I Owe an Apology | Bethesda Softworks | Zenimax Online Studios | The Elder Scrolls Online
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ต.ค. 2024
- I've actually said this several times on Live-Streams before, so this is NOTHING NEW to my regular viewers; said and done already. But I figured I'd compile it into one of my more normal videos for a broader reach. It is still a normal video talking about how my view of Elder Scrolls Online has changed since the last time I talked about it years ago.
When the Elder Scrolls Online came out, the marketing materials went pretty hard declaring the official Loremaster, who functionally was 2/3 Lead Writer and 1/3 Community Actor or Manager. The general, internet-wide assumption was "The lore is going to be consistent because they have a Loremaster. This was incorrect and it lead me to say things that I've regretted saying since I learned about how they actually design their game. I figured with people pushing me to apologize to Emil Pagliarulo something I currently (subject to change perhaps, free will and all that) have no intention of doing, I should make an apology in my style, which is overly, excessively informative, and a clickbait thumbnail because at the end of the day, video making exists to entertain me more than anything else.
So, with that out of the way, Let's talk about Elder Scrolls Online and Lawrence Schick, a mountain of a man who deserves my apology twice among a lot of discussion about how I view ESO. I like ESO, but it won't ever be my "Live Service Game". As with all things I like, I'm more critical of it than things I don't like, which I ignore. This is my normal though process and it is contrary to how the average "fan" think about things. To them this kind of discourse would be akin to poison.
![5 Things I hate about Skyrim [Nitpick Land]](/img/n.gif)
Schick's Website: swashbucklingadventure.net/lawrence-schick/
Links for TES3MP (Morrowind Multiplayer): steamcommunity.com/groups/mwmulti
Receipts for Sedya Neen in ESO: twitter.com/zaric/status/1765754122299416691
I like to imagine Emil excitedly clicking on this video after seeing the title, only to be immediately disappointed.
Ngl he's probably salty people think Starfield sucks and will forever tarnish his rep😊
the only clickbait on this site that's valid tbh
Emil is too Boomer to watch TH-cam. At best he just watches cable TV on repeat lol
The concept random game developers center their self-esteem around youtube commentators' videos is absurd. Maybe Emil would, some developers are sour and hypersensitive to criticism of their work from internet strangers, but it's so silly that it's ever the case.
If he does, hello Emile, your game sucks
will Todd ever learn and actually hire writers? why won't he make rouguelikes, if he only cares about the murder-gameplay-loop?
Todd is not the owner of Bethestda.
Todd won’t learn until the backlash really hurts and they can’t dismiss it for “haters” who don’t get their genius design choices. Beth has long been stagnant, with people feeding into their laziness.
People keep buying, pre ordering and showering them with money. Why would they ?
Suicide Squad had writers. Just hiring writers isn't a solution.
@@SecretSquaffmanagement is the issue
Lawrence Schick redemption arc
Yeah. I had no clue he was part of BG3, let alone the role of principal narrative.
still not buying eso, lol
Good on you for being the bigger, probably biggest, man in this situation.
For sure. Appreciate someone that is willing to admit a mistake etc.
It takes a big man to admit his mistake and you are that big man
large indeed
@@eliascorrea8573 huge, even.
I remember you talking about Laurence Schick before so I'll talk about that Todd fragment(which is 15 yrs old) for a second as it shows that the problem isnt really Emil, its a company problem that Emil evolved into. They made writing a low priority long before Emil was lead-anything. Its unlikely that removing him will actually bring any change and thats quite sad.
A lot of people out there want Emil fired, I do not. Emil is a good level designer and I respect his talent for that. I want him replaced and shifted to what he's good at.
@@Zhakaron unfortunately, assigning him to “what he’s good at” would probably mean a demotion for him.
@@ilcorvo9559 Failing upwards! Modern corporate structure :)
@@ilcorvo9559 That's the hallmark of good leadership though. Otherwise you get the "Peter principle."
@@karlnord1429 oh yeah I get that, I’m just saying I doubt he will agree. The difficulty he now may have is that the good grace bought by Skyrim is probably finally wearing out.
Been out of the Zaric Zhakaron corner of the internet for a while now. Never thought I'd see the day Zaric apologized to Lawrence Schick. What interesting times we live in.
I’ve watched your channel on/off over the past 5-6 years. And man, you look great. Jawline looking stronger than ever.
Giga Chad Zaric is in full force
What he "needs" now is a long hair arc hahaha.
I just started counting calories again and am losing weight now, Zarich looks awesome, inspiring me on my weight loss journey also!
Mewing.
@@glumbumble meowing
Didn't know Schick was involved with BG3 and a pretty big role too.
One thing I definitely felt was BG3 was a big step up in terms of writing from the DOS games especially tonally for me. I never felt that disconnect where in the DOS games the tone would seesaw between grim dark and Monty Pythonesque humor in BG3 it was much more consistent in that regard.
The entire Divinity series has that sort of approach, all the way back to Divine Divinity. Lots of jokes and oddball humor. I love it, personally, and I don't think it so much swings wildly as adds a really nice human touch despite the serious tone, but it's certainly not going to be everyone's cup of tea. Particularly the specific varieties of humor.
The sad and funny thing is, that the problems Bethesda has right now could be easily fixed. Restructure management so that there is decent communication between teams, establish a central design document, hire writers and move Emil into a lead quest designer role. It's not rocket science.
Emil Pagliarulo would not be a good lead quest designer as likes linear quests and hand holding in quests which are opposite of what should be in Bethesda games/RPGs
@@teamacio9043 he certainly is a decent quest designer. Above average for sure. Look at what he did with the dark brotherhood in oblivion. Sure it's overrated but still good. What he sucks at is actually writing and adhering to lore. As long as he has someone above him who reigns him in, then it should be good. It was his old job he was promoted out of after all.
@@ag8912 He made 1 good questline in 2006 game. How many bad quests or design decisions did he make since then. He was a lead designer of Fallout 3 and decided that dialog choices would not matter in main quest or that every quest should have at most 4 options/outcomes/choices because it was hard to have more. He supported voiced protagonist in Fallout 4 and Starfield. He supports linear quests. All of those things are detrimental to Bethesda formula in which you are supposed to have freedom to choose and do whatever you want
@@teamacio9043 which is why he should be lead QUEST designer and not lead designer or writer. His expertise is level design. Anything more global than that he obviously sucks at. But that's what got him the (unjustified) promotion in the first place. Have a strong lead designer/writer that keeps him in check or that he reports to and it should all be good.
thanks for the video zaric. you've always been the best elder scrolls content creator on youtube in my humble opinion.
No way! I'll accept most unique, but I don't put in the amount of effort to be the best, nor do I have any desire to do that. Thank you for the compliment by the way!
@@ZhakaronHe's right though, always spot on content!
I feel the same way about David "Zeb" Cook, the creator of Planescape, and a head writer of the 2.5 AD&D books that ALSO worked on ESO as a creative lead. The man practically helped found the RPG genre, and helped build the foundation of modern gaming as we understand it, literally. He's a consummate professional, and I can't understand how Bethesda is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by hiring the literal founders of their industry.
I wonder if anyone at this company understands the importance of documenting their notes or discussions in a fasion that everyone could access so that stupid mistakes like this dont happen...
I mean they had learned their mistakes in one way or another in Fallout.
@@killertruth186 I mean the show is a complete mess too. It's supposed to be cannon but if that's the case fallout 4 would be impossible to beat with all the bulletproof ghouls walking around.
@@killertruth186 also if anyone was actually reading the documentation, they would have realized that their explanation of what happened to the NCR is completely incompatible with any ending to new Vegas except maybe the divide ending where you nuke the NCR *technically*
Lawrence Schick's Writing for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was pretty good.
That's one game I recommend to everyone.
It's a decent game, especially if you're into the Elder Scrolls.
It's a shame it didn't get more recognition.
I'd like to know who did the writing for Markarth cause I do really appreciate them making the Reachmen a fully fleshed out culture
As someone who started playing ESO recently with ESO plus, as I play every DLC I now understand everything you’re saying lol. Orsinium really was the best in terms of writing.
Orsinium, Clockwork City, Murkmire, were great. Elsweyr and Fargrave didn't have fantastic writing, but the settings are really cool and well done. Everything else is either meh or bad
Fargrave got done dirty. It could have been the launchpad for several DLCs into Daedric realms, not just one. It's a victim of their rigid waltz release cycle.
@@DMIwriterloved Murkmire!
@@DMIwriter I feel like clockwork city COULD have been great. It was a good 19 hours of nostalgia and 1 hour of good dialogue. Good dialogue that was only in the beginning and end of the dlc.
It's a shame that I can't seem to enjoy most CRPG's for various gameplay reaosns, would love to experience Shick's writing.
While I would argue that gameplay is far more important than writing for most games, writing in RPG IP's such as Elder Scrolls can really affect how good the game is (if not outright make or break it). Writers and quest designers need to work together.
There's no argument, in an interactive medium game-play IS most important. But anyone who tells you that one MUST be sacrificed for the other has a major defect in their thinking. Not every game is for every person, and trying to create a game for everyone ensures you'll create a game for no one. Niches exist and are good.
@@Zhakaron I agree that sacrificing writing for good gameplay and vice versa is simply bad philosophy, but I do think that some games can still be really good even with bad writing.
Unfortunately, Elder Scrolls games aren't the type of games that can rely solely on good gameplay for obvious reasons.
I remember seing the Morrowind trailers for ESO.. and be yerning. But then I saw a demo were another player jumped about in flaming armor with a weird mount that did not fit the setting and be like "nope! The other players will ruin the experience"
You are absolutely correct about the Seyda Neen nostalgia bait. I have been digging through all kinds of Morrowind lore lately as I work on a mod I would like to play one day.
And if I am not mistaken, an actual representative has personally confirmed that the very reason why Seyda Neen is in the game is because it is "so iconic" that they didn't want to take it away from the players
Thank you, I've added the source to the pinned comment.
Yea, it just was too important to the experience and there playtesters responded better to that introduction .
I just wish eso didn't take up so much real estate
That's the curse of having a game almost entirely voice acted. I think it's worth it, however as a consequence I uninstall it periodically when I don't think I'm going to play it for a while.
In the install directory at least with the steam version their is audio for 3 languages. English and two others. You can delete the folder of whatever languages you don't need (each are about 12GB). So for example I deleted the other two and left "vo_en". Helps a bit at least, probably ~20ish GB's saved after you delete the two you don't use.
You sub count is absolutely exploding lol. I literally made a comment 2 days ago how you were 60k into the 70s super quick and now you're at almost 90k.
you really deserve it though. There has to be a lot of people like me who want good, lengthy history videos that is mostly unbiased and honest (not pandering).
I also appreciate the calm way you deliver without bombastic music and quick jumps/click bait tactics.
cheers from the US.
Dude ! I love your videos
fr!!!
BG3 is one of those games that you have to know will be an enjoyable ride you can save for when the time is right. Like a fine aged bottle of wine.
I've seen enough of chapter 1 to know it's fun if you enjoy Divinity Original Sin. That's all I really need to know beyond the random tidbits I've heard.
Anyone who adamantly says they don't follow the discourse while simultaneously acknowledging not only the discourse, but the *content* of that discourse, *is clearly following the discourse.* Reminds me of when Randy Pitchford pretended he didn't know who Jim Sterling was.
Perhaps so but I'm not going to assume he's a liar either. If he wanted to paint himself in a better light he could have said very different things in interviews. I think he's a doofus, but he's a genuine doofus.
Many such cases of talented man is in bad role, larger organization fails to recognize and properly utilize his talents. A shame that as the years go on and companies get bigger, this will remain the case.
I was genuinely surprised when you mentioned having mocked Schick during one of your recent livestreams! I was mostly unaware (somehow) of his contributions to ESO, but as a huge old school d&d fan, I considered the man legendary! I was like, what the hell Zaric? lol Deities and Demigods especially is an amazing book.
Yeah ZOS kind of left him holding the bag so to speak. Their marketing videos with him did him no favors.
Your intro alone has enthralled me once again; looking forward to this video 🤝
Thanks for this video, I didn’t know that he was involved with BG3. Amazing!
Whatever happened to your "What if ESO was good" video? I loved the story you came up with in that one
First couldn't agree more about 11:07 (ESO's "chapters"). And wow, major Kudos to Lawrence Schick being the principal narrative designer on BG3! Great vid as always. I'm still curious what the unannounced MMO ZOS is working on is. All they have said is that it's a new "AAA" IP. They still have a page for it on their site. But this is all the info. Hopefully development goes better than it did with ESO.
"We've learned a lot bringing the world of The Elder Scrolls to life, and it's time for us to take those lessons and build a new AAA IP. The vision for our next game is grand in every sense of the word, and that's why we're developing a new engine to support the needs of the project and studio. Because we're in early pre-production, this is the perfect time to join us and make your mark on an incredible new project."
I barely tolerate cinematic trailers when we know the topic of the material, I often consider them invalid for not containing gameplay or not showing me the actual experience. Some vague new AAA IP, that may as well not exist to me. There are so many other games out there to spend your energy on then a nebulous void.
I would of loved to get an oblivion styled doco on Bethesda's recent games but I highly doubt we would get that in this day and age. It's almost impossible to get info on current projects due to NDA's and the threat of being blacklisted from the industry at large.
A lot of Oblivion era employees still haven't aged out of the industry, another 10 years or so and we should really start approaching them for interviews.
*me disappointed*: "nooo, emil redemption arc??"
*me when i realized* "YESSSSSSIRRRRR"
Good video man. Looking forward to you playing BG3 in the future!
He was a great writer in a bad position - good on you for making the video!
It takes to be a big man to admit wrong and apologizing. Bravo
6:00 what are your TES3MP settings? How do you manage to make the AI not beeline straight for the lowest armor target (and for them to not break if they are unable to get to their targets? Also, what are your difficulty settings? When I played with two other friends we steamrolled the game, but if I set the difficulty to max we would just get oneshot leading to a oneshot battle against npcs
Thankyou for this. As someone who dropped this game, I apparently was a sucker for only the worst parts (F2P, MW, SI, skilling) and I definitely jumped on the blame bandwagon
It's interesting, I always viewed your criticism of Schick as being about the fact that he is essentially the PR guy who "recontextualises" the massacre of Elder Scrolls lore. Not that he was bad a writing or didn't know what he was doing, just that he's providing cover for the guys who are actually bad at their job.
There is something lacking from this analysis, which forms the core of what the issue is with elder scrolls writing. History has proven that the stand you take as a base rationale Zaric, which is that a better oversight on the game by consistent writer(s) will inevitably lead to a better product, isnt necessarily right. You have sunk tens of thousands of hours in this franchise, so im sure you're intimately familiar with the discomfort it's always had in every title since 3D at the very least, which is to be very sheepish with its storytelling. Elder scrolls games are terrified to commit. It was true in morrowind, and it's true in ESO, and it was true for every title in between. Elder scrolls stories always lie in the snug bed of classic heroic fantasy themes, superposed with another, higher story it loves to hint at, rarely shows, never commits to, and is in a permanent back and forth with.
Of course you can read into this many things, like unorganized writers, or developers not willing to invest in the creative propositions of the writers, or writers not communicating, or managers being cowardly, or the writers themselves abusing of the overused trope of hinting at the mythos without actually writing the mythos to avoid allowing the criticism of the mythos. but none of this matters.
This is what has made the franchise strong as an RPG franchise. its really the only thing about TES that actually feels like an rpg. This uncommitment allows the player to make the commitments that beg to be made. Look to any morrowind wiki. You will see bold statements of fact about what the lore "objectively says", about "what happened in red mountain", etc, same for the eternal skyrim faction debates, so on and so forth.
You yourself go into it as well in this very clip: you have a very opinionated notion of "what azura would say or do" in the context of eso. "but its because of the long and storied history of azura's character in the elder scrolls!" you say. Is it though? azura is at best a D- character, bland as parchment, but the franchise has you feeling about her in a way you never would any equally characterized vague god in a fantasy story. Its really crazy, but the repeated, varied and uncommited representation of azura, sometimes as a vapid static "good" god, sometimes as a vapid and static "non machiavelian entity", stemming from the incoherent bunch of sheepish bethesda writers and devs, has built a monument that gives to you, and us all, an experience you cant find quite anywhere else. Do you think a more coherent universe could achieve this? Certainly not. A better characterization would inevitably make the character more certain, not less.
Elder scrolls games storytelling takes on the form of a strange, propagandized lense into a universe we as players feel genuine ownership of.
Im not saying this to force some positive attitude, and given the decline in quality of bethesda game studios, i expect TES6 to suck massive balls, and do not want to encourage that in any way, but this is a trait that deserve some attention, if anything. It's also reductive to consider most elder scrolls writing as a failure, since it would imply denying the massive fanbase that the later titles, filled to the brim with "bad" writing by your logic and standards, has accrued. Alternatively, it would be implying that the quality of the writing has no impact whatsoever on the success of the product, which is also evidently false.
Ultimately Bethesda is the company that gave us a fallout with a voiced protagonist with 4 dialogue choices. An MMO prequel with a focus on making altmer the "cool ones". An online fallout with no npcs. Who knows what their insane practices will produce next. It might even be fun.
Yes, i really did write all that to say "making the games better would be worse actually". I am very intelligent.
I've done my fair share of dunking on Lawrence Schick in the past as well before knowing about how ESO's development went. As for his work on Baldur's Gate 3 I think it's pretty good except for certain parts in Act 3 where I feel said parts were forced by WoTC.
Everyone but the most devout of BG3 fans tells me Act 3 is rough. Both from a storytelling and technical standpoint.
Ugh what makes it worse is the worst parts that just about everyone hates were penned by one of the OG Bioware guys that worked on BG 1 and 2, James Ohlen, in supplementary material and Larian didn't use all of it. So who decided what did and didn't get used I have no idea.
I believe in the power of apologies.
I think that authorship attribution is a new phenomenon in history. Look at the greatest artworks in medieval churches, no one knows who made them.
I believe it is because the art is not about the idiosyncrasies of the artist, but rather about the end result and how that end result participates in the larger context and tradition.
The Mona Lisa is mid. We really care about the artist in many circumstances. For a direct video game example the sigil and sigil 2 campaigns by John Romero aren't that high quality compared to custom campaigns made by the community, we only care about them because they're John Ramiro made.
We have the ability to catalog for future Generations each person's contribution and understand how that contributed to the greater work, it's an amazing gift to leave the history not only the whole of the work, but the knowledge of how each piece was rendered and by whom.
Documenting these is especially important within the context of a live service that will vanish in the event it isn't popular enough to get emulated servers.
We're in the information age now the only thing that's holding us back are oppressive non-disclosure agreements. The more of those we pierce the better.
hiya zaric! just wanted to say i love your stuff, and may i make a request for a little video guide for setting up a tes3mp private server for friends to play on? most existing videos on the topic are outdated and the online guide isnt very detailed, me n my bf cant figure it out.
ESO's Orsinium DLC is available for FREE with the current March log-in rewards.
The issue with login rewards is the way they are structured you basically have to play all month or you'll miss the good stuff. For a casual player who logs in once every few days, say on the weekends, they'll never earn them. Unless they changed how they work since I last played.
@@Zhakaron It's actually on the second day. You can get Orsinium from logging in a grand total of twice, perfect for a weekend.
Oh, that's rare, nice.
@@Zhakaronyea they are doing players a good solid this year for the anniversery , only thing later is the cool mount but also doing the MQ gives you a new mount too so incentivizes people to explore that story
Thank you for not buying into internet-beef with a contrarian British man.
Your videos are always delightful.
Elsweyr is decent as well, and house Ravenwatch in the base game.
I mentioned House Ravenwatch in the video, the Doomcrag is castlevania, lol.
I'm surprised to hear you say Greymoor was the worst DLC. I thought the High Isle was worse. I do agree that Murkmire was utterly fantastic though
You: "Fenorian thinks that the Harrow Storms created the Harrow Fiends and the Harrowed." (Actual line btw)
Titanborn: *Shocked Pikachu Face*
Jokes aside, I'll finish High aisle one of these days. Feels more bland than offensively bad. I did like The Druids though!
I enjoyed Greymoor a good bit. Whether it was the visuals, the voice acting or just the mood I was in… I liked it better than several of the other dlc and chapters. Murkmire my fav of all the dlc…. Elsweyr least fav. I just wish there was someway to make your choice in dialog have some consequences…. it’s really why I don’t play it as much these days.
@@Zhakaron Haha, fair point! I guess for me, Greymoor, while not good, was comically bad. It delivered a B-movie story. High Isle on the other hand was poorly written and uninteresting
I always appreciate someone who admits they are wrong and apologise. Even if Lawrence Schick doesn't hear it you have my respect and apprecition Zach.
Not to say that my apology doesn't matter, but I think the most important takeaway is to correct the record for anyone who saw one of my old videos or streams and didn't know the truth already.
you got me there with the thumbnail, ther title and my missing ability to read and understand! Ahem.
Yeah that was a little bit of a joke based on some of the TH-cam comments I had gotten on that other video. Sometimes self-righteous crazy people come at you, comedy is usually my response.
Have you finally managed to find some time to try out UO Outlands? :P
I'm so afraid of TES6 coming out in the far future... Such a mix bag of feelings. Before i was hopeful, then Starfield got me worried.
I really hope Bethesda will learn, and make the game we all wish for.
I mean, if you look at Lawrence's past work (as a DnD loremaster etc.), it makes less sense that a decrease in quality would be so stark. With Emil, the quality is consistent.
I'm so old I don't even like that ESO exists.
You are a big guy
Yes. 6'5 played basketball in school.
Zaric Zhakaron have you played morrowind in VR?
Friend of mine has, looked pretty cool. I don't have any VR gear because every time I've tried VR I've gotten migraines.
Zaric’s apology is “I was mean to the wrong person”, and if anyone isn’t happy with that, they better get used to it lol
I do think there's a reasonable limit to being "mean", usually just a touch of sarcasm beyond normal criticism. The thing is, to a huge fan, normal criticism is seen as the most toxic thing ever. At the end of the day all of this is subjective.
I do think the goal of it however is to hope that the ongoing work within the product gets better. Consistency is completely out the window, so all we can hope for now is that they are simultaneously creative and well written (within the context of the individual stories, not the whole of the series). But based on what feedback people have been giving me recently, good luck with that.
Trust Todd plan he's making the same conditions that made morrowind great
What? You still haven't played BG3? I assumed you've already had a thousand hours in it
th-cam.com/play/PL9qQ3PJcmlrdesz3YFC14mWUG43dzRdk5.html
Playing Baldurs Gate 1, Dragonspear, 2, and 2's expansion. Then, I'll play 3.
Act 3 needs some love, I'm going to give it a few patches by playing Baldurs Gate before I play Baldurs Gate before I play Baldurs Gate.
I would follow Zaric to the ends of this earth Godspeed.
all I can say is that I was very sad when Leamon Tuttle was moved from ESO
I thought he said he doesn't want to talk about this for the sake of healing or some bs...
Oh no, I don't recall saying I wasn't going to talk about Emil again ever. I'm just not going to be talking about other TH-camr drama. That's a spiral that goes nowhere and I REALLY DO wish that unnamed TH-camr a swift recovery.
Fine line perhaps but I'm okay being a hypocrite.
I don't think I'll ever do a deep dive on Emil again though. My last video is pretty conclusive, that said as I do adjacent topics I can't imagine him not ever coming up again.
MAN you will love BG3 ✍️
:43 I cant help but wonder how Starfields dialogue turned out the way it did after seeing this clip of Todd Howard. There was SOOO much unnecessary jabbering going on and on about absolutely nothing that it made me automatically go into a dialogue option wanting to spam the “shut up shut up shut up” button just to get to the point. And I’m usually not that way in RPGs, but I just couldn’t stand how the npcs in Starfield went on and on with no real point to the conversation.
Todd Howard himself doesn't micromanage these projects, he is more a producer, than a director if that makes sense. The real takeaway from that clip was the designers being the writers, as that's what translated into eso's philosophy.
But I think a lot of Starfield was an natural extension of Fallout 4. While Emil may famously, self-reportedly not to take criticism, the studio certainly does and the dialogue system is an attempt to correct Fallout 4 complaints. In doing so however we can see just how surface level it is. I liked it, however it's not good enough for a fan of crpgs. Baldur's Gate 3 really did come out at the worst time for star field to create a point of comparison.
Kurog being most relatable antagonist in ESO? You're downplaying him. More like most relatable antagonist in all of Elder Scrolls.
I have like, no faith in ESO's lore with this upcoming xpac. Oh the depiction of the zone looks fine... but ithelia just feels like a horrible idea, especially the leaked stuff about her being a Star Orphan... we don't need more Daedric PRINCES, make demiprinces n shit.
At this point they've gone so far off the lore reservation they should just do whatever they want be creative as they want it's all fanfiction now and there's actually virtue in that.
do you still have to port forward for tes3mp?
ESO ❤
Based and nuance-pilled.
You lost me when you called Orsinium "well-written."
If you're comparing anything in the Elder Scrolls Online to literature or even a game like Disco Elysium or Pentiment you're in the wrong headspace completely and you should run away fast.
The meaning of well-written changes within context and is not an absolute. Well-written within the bounds of Elder Scrolls Online is different from well-written within the works of genre fiction novels, and is further different from works that will truly stand the test of time. It's very possible you've entered a space that's a mockery of your sensibilities, I will continue to mock them.
@@ZhakaronCOPE
Good stuff, good video.
BG3 is a great example of overwritten, and over voice acted, and over motion captured.
Can never be overwritten
i'm pretty new here but surprised you haven't gone on the bg3 journey yet will be fun to see what you think.
Watch and learn, this is how you apologize. Not the "I'm sorry" free card.
State what you did wrong, to who, and strive to be better.
when one would think that writing is the cheapest and easiest part of development production-wise here comes bethesda actively derailing it.
I don't like summerset and murkmire dlc I think it's extremely boring but I do like wrothgar and Morrowind dlc
Your citations are from over 10 years ago. No matter what, you don't work there or have interviewed them. It's like the Emil thing being taken out of context and getting overly hated despite Todd being more responsible for shitty decisions factually
Don't worry about it Kris Takahashi was hired to be an NPC writer aka Quest Desinger. You can see him in the credits for Starfield. Massive respect to him btw wish he was given a larger role honestly.
There's no ambiguity the process had remained as described. In the case of ESO the lead dev confirmed it on a live stream more recently.
It's not for us to change either, just a tool to help us understand why things turn out the way they do.
Meanwhile that youtuber Blaze actually unironically apologizing to Emil like the doofus he is...
I'm not going to make fun of somebody for having a conscience. After all I actually feel bad about Shick.
@@Zhakaron Do you feel bad about Emil ?
No for various reasons in addition to what I said here. But if someone else feels bad, I'm not going to belittle them for doing that. Pity, perhaps. But that's something I wouldn't open my mouth to shame them over. I don't always have tact, unless I do.
@@Zhakaron You're right, despite them not making the overall situation any better, you're right about not going at it any further, though they did make it a public apology so it still is open for criticism.
good man
Bethesda's attitude towards worldbuilding and writing in general is just spiteful - as if they have a gun to their head that is forcing them to put it in their games. They should just double down on the exploration, combat, dungeon and town design if they can't be fluffed with continuity in their writing. If you're gonna drown the player with endless fetch quests and contract hits because lol videogame at least make the gameplay good.
I played all of ESO for the first time, front to back, in 2020-2021. I could not believe the huge leap in writing when I hit Orsinium and then the very obvious drop in quality release after release, culminating in Murkmire; one of the worst pieces of content I have ever experienced in my life. Every release after that was just meh, where all I could see was the potential that all these stories had but didnt execute on. High Isle was fucking trash, despite being my favorite looking zone. Necrom was trash. And now they are about to add my favorite region of Tamriel and are adding a whole new Prince who was forgotten and now needs to be forgotten again... Ugh..
I liked Murkmire a lot, with the exception of the ending of it's main quest which felt like they ran out of ideas.
Eso is great as single player experience story wise. Not a big fan of the combat style I have 2000 hours in eso and have done vet trials and dungeons and partook in the mmo aspect. Not a fan and the guilds are toxic asf. The 3 banners war is terrible writing and doesn’t fit the tes world the Dunmer and Argonians working together is the stupidest shit ever.
I only play now as tes 5.5 until tes 6 comes out.
It’s an ok game with flaws… but it will never even come close to the single player games.
NKB owes you an apology. Though I'll never know since I unsubbed since that trash video. Been a follower of that channel since before the pandemic.
This is something another YTr pointed out. BGS don't have design docs so the entire product is even more all over the place.
Respek
Todd Howard is a low T version of Michael Scott.
don't know why, but he really gives me George W. Bush vibes
this streamer looks like a Ventrue from VtMBL
Alright, suppose Bethesda takes you guys' criticism to heart. TES 6 comes out, and it's just walls of dialogue telling you ridiculously complex stories, with 100 branching outcomes for each quest.. But now the dialogue is unskippable.
This is what will happen if game devs ever decide to cater toward the tiny minority who want video games to be playable novels, or playable movies. Long contrived stories with Hollywood style "depth", and no way to get passed it. Excellent for replayability.
I get it totally rather than breathing air what if they just put you in water and tell you to breathe that instead. A completely reasonable question.
@@Zhakaron What if they make TES 6 but instead of a videogame it actually just gives you malware that bricks your computer and steals your banking information
Yeah bet you cant answer that can you, that's basically what your wanting rn
Dude... Play BG3 already! What the Hell is wrong with you?!
th-cam.com/play/PL9qQ3PJcmlrdesz3YFC14mWUG43dzRdk5.html
Playing Baldurs Gate 1, Dragonspear, 2, and 2's expansion. Then, I'll play 3.
Act 3 needs some love, I'm going to give it a few patches by playing Baldurs Gate before I play Baldurs Gate before I play Baldurs Gate.
Baldurs Gate 3 will for a long time going to be the best Dungeons and Dragons rpg game, and there is already some Elder Scrolls mods now.
@@ZhakaronZaric, will you try a BG3 playthrough with Elder Scrolls mods at some point. Either way, it has tons of replayability.
After BG3, I think I want to go back and replay BG1/2 on hardest difficulty or start a Neverwinter Nights run, since I've been wanting to replay that for years.
Bad work is bad work, they simply put in less effort, how it's constructed, the methods they used, it's irrelevant, it worked before and it stopped working now, quest designers being the writers is actually a good thing, story and gameplay should always be an intergrated process, dividing things will make the experience less fluid, like you're a "game journalist", you can tell this part is "writing", this part is "gameplay", this part is "art", it's never supposed to be like that, the gamers view games in this way is exactly the reason why in the future, we will only be playing with garbage(and give one of them a GOTY award), it will be up to us to make good games, now let me watch the rest of the video.
People act as if I'm bragging when I say I view things differently from normal people and that creates problems enjoying things for what they are. It's not as much of a blessing as you'd think, and you can't just explain how normal people think and have me adopt that point of view.
Its ironic how he doesn't like playing unfinished stuff...yet some of his goto's are MMOs; the epitome of chaptered/continued experiences, which only finish when they are dead.
I'll be inconsistently inconsistent. Some of my favorite series have dead authors and will never be finished.
This video was too long. Halfway through it, I got hungry so I left it playing and went to the kitchen to fix myself a sandwich. But then I found out that I'm out of mayonnaise so I went to a store. There, I saw the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my whole life. But I'm a really shy person so I took up a three-year personality development course so I could introduce myself. She was very friendly and all, but unfortunately, she had a boyfriend. So I said, all good, I'm a mature person. I wanted the best for her and I harbored no illusion that I am the best person for her and she seemed happy with her boyfriend, so I didn't bother her anymore. But we kept in touch and we became friends and I got over my crush on her. Then she broke up with her boyfriend, we drank some alcohol because of it. I told her she'll be fine and I wished her well. I still think she's the most beautiful woman in the world, but like I said, I am over my crush on her. It was like five years already since I first saw her. Besides, I am quite happy with the friendship I developed with her. It was more important than a crush. So we kept hanging out, drinking, having coffee, and all. I had a girlfriend, she started dating other guys. My girlfriend wanted to live some other life without me in it, so I said, "Okay, I want the best for you and I want you to pursue your happiness." My lady friend and I drank alcohol about it, and she gave me the same advice I gave her when she was in that position and I became okay with the breakup immediately. But we were really drunk, so she spent the night in my apartment. I only have one bed, so you know what that means: She took the bed and I slept on the couch. But on the couch, I really can't sleep. Something was bothering me. So I tossed and turned for about three hours, then I finally couldn''t take it anymore, I stood up and went straight to my room where she's sleeping. I approached the bed, gently sat on it and I reached for her shoulder to pull her closer to me. She stirred and woke up. She asked what's up. I told her, "you know, the first time I saw you, I was watching a video and left it playing to get myself a sandwich then went to the store to get some mayo then I got so distracted by life that I forgot to finish the video." She said, "You know what, I've been wondering about a weird noise in your night drawer." So we opened that drawer, and lo and behold, there's my phone and this video still has two minutes of play time on it.
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i dont know what youre talking about but if they are bethesda theyre no friend of mine
personally, ESO itself is heresy because the entire TES franchise is about the player essentially being a godlike being that shapes reality and has a major hand in world events, some people even argue that from Morrowind onward, the player's access to the console to enter commands is representative of the player achieving CHIM and demonstrating their innate godhood. When you put that setting into a MMO universe, every player can't be the reality bending god character, so now all you've done is made EverQuest with extra steps.
Crazy how awful ESO was on launch. I have played most of the expansion content since launch and the game still just feels like a missed opportunity, i wish it wasnt an MMO but just a coop game.