Well, we read an Elder Scroll and visit Sovngarde, for two. It's not really a failure of the worldbuilding if the average player doesn't realize how cool those two things are.
It is a failure of worldbuilding and of storytelling (by which I partially mean how the worldbuilding is conveyed to the player) if they don't make it cool enough on its own merits for players to realize it without having doing unassigned homework first.
For example (and this is from Oblivion, so I'm undercutting my own point somewhat), stealing the Elder Scroll in Oblivion was cool whether or not you knew what it was because they made it cool. You spent basically half of the questline building up preparations, all of which then pay off one-by-one. People who know the lore know how important the Elder Scroll is from the lore, but "regular" players also have at least a sense of how momentous this is.
And then the player is confronted with what felt like 10 minutes of unskippable dialog from the Grey Fox, the actual protagonist of the questline. So I'm not saying that was perfect or anything.
You're not going to hear me say that Skyrim's storytelling is better than Oblivion's, especially not regarding Oblivion's sidequests. They did really good work with those. But the Elder Scroll in Skyrim is also built up, not in exactly the same way.
Lol don't get me started on the writing in Skyrim's Thieves Guild questline or we'll be here all night (actually, Shamus Young already did a 5-part deep dive into why it was so bad, so I don't have to). Out of Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, Oblivion is the one I have the hardest time revisiting, but it definitely had some good stuff going on in its quest writing. I was going to say "especially compared to Skyrim", but honestly, that wasn't Morrowind's strength either, not in the way Oblivion did it.
Yeah, the Thieves' Guild and College of Winterhold questlines are my favorite examples of writing disasters in video games quests. Just absolutely atrocious in every way. Thieves' Guild is worse than the College though.
I also like The Companions questline because it somehow doesn't even feel like a questline? Say what you want about the Thieves Guild, as bad as it is (and I do think it's the worst written of the major questlines) at least it feels like a narrative. I always forget the Companions exist.
Well, we read an Elder Scroll and visit Sovngarde, for two. It's not really a failure of the worldbuilding if the average player doesn't realize how cool those two things are.
It is a failure of worldbuilding and of storytelling (by which I partially mean how the worldbuilding is conveyed to the player) if they don't make it cool enough on its own merits for players to realize it without having doing unassigned homework first.
For example (and this is from Oblivion, so I'm undercutting my own point somewhat), stealing the Elder Scroll in Oblivion was cool whether or not you knew what it was because they made it cool. You spent basically half of the questline building up preparations, all of which then pay off one-by-one. People who know the lore know how important the Elder Scroll is from the lore, but "regular" players also have at least a sense of how momentous this is.
And then the player is confronted with what felt like 10 minutes of unskippable dialog from the Grey Fox, the actual protagonist of the questline. So I'm not saying that was perfect or anything.
You're not going to hear me say that Skyrim's storytelling is better than Oblivion's, especially not regarding Oblivion's sidequests. They did really good work with those. But the Elder Scroll in Skyrim is also built up, not in exactly the same way.
Lol don't get me started on the writing in Skyrim's Thieves Guild questline or we'll be here all night (actually, Shamus Young already did a 5-part deep dive into why it was so bad, so I don't have to). Out of Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, Oblivion is the one I have the hardest time revisiting, but it definitely had some good stuff going on in its quest writing. I was going to say "especially compared to Skyrim", but honestly, that wasn't Morrowind's strength either, not in the way Oblivion did it.
Yeah, the Thieves' Guild and College of Winterhold questlines are my favorite examples of writing disasters in video games quests. Just absolutely atrocious in every way. Thieves' Guild is worse than the College though.
I also like The Companions questline because it somehow doesn't even feel like a questline? Say what you want about the Thieves Guild, as bad as it is (and I do think it's the worst written of the major questlines) at least it feels like a narrative. I always forget the Companions exist.