Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

From everything they said about the Night Market leading up to it, I never got the idea it was going to have much story behind it. It has the central mystery: what is this place and why is it only around sometimes. But fiction mysteries that have no solution (by design) aren't really that interesting to me. It'd be one thing if, while playing through the area, people could find clues/potential answers to the mystery, if not an outright solution. But if it's just a mystery for mystery's sake, and has no real connection to the rest of the world/planes of Oblivion, I find that a bit lacking.

When the Night Market was first mentioned, I thought the focus was combat only, and there wouldn't be much lore to it. Basically like the arenas we've seen in ESO before, or the Archive. But then I heard about it having an unexpected number of lorebooks, so I did think there was some lore to it, and the player could basically discover it bit by bit by finding these documents. We know it's in Fargrave, we know the connections between Fargrave and Ithelia, so I hoped it would give us more lore on that. Sadly, it doesn't.

I think the saddest thing to me is that it's so generic. We know there's some faction striving for wealth, one about combat, one seeking for mysteries (or at least we're told that) - but these are completely meaningless labels because the quests they give are all the same anyway, and they're not even related to their alleged goals. But there's no rooting in TES lore either, not even some simple "We are daedra of Hermaeus Mora, therefore we amass secret knowledge" or "We praise Malacath through battle". They are just random people who, for unexplained reasons, want money, or knowledge, or power. It almost has something clichéd to it, a very simple depiction of the world: Like that's the three life goals people might have.

This genericity also shows up in the combat districts. We have those arcade-like games. No one knows why they are there, or why one should do them - but anyway, your faction gives you favor points for that. Specifically, the text popup tells you it's for "increasing their reputation" - by playing some random games about shooting spiders or rolling boulders or crouching through a tunnel with laser barriers?! How does anything of that has anything to do with TES?

Then we have quests. In many cases, even the quest description is just a one-liner. All very vague. Someone has left notes you need to complete. Some guy has lost whatever and you shall fetch it. Or another example:
"I found a note asking for aid in freeing caged animals captured by poachers. If I free the animals, I can return this note to a collection box on a rooftop oasis to receive payment."
While it's nice to free these animals, it's completely unclear why they are even there in this daedric realm, who they belong to, who gives you the task, or why someone caught them, or why there are even poachers inside those locations (inside some mysterious daedric realm full of dangers where you can't walk three steps without daedra trying to murder you), or how freeing these animals will really help them in that dangerous environment where within a minute some animal daedra would likely eat them (we don't even bring them into safety, despite having transported weirder things in ESO before; we just open the cages, that are surrounded by dozens of dangerous creatures, and that's it)?
Or this one:
"I found a note tacked onto a notice board telling me that the other factions put up horrible propaganda about my faction. For a reward, I can clean up the district and protect our reputation."
Who put this propaganda up and why (There's no one around except for murderous daedra, so who's going to read that?!), what did it say, and why would a faction, which are all depicted as rogue-ish, care for that anyway? It's not mysterious, it's completely random and makes no real sense. And (and that's what I actually wanted to write about): It's completely generic and not related to TES at all. The quest about removing posters spreading evil lies about someone could also take place in a science fiction story set in 2300 in some colony on Mars, in a mafia story in 1920 USA, or in some children's story taking place inside a Swiss elementary school in 2010. Even the wording mentions nothing that hints on this being a TES story, or a fantasy story. It could be any place, any era, any genre. There's not even some bit of embellishment to even make it look like it's somehow TES. It could have been easily written by someone who has never heard a single word about TES lore before. And that makes me wonder... This game did have combat-focused content before, after all, but also dungeons and trials had a story clearly connected to the world of TES.

Though there's one thing about the Market that I actually find really funny. Not sure if you have taken a look into all 3 different zones before you dropped the content, but one of them is more or less "nightmare"-themed, eternal night with werewolves, liches, ghosts, skeletons, and all that. And for some reason, some of the random enemies there are Telvanni. Probably the scariest, most nightmarish enemies they could think of.

I only ended up going into the one section--skittering something? That is funny that the Telvanni are grouped with the nightmare area.

I get the idea that the Night Market was made to promote group play in a different way from dungeons and trials. It was given a basic (very basic) story framework, but since the story and the lore aren't the point of it, those aspects didn't get much development. Surface-level quests such as you describe come across to me as what I consider "filler quests" in zones--you know: small, simple quests put in just to increase the number of quests and make it seem like there's more to do. My experience with Night Market is minimal, and will remain so, because that place just is not for me.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

It is experimental, but since they haven't defined what they consider experimental about it, it's impossible to know what parts of it they are looking at for possible change (if it doesn't work) or iteration (if it does).

Knowing about the love for recycling, I'd not be surprised to see some of these "puzzles" again in future content. Perhaps with a different skin slapped onto them, so you don't crouch through tunnels with laser lightning traps but instead try to avoid poisoned spikes, or clouds of poisonous gas, or whatever.

Makes me wonder about the Sages Vault. Since that isn't combat-focused, put puzzle/trap focused (I think), what will that be like? Will there be a reason for the various puzzles? Or will it all be under the umbrella of: you wanted to explore, so explore? We don't know enough about it yet to have much of an idea, I'm aware. I was really hoping for puzzles with more thinking to them rather than just: can you time it right to not get hit by a thing.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

So if I had to guess what they mean about "excursion zone" I would think something that is a combination of story questing in the classic style of the game, and then some evergreen content added to it. Perhaps some form of repeatable quest that isn't the usual delve/world boss/incursion repeatable; something that has more narrative cohesion to it instead of just a round of chores. Or perhaps the zone story will be time-released. (LotRO does this sometimes: they'll release a quest arc over time, usually in weekly intervals).
Or perhaps it'll just be open-world Night Market with a different name.

If I had to guess, I'd say it probably has some main story and the surrounding areas of the city could be some kind of solo player Night Market, with a puzzle here, a boss there. Generally I somehow imagine it smaller in scope and with less detail and less different quests and locations than chapters had been in the past. We don't know yet, of course. I just hope it won't disappoint the story- and exploration-focused players who, from the impression I got, seem to expect something big next year, after this year had no new permanent overland zone in the usual sense at all.

Well, it will be smaller in scope than a chapter, I'm sure. We don't even know what size area the zone will be, much less what "excursion zone" means. I also hope it won't disappoint, because new zones with great quests are my favorite thing in this game. I can be happy with great quests put in existing zones, especially if they expand on that zone's history and lore some more, but a new place to explore is top notch fun.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I think Mayhem used to happen around this time of year--before the chapter release. Or was it after? Eh, I don't know. I never paid much attention to it. At least the trade bars don't expire, though, or have a cap, so you can just happily stockpile them for whenever the vendor comes back with something you want.

It's strange somehow the Impresaria didn't show up now, since you can also earn trade bars in the Night Market. Though it's strangely an extremely low number; I think some bosses can sometimes drop 2 - seems totally nonsensical to me that you'd need to kill 150 bosses to get the number of trade bars that you'd get on one day during the normal events, sometimes even by just killing one boss or even by just eating cake once a day! It made me wonder if it's a mistake or bug, or if the average player is actually supposed to kill that many bosses a day - which would feel completely off to me, or how many hours a day is one supposed to play this game?

I would guess the trade bars in the Night Market are meant to be just a little bonus thing, not a major means of acquiring them. Can you imagine the reaction if you could rake in the trade bars in Night Market? The outcry of people claiming they are "forced" to play Night Market because of trade bars? I didn't even know trade bars could drop in there (and I don't care if they do--or if they drop by the thousands) but I doubt the expectation was that anyone would farm Night Market for trade bars.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I don't know what the exchange rate for points to gold will be, but it's unlikely to be significant enough to make chasing points worthwhile. I'm on page 7 on one account, and page 8 on another. I've not been playing a whole lot lately. It still remains to be seen whether or not I finish off the pages. If I was desperate to do so, I have tome point caches, but I'd have to be really desperate to open one of those.

I just find it weird that there was no clear announcement of the conversation rate yet. I'd think it's a topic people would care to know about. And some people already seem to have unlocked the last page now, so they're in the situation now to decide if they still want to do more chores or not.

As for the question if gold would be worth the grind... For some very easy tasks perhaps, or if it's really something one does anyway (like picking up some treasure chests or doing event quests when the next event starts), but other than that - I don't think so. Those chores take so long, one would probably get more gold in the same amount of time by just going on a stealing spree.

I saw in one thread that the conversion rate right now on PTS is 10 gold to one tome point--not sure if that's going to be what goes live. Definitely not worth the grind in that case. I've been on a playing spree the past few days, so both my accounts have unlocked page nine. Now that I'm that far in, I think it's safe to say I'll be getting the whole thing done soon enough. Once I have, and I've bought all the things I want, I can't see myself bothering with the tasks on purpose--though some might get done by chance.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

When I first started playing the game, I was mystified at how often town npcs got murdered. At that time, I didn't know about the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood content that encourages such play. And though technically Thieves Guild sends you to steal, not kill, I've noticed that people often kill the npcs after stealing from them. Anyway, at first I found it a bit shocking, but that was just me being a standard rpg player.

Game mechanics. They refill/respawn faster if murdered, and many players seem to care for that more than they care for immersion or roleplaying aspects. And while they can play the game any way they like, of course, it's sometimes really not a nice experience for the more immersion-focused players (I also don't like towns full of murdered npcs much - even less so when I started playing this game and wasn't used to everyone respawning endlessly yet). Well, it's another downside of playing an MMO that one needs to live with.

Yeah, MMOs do require a lot of that kind of acceptance. I never kill the npcs I pickpocket (unless they catch me and start attacking, that is). I didn't realize that if I pickpocketed an npc, they wouldn't have anything for someone else to pickpocket. I thought they had bottomless pockets! Hah, well, I don't pickpocket that much.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

I go out of my way to not kill the animals on the landscape. I wish they were all non-hostile--you know, the yellow-named mobs--because I find it quite ridiculous that every animal in Nirn is so extremely aggressive. Must be something in the water.

In a way it's an rpg trope. Also the need for enemy variety for wilderness zones - can't just be bandit type a, b and c all the time. It doesn't have much to do with reality.

I also try to avoid killing wild animals in ESO most of the time; especially if they nowhere close to cities it just makes me wonder why I would even want to disturb them while they do whatever they're doing. They pose no danger to anyone there, far away in the wilderness, and if my character is no hunter, I don't know why I should kill them for meat or pelts either. I think it's a pity I sometimes need to kill them because they are placed right next to some crafting survey spot and attack when I try to harvest the nodes.

There are some surveys that have wild animals near them, and in those cases I often wait for the animals to path away before I run up, grab the node, and scoot away before they realize I'm there and want to attack. It's my own mini-game challenge I came up with years ago. For non-survey nodes, I just don't harvest the ones with animals right next to them.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

It's actually a bit off-putting to play a Breton through Betnikh, at least for me, especially since the over-arching story is that we're there to convince this tribe of Orcs to join the Daggerfall Covenant. So we have to solve all their island problems for them first, and of course the island problems are Worm Cult related, and then they'll lend their might (?) to the Covenant. But as far as showcasing the life and times of a tribe of colonizing Orcs, the quests are fine--there's nothing wrong with the narrative other than assuming my character has zero problem with helping this tribe that destroyed the previous Breton inhabitants of the island.

I think the game should give different dialogue options so the player can individually decide what stance their character has on events, including events of the past.

But automatically assuming that a character must still feel hatred for that happened centuries ago (and when trade relations between the former enemies have already been established for a longer time) doesn't seem logical either. If people would never recognize war atrocities that happened decades or even centuries ago as being a thing of the past, which were horrible crimes but can't be changed anymore, then the whole world would forever remain in permanent war, with no chance for peace at all. I don't want to get too deep into real-world comparisons as they might not be welcome here, I don't know, but I want to mention this, because it's a rather positive example: When the EU was founded in 1993, the Second World War (with 70 million people dead, war crimes, shifting country borders, displacement, forced labor, etc - and there was no family who was not affected by this) had been over for less than 50 years. There were even precursors of the EU already in the 1950's, but I can say that in the late 1990's, especially among younger people, there was no thinking of each other as former enemies anymore at all. It's just how things were, and the most important thing is to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. And a stable and reliable alliance is exactly one way to achieve that.

I didn't mean that all Bretons would feel hatred for what happened nine generations ago (that's the timeline given on the loading screen for Betnikh--and I'm not sure how much time that is meant to be in this game). And, unlike the real world, our characters actually experience the events of the Orc takeover as if they were there, making it seem fresher. So there's my Breton, reliving the past through some Orc's perspective, and hearing the Orcs call the Bretons 'cowards' for daring to try to fight back against the invasion and keep their home for themselves. I found it annoying, and I really wanted the chance for my Breton character to be able to express her distaste for how the Orcs acquired the island. I made no assumptions about what other characters might think about the situation.

Syldras wrote: »

Also, I'm curious now: Would "colonizing" be the correct term in English for one singular nomadic(?) orc tribe occupying a foreign kingdom's island? A colony, at least, is defined as being a remote settlement belonging to some bigger empire, which is hardly the case when we're talking about one single tribe that has no lands anywhere else.

Hmm, given that scenario, colonizing probably doesn't fit what they did. So what is the term for a nomadic, landless clan who decides an inhabited and settled island is now theirs and proceeds to drive off/murder the current inhabitants?

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

It's the sameness of these quests that bother me, not that they're humorous or light-hearted. These npcs will never grow or change or anything. And I don't even mean that they have to become "better people." There just isn't any depth to them, and their initial character traits are the sum total of who they are. It's like they've been cursed to play out the same story on a loop wherever they go, the only changes being in the minor details of the quest. However, I'm aware that plenty of people do enjoy these characters and quests and wouldn't want them changed up. I guess it's just another case of different people like different things.

I'm not sure if character development would make it much better in these cases. I just think that some characters are generally over-used in ESO and could get a little bit less screen time. I'm also sure there are many more light-hearted stories that could be written with completely different characters and backgrounds instead of needing to rely on the same (Rigurt, Stibbons, Dren) all the time.

Well, sure, they're definitely over-used, all of them. But having them play out the same basic story every time they do show up is..well, I already said how I feel about it.

Syldras wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

Considering the priest only did a deal with Molag Bal in a desperate bid to save his village from the raiding Nords, it would be strange if he had planned out a ritual. The way it was presented was this: Nords attacked (no reason given); wife led the defense of the town (being the captain of the guard); husband priest stayed at home and prayed to Stendarr for help (no details on how long the attack was going on or how long he'd been praying); wife entered home to check on husband and found him talking to Molag Bal, sealing the hasty deal. It doesn't seem like he had time to perform a ritual, and since everyone in the town, both villagers and ransacking Nords alike, is now cursed with undead existence, forever living out that last day, my question remains the same: can one's soul be bargained away from them that easily?

The bigger question to me is: Why would a random person choose Molag Bal to bargain with? Would one randomly get that idea, especially if one had never anything to do with daedra worship before?

This is how this particular situation was presented: priest of Stendarr was praying for help, initially to Stendarr, and then to just anyone who would listen. Since Molag Bal was the only one who was listening (must've been a slow day in Coldharbor), he was the only one who answered, and desperate priest of Stendarr did desperate act. So the priest didn't choose Molag Bal so much as just take the only entity who showed up. Why he thought he could get any help from Molag Bal is a different question--but we don't know what Molag Bal said to him, after all. We don't get those details.

emilyhyoyeon wrote: »

Are the majority of ESO players now really just looking for this kind of ''arcade'' content? The concept of investing into story/writing/world building anymore, considering the NM's positive reception, cannot be looking worth it to the devs.

I hope Night Market isn't giving the developers such an idea--that "arcade" content is more popular than the classic story and world building content the game was built upon. As a thing that exists as one way to play amidst all the other ways to play, Night Market is fine; if it becomes some kind of template for more and more future content, I'd be pretty upset.