Woot! Congrats to Brenna for finding her bear! And wonderful shot of her equestrian talents in town.

Acadian, it has been smooth sailing so far with Lildereth in her bow-stamWarden build. She is doing her Dominion questline in Auridon with only occasional support from random fellow questors.

Cutting Dive (stam morph cliff racer) is a favorite skill due to it looking like she’s calling an actual living creature to help her. The fetcherfly skill looks like her foes are being swarmed by a cloud of angry butterflies, so that’s a keeper. She chose the Eternal Guardian (self-respawning) morph for her bear, but she’ll try the other one when she re-specs so that she can un-summon him easily without him re-summoning himself. The bear does not hold aggro the way the clannfear does, so she has to stay mobile. Budding Seeds has been all the healing she needs, and it’s cute! The frost skills are OK for her, but if she can she will choose other skills to fill their purposes.

The thing that delights me is that the Animal Companions and Green Balance skills suit Lil’s character so well. She is a college-trained Illusionist, but other than that I think of her as more of a magical creature (like a spriggan) than a mage. With her Warden skills she looks as if she is calling on nature rather than casting spells. She finally feels like Lil. I couldn’t be happier about that.

I hope that the Winter’s Embrace skill line will be similar for Jerric. In ESO he has been a frost mage in Templar clothing.


monkey, I find Fjotreid’s look very endearing.


Khajiit, congrats to Brenna on her bear! Love the horse picture.

On Wardens:
We really like Winter's Embrace's ultimate
(Sleet Storm), it's a pretty vicious piece of magic. Khajiit is guessing we can summon our battle bear then change ultimates?

Congrats on Brenna's new pet!

Anyways, I sort of feel like the Warden didn't really match my expectations for a frost class. Mostly because the frost line is more defensive than offensive. I'm still glad it exists and like the other characters I'm going to try and play it that way anyways. (Meaning I won't be taking the Tri Focus passive. It means no power-attack shield, but also never stealing aggro from tanks) Fjotreid is most likely never leaving Vvardenfell, so aside from being less-than ideal at World Bosses it shouldn't be a problem. Although I guess the destruction staff skills fill in for that nicely. Sort of.

And just to contradict myself, yesterday I took the crafting dailies and learned that only the Blacksmithing daily can be turned into the delivery area in Vivec. The rest need to be taken to Stonefalls. Since I already crafted everything, I decided to deliver them real quick and never do them again, but the moment Fjotreid arrived in the Davon's Watch wayshrine the Soul Shriven in Coldharbour quest was forced into his journal and it seems it'll be there forever. Gross. Disgusting. Retch-inducing.

Even worse is that, even though he paid no mind to the Hooded Figure (in fact he just kept riding as if she wasn't even there) the quest log is exactly the same as when you start out in Coldharbour. In other words it mentions having died and being stuck in Coldharbour in spite of never happening. I sent a ticket to the AI that handles feedback, but I don't expect anything to come of it. Guess I'll just have to ignore it like on Ruben. Why can't we remove main quests from the Journal, anyways?

This post has been edited by monkeyemoness: Jun 5 2017, 09:24 PM

Lol, Khajiit had the opposite problem with Brenna being sent to Vvardenfell. When this one came up with her concept he did so under the presumption that she would start in Coldharbour like the earlier characters. It really threw us for a loop when we started off on a ship to Vvardenfell. So, we quickly left Vvardenfell and started the Coldharbour stuff.

This post has been edited by TheCheshireKhajiit: Jun 5 2017, 09:30 PM

They really messed up, tbh. I thought you'd get the option to pick one or the other, not be forced into a specific sequence.

Exactly! Why is Khajiit's Breton Reachwitch on a boat to Vvardenfell? Pretty much just had to chalk it up to "because, exploration" but after the poor treatment at the hands of the slavers, she promptly decided to return to Daggerfall territory, where she was promptly murdered and her soul stolen. Talk about a bad trip!

Well that doesn't sound encouraging. I haven't delved into what I have in the MW expansion except that delicious warden armor. Lol. It would seem clear enough that having MW should mean you now have a choice of 5 classes instead of four and and a choice of which beginning you want for a new character. Hmm, not encouraging to hear that you cannot choose the beginning you want.

Actually, there have been a few instances that Khajiit found especially jarring while playing, mainly because of the limited ways to respond to the NPCs. Like today, Brenna was talking to the Wyrd Sisters in Glenumbra and they kept referring to the idea that Brenna was out of touch with nature because she was a "Stonedweller". Nevermind the fact that she had just been running around unleashing "nature magic" everywhere and that she was dressed almost exactly the same as the Wyrd Sisters themselves! Little things like that Khajiit has learned to try and ignore, but it would be nice if ZOS would try not to write the dialogue as if we were all play castle dwelling knights.

It's honestly one of my biggest beefs with the Elder Scrolls as a franchise in general. For a game that boasts about being an RPG that lets you play who you want and what you want, it's absolutely terrible about how you're seen by the world around you.

Y'know what got me really excited about Orsinium? There was one (1) instance of an Orc reacting to the fact that he was talking to an "honest-to-Malacath lizard." Same with the Khajiit quest and playing as an Orc in general. And that's sad, because that's the bare minimum of what the game should be doing.

I thought it was really bad going from Oblivion to Skyrim, since people at least recognized your race. In Skyrim it's mostly divided by whether or not you're playing a Nord.

I realize it's pretty hard to take EVERYTHING into account and they try to cover as many bases as possible with generic responses, but in ESO in particular it's really obvious that in the vanilla zones they didn't plan on having races outside of the alliance be playable. Example: a quest in Stonefalls where being a Khajiit would totally matter but no one ever addresses it.

Another example more related to your problem: the player character's dialogue options suddenly being...enthusiastic in the Rift's questline. I like to joke that being in Skyrim the PC caught "The Nord" and probably needs to go to an AA meeting to cure it, but I know that someone screwed up. Same with your dialogue options with King Emeric. It was perfect for Eolan, but way too respectful for anyone else, IMO, especially Hates. (On that topic, I really wish you could sass Jorunn and pretty much everyone in the Skyrim sections of the EP. They all deserve it, especially after the end of the Rift questline. [censored] you, Ysgramor. I'm glad Jorunn will be forgotten by time entirely.)

It's railroading, and sometimes it feels like it's done intentionally because screw the player and choice. (might be overreacting here but still)

/rant

This one feels you Monk. ESO gets a bit of a pass from Khajiit mainly because the type of characters folks can play in this game are legion. It would probably be very hard to impossible to write it to where all characters can be accommodated, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't try.

I have encountered similar situations where the fact that I'm an Argonian should register in areas where it doesn't, and like monkeyemoness said it is something that pretty much every TES game could improve on. Some instances have just been jarring, such as a Dunmer saying "Scale-back" TO MY FACE about another Argonian. A few times that I think another fellow Saxhleel should acknowledge I am one of them and they apparently forget.

As was said before, ESO is hardly the only TES game guilty of this at some point, and maybe it is just me, but it does seem a bit more noticeable in this game compared to Morrowind, Skyrim, etc. I'm sure it is hard to catch these at every single point, but some seem fairly obvious to catch. I'm not asking for NPCs to acknowledge your race every single time, but come on.

I'd also like for there to be more often times where you had more than one option to say something (another area that just about every single TES could have improved on). Not even deliberate choices, just extra flavor text that would amount to the same thing but at least lets you pick what suits your character.


So that's how the Morrowind expansion starts? I agree that's a bad move on Zenimax's part.

Oh no, not just the expansion, it's how the game starts now! Khajiit is honestly not sure how the expansion gets going, though he's guessing if you tell a boat captain to take you to Seyda Neen you will get the intro that new characters get.

Haa-Rei didn't. He just arrived on the docks at Seyda Neen and started questing. I hadn't actually seen the Morrowind tutorial bit until today, when I watched someone streaming it.

I couldn't get either of these beginnings to run on the PTS when I started new characters; and haven't started a new one yet on the NA Server - really want to see it! I've heard they finally brought back the cut scene with Mannimarco!






No, that wouldn't be possible because new players would still need to learn about the Soul-Shriven/Coldharbour part of their history; and all of us are new to the Morrowind/Vvardenfell history for our characters and need to learn it. You can probably still skip both beginnings; but not choose one or the other because both are a part of what we need to know about what our character endured before the beginning point.





In Oblivion (Elder Scrolls IV) they really addressed this; a script would run in the background and "If/Then" programs would run. "If player is Argonian, Then X says Y dialogue line" type thing. In a single player game, those scripts running wouldn't make or break the game. In multiplayer, having scripts running like that for each player plus all the different dialogue options - unfeasible.

Also = even in the early games there was a huge prejudice toward the "Beast Races" and Dark Elves were known to keep them as slaves, etc. There will be slanted conversations and name calling right to character's faces to incorporate that racial tension that is part of the lore.





Same here, just arrived and started questing = but I didn't start a new character yet.




This post has been edited by mALX: Jun 6 2017, 05:21 AM

Khajiit was actually quite pleased they added that as it answered all his questions about the circumstances around our PCs becoming Soul Shriven.

I'm with Acadian on this one. I don't see why new characters should be forced to start in Vvardenfell simply because they have the chapter.

If anything this'll be much more confusing for new players just starting out that want to take on the main quest immediately. As it is now, ALL new characters start out in Vvardenfell if you have the expansion. All of them, with no indication that the main quest is actually on the mainland unless they happen to take a wayshrine back. Based on what I saw in the beta, a good chunk of the Soul Shriven in Coldharbour quest is basically useless since the tutorial is now on Vvardenfell, whether you go through it or not.

I'm hoping this is just to promote the Chapter and eventually we'll be able to choose the classic beginning with new characters again, and the new beginning in Vvardenfell being another option. Picking neither one is already an option, as you can skip the tutorial and ignore the Hooded Figure altogether as soon as you reach the mainland. It's just...terrible, tbh. I'd understand if it's a technical limitation, but geeze.

Oh yeah, Khajiit agrees. This one is bewildered that they thought this was a good idea. It's just... messy.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I understand it is hard to incorporate such a script into every single situation or including a dialogue choice in every single option. It isn't game-breaking by any means, but it feels like they could have made a few improvements here and there. Then again, I'm a total neophyte when it comes to programming and coding.

And absolutely, the racial tension is a critical part of TES (slaves in Morrowind; that one Count in Oblivion that is prejudiced against Argonians, Khajiit, and elves; random comments in Arena and Daggerfall, remarks from guards in Skyrim, etc.). In that particular instance I brought up, it just felt like he didn't even register that I was an Argonian. Like if he said something like "You Scale-backs are all the same," or something along those lines that feels...I don't know, a little less programmed to be said for every race, if that makes sense. That's all I meant.

I don't mean to say that ESO does a bad job or anything like that. Not at all. Just that were some situations that were a little off-putting in slightly breaking immersion, but it isn't rampant.

Like I said earlier, since it's an MMO that in some ways is bigger than the SP games, I always cut ESO some slack in this regard. Doesn't stop it from moments like those, though. Another example in early Stonefalls! The salve quest. I guess you can say that no one would refuse help from an Argonian with knives, but given the quest it's a bit weird that no one seems to acknowledge that the player themselves is one. Strange considering that quite a few quests nearby do.

But idk, for me personally, it's always been a sore point in spite of knowing the limitations.

Anyways! I'm at 6/14 for the Silken Ring motif and even got one of the more expensive ones (legs) out of the way. I put up the 2 useless Imperial motif books for sale so I can have gold for the rest, so this shouldn't be a problem. At the very least Silken Ring seems to be more common in stores than Mazzatun, and it's easier to get a good deal on it. (I found legs for 50k, and Chests can go for around 65k, which is what I'm aiming for, or at least under 70k--80k was the absolute best for Mazzatun chests)

This post has been edited by monkeyemoness: Jun 6 2017, 08:34 PM