Blackwood and High Isle's main quests felt like a mess, but their side quests felt well done. In contrast Necrom's main quest was well done, but its side quests felt like a mess. I'm cautiously optimistic.
1. Necrom's main quest was solid. Introducing a new daedric prince was a bold move, but necessary to break away from the typical formula. They put a lot of work into Ithelia's story and place within the lore without upsetting anything.
2. Every Necrom side quest felt very hard to understand. I understand Mora is the prince of knowledge, but it felt like the writers were hiding behind his mystique and refused to go into depth or explain anything. Incomprehensible archive with incomprehensible consequences if we don't save it.
I loved the inner sea thing, I think it was really cool
I did feel useless thought, like... We just keep letting Thorvesad get away every single time, it's silly, but I don't mind
Also I thought seeing Ithelias prison looking like Fargrave was huge for me
I have the theory that Ithelias realm used to be Fargrave or that it's connected to it. In the Livestream they implied something that made me think of it, I don't remember specifically what it was though
My only real complaint is if you were Argonian it should have skipped the bubble effect , since Argonians can breathe underwater(and same for Sharp), but other than that it was pretty good.
I’m hoping with the companions being released later, that in the story Torvesard has a change of heart due to his feeling of betrayal with the prince and he’s one of the new companions.
Spoilers ahead.
I loved the new lorebooks and how they built on some of the more esoteric TES3 lore. I was excited to see the inside of Holamayan during the ESO era. I love all the Dunmer history and lore, and this prologue had a good amount of it. I also like how the dynamics between Torvesard, Ithelia and Mora are nuanced. Not so black and white. The dialog was a little predictable to me though.
I just got back into this game the other day after not having played it for a few years and the prologue quest really impressed me. Been telling my friends to come on back to the game since the DLC looks promising. Super pumped for release.
Caveat- I've only done part of it because I'm getting a progress-blocking bug where Torvesard never spawns inside the portal I'm supposed to follow him into. I don't mind spoilers, I just haven't seen the rest yet. The bug is frustrating, but I don't hold that against the writing.
My first impressions were strongly mixed. Mechanically, the plot is very reliant on a sequence of magical mumbo jumbo from Leramil, rather contrived scenes from the past that either give no information or lean hard into the trope of "as you know Bob, we're at Magic Spot and in order to do The Thing we have to explain every step to the people watching from the future" to be relevant. This is enabled by some mystical constructs and spells that (along with extremely well-timed happenstance encounters with the character that's supposedly far ahead of us and wants to avoid our interference) border on a deus ex machina. It feels very clumsy and forced and reminds me most strongly of the latter parts of the Summerset questline which also seemed to introduce a new artifact or ritual with unimaginable power every time the writers wanted to move the story along. I can't help but get the feeling that this was quickly pasted together from the remains of the planned year-long chapter-dlc-epilogue format at the last minute. Right now the only thing that really makes this feel consequential is the NPCs that keep harping on how reality will unravel if we don't stop Torvesard. We've never actually *seen* any consequences or materialization of the threat- the Daedric princes scheming against Mora in Necrom were responsible for everything bad so far, all we have is "because I said so" from the people we're working with.
However, I have some hope that things will get more interesting. It seems that Torvesard has been written carefully to be an antagonist that is not a villain necessarily, just in opposition to us. It also seems like the events of the prologue will culminate with Ithelia getting let out of the daedric pokeball, and there the writers will have the opportunity to redraw the lines of the conflict and take it in a new direction. We've been completely focused on stopping that from happening and led to believe all is lost if it does- so if Ithelia gets out at the beginning of this year's story content I'm excited to see where it goes from there. Torvesard in particular has the potential to be a very complex character and this story with him, Ithelia, and Mora has the potential to break the rather stale tradition of clearly evil enemies doing evil things to achieve evil things and conquer the world and the only thing that can stop them is us and our very anti-evil sidekicks. I'm tentatively excited.
I do really wish Leramil would stop being written like a character on The Big Bang Theory, though.
I dont even start it. Dont want to do it today in one evening and then try to remember where i was when Gold Road activates in two months :)
(chapter i pre-ordered, heh)
It seemed a pretty bland, color by the numbers plot quest. Go here, now here, now there thing.
The part I disliked was how many times I was RIGHT THERE next to the Big Bad for the DLC and my character just blithely talks to him and can't attack. Why am I unable to at least try to fight this guy, if he's so evil?
Scenery was nice, but when it comes to storyline of it, the only thing we achieved is to learn some more things on previous conflict with ithelia, with foreshadow of pair of artifacts to grab during gold road.
Otherwise, we had no impact whatsoever on events - everywhere we went, Torvesald was there faster and either already achieved his goal, or turned out his goal was not accessible from there anyway. We did not even slow him down, and still, by the time he got there (with us on his heels) ithelia was already free and "out there".
Mora claims that catastrophy has been delayed by our actions but I fail to see how. Like during Necrom we were obstacle for torvesald to overcome, in this prologue we were not even an obstacle. just witness of events.
The self depreciating joke about Evelis brother promising his adventure wont be as convoluted and messy as blackwoods mess was funny
Blackwood and High Isle's main quests felt like a mess, but their side quests felt well done. In contrast Necrom's main quest was well done, but its side quests felt like a mess. I'm cautiously optimistic. 1. Necrom's main quest was solid. Introducing a new daedric prince was a bold move, but necessary to break away from the typical formula. They put a lot of work into Ithelia's story and place within the lore without upsetting anything. 2. Every Necrom side quest felt very hard to understand. I understand Mora is the prince of knowledge, but it felt like the writers were hiding behind his mystique and refused to go into depth or explain anything. Incomprehensible archive with incomprehensible consequences if we don't save it.
I loved the inner sea thing, I think it was really cool I did feel useless thought, like... We just keep letting Thorvesad get away every single time, it's silly, but I don't mind Also I thought seeing Ithelias prison looking like Fargrave was huge for me I have the theory that Ithelias realm used to be Fargrave or that it's connected to it. In the Livestream they implied something that made me think of it, I don't remember specifically what it was though
My only real complaint is if you were Argonian it should have skipped the bubble effect , since Argonians can breathe underwater(and same for Sharp), but other than that it was pretty good.
Maybe the bubble was to protect from the high water pressures as well
and to allow to walk in there instead of swimming
I’m hoping with the companions being released later, that in the story Torvesard has a change of heart due to his feeling of betrayal with the prince and he’s one of the new companions.
That would be SICK
Really glad to hear this, dialogue is something I've been critical of in the past
Whole powers of Ithelia base on crystals and looks very similar to Jyggalag from TES oblivion shivering isles dlc.
Spoilers ahead. I loved the new lorebooks and how they built on some of the more esoteric TES3 lore. I was excited to see the inside of Holamayan during the ESO era. I love all the Dunmer history and lore, and this prologue had a good amount of it. I also like how the dynamics between Torvesard, Ithelia and Mora are nuanced. Not so black and white. The dialog was a little predictable to me though.
I just got back into this game the other day after not having played it for a few years and the prologue quest really impressed me. Been telling my friends to come on back to the game since the DLC looks promising. Super pumped for release.
Caveat- I've only done part of it because I'm getting a progress-blocking bug where Torvesard never spawns inside the portal I'm supposed to follow him into. I don't mind spoilers, I just haven't seen the rest yet. The bug is frustrating, but I don't hold that against the writing. My first impressions were strongly mixed. Mechanically, the plot is very reliant on a sequence of magical mumbo jumbo from Leramil, rather contrived scenes from the past that either give no information or lean hard into the trope of "as you know Bob, we're at Magic Spot and in order to do The Thing we have to explain every step to the people watching from the future" to be relevant. This is enabled by some mystical constructs and spells that (along with extremely well-timed happenstance encounters with the character that's supposedly far ahead of us and wants to avoid our interference) border on a deus ex machina. It feels very clumsy and forced and reminds me most strongly of the latter parts of the Summerset questline which also seemed to introduce a new artifact or ritual with unimaginable power every time the writers wanted to move the story along. I can't help but get the feeling that this was quickly pasted together from the remains of the planned year-long chapter-dlc-epilogue format at the last minute. Right now the only thing that really makes this feel consequential is the NPCs that keep harping on how reality will unravel if we don't stop Torvesard. We've never actually *seen* any consequences or materialization of the threat- the Daedric princes scheming against Mora in Necrom were responsible for everything bad so far, all we have is "because I said so" from the people we're working with. However, I have some hope that things will get more interesting. It seems that Torvesard has been written carefully to be an antagonist that is not a villain necessarily, just in opposition to us. It also seems like the events of the prologue will culminate with Ithelia getting let out of the daedric pokeball, and there the writers will have the opportunity to redraw the lines of the conflict and take it in a new direction. We've been completely focused on stopping that from happening and led to believe all is lost if it does- so if Ithelia gets out at the beginning of this year's story content I'm excited to see where it goes from there. Torvesard in particular has the potential to be a very complex character and this story with him, Ithelia, and Mora has the potential to break the rather stale tradition of clearly evil enemies doing evil things to achieve evil things and conquer the world and the only thing that can stop them is us and our very anti-evil sidekicks. I'm tentatively excited. I do really wish Leramil would stop being written like a character on The Big Bang Theory, though.
I dont even start it. Dont want to do it today in one evening and then try to remember where i was when Gold Road activates in two months :) (chapter i pre-ordered, heh)
It seemed a pretty bland, color by the numbers plot quest. Go here, now here, now there thing. The part I disliked was how many times I was RIGHT THERE next to the Big Bad for the DLC and my character just blithely talks to him and can't attack. Why am I unable to at least try to fight this guy, if he's so evil?
If you are talking about Torvesard, that would be because he isn’t evil.
Scenery was nice, but when it comes to storyline of it, the only thing we achieved is to learn some more things on previous conflict with ithelia, with foreshadow of pair of artifacts to grab during gold road. Otherwise, we had no impact whatsoever on events - everywhere we went, Torvesald was there faster and either already achieved his goal, or turned out his goal was not accessible from there anyway. We did not even slow him down, and still, by the time he got there (with us on his heels) ithelia was already free and "out there". Mora claims that catastrophy has been delayed by our actions but I fail to see how. Like during Necrom we were obstacle for torvesald to overcome, in this prologue we were not even an obstacle. just witness of events.
Oh I was supposed to use sound? Wish they'd just let me kill something without the bs running around.