whitecrow wrote: »

There is a stock NPC line, "What's that terrible smell??" I remember hearing it in Senchal but it probably can be heard ... elsewhere. I am both amused and offended (in a roleplaying way).

I don't think I've ever heard that one! Ha, well, I'm going to be on the listen for it now. Mostly I hear npcs I'm walking by (and maybe get a bit too close to) say: "I'm busy." And I think, "Ok, didn't want to talk to you anyway!"

There were also dremora (I think particularly from Clan Darkbinder in Solstice) that complained about the smell of mortals. Just checked, there were even several different lines about that very topic, introduced with different chapters. They prefer the homely scent of sulphur, I guess.

(I'll reply to the long message later.)

Okay, so now I'm finally back from that clandestine meeting You know how it is, Council stuff, etc. Anyway,

metheglyn wrote: »

I don't see why not. Rewards are fun to get! At the very least if someone caps CP they should get a nice gift. (I say this as someone who will probably never cap CP).

A title perhaps?

I'm at cp 2130 or so now, which is more than actually ever needed. And I have dozens (or even hundreds by now?) of xp scrolls left. I originally intended to use them for companion levelling (as they count for companions, too), but now I've already levelled all of them that I care for (well, except or the tiny bit that's still missing for Zerith-var, but that's not much), and sadly we don't know if we'll get any new companions in the future. Which is a pity - most companion quests were very well-written. I'd even say that Zerith-var's was one of the best stories we've seen in the past few years.

Now I'm wondering, by the way, how fastly all those daily login reward items that I've kept on a storage character might be used up, when we won't be getting new ones anymore (at least not for just logging in). Not only talking about xp scrolls; I have masses of potions, poisons, repair kits and other items left. Actually I had always hoped they'd add a gold value to them one day, so I could sell them, at least.

metheglyn wrote: »

You see, this is why I want that article about how a quest gets made. If I knew more about the process and the limitations, I could understand why some things are the way they are. But a forum thread where the writers talked about their writing with the community? I have my doubts that would be productive.

It's true that online discussions, no matter on which website, often tend to attract a few people who don't discuss fairly, who get disruptive and/or aggressive. But I think ESO's lore and story/questing-focused players are generally very civil. Whether a discussion would end satisfactory, is another question, of course - for example if it turned out that perhaps writers and community might have rather contrasting ideas.

metheglyn wrote: »

Technically? Likely. If they felt a need to travel underwater, I believe they could have come up with a way to do it. I don't know that it would have been much on their radar, however.

Hard to say. Maybe a general interest in exploration? Or they could have been searching for some rare materials underwater? Or maybe they were interested in going to Thras to visit the Sloads?

metheglyn wrote: »

That feeling of things going out of control is powerful and could be effective for storytelling. Would everyone appreciate it? Unlikely. And since we can't actually "lose" in this game, that would dampen the effect a little bit. Kind of like quests that say, "Hurry and find him!" There's no real urgency; you can get to it whenever you want. I've played games where they control for that by adding a literal timer to the quest, and that does prompt a certain, "I better get this done!" feeling, but if that's overused it just becomes annoying. A loss of control quest could actually be quite interesting if used sparingly and where it makes sense.

We actually have a few situations in game where there's a timer, so the functionality is already there. For example, I remember the signal fire sprint that's part of the New Life festival, that desert gambling camp led by bandits in Reaper's March, and that quest where we need to complete a few tests to join the Veiled Heritance. I personally didn't find those racing tasks very interesting, though. Would I like it more if it hadn't been races but actually story situations that were supposed to be dangerous and urgent? A bit perhaps. I think I'd still rather prefer other narrative methods to make a situation feel urgent (no matter if it actually is fatal for the player character not to hurry, or not).

When it comes to failure, I think having a longer questline fail in the middle would be rather frustrating to most players. But a short, one-part zone quest - why not? I also wouldn't mind it happing at the very end of a longer, multi-part questline. I've already written it some time ago, but I really would have hoped that the Solstice story has different endings. Including one where we fail, and, for example, the whole island would get planemelded and Mannimarco would leave the place triumphantly (even if it's a bit ironic: it doesn't make a big difference for possible future stories involving him if he dies at the end of Solstice or if he just leaves to ponder his next, future plans somewhere in the background; we know he will be back in Tamriel one day, after all).

Now when I think of situations whre the player character could be powerless or unable to intervene in a bad situation... Not sure if most people would hate it and would complain? It would be something different to the usual "bad thing happens, hero comes and saves the day" at least. I'm just wondering what could be done to make stories less formulaic and a bit more interesting. Things that could evoke emotions, or maybe make people think for a bit.

Which reminds me of one Oblivion quest now; the one where the Fighters Guild sends you to infiltrate the Blackwood Company and you join their ranks. They gave you Hist sap and then sent you out to the village of Water's Edge to kill goblins. And when you returned to that village after the influence of the Hist sap wore off, you'd notice it weren't goblins but the village's human inhabitants (or you might have noticed earlier that something is off - I can remember when I played that quest for the first time, I thought it was weird that the goblins were peaceful, so I retreated and didn't kill all of them, at least). But no matter on which point of the story the player noticed that something was very wrong there, it was shocking. Thinking of it, there were quite some serious emotional moments in Oblivion, despite it often also having some more humourous tone - and despite the rather strange character models.

metheglyn wrote: »

Off-topic a bit, but my husband and I bought those guide books for Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. We considered them mandatory for getting the most out of the game.

I had the one for Oblivion back then.

metheglyn wrote: »

As far as ESO goes, I do think they could put more information in the game. I realize it makes sense for us to not know exactly what the codex entries are for antiquities before we find them, but once we've found it, why couldn't there be a little reminder tooltip telling us where so if we want to farm up the other two entries, we know where to go? It wouldn't be any more immersion breaking than finding fifty sacred chalices of Ysgrammor.

They could actually make those hints related to a skill somehow.

metheglyn wrote: »

That would be fun! Of course that brings up the entire notion of: will we ever get to go to these other places.

Some people might be complaining about asset reusal then, I guess... But anyway, generally I don't think chances are high to ever get to Akavir in ESO. I'm slightly more optimistic when it comes to Pyandonea. I'd just hope Maormer society would feel really unique, and that the depiction would not shy away from aspects that clearly do not adhere to today's real world morals. That's a thing that concerns me a bit considering how "negative" aspects often feel to get avoided now, not only in ESO's Sanguine depiction, for example, but generally in game writing.

metheglyn wrote: »

Lol...I was just imagining someone explaining that they're human. Even saying it once would be weird, since that's really the kind of thing that doesn't need to be brought up. But, yes, a quick reference to the Aldmer claim would be all that is needed.

I'll see what I'll do with it, if I find enough time.

metheglyn wrote: »

I had no idea the Ancient Egyptian culture had such a detailed view of the soul's aspects. It does put the 'stamina, magicka, and vitality' aspects of the Great Mage into perspective. But so far he's the only one we've seen that happen to, and he did it to himself to prevent the larger plan the daedra had. (Kind of makes me wonder why he didn't do it when Mannimarco went to use him as ye olde magicka battery). So is that an innate part of everyone on Tamriel, or just something the Great Mage was able to accomplish?

Maybe Mannimarco had some special anti-splitting magic preventing Vanny from splitting? If I had to guess, I'd say all these aspects are innate parts of all beings on Nirn (we know there are animals with magic abilities, too, like indriks, so I'd assume they must also have some magicka part as a layer of their being). The average person would probably just not have the ability to split them.

metheglyn wrote: »

Traitor's Vault is an odd construct (speaking figuratively, though literally the layout is also quite odd). On such a small island, to have one part of it sealed away, and called that with no real explanation--is it any wonder students wanted to get in there and poke around? We know from the flashbacks that, even back then, Mannimarco had to get permission to use it, so that makes me think it was always off-limits. They don't name it in the flashback, so we don't know if it was called Traitor's Vault back then. If it was--well, who was the traitor to the Psijic Order? If they named it after they expelled Mannimarco, was that really the best name for it? Was he really a traitor to the Order? And if they named it after finding out he was a traitor to Varen, well, that's the strangest of all. Yes, we definitely need a lore book about the history of the Traitor's Vault!

I really need to replay Summerset sometime soon. It's somehow hard to believe that there's no lore on that whole structure, right? It wasn't just the Traitor's Vault, after all, but the whole complex also extended to the South. I'm aware there's the Vault of Moawita with that artifact collection quest, but the whole structure looks much bigger, and also half ruined for some reason. It's like most of the island is just left in that state, unused, while the students don't even have some place to sleep.

metheglyn wrote: »

Well, he never finished his Psijic training--left the island in a rage and all.

Thinking more about it, the whole place is a strange concept. Secluded, completely disconnected from the rest of the world, always just watching over it, normally not interacting. For an orphan it might not be too bad, but I guess many people with a family on the mainland would possibly see staying there as a sacrifice. Well, except for those who prefer the calm of just sitting on some island in tropical climate, staring at the sea, drinking wine

metheglyn wrote: »

It does amuse me, mostly because I imagine everyone in Tamriel is kind of stinky--there really aren't many baths to be found.

I have a bathtub in all of my homes (funny thing, the only bathtub furnishings available are a Dunmer bathtub made of marble, a rather rustic wooden orc style tub, and an Altmer bathtub that's only available for crowns) But perhaps that npc didn't like my perfume...



...or maybe it didn't mix well with the natural flowery scent of magicka (unless it's necrotic energy; we've already speficied that that smells of strawberries).



Seriously though, the average fighter would probably smell horrible. And I don't mean only sweat, but all the blood and whatnot that would stick to weaponry and armor, especially if someone walks around like that for hours in hot climate.

metheglyn wrote: »

Everyone's attached to the smells of their own home, aren't they? But do all oblivion planes smell like sulphur, do you think? Or is that reserved for princes like Bal and Dagon? I figured Apocrphya would smell like book dust mostly. Maybe mildew and ink. The Evergloam I could see having a musty kind of dank smell, like a damp evening in winter.

It would make sense for all planes to have their unique smell, even if there's some underlying tone of sulphur - I think according to lore, that's supposed to be typical for all daedric beings. The more I think about it, perhaps a unique smell would not make sense? If we assume that all we see there is just an imitation made of daedric chaotic creatia anyway? That would make it a bit dull, perhaps; but on the other hand it's also unsettling to see, let's say ink or an ocean or ice, but everything smells unreal, strangely sterile, or wrong somehow, only having that typical daedric matter smell (which would also explain why dremora might dislike the smells of the mortal world - because they're different, varied and possibly confusing).

metheglyn wrote: »

I didn't keep the potions and poisons. Those were 'accept, mark as junk, delete all junk' for me. But I do have quite a lot of XP scrolls (only use those when I'm leveling a companion), a fair amount of research scrolls for the crafts, and that's about it. I've been using up the repair kits and soul gems all along.
I know someone who hasn't played the game for years, but he has made sure to log on every day to pick up his log-in reward. By the time they end, he'll probably have quite a stash of items. The funny thing is, I don't know how much he keeps up with the news of the game and I have no idea if he even knows they're doing to stop the daily log-in rewards.

I didn't feel like checking my total number of repair kits, xp scrolls and poisons when I logged in earlier as I've split those between different characters, but I was logged in on my storage guy - and he holds 10.301 tri-potions right now (52 stacks). And each of my characters has another 200 of these potions (or about 200, as I don't restock them after every time I've played them). Now imagine I could sell those for a reasonable amount of gold

metheglyn wrote: »

I agree that ESO's story and questing-focused players are generally civil. When I said I doubted it would be productive I wasn't imagining the conversation devolving into insults or anything. I just don't know what could really be discussed in any meaningful way. They could tell us how the process works, and that would be interesting, but beyond that? Maybe they could answer some general questions.

I think there are tendencies in writing that lots of players who care for the lore and stories are concerned about, such as an increasing number of lore inconsistencies that can not be explained with an unreliable narrator. If I had to define when it became very noticeable for me, I'd say it was in the High Isle year. We had inconsistencies about ToT, and a certain Naryu dialogue at the Zenithar fest. Maybe it did catch my attention because both happened at about the same time, in June/July 2022, and naturally that does leave a different impression than smaller mistakes happening within the course of several years, for example (let alone that "Naryu saved the Tribunal" thing was not a small, more or less meaningless mistake).

Another thing that led and still leads to discussions are certain changes in writing that we've seen in the past few years - all those moral lessons (I'm aware that also the base game main quest had the Prophet say something about friendship at some point, but still, everything was much more subtle - the thing making it rather unpleasant last year was the level of obtrusiveness), the simple and rather unspecific themes, the reduction of deeper lore (though we did see a few nice things on the Argonian tribes last year, it was less than in the early chapters), the clichéd and one-dimensional portrayal of many characters,... Well, we've talked about it before. I've seen an increasing number of players becoming discontent with this, feeling like they're not playing a game for adults anymore. And every player becoming bored or disappointed is one player that might leave. I think this is a problem that needs to be adressed; and perhaps discussed through an open conversation, if the perspective of these discontent players is not understood yet (I'm not sure if it is - perhaps, perhaps not).

metheglyn wrote: »

One of the videos ZOS once released, I think it might have been one of the group where the voice actors talked about the characters they voiced, there was a quick shot, very brief, of a branching dialogue chart written down/printed out. It looked fairly complex and I would have liked to have seen more about that.

Thinking more about it, I'd actually also be interested in learning more about the translation process. I know that might be harder to do for the ESO US stream team, but perhaps the German team could do something like that (or any other international ZOS team - I just know that the German team leader is a very cool and dedicaded guy)?

metheglyn wrote: »

I think you're the only one who wants to go to Thras. I could see the dwemer being interested in searching for rare materials underwater, but were they much in the explorer line? I guess as much as any race of Tamriel is: for conquest reasons.

They've also built at least one airship. So I think if they had the technical means to also explore the ocean, they would have probably done that, too.

Generally, I'd love to learn more about their culture (which would also be possible without solving the whole mystery, I think). Surely they didn't just build robots all day. And I'm not saying that as a joke, but I truly mean it: A functioning society must have had other aspects in their daily lives, too. What did they believe in? How did their schools look like? What's with basic things like agriculture? What did they do for entertainment? How was their society structured? I know we have a few hints on their daily lives, but not many.

metheglyn wrote: »

Yeah, but I wasn't thinking about racing tasks, which kind of need to have a timer. I was thinking of rescue quests where people tell you to hurry. WoW had a few of those early on that I recall--a quest with a timer that wasn't about running a race. One that I remember was you had to find a person who needed an antidote. If you didn't do it in time, you would fail the quest and have to do it over (not a great feeling) but the timer at least did give you enough time to do it. So it was more to focus you on getting it done now, and not waiting until you just happened to be in the area.

If I'm not totally wrong, even TES3 Morrowind had something like that, as part of the Bloodmoon/Solstheim dlc? I can't remember anymore though what it was about. Delivering some message perhaps? What I remember is that it was neccessary to be mindful when fast-travelling, as fast-travel would also take time in that game. Every route had some passing of time attached to it. I remember that the taxi from Balmora to Ald'ruhn took 4 hours, and taking a ship on the Eastern coast of Vvardenfell could be an 8-hour endeavour (Sadrith Mora to Tel Branora it was, and even a few hours more to get to Ebonheart to take another boat to Vivec City). The only thing that did not cause travel time were the Mages Guild teleporters, obviously.

metheglyn wrote: »

I wouldn't mind failing a longer, multi-part questline, as long as it fit with the overall narrative and world. In Blackwood, we couldn't fail to stop Dagon, for example, because the stakes were too high. I think that's a problem in general with the main story quests in the chapters. They did try a sort of failure ending with Necrom--we weren't able to keep Torvesaard from freeing Ithelia--but then of course next chapter we took care of her like usual. In that case, I would have preferred to team up with Ithelia to spite Mora. I don't see why they couldn't have left her in the game for now. Just because she isn't known about in later timelines doesn't mean we had to do away with her immediately. Maybe if she had stuck around a little longer, we could have seen what Mora was talking about when he said she wasn't good for reality.

I think that's the consequence of wanting to keep the game world the same for every player. Even the Solstice ending looks to me like the next story will start the same way for everyone, with some small changes in dialogue about what happened at the end of the Solstice story - despite time passing now and new stories building upon older ones.

metheglyn wrote: »

In the case of Solstice, if we did fail, wouldn't that have led to Mannimarco getting his body back and becoming even more powerful? In which case why would he just leave? He wanted to become a god and rule over Nirn; if he was triumphant in Solstice, it wouldn't have made sense for him to leave. But if we had still scuppered his plans to get back into his original body and yet he slipped away instead of us "killing" him and sending his soul down to Coldharbor--that would have worked, I think. Then we wouldn't have been completely victorious.

Not leaving Tamriel, of course. Leaving Solstice because why would anyone want to stay there?! he has finished his business there - to continue his work on the mainland, or making specific plans about that, somewhere else.

metheglyn wrote: »

I wasn't thinking of the player character being powerless; just that our efforts wouldn't work out. One of the siuations where, no matter what you try, it just isn't quite enough, and you don't get to fix it and make it all right in a later story. I don't think most people would like that, though, and that's probably one reason we haven't seen a story like that.

But I was thinking about that. Is it realistic that never anything - meaningful - would happen that the Vestige can't interfere in, but is forced to watch?

metheglyn wrote: »

Something I've noticed about people and choice is that, increasingly, people seem to think "choice" means "two equally favorable options from which I can pick." They seem to have forgotten, or maybe never realized, that a choice can be difficult, there can be choices that are not great but you take them because it's better than not choosing, or that you have to make the best of a bad situation and choose accordingly, or even that sometimes you have to make a quick choice and it turns out to not be the best one.

I've been wondering whether everyone would even enjoy seeing consequences for their choices. Take that situation in the Solstice prologue with Vanny - how would people react if they insulted him and that would have actually brought them a disadvantage in that situation? I'd find it realistic and wouldn't mind something like that to happen (with a different npc - I don't insult senior wizards ) , but would other people complain? I think some would. The question is whether it'd be a significant number.

The question how many story branches would even be possible is a different question, on top of that - so I'm very curious what will happen if we ever see Cariel again after the Aldwilne Citadel quest. I'd hope for a meaningful difference, depending on which choice we made in that quest. But sadly, I'm rather expecting some conciliating greeting (something like "Surely you had your reasons for that choice. But anyway:"), followed by the same new dialogues for everyone, not really taking into consideration anything that happened before. We'll see!

metheglyn wrote: »

Why do you take the Hist sap, though? Is it an intiation rite or something? Was there an option for you to not take the sap, go to the village, realize it's not goblins, and then advance the quest somehow (like maybe you don't care and you kill them regardless or maybe you do care and you figure a way out of it)? As you write it, it sounds like an interesting quest, but if there's no way for you to not take the hist sap, you lose some agency and it kind of turns into a 'gotcha' quest. Which still has its place, of course. People do get manipulated into doing things they might not otherwise.

No, there's no way to not take the sap. The recruiter, who is an Argonian, presents it positively as a potion to enhance your combat abilities ("Take this. It will increase your skills in battle. We use it often. It is a good, good thing. It is a gift from the swamps of Argonia. Sap of the Hist. A present from my homeland. The Hist are generous to us.") and you aren't able to leave for the mission (the conversation takes place in the guildhall) if you don't drink it. If you try to talk to the Argonian again, he'll just say "Drink. It is time to go." You're basically pushed into it a bit. Also by the Fighters Guild, in a way, because they told you to play along and do everything neccessary for a successful infiltration. So, yes, the player doesn't have much agency there, the group you're supposed to go with will not leave for the village before you've drunken the sap, but it still felt like it fit the situation. Also, during the mission, the player character can turn away and not participate in the killing (during my first playthrough, I also stopped as soon as I noticed that something is wrong, which was rather early). If you just turn around and run from the village, you'll get a loading screen and then you'll awake somewhere else and get told you were found passed out on some road. Then you can report what you saw.

metheglyn wrote: »

Honestly, I don't really understand most of the complaints about asset reusal. That is to say, I don't agree with most of them.

The thing that matters most to me is whether it's plausible according to lore.

metheglyn wrote: »

That aside, I wonder if we ever do go to one of the other places on Nirn. For me the most important aspect would be the why of it all. That, and once we got there, how the denizens of those lands treat us. It doesn't seem probable that any of the alliances would be in a position to send out exploratory expeditions (unless maybe we canonically get some kind of truce out of those peace talks). And it might seem, to those living in these places, that the sudden arrival of a sizable force of people from Tamriel would mean one thing--invasion--and then they'd react accordingly. What are the odds we receive a message from Pyandonea, asking for aid? What are the odds if we just show up in Pyandonea that the Maormer don't just kill us on sight?

If we ever see Pyandonea, it will probably be populated with all of Tamriel's races anyway, just like the remote, cursed, mostly unknown island Solstice. But seriously, they could make up a good story as for why we'd be invited to that place. I actually don't even see a big difference between that and suddenly allowing all of Tamriel on the Summerset Isles, or in the sacred city of Necrom.

metheglyn wrote: »

It is odd how much wasted space the Psijics have on their little island. I do have a character in the midst of a Summerset play through, but it's been awhile since I made much progress on him. I've poked around in the unused section of the Vault of Moawita. I think there might be hostile mobs in there somewhere, but I could be misremembering.

What kinds of enemies? Or is it directly related to the Summerset main quest?

metheglyn wrote: »

That's actually part of Josajeh's questline, with the Augur of the Obscure. She knows she's supposed to remain removed from the problem her family is having, but she struggles with that.

Wasn't that more about caring equally (not about not caring at all)?

metheglyn wrote: »

I have bathtubs in my homes, too, but I've never seen one in any npc's home that I've entered to...inspect.

Revus owns one (Of course he does). And I'm quite sure actually that I've seen more when I last played through Morrowind.

metheglyn wrote: »

Plus, my characters who participated in the Hearts Week festivities both had to do a lot of travel to get there, since neither one had ever been. Since inns don't have bathtubs either, I imagine they were pretty well travel-stained by the time they reached Belkarth. But maybe every npc does like people used to do in medieval times, and just douses themselves with scent to cover up everything else. There are a lot of jugs sitting around everywhere--they're probably full of scent for everyday people to use, those who don't have the means to acquire fancy pants perfumes that make one smell like magic.

Oh, people did wash in the Middle Ages. It wasn't as easy as today where you have water pipes at home, but they did wash themselves. The decline of bathing was a Baroque thing and began in the 17th century. Ironically, one of the main causes was that people needed to use public bathhouses for bathing, which had become an infection risk through the bubonic plague and other epidemics. So people avoided those places and tried to find other solutions for cleaning themselves. They changed clothes often, and perfume wasn't only used for the scent, but also because of its disinfecting properties; not only some herbs they used in them, but also the scent-carrying base fluid, which was alcohol already back then. Even today, even the strongest perfumes are still at least 70% alcohol. During the first covid months, there was a shortage of disinfectants in my country - I just bought some simple 86% alcohol cologne to use that for my hands instead (desinfectants need 70% minimum to work).

metheglyn wrote: »

That would be a very unsettling experience--that clash of visual and olfactory. But doesn't Mora collect actual books, not just daedric imitations of them? Don't they all fill their realms with things they've stolen from Nirn? What effect would that have on the 'natural smell' of Oblivion? Just some kind of nauseating melange?

Sulphur doesn't mix particularly well with anything. But that's actually a good question - are the items they steal from Nirn changed somehow after being in some daedric realm for a while?

Different topic: I played my Sixth House Dunmer (the harmless young one who has no clue about his family history yet) for a bit today. I wasn't quite sure which story to continue. He last was in Balmora, then West Solstice changed his plans. I wonder if I should go for East Solstice now, or return to Morrowind, CWC and Summerset first. I also haven't fully finished his Mages Guild questline yet (I thought about doing it before starting Solstice at all, but then got stuck at some point because I hadn't levelled that skill line enough for the next quest to start - I hadn't played much with him before).

Then I noticed that he also hasn't gotten the jewelry crafting certification yet. I remember I tried to get that quest done right after creating that character - but couldn't, since for some reason is has a minimum level (Not sure why, as the other profession quests don't have one). So after a while, I forgot... Well, got it done today. And immediately got complimented on by an Argonian with a lore-appropriate name in Alinor Made me wonder whether it was someone from the forums?

After that, I went to Sunport to continue the main quest there. Current quest objective was to talk with Darien about the notes left by Gabrielle in that study inside the palace. It felt incongruent, somehow. I mean, Darien talks so much about how difficult those scholarly notes are to understand for a non-mage, and then you look at those documents, and they don't contain any complicated terms or descriptions at all. Or at least nothing more complicated than what I'd think Darien (or any other non-mage) would understand. He even uses more formal terms in the following dialogue himself. I also wondered why every player character is supposed to be more well-versed in these things than Darien? Why would, for example, a Bosmer hunter from some remote village, or a Nord farmer, understand more about these things than a Breton knight? Also it made me think about what you said some while ago: Texts often sound a bit same-y today, no matter if they're supposed to be said/written by a scholar, a merchant or a peasant.

I've overworked myself a bit again with research during the past few days. And now it's migraine time again. If I write something confusing, it's probably due to that.

metheglyn wrote: »

I understand what you're saying, but I just don't see what could realistically come of such a conversation. I'm sure they're aware of what players (at least those who post on the forums) think about the writing. What could they say to that? "We understand your discontent with the writing?" Even if they did say something like, "Yes, we made some lore mistakes." What then? The players' opinons on the writing are so varied, that other than acknowledging these opinions, what can really be discussed? I didn't care for the Solstice story; I've seen some people post that they enjoyed it. You don't like Raz and would be glad to not see him again; other people are really happy every time he shows up. It's an impossible task to write to an audience as varied as the one this game has. Even the writing you and I think is the best of the game I've seen other people say they don't like it. But maybe I'm misunderstanding what you want and expect out of such a discussion. Do you just want to talk about the process and understand how they got to, for example, the depiciton of Sanguine in Solstice? Or are you looking for an acknowledgement that such a Sanguine as showed up doesn't really fit the lore?

I'm honestly not sure myself what the discussion would lead to in the end, but having an open discussion to hear each other's ideas on the topic and our reasonings for these opinions would be a start, I think. I know I could probably be more tolerant towards some tendencies I consider flawed (and nothing but that) right now, if I could get an explanation for them that makes sense to me somehow.

metheglyn wrote: »

That would be very interesting! I'd be curious to know how the voice actors for the translations approach these characters, too.

I've actually seen a bit of info somewhere about the process years ago (though I'm not even sure anymore whether it was about ESO or about Skyrim), but I'd definitely be interested in getting more detailed insights into that topic.

metheglyn wrote: »

What's always been a bit strange to me about the Dwemer is how much of a mystery they are. I get the whole, "they disappeared one day" is going to be mysterious and never solved, but why is so little known about them otherwise? Seems like every loading screen for every Dwemer delve or dungeon space only gives theoretical information. Surely all these Dwemer scholars would have figured something out by now. Or are they all only focused on the disappearance part? Why hasn't Neramo published something about the daily life of a Dwemer?

The thing is we do have artifacts. In TES3 I stole huge amounts of Dwemer tableware for my homes But also in ESO, we actually have different contraband/treasure items that are Dwemer-related. I remember some musical instrument, for example, some healthcare/cosmetical items, even something as mundane as a grocery list. If these items exist, and probably they're not the only ones, there should probably be whole branches of archeologists/scholars who research these things. Yet we never hear anything on that in ESO, strangely.

Also, there should actually still be quite a lot of written accounts on Dwemer life by the Chimer, considering they had strong relations in the past - the Dwemer and the Chimer united against the Nords once, and Indoril Nerevar and King Dumac were close friends (there are even theories by some people that the Dwemer were basically just a Chimer House and not a seperate culture at all). Considering the Dunmers' cultural values, they surely didn't throw those documents away.

metheglyn wrote: »

Ok, but if that happened, it seemed like the next story would have been about tracking him down and dealing with him, too. A fully powered-up Mannimarco doesn't seem like something we would ignore, or that wouldn't have far-reaching consequences for Tamriel. I suppose even an underpowered, stuck-in-Wormblood's-body Mannimarco wouldn't have been something it made sense for us to ignore, either. It might be a case of: we had to dispose of him in a significant enough way so we could move on to other stories.

What if we hadn't been able to track him down because he had decided to hide until he had amassed even more power for his next plans?

metheglyn wrote: »

People never enjoy seeing bad consequences for their actions, but I don't think that should stop the game from having some. It would be more immersive, and depending on how you role play your character, you could decide how much it bothered your character or what they took away from the situation.

Well, I'd clearly enjoy seeing consequences, no matter how exactly they would look like (including rather unfortunate ones). That's the thing that I'd find most interesting about being able to make choices in a game. I mean, why even have choices if they don't really matter and the outcome is more or less the same anyway?

If some players don't like negative consequences - well, they could be more careful when making decisions?

I know what you mean, though. I think I've even read people complaining about those remarks that base game npcs make about the player character's choices in some side quests, and I have the feeling that this was toned down in later chapters, and now, no matter what we do, we get praised by everyone, really.

metheglyn wrote: »

I'd rather she said something like, "I don't actually want to work with you after what you did at Aldwilne Citadel, but I've been given an order and I follow orders." Just an acknowledgement that she'd rather not work with us, doesn't really trust us, but has to put up with us all the same. That could make for some interesting dialogue choices. And since my main character actually likes Cariel, he might start feeling a bit of remorse for his actions.

I'd prefer that too. I just think they'd more likely go for something conciliating, because, as we discussed above, some people might not appreciate getting some "harsher" reaction (though I wouldn't even find that harsh, considering what we did at Aldwilne Citadel; and realistically, we probably wouldn't have just angered Cariel with that, but she probably would also have reported it to the Queen, and everyone related would probably already have heard about it anyway).

metheglyn wrote: »

Well, it does sound pretty interesting and as if there is some choices you can make at different points during the quest. Ah, the glory of single player game quests!

It's indeed something that I miss when playing ESO (and enjoy a lot when I play a singleplayer game again), but I accept it. Multiplayer games have certain restrictions, it's just how it is.

metheglyn wrote: »

Yeah, allowing members of alliances you are actively at war with into your homeland/sacred places is a bit hand-wavey when it comes to reasons. To be clear, I'm sure they could come up with a pretty good reason why we'd be going to Pyandonea, but I also think a lot would depend on the prologue to have it make a lot of sense. Well, if they even do prologues anymore, that is. But, basically, there'd have to be some shift in our relations with the Maormer before we went, and a prologue-like quest is where such a narrative bridge would usually be built.

Oh, I wasn't even thinking about the problem that some of our characters are supposed to belong to a different faction in the war in Cyrodiil. It's more about how some of ESO's cultures were depicted lorewise.

The Summerset Isles were supposed to be locked off completely, not allowing any travellers from abroad (and there were cultures in real world history that had such rules and that likely were the inspiration for this). Auridon was first introduced to us as the big exception. And then we got that decree by Queen Ayrenn, we were told at the beginning of the Summerset story, that suddenly allowed travellers from all nations to the main island. So if it's needed for a story to allow all kinds of player characters from different nations to some region through some special decree - they've already done that. Same could be done with Pyandonea, if they find a reasonable explanation.

(Different topic related to this: I saw some people complaining about the Altmer of Summerset being so unfriendly and "weird" towards strangers - I somehow got the impression that they missed the point that these people literally never saw a stranger before. They never had any visitors on their island - no exceptions - , and they've likely never travelled anywhere else themselves either. How do people believe would the average person who has grown up like this, and spent their whole life like this, react if there's suddenly masses of other people showing up? Being unwelcoming might not be the correct thing from today's moral point of view, but it's a realistic reaction considering how these Altmer grew up. The funniest thing to me is that people who absolutely can't or don't want to comprehend the average Altmer commoner's perspective in that situation would have probably reacted exactly the way these Altmer did, if they had grown up under the same circumstances; at least I don't see much openness for different perspectives there.)

And in case of Necrom, it feels like there's a certain dissonance, too. It's a beautiful city and I like that we are able to see it in ESO, but on the other hand, it also felt a little mundane to have masses of people run around there. It was supposed to be the most important location of Dunmer religion, a sacred temple city, the biggest cemetery of the whole nation, too. I generally wouldn't expect people to jump around, randomly open urns and make all kinds of other nonsense on a cemetery, and even less I'd expect that to happen in a rather strict and pious society like the Dunmer's. It doesn't give that city the atmosphere that it should have had according to lore. Of course I see that the only way to preserve a certain atmosphere would have been to make the city an instanced location, or even have access restricted to certain quests, but not having permanent access would also have been a pity. Still I wonder if making in the zone's main hub was the best decision. They could have created another city for that, be it a Telvanni one or a Temple-related Indoril city. It's not like there wasn't enough space left on the Peninsula, after all.

metheglyn wrote: »

Probably, since aren't their realms reflections of their very essence? If they can take and change the artifacts of other princes, seems like something that came from Nirn would be even more easily changed.

Makes me wonder if, let's say, a book taken from Nirn would basically be converted into a daedric copy if it stayed in the realm for longer? Then again, people don't really convert into something else, either - Morian Zenas is still Morian Zenas, physically, despite having been in Apocrypha for a very long time.

metheglyn wrote: »

So this was another player interacting with your Sixth House Dunmer? What did they say? I'm so curious!

Nothing too exciting I was just amused by it. Well, that Argonian informed me that my Sixth House Dunmer was "very cute". I said "thank you", and continued my way. I guess it's more or less factual; he actually does look quite cute. Or young and harmless, at least.

I also remember my main got complimented on by an Altmer woman once, though if other player characters interact with him, it's mostly Telvanni-related (in a friendly way). I also have a Bosmer character, a very short one, who had been commented on (also in a friendly way).

metheglyn wrote: »

It is a bit odd that Darien acts perplexed by Gabrielle's writing when, as you said, it isn't particularly obscure or technical. As for my main, he's definitely not a magical scholar or mage of any type, so depending on him to parse Gabrielle's thoughts on the Wall was perhaps expecting a bit much. That would have been a nice place for a player response option: you could say you have no problem understanding, or say you'll do your best to understand it all, or tell him you're as mystified as he is and so you'll have to go with your and his best guesses.
I understand the goal is for the player to be able to read and understand these in-game documents, but I do think some of the flavor of them has been a bit lost over the years.

But is it really neccessary that every player unstands every word, especially if it's no info that's essential for continuing the story? Wouldn't it contribute to the atmosphere if we'd find some rather obscure and more difficult to understand document, for example, in a situation where it makes sense storywise?

Npcs acting like a document was extremely hard to comprehend, and then, when we get to read it, it turns out to be rather mundane, somehow also makes the npcs seem less smart somehow, or is that only my impression?

Syldras wrote: »

I've overworked myself a bit again with research during the past few days. And now it's migraine time again. If I write something confusing, it's probably due to that.

I hope the migraine didn't last long and you're feeling better now. Also, get some rest! I command it.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I understand what you're saying, but I just don't see what could realistically come of such a conversation. I'm sure they're aware of what players (at least those who post on the forums) think about the writing. What could they say to that? "We understand your discontent with the writing?" Even if they did say something like, "Yes, we made some lore mistakes." What then? The players' opinons on the writing are so varied, that other than acknowledging these opinions, what can really be discussed? I didn't care for the Solstice story; I've seen some people post that they enjoyed it. You don't like Raz and would be glad to not see him again; other people are really happy every time he shows up. It's an impossible task to write to an audience as varied as the one this game has. Even the writing you and I think is the best of the game I've seen other people say they don't like it. But maybe I'm misunderstanding what you want and expect out of such a discussion. Do you just want to talk about the process and understand how they got to, for example, the depiciton of Sanguine in Solstice? Or are you looking for an acknowledgement that such a Sanguine as showed up doesn't really fit the lore?

I'm honestly not sure myself what the discussion would lead to in the end, but having an open discussion to hear each other's ideas on the topic and our reasonings for these opinions would be a start, I think. I know I could probably be more tolerant towards some tendencies I consider flawed (and nothing but that) right now, if I could get an explanation for them that makes sense to me somehow.

I'm with you on wanting to know more about how they come up with the stories/quests, and the thought processes behind them. I love learning about such "behind the scenes" information.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

What's always been a bit strange to me about the Dwemer is how much of a mystery they are. I get the whole, "they disappeared one day" is going to be mysterious and never solved, but why is so little known about them otherwise? Seems like every loading screen for every Dwemer delve or dungeon space only gives theoretical information. Surely all these Dwemer scholars would have figured something out by now. Or are they all only focused on the disappearance part? Why hasn't Neramo published something about the daily life of a Dwemer?

The thing is we do have artifacts. In TES3 I stole huge amounts of Dwemer tableware for my homes But also in ESO, we actually have different contraband/treasure items that are Dwemer-related. I remember some musical instrument, for example, some healthcare/cosmetical items, even something as mundane as a grocery list. If these items exist, and probably they're not the only ones, there should probably be whole branches of archeologists/scholars who research these things. Yet we never hear anything on that in ESO, strangely.

Also, there should actually still be quite a lot of written accounts on Dwemer life by the Chimer, considering they had strong relations in the past - the Dwemer and the Chimer united against the Nords once, and Indoril Nerevar and King Dumac were close friends (there are even theories by some people that the Dwemer were basically just a Chimer House and not a seperate culture at all). Considering the Dunmers' cultural values, they surely didn't throw those documents away.

I had been wondering why the Tribunal doesn't seem to know about the Dwemer in general, since they were there when the Dwemer existed. But maybe they're burying all that information just like they're burying what they did to Indoril Nerevar. As much as I like the Tribunal (well, two of them, anyway...well, one in particular) they aren't always on the level when it comes to facts.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Ok, but if that happened, it seemed like the next story would have been about tracking him down and dealing with him, too. A fully powered-up Mannimarco doesn't seem like something we would ignore, or that wouldn't have far-reaching consequences for Tamriel. I suppose even an underpowered, stuck-in-Wormblood's-body Mannimarco wouldn't have been something it made sense for us to ignore, either. It might be a case of: we had to dispose of him in a significant enough way so we could move on to other stories.

What if we hadn't been able to track him down because he had decided to hide until he had amassed even more power for his next plans?

That could work, though I would still have questions on why a god-like creature would feel the need to hide. (It's kind of like how I wonder why magical socieities in so many book series have to be secret.) But if Mannimarco had succeeded in getting his body back, and becoming that super powered up god-like figure he intended...how does he go from that to hanging out shoeless in a cave? Maybe us 'vanquishing' him this time was the start of his path towards that less impressive state he has in the later timelines. Granted, it could have been interesting to explore how he goes from what he is in ESO to what he is in the single player games, but the game is Elder Scrolls Online, not Mannimarco's Life Story Online. I wonder how plausible it would be to get a lore book in ESO talking about Mannimarco's future. It could be one of those temporal tomes. Or something we find in the Sages Vault.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

People never enjoy seeing bad consequences for their actions, but I don't think that should stop the game from having some. It would be more immersive, and depending on how you role play your character, you could decide how much it bothered your character or what they took away from the situation.

Well, I'd clearly enjoy seeing consequences, no matter how exactly they would look like (including rather unfortunate ones). That's the thing that I'd find most interesting about being able to make choices in a game. I mean, why even have choices if they don't really matter and the outcome is more or less the same anyway?

If some players don't like negative consequences - well, they could be more careful when making decisions?

I know what you mean, though. I think I've even read people complaining about those remarks that base game npcs make about the player character's choices in some side quests, and I have the feeling that this was toned down in later chapters, and now, no matter what we do, we get praised by everyone, really.

I actually enjoyed coming across random citizens who had heard of my deeds and didn't agree with them. It felt more real, because of course not everyone will see a situation the same way. And when they said something to my character, I often replied to them (in real life, obviously, since you can't say anything about it to them in game) and it all became part of my character's larger story. If a player isn't really into role playing, though, or inhabiting the world, such comments could be seen as only negative.

I do wish our choices in quests did have more meaning and consequence. Obviously the general world state has to be the same for everyone, but...well, they did kind of try something like that with Darien. If you were successful, he's out roaming Tamriel wherever he chooses (and maybe in a relationship with the player? I don't know how that part plays out, since I didn't do any flirting or romance with him). If you weren't successful, he's confined to some unnamed place with Skordo. The end result is: we don't see him in game anywhere, no matter what. So the general world state was preserved while the quest endings had some meaning and weight to them (which would vary depending on how the player/character felt about Darien). So ZOS has tried to make decisions matter, and hopefully they'll keep working more meaningful consequences into future quests where it fits well. And while in Darien's case, your success or failure depended on how much you'd quested with that npc in the past, future attempts at different endings could make it depend more on the player's choices within the current contained quest-line (hopefully that made sense).

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I'd rather she said something like, "I don't actually want to work with you after what you did at Aldwilne Citadel, but I've been given an order and I follow orders." Just an acknowledgement that she'd rather not work with us, doesn't really trust us, but has to put up with us all the same. That could make for some interesting dialogue choices. And since my main character actually likes Cariel, he might start feeling a bit of remorse for his actions.

I'd prefer that too. I just think they'd more likely go for something conciliating, because, as we discussed above, some people might not appreciate getting some "harsher" reaction (though I wouldn't even find that harsh, considering what we did at Aldwilne Citadel; and realistically, we probably wouldn't have just angered Cariel with that, but she probably would also have reported it to the Queen, and everyone related would probably already have heard about it anyway).

I wouldn't find it particularly harsh, either; more importantly, it would be fitting. Do you remember the Daggerfall Covenant starter islands? You become part of Khaleen's crew, and on Betnikh, there's that storyline about the weapon, and you make a choice whether to give it to the Covenant or destroy it--well, there isn't a consensus among the npcs about what should be done, so whichever choice you make, you'll anger about half of them. Then, when you encounter them later in the game, they aren't particularly pleased with you (though they're still desperate enough to accept your help). That's the kind of MMO choice that works out pretty well, all told.

You know, when I was a teacher, I once had a student say to me, "I don't like you." I told him, "That's fine; I'm not here to be liked." For the most part, my ESO characters aren't there to be liked, either. They have their various reasons for doing the things they do and undertaking the tasks they undertake, and popularity isn't a real driving factor. I do have one character who likes everyone and is a pleasant, cheerful sort of fellow, and is quite mystified when someone doesn't like him, but so far he hasn't had to deal with too many popularity set-backs.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Yeah, allowing members of alliances you are actively at war with into your homeland/sacred places is a bit hand-wavey when it comes to reasons. To be clear, I'm sure they could come up with a pretty good reason why we'd be going to Pyandonea, but I also think a lot would depend on the prologue to have it make a lot of sense. Well, if they even do prologues anymore, that is. But, basically, there'd have to be some shift in our relations with the Maormer before we went, and a prologue-like quest is where such a narrative bridge would usually be built.

Oh, I wasn't even thinking about the problem that some of our characters are supposed to belong to a different faction in the war in Cyrodiil. It's more about how some of ESO's cultures were depicted lorewise.

The Summerset Isles were supposed to be locked off completely, not allowing any travellers from abroad (and there were cultures in real world history that had such rules and that likely were the inspiration for this). Auridon was first introduced to us as the big exception. And then we got that decree by Queen Ayrenn, we were told at the beginning of the Summerset story, that suddenly allowed travellers from all nations to the main island. So if it's needed for a story to allow all kinds of player characters from different nations to some region through some special decree - they've already done that. Same could be done with Pyandonea, if they find a reasonable explanation.

And in case of Necrom, it feels like there's a certain dissonance, too. It's a beautiful city and I like that we are able to see it in ESO, but on the other hand, it also felt a little mundane to have masses of people run around there. It was supposed to be the most important location of Dunmer religion, a sacred temple city, the biggest cemetery of the whole nation, too. I generally wouldn't expect people to jump around, randomly open urns and make all kinds of other nonsense on a cemetery, and even less I'd expect that to happen in a rather strict and pious society like the Dunmer's. It doesn't give that city the atmosphere that it should have had according to lore. Of course I see that the only way to preserve a certain atmosphere would have been to make the city an instanced location, or even have access restricted to certain quests, but not having permanent access would also have been a pity. Still I wonder if making in the zone's main hub was the best decision. They could have created another city for that, be it a Telvanni one or a Temple-related Indoril city. It's not like there wasn't enough space left on the Peninsula, after all.

I see what you mean. Yeah, there is a certain suspension of disbelief that has to go along with us being allowed in these places. It's that old thing where gameplay/mechanics take precedence over the lore. Would have been kind of fun if the prologue quest was different depending on your character's race. For Summerset, for example, if you were Altmer you got a quest more about the issues at hand of opening up the island (maybe you could have agreed or disagreed with it as you chose and had some task to do to either assist or prevent the opening--though obviously if you wanted to prevent it, you would have failed). Every other race would get a prologue quest where they had to do something to prove they were worthy of being allowed on the island. Then all the yahgra and sload and triad stuff could have come up once everyone got there. But I bet very few people would have liked that and honestly I don't know how well it would have worked narratively within the larger Daedric War arc. But I mean, come on, who wouldn't like a quest about navigating Altmer bureaucracy?

Syldras wrote: »

(Different topic related to this: I saw some people complaining about the Altmer of Summerset being so unfriendly and "weird" towards strangers - I somehow got the impression that they missed the point that these people literally never saw a stranger before. They never had any visitors on their island - no exceptions - , and they've likely never travelled anywhere else themselves either. How do people believe would the average person who has grown up like this, and spent their whole life like this, react if there's suddenly masses of other people showing up? Being unwelcoming might not be the correct thing from today's moral point of view, but it's a realistic reaction considering how these Altmer grew up. The funniest thing to me is that people who absolutely can't or don't want to comprehend the average Altmer commoner's perspective in that situation would have probably reacted exactly the way these Altmer did, if they had grown up under the same circumstances; at least I don't see much openness for different perspectives there.)

Something that surprised me when Summerset first came out was how many non-Altmer were on the island and had been on the island for a long time. I had thought it was closed to all outsiders, yet there are some npcs (the vendor outside the crafting hall, for example) who say their family has been there for generations. And there were some mentions in some quests of all the paperwork some Altmer had to do to get some non-Altmer worker imported to the island. I realize having a few non-Altmer citizens (who would have had to conform to Altmer society) would be different from a sudden influx of strangers with all their strange ways and such. I didn't mind the Altmer comments to my non-Altmer character, though I did wish that my Altmer characters weren't also considered 'outsiders'. That is to say: new to the island. Though it was the same on Vvardenfell when my Dunmer were still called 'outlander'. Our poor characters never get to be from anywhere.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Probably, since aren't their realms reflections of their very essence? If they can take and change the artifacts of other princes, seems like something that came from Nirn would be even more easily changed.

Makes me wonder if, let's say, a book taken from Nirn would basically be converted into a daedric copy if it stayed in the realm for longer? Then again, people don't really convert into something else, either - Morian Zenas is still Morian Zenas, physically, despite having been in Apocrypha for a very long time.

Maybe it has something to do with whether the object/person is inert or not. A living object might be much harder to change by osmosis than something like a book.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

So this was another player interacting with your Sixth House Dunmer? What did they say? I'm so curious!

Nothing too exciting I was just amused by it. Well, that Argonian informed me that my Sixth House Dunmer was "very cute". I said "thank you", and continued my way. I guess it's more or less factual; he actually does look quite cute. Or young and harmless, at least.

I also remember my main got complimented on by an Altmer woman once, though if other player characters interact with him, it's mostly Telvanni-related (in a friendly way). I also have a Bosmer character, a very short one, who had been commented on (also in a friendly way).

If your Sixth House Dunmer is the one I've seen in some of the screenshots you've posted, he is cute. I can't recall any of my characters ever receiving random comments like that. They must all blend into the crowds. Either that or everyone is exceedingly shy.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

It is a bit odd that Darien acts perplexed by Gabrielle's writing when, as you said, it isn't particularly obscure or technical. As for my main, he's definitely not a magical scholar or mage of any type, so depending on him to parse Gabrielle's thoughts on the Wall was perhaps expecting a bit much. That would have been a nice place for a player response option: you could say you have no problem understanding, or say you'll do your best to understand it all, or tell him you're as mystified as he is and so you'll have to go with your and his best guesses.
I understand the goal is for the player to be able to read and understand these in-game documents, but I do think some of the flavor of them has been a bit lost over the years.

But is it really neccessary that every player unstands every word, especially if it's no info that's essential for continuing the story? Wouldn't it contribute to the atmosphere if we'd find some rather obscure and more difficult to understand document, for example, in a situation where it makes sense storywise?

Npcs acting like a document was extremely hard to comprehend, and then, when we get to read it, it turns out to be rather mundane, somehow also makes the npcs seem less smart somehow, or is that only my impression?

No, it's not necessary for players to understand every word. There have been lore books talking about the magic of the world that I just take on faith as being accurate, because I don't really understand the details of them. And then there are Vivec's sermons, so full of allegory that they are not as easy to quickly read and understand. I think there should be texts in game that are harder to understand, because that would better reflect the reality of Tamriel (and certainly the Daedric planes). Not everyone can know or understand everything--and I'm not talking about a person's mental capacity or ability here, just the simple idea that there's way more knowledge in the world than any one person can master...well, except for Sil. But is he even really a person anymore at this point? (That Sil bit was partly joke, partly serious.)

whitecrow wrote: »

Cats always smell great so I imagine Khajiit do as well.

Haha, yes, that is true! So now it's canon: Khajiit always smell great.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I hope the migraine didn't last long and you're feeling better now. Also, get some rest! I command it.

It's slowly getting a bit better, but still a bit difficult to focus. Well, it's just the way it is, I guess; if I get really interested in something - and that happens often - I can occupy myself with it for days, with barely any sleep (and sometimes without eating and sleeping at all). And after that, I sometimes more or less fall asleep for several days.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to say that can't be good for your health, but...that can't be good for your health! I understand being so interested in something you lose track of everything else, though.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I had been wondering why the Tribunal doesn't seem to know about the Dwemer in general, since they were there when the Dwemer existed. But maybe they're burying all that information just like they're burying what they did to Indoril Nerevar. As much as I like the Tribunal (well, two of them, anyway...well, one in particular) they aren't always on the level when it comes to facts.

I don't even think they're hiding something when it comes to the Dwemer; it's more that it's not really their domain to share Dwemer history, I guess?

But honestly, I almost think it's a bit of an oversight, to portray the Dwemer as extremely mysterious in general now, while the only big mystery should be their disappearance. I also had the impression that it wasn't even intended to be such a mysterious topic when it was originally introduced to TES lore. In TES3 Tribunal, you could even meet a Dwemer ghost and talk to him, after all. And you had all those ash piles when you ventured into those Dwemer ruins beneath Mournhold.

I still think the mystery of the Dwemer kind of got away from them, and even if they ever did have an answer for it, anything they say about it will be a disappoint to some portion of the fan base. Not that I mind the mystery never being solved. Some mysteries don't get solved and we all just have to live without knowing.

I also think that if Nerevar was close with the Dwemer, the Tribunal would hide Dwemer facts for fear something might come out about their actions relating to Nerevar. They probably have Dwemer journals hidden away somewhere.

You know, if the Dwemer were just a tribe of Chimer, Azura might well have magicked them all away to her realm. (Makes as much sense as anything else would, right? )

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

That could work, though I would still have questions on why a god-like creature would feel the need to hide. (It's kind of like how I wonder why magical socieities in so many book series have to be secret.)

They hide not to be bothered by the uninitiated

Lol, ok, we'll go with that.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

But if Mannimarco had succeeded in getting his body back, and becoming that super powered up god-like figure he intended

The question is whether he would have really become such a being? It's an assumption we (and some Fellowship people) make in Solstice, I think, but we don't really know what he's even doing, except for "getting his old body back". He could have just aimed at getting it inhabitable again by making it a lich body? Then he could have become a lich, fine, powerful perhaps, but still not godlike.

Didn't Mannimarco himself say something like that? Or write it in his journal? Get his body back, ascend to godhood, make everyone sorry they were ever mean to him...you know, standard stuff.

The godhood ascension aside, it did seem to be pretty well known that if he got back into his body, it'd be really very hard for us to stop him.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

...how does he go from that to hanging out shoeless in a cave? Maybe us 'vanquishing' him this time was the start of his path towards that less impressive state he has in the later timelines. Granted, it could have been interesting to explore how he goes from what he is in ESO to what he is in the single player games, but the game is Elder Scrolls Online, not Mannimarco's Life Story Online.

He's Daggerfall Mannimarco first, though, dwelling in a barrow, sleeping in his sarcophagus, and having random cultists dance around it. Which sounds like a fun life somehow.

And then, at the end of Daggerfall, he possibly succeeds in his godhood thing, part of him becomes that moon (at least we're told that; and that thing never shows up again after Oblivion anyway), and another part lives shoeless in a cave. Did that part decide to remain on Nirn shoeless? What did the moon part think about the shoeless humanoid part? Is it even sentient? And is it not boring to float through the sky all day? Questions we'll probably never get answered

In any way, I'd still like to see and/or hear more about Mannimarco in ESO, if it's meaningful additions to his (and perhaps Vanny's) lore.

Well, if all the power went with the moon part, the shoeless in a cave part naturally follows. Mannimarco doesn't strike me as the type of mer who could make a success of mundane life--you know, cooking, cleaning, keeping his shoes in good repair. A lore book from the perspective of the moon would be something, though, wouldn't it?

I would also like to know more about Mannimarco and Vanus. There are a lot of questions in my mind about both, and though I could make up lore for them in my head, I'd rather find it in game.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I actually enjoyed coming across random citizens who had heard of my deeds and didn't agree with them. It felt more real, because of course not everyone will see a situation the same way. And when they said something to my character, I often replied to them (in real life, obviously, since you can't say anything about it to them in game) and it all became part of my character's larger story. If a player isn't really into role playing, though, or inhabiting the world, such comments could be seen as only negative.

Why do some people who are bothered by that even care so much about what some random Breton (or Altmer or Argonian) says? And yes, I also think it adds to immersion to show a world where people have different opinions and ideas and of course events will lead to different reactions, including some npcs not being happy with them. I definitely liked that more than getting the impression that everyone thinks exactly the same anyway.

I don't know why it bothers people. Perhaps they see their character as a hero who is beloved and they just don't want to have randos calling their actions into question. *shrug* I do sometimes get a little defensive on behalf of my characters when some npc suggests I made the wrong choice. I might say to them, "You weren't there; you don't know the details." (Or something less polite). But as I said, I like that aspect of the world, and talking back to npcs is a habit I have in these types of games. I do it in LotRO, too. Did it in WoW back when I played that.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I do wish our choices in quests did have more meaning and consequence. Obviously the general world state has to be the same for everyone, but...well, they did kind of try something like that with Darien. If you were successful, he's out roaming Tamriel wherever he chooses (and maybe in a relationship with the player? I don't know how that part plays out, since I didn't do any flirting or romance with him).

It's also a bit strange that he just disappears in that situation, though?

I guess that's also one reason why I actually like the other ending more - the one that's officially considered a "failure" ironically - because him needing to hide somewhere at least works as an explanation for why you can't keep any contact with him (be it as a friend or as a lover) - at least until a new story makes him reappear as a character.

If I had romanced him, and saved him, and we'd come to some kind of "hey, we're in love" moment, then yes it would have been a bit strange that he's just gone after that. I didn't romance him, but did save him, and so him going his own way just fits with how things have always been between my main and him. Their paths sometimes cross, and they get along fine when they do, but otherwise they each have their own things to do in the world. Do you get a letter from him or anything if you romance him? I never saw any mention that anything like that happened, but that would have been a nice touch.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

If you weren't successful, he's confined to some unnamed place with Skordo.

I still think it was meant to be Artaeum. Though of course it's possible of course that Vanny is keeping them prisoners who knows where now, sitting in his basement all day, peeling potatoes

Artaeum? Surely not! And there are worse fates in life than peeling potatoes for the Great Mage all day. Probably.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I see what you mean. Yeah, there is a certain suspension of disbelief that has to go along with us being allowed in these places. It's that old thing where gameplay/mechanics take precedence over the lore. Would have been kind of fun if the prologue quest was different depending on your character's race. For Summerset, for example, if you were Altmer you got a quest more about the issues at hand of opening up the island (maybe you could have agreed or disagreed with it as you chose and had some task to do to either assist or prevent the opening--though obviously if you wanted to prevent it, you would have failed). Every other race would get a prologue quest where they had to do something to prove they were worthy of being allowed on the island. Then all the yahgra and sload and triad stuff could have come up once everyone got there. But I bet very few people would have liked that and honestly I don't know how well it would have worked narratively within the larger Daedric War arc. But I mean, come on, who wouldn't like a quest about navigating Altmer bureaucracy?

I would have liked that

With an associated achievement for perfect filing of all paperwork!

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I didn't mind the Altmer comments to my non-Altmer character, though I did wish that my Altmer characters weren't also considered 'outsiders'. That is to say: new to the island. Though it was the same on Vvardenfell when my Dunmer were still called 'outlander'. Our poor characters never get to be from anywhere.

Yes, it's a pity that they predefine that aspect of our characters instead of giving us a choice. I mean, they didn't even do it continously; there are Altmer on Summerset who are very friendly towards Altmer player characters and make no comment on them being strangers at all, and the same goes for some Dunmer characters on Vvardenfell. I'd actually have liked if they had given us some option during character creation to define a few background story aspects of our character. Nothing too specific, as that too would be limiting, but they could have let us choose whether our character is a native of their race's homeland or not, for example.

That would have been nice. You can do that in LotRO, though it doesn't really come into play in the world. Even if you're from Rohan, for example, when you get there no one will recognize you as a native. I think it was mostly just for role play purposes and the associated title you get with it, that says you are 'of' the region you selected. Anyway, just another small way to customize one's character, which I'm always in favor of.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

No, it's not necessary for players to understand every word. There have been lore books talking about the magic of the world that I just take on faith as being accurate, because I don't really understand the details of them. And then there are Vivec's sermons, so full of allegory that they are not as easy to quickly read and understand. I think there should be texts in game that are harder to understand, because that would better reflect the reality of Tamriel (and certainly the Daedric planes). Not everyone can know or understand everything--and I'm not talking about a person's mental capacity here, just the simple idea that there's way more knowledge in the world than any one person can master...

But all those examples are from earlier TES games or from early ESO chapters at least, I think?

They are. I wasn't trying to cite recent examples, just a few examples that came to my mind in the moment. It was mostly to show that ZOS has put in books that are a bit esoteric and not as easily understood, and that such writing can exist well within the game world.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

well, except for Sil. But is he even really a person anymore at this point? (That Sil bit was partly joke, partly serious.)

I'm sure he is a person, but I'm wondering if he can increase his brain capacities by storing info in outside devices (able to access them again at any time)? Then one theory about the Planisphere would be true.

Then again, we don't even know what a brain would be capable off. No one has reached some memory limit yet. In reality people die earlier. What if someone lived for over 1000 years? We just don't know.

Right, in real life we don't know. If someone lived to 1000, how much knowledge would they be capable of having taken in and being able to recall? Our bodies in general, though, aren't evolved to last that long. If humanity exists long enough, who knows what it might evolve into.

But for Tamriel, there are beings who are centuries old, and they seem to be doing ok both physically and mentally (not even talking about the Tribunal in that case, because they have access to god-power). Abnur does show a few signs of his age in Elsweyr, but other oldsters like Vanus and Mannimarco never seem to. (Though, actually, are there any really old non-mages?) As for the Tribunal, maybe Sil did increase his brain capacity with the Planisphere, or maybe he just regulated it better.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I still think the mystery of the Dwemer kind of got away from them, and even if they ever did have an answer for it, anything they say about it will be a disappoint to some portion of the fan base. Not that I mind the mystery never being solved. Some mysteries don't get solved and we all just have to live without knowing.

There are acually lots of hints in the earlier games, and between the lines I think it's possible to guess what happened. And then you have that Mages Guild side quest in Skyrim where you're asked to find Kagrenac's tools, which is also a hint - I mean, we see what happens to the mage upon using them, even if we don't know for sure what happened to his physical form or where he disappeared to.

I'm sure there are hints that lead to good guesses amongst the player base. What I primarily mean, though, is that Bethesda didn't solve the mystery for so long, and so much speculation built up around it, that even if they did once have a specific answer for it, it would disappoint some portion of the fan base if they revealed it.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I also think that if Nerevar was close with the Dwemer, the Tribunal would hide Dwemer facts for fear something might come out about their actions relating to Nerevar. They probably have Dwemer journals hidden away somewhere.

But that doesn't mean they'd need to hide mundane facts about the Dwemer's everyday life.

No, but I bet they would all the same. When someone has a habit of being cagey about the truth, it can apply even to mundane subjects.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Didn't Mannimarco himself say something like that? Or write it in his journal? Get his body back, ascend to godhood, make everyone sorry they were ever mean to him...you know, standard stuff.

Did he say that or was that only an assumption by the Fellowship? I think he himself only wrote that he wanted that part of power back that was still stuck in his old physical body.

I think it was actually a dialogue part I criticized before; something about "he tries to get his body back to become a god" - How would that even work, technically? He would get back into his old body, he might become a lich, but a god? That surely takes more.

I don't know how it would work. I was never clear on how having the Amulet of Kings would make him a god, either, but he seemed to think it was easy enough. But maybe the whole thing was just the Great Mage winding us up to get us to take the whole thing more seriously. You know Vanny has a flair for the dramatic.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Well, if all the power went with the moon part, the shoeless in a cave part naturally follows. Mannimarco doesn't strike me as the type of mer who could make a success of mundane life--you know, cooking, cleaning, keeping his shoes in good repair.

That's what he has his cult for.

I thought he was cult-less by the time he was cave Mannimarco. If he's still got a cult, they aren't a very good cult, leaving him without shoes or having to rely on chance-met strangers to do him favors.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

A lore book from the perspective of the moon would be something, though, wouldn't it?

Can a moon even write? The thing is that we don't even really know anything about it. We don't even know how apotheosis really works. All we have are theories. Some people understand these as "the truth", but in the end, all we know is that there's a Daggerfall ending about Mannimarco becoming "a god" somehow, and in Oblivion, we have that new moon (that doesn't even show up anymore in Skyrim), and necromancers use it to create black soul gems. And Mannimarco still leads his cult, living barefoot in that cave. Why do people assume the moon was "the real Mannimarco" and the person in the cave basically just some rest (but not "the real Mannimarco" for some reasons)? Why can't "the real Mannimarco" be the person left in that cave? It's possible he only shot his power (or how ever to call it) to the skies to form that moon, which wouldn't make the person who remained any less real. It's still the same person, just having split off some of his power, after all.

If a wizard can make part of himself a moon, I don't see why a moon couldn't then write about it.

I didn't think the cave guy wasn't real, or wasn't Mannimarco. I mean, I only know about this stuff from what you've told me here. I thought if part of him was used to make a moon, then the moon would have some semblance of Mannimarco sentience, especially if he used all his power to create the moon. Now you hypothesize he used only some of his power to make the moon (the shoe making part of it, apparently). Ok, so now he's a power-diminished Mannimarco living in a cave. I have no problem with that. Odd life choice, sure, but he probably has his reasons.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Artaeum? Surely not!

But have you not heard the news? Some years ago, the Sloads invaded Artaeum and took over. They used some random forbidden books from some random locked-up ruin there (there are enough of them, after all) for some horrible mind control spell, forcing not only the Psijic Order but also the whole Mages Guild under their control. So they could manipulate everyone to have Darien sent to them. Is that better or worse than peeling potatoes?

I think you've been reading too many temporal tomes! So in this Sload controlled version of Artaeum, is Darien still peeling potatoes? Also, why did the Sload even want him?

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

With an associated achievement for perfect filing of all paperwork!

I honestly think there are stranger achievements.

There are.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

They are. I wasn't trying to cite recent examples, just a few examples that came to my mind in the moment. It was mostly to show that ZOS has put in books that are a bit esoteric and not as easily understood, and that such writing can exist well within the game world.

So we clearly see the difference in writing even when it comes to this. Which again makes me wonder: Why did they clearly assume that more complicated lorebooks were absolutely fine for the broader audience until a few years ago - and now suddenly not anymore?

I think the world's lore books are still the same essential quality of writing, but the quest-associated books/journals/papers are more simple. As to why, I don't know. Maybe they really are writing for people who aren't paying very close attention.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

But for Tamriel, there are beings who are centuries old, and they seem to be doing ok both physically and mentally (not even talking about the Tribunal in that case, because they have access to god-power). Abnur does show a few signs of his age in Elsweyr, but other oldsters like Vanus and Mannimarco never seem to. (Though, actually, are there any really old non-mages?) As for the Tribunal, maybe Sil did increase his brain capacity with the Planisphere, or maybe he just regulated it better.

No, longevity clearly is tied to magic in ESO, there are no other cases. Or perhaps curses or such, but that's also magic. Other than that, the time in the realms of Oblivion passes differently; much slower. What feels like just a few weeks there can be centuries on Nirn. Then again, I don't think someone who lived there for a long time could really be considered old physically, as their aging also slows down. If someone at age 30 would leave for some daedric realm for a year, and return after that, 200 years might have passed on Nirn (just as an example), but that person would still just be 31 physically - or would society consider them 231 years old then? It's generally something an interesting story could be made of; returning to Tamriel after such a long time. They even already had a good basis for such a story, in the Deadlands dlcs, but sadly, they didn't make anything of that.

And I honestly don't even think Mannimarco and Vanny are extremely old. Normal Altmer can live up to 200-300 years naturally anyway (on average), and those two are most likely a bit over 350 years old. That is old - and very likely magic has kept them a bit younger, physically - but not extremely old. Not a case like the Tribunal or Divayth Fyr.

They're still centuries old, but I take your point--they're mer, not human, and so centuries to them is not like centuries to a human. (Though Mannimarco does call Vanus 'old man' for some reason...so does that guy in the Hero's Return story.) Is Abnur the oldest human we ever meet? Also, Divayth keeps it pretty well together mentally and physically for a very long time without god-powers, so maybe he's actually the greatest mage in Tamriel rather than Vanus Galerion. Then again, if Mannimarco hadn't murdered Vanus, who knows how long he might have made it. And now I'm sad about the Great Mage again.

The time dilation between Nirn and Oblivion is an interesting concept. How long has Morian Zenas been in Apocrypha? How long does he think he's been there (if he even thinks about time anymore)? It could be fun to have a story about someone who went to (insert Oblivion plane here) for what they perceived as a week, only to return and find it was twenty or thirty (or more) years later on Nirn. Their reaction to the difference could be explored (as long as it doesn't break their mind--I'm tired of stories of people's minds being broken by their experience). I don't know if it would work as a quest chain, really, but a good lore book about it could be interesting.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I'm sure there are hints that lead to good guesses amongst the player base. What I primarily mean, though, is that Bethesda didn't solve the mystery for so long, and so much speculation built up around it, that even if they did once have a specific answer for it, it would disappoint some portion of the fan base if they revealed it.

I even have the impression they then decided to hype up the "big mystery" part even more (and it seems to work). Though exactly that does lead to questions, considering we have learnt a few things about them back in the earlier games. Or even all those rather mundane Dwemer-related contraband/treasure items in ESO - it doesn't really fit that they're treated as super mysterious everywhere else in the game, does it?

But I feel there's generally a bit of a disconnect between many of these treasure items and the rest of the game. On the one hand, I like how they add to the world building, but on the other hand, we sometimes read of rather special items there, be it some artifacts, or some rather elaborate sounding devices - and in some cases it feels a little strange that you'd never see these things anywhere in the world at all.

Certain treasure items are so detailed in their description, and so lore rich, it's really a pity we don't see them represented in game somehow. Of course, I wish some of them could be made into furnishings.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

No, but I bet they would all the same. When someone has a habit of being cagey about the truth, it can apply even to mundane subjects.

I think not telling the world what happened to Nerevar Indoril is more or less a necessity. Imagine what would happen if people found out. Whole Dunmer society would probably break down.

I fully understand why they don't tell the truth about Nerevar. I'm just saying that once they start being selective about what they tell people, it cascades, and soon enough they start avoiding certain topics entirely.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I don't know how it would work. I was never clear on how having the Amulet of Kings would make him a god, either, but he seemed to think it was easy enough. But maybe the whole thing was just the Great Mage winding us up to get us to take the whole thing more seriously. You know Vanny has a flair for the dramatic.

Was it a Vanny quote? I can't remember. All I remember is that he generally didn't talk much in Solstice, which was very much a pity.

As for the Amulet of Kings, Mannimarco wanted to imprison Molag Bal in it, or more precisely absorb all his power to use it for himself. It's basically the most powerful soul gem.

I don't know if Vanny actually said it, but I wouldn't put it past him to say something like that to get us to take the situation as seriously as he wanted us to. Put the fear of a Mannimarco god into us, as it were.

Daedra don't have souls, do they? So the gem in the amulet of kings, how does it absorb a daedric being's power?

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I didn't think the cave guy wasn't real, or wasn't Mannimarco. I mean, I only know about this stuff from what you've told me here. I thought if part of him was used to make a moon, then the moon would have some semblance of Mannimarco sentience, especially if he used all his power to create the moon. Now you hypothesize he used only some of his power to make the moon (the shoe making part of it, apparently).

I know you didn't, but it's a thing I read quite often in discussions: That the moon was "the real Mannimarco" and the person just some pitiful rest. In the end, it's just a theory and the moon being some split part of his power is just as possible. Or maybe he did indeed become a god and that part resides where ever deities there reside, with the moon just being some kind of physical reflection in the mortal plane. We don't know anything for sure, it's all just theories. All we know about the Aedra is also just theories, sometimes differing between the different cultures of Tamriel, despite some people, from my experiences, prefering one of them and treating it like a fact.

If he did become a god, with the moon as a physical manifestation of that fact, and his godly self/essence actually resided wherever deities hang out--that must have been a disappointment to him. From what I could tell, one reason he was looking forward to being a god was to be very much present physically on Nirn and in Oblivion and seeing everyone bow down to him. Seems like not being able to be a "hands-on" god wouldn't have suited him.

The Aedra are closer to real life god pantheons than the Daedra or Tribunal, in that they don't physically exist in the world of Tamriel. What was it, they gave themselves to create the world? Or am I mixing that up with something else? So do they really exist at all? Do they have some kind of presence/power that just can't physically manifest on Nirn? Seems like one could have a debate on the actuality of the Aedra, whereas the Daedra clearly do exist.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Ok, so now he's a power-diminished Mannimarco living in a cave. I have no problem with that. Odd life choice, sure, but he probably has his reasons.

Maybe he likes it there.

Just further proof that Mannimarco has no real taste for luxury!

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Also, why did the Sload even want him?

They're necromancers, so of course he's useful to them.

But he's not dead yet!

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I think the world's lore books are still the same essential quality of writing, but the quest-associated books/journals/papers are more simple. As to why, I don't know. Maybe they really are writing for people who aren't paying very close attention.

But why? It's not like the quest npcs aren't parroting the same info again anyway...

Have you already looked at the lorebooks for the new stable mounts?

I've read a couple of them, but haven't yet had time to make it around to all of them. So far, I like them a lot.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

They're still centuries old, but I take your point--they're mer, not human, and so centuries to them is not like centuries to a human. (Though Mannimarco does call Vanus 'old man' for some reason...so does that guy in the Hero's Return story.)

They're just mocking him. Well, and he is old, even if he might still be in a more or less good shape.

I know they're mocking him, but for Mannimarco to call him 'old man', it doesn't quite land, considering. But then again, Mannimarco was in young Wormblood's body when he said it, so maybe that's all he needed to make the insult stick. I don't recall precisely, but the guy in Hero's Return wasn't exactly a vigorous youth either, was he?

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Also, Divayth keeps it pretty well together mentally and physically for a very long time without god-powers, so maybe he's actually the greatest mage in Tamriel rather than Vanus Galerion.

I honestly think he is. He might just not be too well-known outside of Morrowind, and most people are possibly just not aware of his age. Also, we don't know how much of that greatness is attributed to Vanny just based on him being the founder of the Mages Guild.

I think most of the greatness attributed to Vanus Galerion comes from...Vanus Galerion himself. He started calling himself the Great Mage, after all. At least I think he did. But even if he didn't, he talks about how great he is all the time.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Then again, if Mannimarco hadn't murdered Vanus, who knows how long he might have made it. And now I'm sad about the Great Mage again.

Maybe he didn't kill him but has taken him prisoner... I mean, has invited him to his home. And they've been spending a lot of time drinking tea. And debating. And perhaps Vanny also took care of Mannimarco's shoe problem and made sure he'd dress decently again.

Lol, that sounds like a gentle tale a parent might spin for a child upset at a pet's death. "No, no, they're not dead, they just went to live in a nicer house! They have all the toys they ever wanted, and endless kibble, and they're super happy!"

Syldras wrote: »

All they would have needed for such a story was actually sending this guy back to Mournhold and have him have a little quest chain there:
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Selveni_Andalor
Absolutely a missed opportunity!

Well, there's still a chance it could happen. A slim chance, but with ZOS putting new content in existing zones, perhaps something like that might come about.

Did you watch today's stream? I was pretty interested in the class mastery preview. I like what they're attempting to do with that system, and I like that they're stressing it's experimental and can be changed to better suit the game.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Certain treasure items are so detailed in their description, and so lore rich, it's really a pity we don't see them represented in game somehow. Of course, I wish some of them could be made into furnishings.

But which ones? And even if they'd turn only the most interesting ones into furnishings, or have some of them show up in quests (so their use is finally really seen in game) it would probably take a huge amount of work.

Oh, I know it's a pipe dream. It's just that some of them have such interesting flavor text that I wish I could keep and display them.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I don't know if Vanny actually said it, but I wouldn't put it past him to say something like that to get us to take the situation as seriously as he wanted us to. Put the fear of a Mannimarco god into us, as it were.

Obviously wouldn't work for me. If dialogue options would have been available, I would have started a discussion with him about the technical details

Lol! Well, wait until you read the finale of my little story. You'll probably be annoyed with my character for avoiding the technical details.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

If he did become a god, with the moon as a physical manifestation of that fact, and his godly self/essence actually resided wherever deities hang out--that must have been a disappointment to him. From what I could tell, one reason he was looking forward to being a god was to be very much present physically on Nirn and in Oblivion and seeing everyone bow down to him. Seems like not being able to be a "hands-on" god wouldn't have suited him.

Things changed a bit over the course of a few TES games. Though it was a little disappointing that the only thing the moon really did in TES4 Oblivion was enabling the creation of black soul gems one night per week. Well, who knows. Maybe humanoid Mannimarco will return another time (maybe the moon could split off a bit of its power, or perhaps the just the soul part from his humanoid form will make a return; maybe it's stuck in some daedric realm for a while again, or if he's a lich, it might have returned to his lich pot, likely even, as the defeat seen in TES4 Oblivion seemed too mundane to actually ban a lich). He always returns

It'd be fun if he showed up in TES6. But since TES6 is probably never going to exist, we shouldn't put any hopes on that.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

The Aedra are closer to real life god pantheons than the Daedra or Tribunal, in that they don't physically exist in the world of Tamriel. What was it, they gave themselves to create the world? Or am I mixing that up with something else? So do they really exist at all? Do they have some kind of presence/power that just can't physically manifest on Nirn? Seems like one could have a debate on the actuality of the Aedra, whereas the Daedra clearly do exist.

There are different theories. Some Tamrielic cultures say they became the planets, other say they live on them. It's true they don't ever interfere in person, but there are some artifacts that are supposed to be of Aedric origin. I also think I've seen npcs discussing why even to worship the Aedra as they never help in times of need anyway.

Those npcs do have a point. And that's also reflected in a couple quests where a desperate npc prayed to the Divines for help, and also asked a Daedric Prince or two, because they were that desperate. Hmm, guess which one answered?

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Just further proof that Mannimarco has no real taste for luxury!

The most luxurious thing he own is his sarcophagus. He obviously loves it so much, he's continuing to sleep in it in TES2 Daggerfall

Isn't it strange, by the way, how relatively un-gruesome necromancy comes across in ESO? It's no horror game, of course, so perhaps they tone it down a bit because of that, but still, it somehow feels rather harmless for what it's supposed to be. They even needed to emphasize the cruelty against the living (by those sacrifices) in the Solstice story to make it at least somewhat unsettling. But everything actually necromancy-related as in commanding and using the dead? It doesn't really feel like it makes a difference whether you're attacked by a skeleton or zombie or by a wolf or living bandit.

I suppose it is a bit strange, if seen from a purely realistic point of view. However, I'm glad it's not more gruesome. I got enough of gruesome imagery back when I played Diablo 1, 2, and 3. I opted out of 4 because it was too gruesome for me. I find the zombies in this game gross enough to get the job done when it comes to necromancy.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

But he's not dead yet!

But he has his Meridia thing, which could surely also be an interesting subject of study for the Sloads.

Listen, I put up with you slipping the Sloads into the conversation yet again, but enough is enough! No more Sload talk!

Syldras wrote: »

I personally, would study the possible use of him as a power source. Lucky for him, I'm currently busy studying the subject of "resurrection by anger". If I anger Mannimarco long enough, will his soul be pulled back into his body only so he could throw a tantrum? It's like Snow White, just less romantic!

Lol! Well, if anything could get him back, I bet that would be it!

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I know they're mocking him, but for Mannimarco to call him 'old man', it doesn't quite land, considering. But then again, Mannimarco was in young Wormblood's body when he said it, so maybe that's all he needed to make the insult stick. I don't recall precisely, but the guy in Hero's Return wasn't exactly a vigorous youth either, was he?

Would it ever land? I don't think Vanny could easily be insulted by something like that.

As for the Breton - I don't know. He had a big beard and a hood. He was supposed to be a former student, but that also doesn't say much.

I don't think Vanny would be insulted by being called 'old man' either, but I still think Mannimarco needs to work on his insults.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I think most of the greatness attributed to Vanus Galerion comes from...Vanus Galerion himself. He started calling himself the Great Mage, after all. At least I think he did. But even if he didn't, he talks about how great he is all the time.

We know he started calling himself Archmagister. But yes, it's likely he also called himself "Great Mage" first. Well, actually he's almost the only person who ever refers to him as that.

Yes, and that's why I refer to him as that so often. Gotta help him get the brand going!

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Lol, that sounds like a gentle tale a parent might spin for a child upset at a pet's death. "No, no, they're not dead, they just went to live in a nicer house! They have all the toys they ever wanted, and endless kibble, and they're super happy!"

In some of the strange parallel dimensions of the Aurbis it's surely the truth! Just as the realities where Vanny managed to convince Mannimarco to give up necromancy. And the other realities where Mannimarco got Vanny into joining him in his necromantic experiments. Which would surely be the worst ones for all mortals, but also the most interesting to observe

All the pathways Ithelia could have let us experience. Or maybe the Sages Vault. Ah, I've got to stop trying to figure out the Sages Vault. That way lies madness.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Well, there's still a chance it could happen. A slim chance, but with ZOS putting new content in existing zones, perhaps something like that might come about.

If time is progressing, his arrival back on Nirn must have been a while ago, though, so we couldn't directly observe his first reactions to the changed world anymore.

According to UESP, he actually does show up in Leyawiin. He doesn't seem any different than when he was in the Deadlands, though--no real shock at what might have changed. Maybe the fact that he keeps thinking our characters are Sil is a sign that he's not quite recovered from his experiences and hasn't really paid attention to any differences.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Did you watch today's stream? I was pretty interested in the class mastery preview. I like what they're attempting to do with that system, and I like that they're stressing it's experimental and can be changed to better suit the game.

Yes, I've seen it. It sounds interesting, but I can't really say anything before I've actually tried it. Whether it will eliminate the power gap that subclassing created - we'll see.

Oh, yeah, I agree that we can't say much until we've tried it out. I just like the idea of it and the potential it has. I'm also really glad they're going to keep doing these monthly streams, and I think it's great that we get three streams this month alone.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Oh, I know it's a pipe dream. It's just that some of them have such interesting flavor text that I wish I could keep and display them.

There's still a lot of things they could add as furniture, even rather basic ones. Right now we can't even display weaponry, except for some very specific antiquity pieces (and a Blade of Woe replica).

The good thing is they do keep adding new furniture, so they might one day introduce the ability to display weaponry and armor. The bad thing is then I'd have to hunt for the recipes!

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

It'd be fun if he showed up in TES6. But since TES6 is probably never going to exist, we shouldn't put any hopes on that.

I think there was some news lately that they've made some progress in development; but don't ask me for details. The long wait has diminished my interest to the point that I'll have a look at it when it releases - but it's nothing I'm really thinking about much anymore.

I'm also wary of the writing quality, of course. If that boring, moralistic tone, and the avoidance of anything that someone could disapprove of, is a general trend in game writing everywhere, TES6 could turn out extremely boring and intellectually unsatisfying, too.

I'm with you on that. My interest in TES6 is nearly non-existent. I long ago stopped looking for any news of it. Just all this talk of Mannimarco in the other games made me think, if he could come back, that would be the most likely place for him.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Those npcs do have a point. And that's also reflected in a couple quests where a desperate npc prayed to the Divines for help, and also asked a Daedric Prince or two, because they were that desperate. Hmm, guess which one answered?

Who knew you'd agree with Mannimarco for once

I'm pretty sure I've agreed with him before. After all, someone who has lived as long and talked as much as he has would be bound to make a good point or two somehwere along the way.

Syldras wrote: »

The Daedra aren't exactly the best entities to turn too, either, though. Well, at least some people have tried to find their own solution to that problem...

I wouldn't ask help from Daedra, either. The only exception being maybe Azura, but probably not even then. Sil, as always, is in the right of it. Where'd that quote come from?

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I suppose it is a bit strange, if seen from a purely realistic point of view. However, I'm glad it's not more gruesome. I got enough of gruesome imagery back when I played Diablo 1, 2, and 3. I opted out of 4 because it was too gruesome for me. I find the zombies in this game gross enough to get the job done when it comes to necromancy.

You would have loved 14th to 16th century funerary art There was a phase when depictions of the deceased person as a living human weren't fashionable. And no, I don't mean those "resting" effigies (where you sometimes can't really say if the depicted person is supposed to be dead or sleeping), like with Mannimarco's sarcophagus and perhaps that "tomb of a Breton knight" antiquity funishing in ESO. In the Late Middle Ages a tradition emerged to actually make the effigy look like a corpse that has been decaying for a while, sometimes including worms and whatnot. Some of them do look horrible. Though there's actually one I find awesome: the monument for Prince René de Chalon (commissioned by his widow). It's made from very clean looking white marble and shows him 3 years dead (partly skeletal, partly mummified), but standing upright in a dramatic pose, holding his own heart in his hand, as a symbol of love. Devs could use that tomb sculpture as an inspiration, just add a cloak or loincloth for decency, and introduce another wonderful entity to ESO: the Heart's Day Lich.

But seriously, I don't even think gruesome depictions of decay were needed in ESO. But still, I somehow have the feeling that the depiction of necromancy is a bit too light somehow, if that makes sense? It's not even like most npcs were terrified much by it, and often zombies come across more like a nuisance, not as something truly terrifying to the people.

One zombie is terrifying. 100 zombies is just another infestation someone has to deal with. When you have crowds of undead just hanging out in droves, it kind of diminishes the horror of what they are; they begin to seem just like another subset of the population causing trouble. There's really very little reflection on who these zombies used to be. That quest in Bangkoria, in the northern part, about the Evermore prince, explores the horror of the situation a bit, with the focus being mainly on the one person who is undead. Angof raising entire graveyards in Glenumbra, though, is just a minor military setback.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Listen, I put up with you slipping the Sloads into the conversation yet again, but enough is enough! No more Sload talk!

I'm sure Vanny has also said something interesting about the Sloads!

He likely has, but not in my hearing!

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I don't think Vanny would be insulted by being called 'old man' either, but I still think Mannimarco needs to work on his insults.

They surely could need improvement, just like his poems. It's a bit strange, isn't it, considering he's supposed to be so versed in terms of rhetoric?

It's quite possible he doesn't see us (his foes) as worthy of his famed rhetoric. He saves all that for when he needs to pull long cons on emperors who have imposter syndrome. As for his poems, or at least the one I'm familiar with, he probably wrote that in a frothing rage, and anger often makes people lose all their finesse with speech.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Yes, and that's why I refer to him as that so often. Gotta help him get the brand going!

I think "Vanny" sounds more likeable and more familiar

Well of course it does! But who are you more likely to look to as a person of expertise: Vanny or The Great Mage? As Teldundindo could tell you, names matter!

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

All the pathways Ithelia could have let us experience. Or maybe the Sages Vault. Ah, I've got to stop trying to figure out the Sages Vault. That way lies madness.

Having a system, or just a questline, that shows us different realities would be something I'd appreciate of a lot. It would be one way to expand on the lore and show us aspects we couldn't ever see normally. Or if not different realities, then maybe events of the past or future (and I don't mean actual time travel, just having a glimpse at it). I know it has been done before within some story quests, but it was always closely related to a specific location.

In any way, I hope the Sages Vault will be something interesting. The longer the wait for info, the higher the expectations get.

I know. That's why I'm doing my best to temper my expectations. I want it to be a super cool feature like what we've talked about, but I have no idea how likely that is.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

According to UESP, he actually does show up in Leyawiin. He doesn't seem any different than when he was in the Deadlands, though--no real shock at what might have changed. Maybe the fact that he keeps thinking our characters are Sil is a sign that he's not quite recovered from his experiences and hasn't really paid attention to any differences.

Yes, he's at the end of chapter party, but he doesn't really say anything specific, it's strange. Then again, he's in Leyawiin and probably had never been in any other country before, so he might just not really notice much of a difference at that point (it's all just foreign to him), and the real shock might happen once he's back in Morrowind. It's a pity he never really shows up there, though, as talking to him again in that situation would have been really interesting!

I wonder what effect ZOS would have made it have on him and whether or not the depiction of it would have come across as believable. I wouldn't have wanted it to be: a simple conversation with the player character, and he's adjusted to current times. But how involved would it likely have been for a one-off conversation with a side character? It also seemed like his experiences in the Deadlands weren't something he was going to just shake off, so not only is he coming back to Mournhold centuries later than he left it, he's not even the same. That's a lot to cover in one conversation.

Not that I think they shouldn't try to add these little touches into the game. It used to be you could find npcs after quests and have a very short chat with them. That's always a fun little bit of detail and immersion.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

The good thing is they do keep adding new furniture, so they might one day introduce the ability to display weaponry and armor. The bad thing is then I'd have to hunt for the recipes!

I'm honestly a bit annoyed it looks like I have to repeat all Solstice dailies again for the new Worm Cult furnishings... I mean, I'm happy about the additions, truly, but needing to repeat those quests even more often - instead of having the furnishings drop from them since they were originally released - is a bit unfortunate.

When it comes to furnishings, another thing that came to my mind: There are almost no dyed candles, right? Only red Velothi and DB candles, and black ones around Mannimarco's sarcophagus (that can't be lit), but except for that none, I think? It's strange, considering that candles can (and are/were) easily dyed with natural colorants, let alone that in TES, magic could be used for that. In real world traditions, different candle colors would have different meanings and be used for different occasions (which is also a reason I stocked up on black candles when ever travelling to Bavaria back in times where they weren't easily available - it's an over 500 years old folk tradition there to light them before thunder or hail storms).

Yeah, doing dailies for the umpteenth time just to maybe get some new added drops is not a good feeling. It would be nice to have some more colors for candles. More colors for all light sources, really. We have the standard white/yellow light, the reddish hue that comes from braziers, and then the blue that comes from vampiric, Coldharbour-esque, and Psijic light sources. I'd love to see more color options for lighting. The Silvenari Sap Stone gives off a wonderfully warm light that I love, but it's rather a specific decoration and doesn't work everywhere thematically.

Also, interesting that you had to get black candles in one specific region rather than them being more widely available. Interesting tradition, too!

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I'm with you on that. My interest in TES6 is nearly non-existent. I long ago stopped looking for any news of it. Just all this talk of Mannimarco in the other games made me think, if he could come back, that would be the most likely place for him.

If we assume TES6 will take place in Hammerfell, that's also where Scourg Barrow was located, Mannimarco's lair in TES2 Daggerfall. Which would be interesting to explore - if it still exists at that point in history, and if it's made explorable in game.

There are a lot of 'ifs' when it comes to TES6. Expanded Mannimarco lore would be cool, though. There's much more to him than the version we see in ESO.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I wouldn't ask help from Daedra, either. The only exception being maybe Azura, but probably not even then. Sil, as always, is in the right of it. Where'd that quote come from?

The Battle of Red Mountain, Part 2.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:The_Battle_of_Red_Mountain,_Part_2
Yes, Vivec is also able to write more easily comprehensible texts

Well that's good to know! I'd hate for the Warrior-Poet to be one-note when it came to his writing.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

One zombie is terrifying. 100 zombies is just another infestation someone has to deal with. When you have crowds of undead just hanging out in droves, it kind of diminishes the horror of what they are; they begin to seem just like another subset of the population causing trouble.

The smell alone should frighten people. It's more an instinctual thing. Not sure if people could get used to it that fast.

In real life, no, probably not. But smell is usually the sense that's least taken into account when zombies are portrayed.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

There's really very little reflection on who these zombies used to be. That quest in Bangkoria, in the northern part, about the Evermore prince, explores the horror of the situation a bit, with the focus being mainly on the one person who is undead. Angof raising entire graveyards in Glenumbra, though, is just a minor military setback.

You'd really think, considering how religious most Tamrielians are, that they were more bothered by these being the corpses of their relatives. Still, it only really becomes a topic in Alikr, and perhaps a little bit, though through lorebooks mostly, when it comes to the Dunmer.

It should be horrifying, I agree. Yet when there's a huge crowd of zombies, I don't think it's unreasonable for the first reaction from the living to be, "How can we deal with this?" rather than "Is that my relative?" The times we do see people shaken by the notion of the undead, it's because they are specific undead/zombies rather than a whole group of them.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

It's quite possible he doesn't see us (his foes) as worthy of his famed rhetoric. He saves all that for when he needs to pull long cons on emperors who have imposter syndrome.

But wouldn't he get used to that speech style at some point?

He could have also fallen out of the habit of it, in the time between betraying Varen and being troubled by the Vestige. After all, at that point he was mostly just shouting at idiot cultists all day, and so he probably got into that habit.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Well of course it does! But who are you more likely to look to as a person of expertise: Vanny or The Great Mage? As Teldundindo could tell you, names matter!

No one doubts that Vanny has expertise as a wizard, so that's nothing that needs advertizing! The part of his image that needs improvement is his friendliness. And then, "Vanny, your friendly Archmage next door" is much more beneficial!

But why, so that every unlearned person on the street can come up to him with a hearty greeting? Vanny never struck me as the type of guy worried about appearing friendly.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I know. That's why I'm doing my best to temper my expectations. I want it to be a super cool feature like what we've talked about, but I have no idea how likely that is.

How about expecting the worst, then, so disappointment is nearly impossible?

Well, that's a good strategy, but not one that my optimistic heart could sustain. Most I can go for is realistic expectations.

Syldras wrote: »

Another thing that's funny - I had been looking for something else, and accidentally found out there was a video trailer thing for Solstice part 2?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NeMe3pJRnI

It's strange; so many things get announced here, or as a news article on this site, but this somehow never showed up anywhere? Well, on "social media" perhaps, but people who don't participate in that just miss it then.

And it's not the first time, I think. Didn't we discuss something similar about Solstice part 1? It's not really helpful if one doesn't see these around release time, but half a year later... I mean, not that it would have changed my impression of the story (Do the English voice actors always overemphasize like that, by the way? Not blaming them, as they've surely gotten instructions to present their lines exactly like that; but the prince's pathos-riddled tone and that evil laughter do feel very clichéd to me), but I do wonder why even produce them if a bigger part of the playerbase never gets to see them anyway (if you'd ask around on these forums, I bet many people have never seen these videos before)?

Also, again the video has spoilers about the actual story - the mystery about Mor Naril, the Voskrona fight - just like the video for Solstice part 1 already showed Mannimarco's sarcophagus and resurrection ritual... Which is also a bit strange. Why would one include spoilers in release trailers? Do they think the average ESO player is not able to register and understand these things? Or do they believe it doesn't matter anyway if story still has some not super-obvious elements or not?

I definitely hadn't seen that one before!

Perhaps one reason they didn't promote it on the forums was because of the generally negative sentiment about the Wall event that was displayed at the time. It probably wouldn't have been received very well if they had, and people would have trotted out the old 'tone deaf' line and so forth. Or maybe they did post an article about it and I just missed it. I don't claim to see everything they announce.

As to the trailer itself, I liked it. It's meant to hype up the content, and I think it did that pretty well. I liked the spit-take the Argonian Worm Cultist did when he saw the Stirk Fellowship rushing the camp, and even though it's a trope, I found the evil laughter amusing. Should it have been left out? Maybe, but it did make me laugh. As for Azah's delivery, my take on that was that he was delivering those lines in the context of giving a rousing speech to an assembled group of the Fellowship, which means greatly projecting one's voice and giving extra emphasis to the points one is making.

As to why they included some spoilers in the trailer--well, there's this thing that some people follow called "the rule of cool," and if that was the vibe they were going for, that could be why. It's also possible that they didn't view those elements as spoilers, since they were disconnected images. It's also possible they don't care if it's a bit spoiler-y. Maybe they thought showing some cool things would make players eager to get to the point in the story where that image comes into play. Unless they explain why they made the trailer the way they did, we'll never know. If you had seen it before the Solstice story, would you have recognized the spoilers? Or maybe I should say, do you think the average ESO player would have recognized the spoilers? Not everyone pays as close attention to the story as you and I (and others) do.

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Everyone's attached to the smells of their own home, aren't they? But do all oblivion planes smell like sulphur, do you think? Or is that reserved for princes like Bal and Dagon? I figured Apocrphya would smell like book dust mostly. Maybe mildew and ink. The Evergloam I could see having a musty kind of dank smell, like a damp evening in winter.

I actually can't recall Oblivion or daedra being mentioned to smell like sulphur anywhere. Think that's just an assumption people have because they consider daedra the demons/devils of Elder Scrolls and in many settings those things have a smell of sulphur. But daedra aren't really that and it doesn't make sense with how varied they and Oblivion are that they all would have the same smell. Makes one wonder what type of smells daedra and Oblivion have, I imagine there would be some weird ones considering more than once daedra comment about smell of mortals. I bet one smell like ozone.

It definitely would make a lot of sense that the planes of Oblivion have different scents to them. I don't know that I've ever seen it mentioned what any of them smell like. I wonder how ZOS could convey a sense of the scent of a place, without having someone just outright state it. The way Coldharbour looks, it seems like it might be more or less devoid of any significant scents. The smell of a frozen pond, maybe.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Also, interesting that you had to get black candles in one specific region rather than them being more widely available. Interesting tradition, too!

Back then you really didn't get black ones normally, probably because the color was considered too "negative" in a way (relating to ideas like darkness, sadness, mourning,...), so it wouldn't have appealed to most people. Ironically, grave candles were never black either, but either red or white.

Another thing hard to find here, but available cheaply in the South was raw incense. Which makes me think: Isn't it a little strange how in Tamriel, everything seems to be equally available in every part of the continent? I mean alchemy and cooking/brewing ingredients, for example. I understand of course that every player, regardless of faction, must have been able to get all ingredients rather early for crafting, especially when the game originally released without One Tamriel and you couldn't easily travel outside your faction; but it's still strange.

What, you've never heard of the famous Skyrim banana farms? It's the same thing with the flowers/mushrooms: they all grow everywhere. One of the concessions for gameplay.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Well that's good to know! I'd hate for the Warrior-Poet to be one-note when it came to his writing.

It's strange, by the way, that this one showed up in ESO, considering it clearly describes the Ghostfence:
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Cantatas_of_Vivec

Maybe Sil told him about it in advance. On a serious note, it could have been an oversight. Reading it, I can tell you it wasn't clear to me it was about the Ghostfence.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

In real life, no, probably not. But smell is usually the sense that's least taken into account when zombies are portrayed.

Probably because there's no easy way to portray the horrible smell except for descriptions in dialogue. But now I do wonder what the average person would perceive as worse: the smell or the sight? And are there any alteration spells to get rid of the smell or change it to something more pleasant?

Probably sight, because one could likely see a zombie before one smelled it. Unless one was downwind of one on a hot day. But a crisp, clear winter day, when most smells are frozen anyway? I bet there are alteration spells to change smells, too. It wouldn't surprise me if they were closely guarded magic secrets.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

It should be horrifying, I agree. Yet when there's a huge crowd of zombies, I don't think it's unreasonable for the first reaction from the living to be, "How can we deal with this?" rather than "Is that my relative?"

And then they still roam outside of some settlements, with nobody doing anything about it Though the most absurd thing in that regard is probably the dolmen right behind Vulkhel Guard. At least the npcs' reactions about it seem realistic in a way: Nobody panics, most likely because everyone has already gotten used to it.

One thing that bothered me a bit when I just started playing ESO was that there's no real reactivity from guards when it comes to threats. You can run right into a town with all kinds of enemies following you, but no npc will react in any way to it, even if you run past city guards standing directly next to the city gate.

To the first point, I say it's another one of those gameplay concessions because of MMO persistent world. Even though we narratively deal with the zombie problem, the actual world doesn't change. They do have some areas that phase along with the story, but it's probably cumbersome to do that for all areas. Not to mention that they have to leave mobs around for people to farm if they want something they drop.

To the second point, yes, it is odd that the guards don't actually guard us. Every other MMO I've played, the town guards will kill any mobs that dare follow you into their orbit. I guess the ESO town guards are there to guard the npcs, not the players. Oh, and to magically know when you stole something from two zones over and demand you pay the bounty.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

He could have also fallen out of the habit of it, in the time between betraying Varen and being troubled by the Vestige. After all, at that point he was mostly just shouting at idiot cultists all day, and so he probably got into that habit.

Well, that makes sense. But what did he do with his idiot cultists so he could become the well-versed lich (or non-lich) in Daggerfall? (Though his methods of getting letters delivered were a little unusual at times.)

I don't know, but he has a few centuries or so to change. I'm sure he'll figure it out!

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

But why, so that every unlearned person on the street can come up to him with a hearty greeting? Vanny never struck me as the type of guy worried about appearing friendly.

He might not care, but we should, otherwise he'll never get more dialogue lines (or show up as a houseguest)

Oh, good point! Ok, let's start our friendly Vanny campaign.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Perhaps one reason they didn't promote it on the forums was because of the generally negative sentiment about the Wall event that was displayed at the time. It probably wouldn't have been received very well if they had, and people would have trotted out the old 'tone deaf' line and so forth.

Nah, they didn't post the release trailer for Solstice part 1 here either, and at that time people were still a bit more optimistic.

Didn't they? Hmm, I know I saw that one before Solstice came out. Or did I? Time...how does it work?

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

As to the trailer itself, I liked it. It's meant to hype up the content, and I think it did that pretty well. I liked the spit-take the Argonian Worm Cultist did when he saw the Stirk Fellowship rushing the camp, and even though it's a trope, I found the evil laughter amusing. Should it have been left out? Maybe, but it did make me laugh.

It also made me laugh, but should the evil baddie necromancer main antagonist and main threat of the whole story actually make people laugh? I don't think "What a quaint evil wizard, he should just keep the island!" is the feeling one would want to evoke if the player is supposed to be motivated to fight against him. If there would have really been an option to choose a faction within the story, if would have been a different thing, of course.

Well, I was never going to take the threat of Mannimarco very seriously, and no matter how much he made me laugh, I wouldn't have wanted him to have the island. I thought it was just kind of a fun thing to hear, especially with how long it went on at the end. Perhaps it should have been more serious; I don't know.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

As for Azah's delivery, my take on that was that he was delivering those lines in the context of giving a rousing speech to an assembled group of the Fellowship, which means greatly projecting one's voice and giving extra emphasis to the points one is making.

I'm aware of that, but to me personally it still sounds a little exaggerated.

Okay, I was curious now, of course, so I checked if there is a German trailer. Indeed there is, and the prince sounds a little less pronounced there. Mannimarco sounds a little weird (but that might be because I'm still more used to his old voice), and the cultist next to him truly made me laugh Perhaps because his voice line sounds strangely cut-off at the end. Also, the tone is a bit funny.

It just sounded like a rousing speech to me.

One word I couldn't understand, though, was the last one in one of Mannimarco's lines. After the cultist says "they've broken through" (or however he puts it) and Mannimarco is all, "Let them come!" He ends it all with a dramatic bang of his staff and says, "I am...." and I just couldn't understand that final word. He is what? What?!

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

If you had seen it before the Solstice story, would you have recognized the spoilers? Or maybe I should say, do you think the average ESO player would have recognized the spoilers? Not everyone pays as close attention to the story as you and I (and others) do.

I mean, Worm Cultists perfoming some ritual around a sarcophagus with a depiction of Mannimarco on its lid, as seen in the Solstice part 1 trailer, was a little obvious...

I was asking about the part 2 trailer. I think I already agreed with you that the part 1 trailer was clearly spoiler-ish. If you hadn't finished part two of the story when you saw the part 2 trailer, would you have caught all the spoiler-like images? To me it seems like they weren't connected enough to outright spoil the narrative, but it's very hard to say, because I do know the narrative, so my mind can place the images into the story.

Oh, by the way, I took my main character around to all the stables with the new mount lore books at them and read them all. They're really quite well done (excepting a few minor typos/grammar mistakes I noticed) and are exactly the kind of lore I love to find in game. It was a nice little play session of travel and reading. I saw a lot of other people seeking out the books, too, so clearly there's a good amount of interest in them.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

What, you've never heard of the famous Skyrim banana farms?

Maybe they import them from Morrowind? I've never seen banana palm trees there, but the climate would fit, in some regions, at least. But it's generally strange, isn't it, how there are so many common ingredients, but you never actually see them growing somewhere! And at the same time, there are some trees that clearly carry fruit, like the durian or jackfruit ones in Elsweyr, but still, you never see their edible fruit actually being gathered by people anywhere, and they're not used in recipes, either.

Not that I suggest adding even more ingredients (cluttering the inventories of people who have no crafting bag)! Different ingredients per region and adding more with new zones (and recipes being very zone-specific, too) could have been an interesting principle to pursue - but only if they had designed the whole game differently from the beginning, not already starting with that huge amount of different ingredients already.

And while we're at things showing up at places where they shouldn't: I always found it strange how CWC factotum parts can be seen at a bazaar stall in Fargrave. No dialogue or lorebook on it, either. Now, Fargrave is the most likely place outside of CWC for them to show up, but still, it made me wonder: How? Lore told us it wasn't possible to just leave CWC again, so how did they end up there? Though in that case we could make up that some daedra stole them, for what ever reasons, at least; I think I've seen more CWC parts in some later chapter, though, which seemed even more unplausible. Though I unfortunately can't remember right now where I saw them.

I started playing the game after One Tamriel and the dynamic leveling, so I never experienced the zones having their own levels of crafting materials. But I have played/do play games where there are distinct levels for areas, and that includes the crafting materials, and there are pros and cons for both systems. When it comes to provisioning and alchemy, which are the two biggest culprits of "it can be found anywhere," I somehow doubt that having regional specific ingredients would go over well with crafters. It would make the world seem more realistic, yes, but I don't think that's enough of a trade-off for limiting people's ability to craft more freely.

Clockwork parts showing up outside of Clockwork is a bit messier, but I suppose I would just assume it was down to player characters taking the stuff and selling it on the outside, since we can clearly travel to and fro.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Maybe Sil told him about it in advance. On a serious note, it could have been an oversight. Reading it, I can tell you it wasn't clear to me it was about the Ghostfence.

But what else would surround Red Mountain? "Walls of wit's glass" also describes it quite well. Though I wonder now when they added that lorebook to ESO - already in base game, or with the release of the Morrowind chapter? If it was already there in base game (though somehow I don't think so), maybe they did originally plan to include the Ghostfence to Vvardenfell, but then decided against it for some reason.

I'm not as knowedgeable about the lore as you are. "Walls of wit's glass" doesn't automatically conjure up "Ghostfence" to me. I loved TES3 and played it through, but that was a very long time ago--when it first came out--and I don't remember all the lore details of it. I'm not arguing against your interpretation of it, or saying it's not about the Ghostfence; I'm saying that it wouldn't have seemed out of place to me when I read it, because it wasn't clear to me it was referring to the Ghostfence.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

To the second point, yes, it is odd that the guards don't actually guard us. Every other MMO I've played, the town guards will kill any mobs that dare follow you into their orbit. I guess the ESO town guards are there to guard the npcs, not the players.

Do they? Or do they only get into combat if they happen to be attacked themselves (by accidentally standing in some enemy npc's damage area)?

Well, I don't know from experience, but I thought that if they saw you murder an npc, they came after you. Or that if you get caught stealing near a guard, they start attacking. I see them attacking players regularly enough, but not having been there when it started, I can't say for certain what the inciting incident might be. Regardless, they aren't there for our benefit.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Well, I was never going to take the threat of Mannimarco very seriously, and no matter how much he made me laugh, I wouldn't have wanted him to have the island. I thought it was just kind of a fun thing to hear, especially with how long it went on at the end. Perhaps it should have been more serious; I don't know.

Why do you care for that island? What things of interest does it contain?

It's not so much that I care for that island as that I don't want filthy Worm Cultists despoiling Nirn. You know how the old saying goes: Give 'em an island, and then they'll want a continent. Besides, haven't the Argonian tribes who live there already suffered enough from colonizers?

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

One word I couldn't understand, though, was the last one in one of Mannimarco's lines. After the cultist says "they've broken through" (or however he puts it) and Mannimarco is all, "Let them come!" He ends it all with a dramatic bang of his staff and says, "I am...." and I just couldn't understand that final word. He is what? What?!

Hard to say. "Again"? At least in the German trailer he - rather unelegantly - says: "I am again." Though in German it sounds much worse ("Ich bin erneut."); no one would word it like that in German (in a poem at most, where the meter is important, but that's not natural speech). "Erneuert" = "renewed"/"restored" perhaps, but he clearly says "again", which also seems to (possibly?) match the English text. I'm not even sure why they kept such a close translation, as he wears a mask anyway, so there aren't any lip movements to consider. Also, it has the English-language echo in the background; they didn't edit it out thoroughly.

It honestly sounds like a word or two got left out somewhere, because "I am again," doesn't really make much sense in English, either. Nor does it sound like something Mannimarco would say. Eh, but maybe Wormblood's brain didn't have all the words stored in it that Mannimarco was accustomed to, so he had to make do with what he had.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I was asking about the part 2 trailer. I think I already agreed with you that the part 1 trailer was clearly spoiler-ish. If you hadn't finished part two of the story when you saw the part 2 trailer, would you have caught all the spoiler-like images? To me it seems like they weren't connected enough to outright spoil the narrative, but it's very hard to say, because I do know the narrative, so my mind can place the images into the story.

Spoiler-ish before playing the story at all? Perhaps not. But I do think it would be while playing.

Before having set a foot on East Solstice at all, you'd not know Mor Naril, but as soon as you'd see it in game for the first time (be it because you need to pass by for some antiquity site, for example) you'd surely recognize it again from the trailer and you'd know immediately: Okay, this is Mannimarco's new castle/fortress/whatever (it also doesn't help that finding out about that thing existing, and searching for the place where Mannimarco hides, is a big aspect of the East Solstice main story). It also takes the surprise away from seeing it for the first time, somehow. Visually, it is a fascinating place, after all. And it makes a difference whether you see it for the first time when you accidentally stumble across it in game, or whether you've already seen it in the trailer before.

The other thing is seeing a character in the trailer kneeling down and controlling the Voskrona guardian with his mind. Of course there's no clear hint that this would be part of the story finale, but it does make it less surprising and basically takes away the "mystery" aspect on the last few East Solstice main quests, that are all about finding out why there's a Voskrona guardian near Mor Naril, and if and how it could be used, etc.

I guess it would also depend on how closely one watched the trailer, and how much one remembered from it. For myself, I usually watch trailers a couple of times, but just straight through. I don't pause them and focus on particular images. I don't commit the whole thing to memory. So depending on how long it had been between when I saw the trailer and when I played the content, I may or may not have recognized Mor Naril from the trailer. The Voskrona would likely have stuck out, though, because it's quite a striking image in the trailer, firing laser beams from its eyes, and so when first coming across them in the landscape story, I would probably have made the connection.

Gameplay trailers like that always do include bits of the playable story in them, unlike the CGI trailers we used to get for the chapters. The High Isle trailer, for example, had that showdown between the three heroes and the Ascendant Lord, but the actual in-game confrontation with him was nothing like that. So we'd know we were heading for a confrontation with the guy, but not exactly how it would play out. Those trailers were more about the gist of the story than showing actual elements of it.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Oh, by the way, I took my main character around to all the stables with the new mount lore books at them and read them all. They're really quite well done (excepting a few minor typos/grammar mistakes I noticed) and are exactly the kind of lore I love to find in game. It was a nice little play session of travel and reading. I saw a lot of other people seeking out the books, too, so clearly there's a good amount of interest in them.

I haven't read them all yet. Perhaps this evening! What I can already say is that I generally appreciate that new lorebooks were added. That was truly a positive surprise.

Agreed! I wonder if the author is to be found anywhere in game. Hopefully not hanging out in the IC sewers with those other two rival authors!