentimes when they use this trope, the villains they pick are ones that I would consider unredeemable (often because the villains themselves don't want to be redeemed, they want the world changed to accept them)

Also, completely agree with you on the other things as well, because I have seen that very thing. People are seemingly becoming more inflexible with regards to their beliefs. Not just big ones we can't talk about on this forum, but even the smaller ones. Us vs Them mentality.

Take a debate that I see constantly on reddit. Shoes on or off. Do you wear shoes in your house or do you have people take off their shoes in your house?

This debate gets spun off into a whole lot of morality, with people basing their entire idea of people based on whether they wear shoes in their house or not.

Cat vs dog. I am team cat all the way, but the divide is ridiculous, as both animals are wonderful and have different appeal to different people. Yet you will have people willing to fight to their last breath to defend their animal, often to the detriment of the other side.

And, again, people will make wild accusations about people based upon whether they actually like dogs or not, whether they allow cats on their counters (or even like cats at all)

Shoot, even food gets this treatment, with people who dare to like well done steak being called childish, or people telling others that if they like 'sugar in their coffee, they don't like coffee, they like sugar'. and making it out to be some moral failing that someone might dare like something in a different way to them.

And, this circles right back around to writing, where daring to want to have characters who aren't necessarily good (or at least not completely) or having a villain that doesn't have a tragic backstory, or a group of people who are the 'underdogs' but *don't* have the moral high ground gets you dog piled upon. Depicting a nation that has bad things happen in it, or don't have all the current attitudes, in a favorable light is a cardinal sin to these types of people.

Then, because these people, while maybe not the majority, are the most vocal, the people who are writing these stories (especially for money) cater to them, because, after all, they want the audience, they want the money, they want to please people. (whatever their reason is) Then, either those same people or others like them focus on a different aspect and complain about it, and the cycle continues.

Then, to top it all off, you have people who have grown up reading these types of stories, seeing this type of feed back, and think that is what people want, so that is what they write when they do so.

Syldras · February 5

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

I remember, tangentally, as I wasn't active online at the time, hearing about how people were getting upset at players of Skyrim choosing the Imperials to side with during the Civil War quest line.

The Imperial vs Stormcloak situation is, if looked at all background lore in its entirety, not that clear. Objectively, none of both sides is clearly "the good one". In the end the problem here seems to be making judgements without a thorough understanding of the situation - or, maybe more clearly: Having a very simplified understanding about "good" and "bad" that never scratches the surface of the situation (a situation which in the end makes it a question of personal interpretation whom to support, if at all, but there is not "the one correct choice"). Sadly, similar behavior isn't only seen when it comes to TES.

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

I have heard of people being upset that some people want to play Altmer in these games, because Altmer = Racist elves.

That's honestly ironic: Putting individuals into a box and condemning them based on nothing but their race is racism. A random Altmer could also be a trader (or adventurer, or travelling scholar,...) whose family has grown up outside of Summerset for generations. Maybe even a refugee from Morrowind.

Also: Creepy if some people believe how someone else plays a video game (or generally: what others are doing with their life) is any of their business. Even if someone actually chooses to play an "evil" character. Are they also upset about actors playing "evil" roles? Do they understand the difference between reality and fiction? If not, that's concerning.

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

It is okay to create a world in which bad things happen

I wouldn't only say it's okay, I would say that's the very basis of fantasy fiction: Creating a different fictional world. And when it comes to stories with a big scope, that span a whole continent or planet: The more complexity and "realism" (different cultures with different beliefs and habits, etc) the better. And innate to a complex world is dissent because different people will believe vastly different things.

What stories can even be told if everyone was the same and there was no conflict? Of course there seems to be "feel good fiction" now where everything is just awesome, but usually, literary works have some kind of friction going on. Whether it's about entire groups of people, or an individual and their environment, doesn't matter - the point is that something is "off" which leads to the story developing. Even learning something about a prophecy, for example, is a "disturbance" from the "everything's awesome, calm and the same". Same goes for all kinds of events that could lead to whatever - it's always something that deviates from the usual. "Conflict" in the broader sense is the essence of most stories.

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

I feel that too many people believe that, if they had been born 200+ years ago, they would have been the exceptions and just somehow known that 'bad thing' was actually a 'bad thing', and they want writing to reflect that. The 'good guys' must somehow just know that their society has to change because it does 'bad thing' even though every other society does it as well.

Probably based on a lack of understanding that humans of different cultures and eras had different habits, ideas and morals and not everyone thinks exactly the same way as them. Not surprising if people don't want to learn about different view points anymore. Also a consequence of not reading much, I guess, especially not literature from other eras. One big aspect of classic literarature is learning about how other people of different times saw the world, after all (though I'm not saying it's the only way to learn that, but it's one way that students came across for generations because it was a normal part of the curriculum).

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

It is the same for the flirty characters in ESO. No way to say 'sorry, not interested', which leads to people dreading interactions with those NPCs.

The flirtyness by itself - that specific type of "flirtyness" with innuendos, not the presence of romantic themes in general - always reminds me of a decades-old marketing principle: "Sex sells". And while it certainly appeals to some people, there sadly seems to be not enough consideration that not everyone enjoys this.

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

On a related note to this, I do think one thing that drives this type of writing and lack of decisions is voice acting.

Sure, needing to get all lines voiced restricts the number of lines that can be produced. But when it comes to that flirting, it could be easily put into side dialogue with a player dialogue option to stop it, so those lines could just be omitted. Or now that they even do give us different dialogue options, there should be at least a yes/no option to such situations (that would be more important than giving us, what we've seen in Solstice, friendly/flirty/funny instead, which often didn't even make a big difference). I rather think the problem is that there's no awareness (yet) that not everyone likes this. Just as the fact that not everyone enjoys the hyped "fan favorites".

JemadarofCaerSalis · February 5

Syldras wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

I remember, tangentally, as I wasn't active online at the time, hearing about how people were getting upset at players of Skyrim choosing the Imperials to side with during the Civil War quest line.

The Imperial vs Stormcloak situation is, if looked at all background lore in its entirety, not that clear. Objectively, none of both sides is clearly "the good one". In the end the problem here seems to be making judgements without a thorough understanding of the situation - or, maybe more clearly: Having a very simplified understanding about "good" and "bad" that never scratches the surface of the situation (a situation which in the end makes it a question of personal interpretation whom to support, if at all, but there is not "the one correct choice"). Sadly, similar behavior isn't only seen when it comes to TES.

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

I have heard of people being upset that some people want to play Altmer in these games, because Altmer = Racist elves.

That's honestly ironic: Putting individuals into a box and condemning them based on nothing but their race is racism. A random Altmer could also be a trader (or adventurer, or travelling scholar,...) whose family has grown up outside of Summerset for generations. Maybe even a refugee from Morrowind.

Also: Creepy if some people believe how someone else plays a video game (or generally: what others are doing with their life) is any of their business. Even if someone actually chooses to play an "evil" character. Are they also upset about actors playing "evil" roles? Do they understand the difference between reality and fiction? If not, that's concerning.

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

It is okay to create a world in which bad things happen

I wouldn't only say it's okay, I would say that's the very basis of fantasy fiction: Creating a different fictional world. And when it comes to stories with a big scope, that span a whole continent or planet: The more complexity and "realism" (different cultures with different beliefs and habits, etc) the better. And innate to a complex world is dissent because different people will believe vastly different things.

What stories can even be told if everyone was the same and there was no conflict? Of course there seems to be "feel good fiction" now where everything is just awesome, but usually, literary works have some kind of friction going on. Whether it's about entire groups of people, or an individual and their environment, doesn't matter - the point is that something is "off" which leads to the story developing. Even learning something about a prophecy, for example, is a "disturbance" from the "everything's awesome, calm and the same". Same goes for all kinds of events that could lead to whatever - it's always something that deviates from the usual. "Conflict" in the broader sense is the essence of most stories.

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

I feel that too many people believe that, if they had been born 200+ years ago, they would have been the exceptions and just somehow known that 'bad thing' was actually a 'bad thing', and they want writing to reflect that. The 'good guys' must somehow just know that their society has to change because it does 'bad thing' even though every other society does it as well.

Probably based on a lack of understanding that humans of different cultures and eras had different habits, ideas and morals and not everyone thinks exactly the same way as them. Not surprising if people don't want to learn about different view points anymore. Also a consequence of not reading much, I guess, especially not literature from other eras. One big aspect of classic literarature is learning about how other people of different times saw the world, after all (though I'm not saying it's the only way to learn that, but it's one way that students came across for generations because it was a normal part of the curriculum).

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

It is the same for the flirty characters in ESO. No way to say 'sorry, not interested', which leads to people dreading interactions with those NPCs.

The flirtyness by itself - that specific type of "flirtyness" with innuendos, not the presence of romantic themes in general - always reminds me of a decades-old marketing principle: "Sex sells". And while it certainly appeals to some people, there sadly seems to be not enough consideration that not everyone enjoys this.

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

On a related note to this, I do think one thing that drives this type of writing and lack of decisions is voice acting.

Sure, needing to get all lines voiced restricts the number of lines that can be produced. But when it comes to that flirting, it could be easily put into side dialogue with a player dialogue option to stop it, so those lines could just be omitted. Or now that they even do give us different dialogue options, there should be at least a yes/no option to such situations (that would be more important than giving us, what we've seen in Solstice, friendly/flirty/funny instead, which often didn't even make a big difference). I rather think the problem is that there's no awareness (yet) that not everyone likes this. Just as the fact that not everyone enjoys the hyped "fan favorites".

Just to clarify on the last bit, I wasn't just talking about flirty and romance, but rather just the lack of dialogue options in general and them leading to any meaningful impact on the NPC's dialogue in the future.

Yeah, I personally would like to see a character who at first is just normal or even a little standoffish, but as they get to know your character, THEN they start getting flirty, as if they are opening up.

I think that is what bothers me the most about many of the characters in ESO, especially the flirty ones.

It is all or nothing. Either they already know all about the vestige or they have been living under a rock (maybe the same one that is repeatedly hitting the vestige to cause that memory loss). They are either flirty from the first second they lay eyes on you, or they never are.

Basically, the characters are static. They don't change. (some do, I am not saying that there aren't wonderful characters in the game) Especially fan favorites.

If you see them, you know what you are going to get into before you even talk to them.

Which, sadly isn't even a 'new' issue, as long running series often also had this problem, where the main characters, because the series became popular with those characters having a certain personality, just don't change. They keep doing the same things over and over and over again and never learn.

It just gets ...boring.

Friendly-assasin81 · February 5

Apollosipod wrote: »

Am I the only one that really hates this?

Nope, but i just press next on all dialog in game.

tomofhyrule · February 5

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

On a related note to this, I do think one thing that drives this type of writing and lack of decisions is voice acting. When you have to have an actor say every single line your write out, it leads to situations where you don't want to have a robust dialogue system so that players can actually have choices in how they interact with NPCs.

It reminds me of Morrowind. Since, to my recollection, the vast majority, if not all, dialogue was text based, it meant that you could have branching dialogue choices. You could have your NPC change their whole attitude based upon one choice the PC made. Because it was just text so you just wrote it out. You didn't have to worry about paying a voice actor to say it.

Then compare it to games like Skyrim and Fallout 4, where all the dialogue, or at least the vast majority, is voiced, and their dialogue systems are so limited compared to Morrowind. ESO falls into this same category. Dialogue is voiced, so they likely don't want to have to get into the whole 'well, if the PC says 'no flirting' we now have to write dialogue, and have it voice acted, where this NPC is not flirty' (and change flirty to whatever description you want). So, they just make a flirty character and now the Players have to just deal with it, or not interact with that character.

Then, with time constraints and how many people like seeing 'fan favorites' come back time after time, it becomes easier to just go the easiest, quickest and cheapest route of making stereotypical characters and tossing fan favorites into places and having simple dialogue options.

Which really sucks.

This is true… with one major recent exception.

Baldur’s Gate 3.

It’s fully* voiced, and yet the dialogue branches are astronomically complex. There are voiced dialogue lines that will only trigger with a player who plays a specific race or class, and even then ends up choosing that specific line. There is so much dialogue that a normal player would never hear in the game since there are insane numbers of options. IIRC they even had one of the main characters throughout all three acts record his lines twice in different tones, so if you trust a certain character the lines sound more sympathetic and if you distrust him he sounds harsher even when he says the same thing things. The narrator also recorded several of her lines twice for standard playthroughs and again as the Dark Urge to add a more sinister undertone.
(*ok fine, the player character is not fully voiced, but every response line is)

But yes, BG3 has epically spoiled me on what an RPG can be like. Actual game-altering choices. Grey and grey morality. Branching dialogue. Dialogue based on race and class.

I need TES6 to give us something more like BG3 and less like Dragon Age the Veilguard.

Syldras · February 5

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

Also, completely agree with you on the other things as well, because I have seen that very thing. People are seemingly becoming more inflexible with regards to their beliefs. Not just big ones we can't talk about on this forum, but even the smaller ones. Us vs Them mentality.

@JemadarofCaerSalis I have the feeling it comes with people increasingly seeing themselves as members of specific groups instead of individual humans with individual interests and character traits first and foremost. Group identity only functions if there's "the others" who are outside the group, after all. I'm honestly so fed up by what I've seen online in the last decade or so, that I don't want to think of myself being part of any "community" anymore. It often doesn't feel like it's about shared interests and positively belonging anymore, but like being part of a "group" gets ever more restricting/normative for people inside the group, as well as disparaging to people outside the group, alike. I don't need that, thank you.

Considering this, I wonder whom to even cater to when writing for a game? If there are different groups and all have their idea of what's "correct" and don't accept anything different, does the attempt to appeal to the masses even still make sense? Is that achievable if there's only a very narrow idea about how things should be, and the details differs a lot between groups?

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

Take a debate that I see constantly on reddit. Shoes on or off. Do you wear shoes in your house or do you have people take off their shoes in your house?
This debate gets spun off into a whole lot of morality, with people basing their entire idea of people based on whether they wear shoes in their house or not.

It feels to me like people seem to have too much free time, or perhaps don't have interests they can keep themselves occupied with, if they start serious debates about how other people - that they'll never meet in real life anyway - drink their coffee or whether they wear or don't wear shoes on their own property. Of course they can complain all they want, it's their life after all, but to me these debates look like a waste of time, and narrowminded on top of it. Culturally intolerant and ignorant, too, by the way, as many habits (like what to drink tea or coffee with or not, or where to wear shoes or not) are different in different cultures.

Not that it surprises me, actually I've made the same experience in this very forum. Just a few weeks ago I've been accused of being mentally ill for saying I don't enjoy being pushed into directions/activities by game design but prefer to explore and choose my playstyle myself, which might of course also be influenced by my cultural upbringing and its habits and ideals. I don't care what some rando on the internet thinks of me, really. But calling different cultural habits (about something as mundane as how to play a game, of all things...) "mentally ill" is bigotry and as such disgusts me. And of course it's sad some people seem to be so narrow-minded they don't even get the idea other people could have other habits, and that doesn't make them any less sane or "normal".

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

And, this circles right back around to writing, where daring to want to have characters who aren't necessarily good (or at least not completely) or having a villain that doesn't have a tragic backstory, or a group of people who are the 'underdogs' but *don't* have the moral high ground gets you dog piled upon. Depicting a nation that has bad things happen in it, or don't have all the current attitudes, in a favorable light is a cardinal sin to these types of people.
Then, because these people, while maybe not the majority, are the most vocal, the people who are writing these stories (especially for money) cater to them, because, after all, they want the audience, they want the money, they want to please people. (whatever their reason is) Then, either those same people or others like them focus on a different aspect and complain about it, and the cycle continues.

They might be the most vocal, but if they're only a loud minority, catering to them could be a huge mistake because it might alienate everyone else.

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

Then, to top it all off, you have people who have grown up reading these types of stories, seeing this type of feed back, and think that is what people want, so that is what they write when they do so.

I guess one problem might be that some people don't read much anyway. Which is okay, everyone's own life choices, etc, but it doesn't exactly help if those people want to become writers. Sometimes I also wonder whether too low expectations are part of the problem. Some people nowadays seem to see all criticism as "toxic", even polite criticism based on reasoning and arguments. So some people might think of themselves as awesome artists because no one ever tells them how their writing (or painting skills, or whatever they're doing) might be lacking.

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

Yeah, I personally would like to see a character who at first is just normal or even a little standoffish, but as they get to know your character, THEN they start getting flirty, as if they are opening up.
I think that is what bothers me the most about many of the characters in ESO, especially the flirty ones.
It is all or nothing. Either they already know all about the vestige or they have been living under a rock (maybe the same one that is repeatedly hitting the vestige to cause that memory loss). They are either flirty from the first second they lay eyes on you, or they never are.

And this is one aspect that for me, makes a huge difference in sentiment: Does "romance" content feel like a natural part of the world and an organic development in a story - or are random flirty lines thrown at the player because, tehehe, "everyone" loves innuendo? Exactly this makes the difference whether something feels like legit writing (which I enjoy) or like "sex sells/fanservice/pandering" (which I personally strongly dislike because I have the feeling it doesn't take the player seriously - like "let's throw sex at them, they'll love it and won't question anything anymore!").

JemadarofCaerSalis · February 5

tomofhyrule wrote: »

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

On a related note to this, I do think one thing that drives this type of writing and lack of decisions is voice acting. When you have to have an actor say every single line your write out, it leads to situations where you don't want to have a robust dialogue system so that players can actually have choices in how they interact with NPCs.

It reminds me of Morrowind. Since, to my recollection, the vast majority, if not all, dialogue was text based, it meant that you could have branching dialogue choices. You could have your NPC change their whole attitude based upon one choice the PC made. Because it was just text so you just wrote it out. You didn't have to worry about paying a voice actor to say it.

Then compare it to games like Skyrim and Fallout 4, where all the dialogue, or at least the vast majority, is voiced, and their dialogue systems are so limited compared to Morrowind. ESO falls into this same category. Dialogue is voiced, so they likely don't want to have to get into the whole 'well, if the PC says 'no flirting' we now have to write dialogue, and have it voice acted, where this NPC is not flirty' (and change flirty to whatever description you want). So, they just make a flirty character and now the Players have to just deal with it, or not interact with that character.

Then, with time constraints and how many people like seeing 'fan favorites' come back time after time, it becomes easier to just go the easiest, quickest and cheapest route of making stereotypical characters and tossing fan favorites into places and having simple dialogue options.

Which really sucks.

This is true… with one major recent exception.

Baldur’s Gate 3.

It’s fully* voiced, and yet the dialogue branches are astronomically complex. There are voiced dialogue lines that will only trigger with a player who plays a specific race or class, and even then ends up choosing that specific line. There is so much dialogue that a normal player would never hear in the game since there are insane numbers of options. IIRC they even had one of the main characters throughout all three acts record his lines twice in different tones, so if you trust a certain character the lines sound more sympathetic and if you distrust him he sounds harsher even when he says the same thing things. The narrator also recorded several of her lines twice for standard playthroughs and again as the Dark Urge to add a more sinister undertone.
(*ok fine, the player character is not fully voiced, but every response line is)

But yes, BG3 has epically spoiled me on what an RPG can be like. Actual game-altering choices. Grey and grey morality. Branching dialogue. Dialogue based on race and class.

I need TES6 to give us something more like BG3 and less like Dragon Age the Veilguard.

I haven't played it (I played the original two, but I have been put off on playing sequels for the most part), but that is good to hear.

I think that is also another reason why many companies just don't bother to make such a robust dialogue choice, because not only do the voice lines need to be voiced, but many times, the actual tone will be different depending on a variety of things, so it can mean recording things in multiple different tones if you really want to get immersive for it.

I honestly would love it if games focused less on having super duper graphics that you can see the sweat coming out of the pores, and focused more on actual gameplay and making the world immersive.

I also want a game that is like Morrowind. When I first started playing morrowind, stepping off that boat was an experience. It was so different.

Most games are 'not earth' but Morrowind was visibily *not earth*. I don't mind having parallels such as having horses or the drinks and food having the same name, but having things be so alien made it, well, real that we weren't on earth and that Morrowind was NOT like any place we had ever visited. Even if there were things that mirrored real world things, such as architecture, the rest of it was different enough to keep that in mind.

It was the same thing with the lore of it (While I had played Arena, I never was able to truly get into it). Sure, there were parallels to the real world, but it was also its own unique lore.

Dialogue is so important to making a game immersive. Even if you have deep lore for the game, and have books scattered all over, if the NPCs speak like someone from New York City in 2020 would do (or whatever part of the world), then it creates a disconnect. A disconnect that the books and letters and all the other little bits and pieces of environmental lore (such as skeletons laying together, or scattered debris to show that someone *lived* here) just can't make up for it, as the dialogue is often going to be the players first, largest and most memorable experience with the lore for the game.

mdjessup4906 · February 11

I wonder why complex or relatable villains always has to be sympathetic. None of those are requirements for each other. Imagine an awful person you uncomfortably relate to but absolutely wouldn't want to win. Mind[redacted see mods i didnt cuss] stuff is cool.

I like the concept of protagonist/antagonist over straight up bad guy. More options to give the other side a personality without going all moralistic.

spartaxoxo · February 11

Mannimarco and his cult- pure evil
Ithelia - complex
The Ascendant Lord - Complex
Mehrunez Dagon and his cult - pure evil
Rada al-Saran - Complex
The Rage of Dragons - pure evil
The Daedric Triad - pure evil
King Kurog - Complex

I honestly don't think that the complexity of the villain is the issue. They have a pretty good mix or them. Some of the better storylines have come from simple villains that give more breathing room to the complexity of the heroes.

Edit

Also, I want to address that although the Triad is the main villain of Morrowind, COC, and Summerset's chapters, they do have a pretty notable henchman who we followed in multiple chapters that was complex. They're more notable than henchman for Mehrunez Dagon because we get their perspective in multiple chapters, which is unusual for a henchman villain.

mdjessup4906 · February 11

Ascendant lord used to be complex, then they turned him into volcanoman im gonna destroyeverythinghrrrr.

spartaxoxo · February 11

mdjessup4906 wrote: »

Ascendant lord used to be complex, then they turned him into volcanoman im gonna destroyeverythinghrrrr.

He was still complex even then. The lore book alternative for what would have happened if he want shows that things get pretty bad but he still believes that it will eventually be better. And he's still promoting his ideology even as people are burning to death. It's quite grim.

It makes you question if he's a lunatic, a liar, or if he actually has some sort of plan that's not immediately actionable with the volcano stuff going on.

mdjessup4906 · February 11

Ithelia and rada were good, some story/timeline oddity aside.
I feel like im the only one who liked the Blackwood story too. Pacing was weird and the unique characters and implications underused, but thats eso in general.

One day ill finish orsineium lol

spartaxoxo · February 11

mdjessup4906 wrote: »

Ithelia and rada were good, some story/timeline oddity aside.
I feel like im the only one who liked the Blackwood story too. Pacing was weird and the unique characters and implications underused, but thats eso in general.

One day ill finish orsineium lol

I don't have strong feelings one way or another for Ithelia but Rada is one of my favorite villains in the Elder Scrolls franchise period. I did think that her overarching storyline was a step up from High Isle and Blackwood. I feel ya on Blackwood because I felt like Solstice was better than what we've gotten for the past few years but that doesn't seem to be a popular opinion haha.

Lekjih · February 11

Lugaldu wrote: »

Yes, unfortunately, in recent years there have been more and more dialogues that are absolutely immersion-breaking because they feel like someone from our present day has been teleported to Tamriel. And you can think what you want about Tanlorin as a character, but this is exactly where things have gone way too far in this regard. I can't stand hearing all the comments while gathering resources anymore, especially the question about whether I sometimes pretend to be a beaver. Besides, I've never even seen a beaver anywhere in Tamriel...

My headcanon is that Tanlorin is actually a daedra changeling and that's why she has that stupid voice that sounds like a game show host or a daedra. I've never finished her questline because she irritates me so much and I can't be bothered with her. I don't care who you kissed in what castle, you're bragging and I can't put you back in that ice for unwelcome flirting.

Cultures being watered down is also obvious with companions, neither Ember or Zerith say "this one", could be argued due to his age and her living in Skywatch but, people are excited by certain races as companions for their culture. I had been so excited for Tanlorin, an Altmer companion, and then in her first quest it was a spy ring trying to be Red Jenny from DA:I. I remember wishing that Hyacinth had been the companion, he's much more interesting. I worry for an orc companion because Skordo is annoying, and I feel he's the orc ideal for the team, while Bazrag is currently employed as King and unavailable for the job.

I loved Gold Road and hated it at the same time. I adore Ithelia and Mirrormoor. You know how most people has their favourite daedric prince? She's mine. I have her statue irl, I wish I could cross out "Fargrave" on my in game map and correct it to Mirrormoor. I wish I could have switched sides during that questline. If there were a way to add a daedric affiliation to a character, I would have done it. West Weald saw us rail roaded into help a narcissistic pig of a daedra into stealing everything belonging to another. No way to answer back, no achievement points unless you finished the quest. Just put the woman back in prison or banish her, never to be seen again. We don't even get an Ithelia statue for our house and my main is currently having to use the usurper's magic Herald of the tome with no Ithelian skill styles. I actually felt some of my love for the game and the story die when she walked through that portal, completely powerless to actually help her. Breaking her loom broke my heart. I'm a weaver and fibre artist irl, and being unable to save what was essentially another woman from abuse, and instead forced to partake in it as a flying monkey cut deep. Even the trial, which was fantastic for the new design (mirrors and knot run) was an agent of Mora stealing from Ithelia's realm. And it was written as good! That we were acting as the good guys. While we were obviously meant to pity Ithelia, the dialogue just pushed the idea that she was dangerous and Mora was good (probably because he's a fan favourite). Euch.

I especially loved that Fargrave had been introduced before hand "oh what is this strange land and where did it come from" and then the pay off of learning about the origins. The fact that there was a massively relatable Daedric prince.... I also mostly enjoyed High Isle and Blackwood, and the biggest complaint I have is normally that things like the quest or fallout isn't fully fleshed out.

Solstice did not have set up and pay off. It had nostalgia farming. The West Solstice zone is beautiful, and the Nord quest was different, but the actual main story and dialogue was lacklustre. It felt like the writer themself was not enjoying it and would have preferred to write something else. My character felt like someone else - stupid, forgetfulness worse than previous years with a bad sense of humour, much of which was "what's up fellow kids", to the point that I still haven't finished it. I usually do chapter main quests quickly but every time I think about it, it's a chore that I would rather not do when I could run a baby char through Auridon or Stonefalls. I maintain that Caterwaul Cove was good. Character recovered from her memory loss to get reactions out of people. For someone who has travelled the continent and solved almost every problem on it single handedly, we don't often get acknowledged for it and that's frustrating, but CC let some of that steam off. The writing and tone changing so much hurts sometimes. The feeling in game has gone from "Five claw!" to warrior to adventurer. Our character, despite achieving more and more, becomes less acknowledged as chapters go on. That's not a game fantasy that keeps players, I can experience that one in real life 😂

mdjessup4906 · February 11

They should have hired the writer for Alchemy for Tanlorn. I cant take them seriously either. Just a big walking cliche. Or maybe sharps writer, he's the best lol.

While we were obviously meant to pity Ithelia, the dialogue just pushed the idea that she was dangerous and Mora was good (probably because he's a fan favourite). Euch.

I mad got this impression too. My current main remembers what that tentacled [redacted] did in solsteim though. Even base game has him being fairly well characterized if I remember the quest right. Even more wordy than in skyrim if you can imagine, but I think esos voice actors are paid by the minute lol.

Moras one of my faves but making him Mr nice guy altruism is doing the character a disservice. Yeah yeah if the universe goes boom he goes too, but the voice and dolialouge choices were very "good guy" sounding if that makes any sense.

That goes for almost every main story line character. You can literally tell who the good/bad guy is supposed to be by the sound of their voice.

Like, why is that necessary?

Edit: ok tbf, if with tanlorn they were going for young and naive with a good heart still trying to "find themselves" and is way in over their head with all this revolutionary stuff, then yeah they nailed it lol. but is that what they were going for?

Lekjih · February 13

mdjessup4906 wrote: »

They should have hired the writer for Alchemy for Tanlorn. I cant take them seriously either. Just a big walking cliche. Or maybe sharps writer, he's the best lol.

While we were obviously meant to pity Ithelia, the dialogue just pushed the idea that she was dangerous and Mora was good (probably because he's a fan favourite). Euch.

I mad got this impression too. My current main remembers what that tentacled [redacted] did in solsteim though. Even base game has him being fairly well characterized if I remember the quest right. Even more wordy than in skyrim if you can imagine, but I think esos voice actors are paid by the minute lol.

Moras one of my faves but making him Mr nice guy altruism is doing the character a disservice. Yeah yeah if the universe goes boom he goes too, but the voice and dolialouge choices were very "good guy" sounding if that makes any sense.

That goes for almost every main story line character. You can literally tell who the good/bad guy is supposed to be by the sound of their voice.

Like, why is that necessary?

Edit: ok tbf, if with tanlorn they were going for young and naive with a good heart still trying to "find themselves" and is way in over their head with all this revolutionary stuff, then yeah they nailed it lol. but is that what they were going for?

Solstheim was my original reason for not trusting Mora, but he's the same in Rootwater Grove. He's treacherous, I know this, my character knows this, so being made a flying monkey with no way to help the victim was so painful.

Tanlorin I've played the first quest where we get her and I think the one after. I can't stand her voice. She sounds like the watchlings and they're not exactly fun to listen to but their voices make sense for their bodies. A high elf sounding like a daedra rather than a young high elf is just what. What I gather from what Tanlorin says and the description of her tattoos in the Appearance menu, she's Aranias from Greenshade but went aggressively Robin Hood rather than Veiled Heritance