The Elder Scrolls Online: General Discussion Options

[Dark Reaper]

Saw a trailer for the next DLC of TESO called Summerset. Now the isle is in the standard game kinda but only a small island other wise you're playing in Valenwood and Elsweyr if you're playing as the Aldmeri Dominion.

[monkeyemoness]

I sort of liked the look of the buildings and interiors. It felt like the logical graphic evolution of what we saw in TES III. The exteriors and monster designs were a little weird, though, and I wish we got to see more interiors than what we got.

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(rambling ahead, I feel dizzy so I might come back and clear things up later)

Maybe it's just me, but I'm a little wary of the direction the game has taken in the past year or two. Since the Gold Coast DLC I've been wondering whether we still have the same team from the base game. Most of the voice actors seem to have moved on (sigh, good bye Steve Blum), the writing feels a little different, and One Tamriel somewhat shook up what I really liked about ESO compared to the main series of games: linear storytelling.

Like, on one hand I love that you can just go do whatever you want whenever you want (for those of you that weren't there for it, be thankful that you didn't have to grind to the Vet levels to even set foot on Craglorn), but on the other I wish they made it so the story recognized that? I mean, continuity between zones wasn't exactly perfect before (no spoilers, but some of the PC's reactions in Eastmarch were MASSIVELY stupid and maybe OOC after Shadowfen's events), but a few throwaway lines or altered quests would be nice.

Of course, it's been that way since before I started. For example, certain quests in the base game will not react to your race when they would probably turn out differently, particularly with races outside of the alliance (example: Khajiit in Stonefalls), a consequence of adding the Any Race Any Alliance upgrade without changing the game (and later, Cadwell's Silver/Gold, followed by One Tamriel, nothing having changed with either one)

I realize there probably isn't much money in it, but they should really overhaul the base game.

Then there's the character interactions themselves. The way the recent Chapters/DLC work, you can do them in any order in spite of having characters that show up elsewhere. For the most part, they seem to react to you having met them before, even if there are some issues with it (Orsinium characters will act as if you were with them in all encounters if you've only ever done one). This is probably a good counterpoint to my desire for continuity. There's a good chance that there will not be many meaningful changes between the dlc/chapters for recurring characters in the future, because if someone, say, died in a new DLC, how would they account for that if you didn't meet them in previous appearances? They don't seem to be willing to pretend like it hasn't happened yet in newer content, and they're not willing to lock the story into a certain linear path, so what we'll get is short, low-stakes cameos, and meaningful but one-shot characters that'll be forgotten by the next storyline.

There is some promise, though, even if the "timeline" is a bit disjointed. Naryu Virian's "story" seems to be progressing since the Gold Coast DLC, which is good in spite of me really hating the Sweetroll Killer quest because of the way the character interactions were written. Then there's (AVOIDING SPOILERS HERE) the promise of a plot thread left dangling SINCE THE GODDAMN BASE GAME IN SPITE OF ALL THE TEASING that'll finally be brought back up again in Summerset.

If they go the route they've been on, then I doubt there will be any meaningful payoff, especially for one particular character. There's the implication that Summerset will be a turning point in the story, so maybe I'm wrong. I hope i'm wrong.