Zepla's Dawntrail MSQ Analysis

[Reimmi]

Her analysis is mostly about her rents being due

Forums when content creator is positive: <3
Forums when content creator have wrong think: >: (

[Thaciscokidd]

She's voicing complaints about the story that others(NA/EU/JP/2ch/4ch/reddit/etc) have been consistent in saying. Her being a streamer doesn't make her opinions more valid than anyone else's, just louder.

[LinaAkayomi]

She's voicing complaints about the story that others(NA/EU/JP/2ch/4ch/reddit/etc) have been consistent in saying. Her being a streamer doesn't make her opinions more valid than anyone else's, just louder.

This is true, and you are correct. However, she acts more like a megaphone than a novel, new set of complaints. She's simply grabbing all the complaints and making a video with them (or at least the ones she agrees with, I guess)
This isn't necessarily something bad.

Also Hrothgar and Viera hats WHEN
WHEN????

[hydralus]

It also just seems like a review about the main story? That thing's already been done. It can't be changed. They messed up and now it's done, and it's a little naive to think that any sort of 1 hour breakdown will fix... anything.

[Eyrilona]

It also just seems like a review about the main story? That thing's already been done. It can't be changed. They messed up and now it's done, and it's a little naive to think that any sort of 1 hour breakdown will fix... anything.

It isn't feedback to go back in and fix what they messed up in 7.0, it is feedback to tell them why people didn't like 7.0 the way the devs thought they would, and what they need to do better, before they get 8.0 locked on for another mess as well.

[hydralus]

It isn't feedback to go back in and fix what they messed up in 7.0, it is feedback to tell them why people didn't like 7.0 the way the devs thought they would, and what they need to do better, before they get 8.0 locked on for another mess as well.

But it's all story related, yeah? They're not talking about the other bits of content that actually make it a videogame, it's about the story. It reminds me of Red Letter Media and how they trashed the Prequel Star Wars movies and a lot of their points were very well made. Flash forward to the sequels and a lot of those prior issues were gone, but now it's just a different flavor of bad. Yeah it's easy to point out when something doesn't work but unless you're in the writer's room (which there will be several people involved, of course), just how much will really be accomplished? Even good writers who have a history of being able to connect with their audience will write slop every so often.

[JimCasey_RF6]

What took her so long to make that video? The Dawntrail MSQ discourse has already came and went. Ohh that's right she plays WoW now, instead.

But it's at least a constructive analysis of things rather than the vague statements made by everyone else.

Wow Jeeq, I didn't realize you had such a crush on Zepla that you make completely inaccurate remarks such as this. To correct you, there were plenty of players who detailed exactly why Dawntrail flopped on the official forums and other places like reddit. For you to not acknowledge that knowing how much time you spend on the official forums is a bit telling.

[AlucaDragonheart]

Ohh that's right she plays WoW now, instead.

It's pretty concerning when one of the biggest cheerleaders for this game just couldn't take it anymore and had to jump over to the "rival" game instead.

[ReynTime]

A lot of players in this forum and the subreddits made detailed explanations of what they thought was wrong about Dawntrail. They weren't "vague" at all.

[TemporalFruitsAndVeggies]

I'm listening, and will be listening for awhile yet, but I'm not hopeful for any deep insights here. It's mostly surface-level complaints without an attempt at a deeper understanding as to why she doesn't like the things she doesn't like. That's no shade at Zepla, for what it's worth; that's the same level of analysis most people give.

I think there's a crucial lack of understanding of the functions characters serve in Dawntrail. Erenville, for example, is written as your travel buddy and tour guide, but his literary function that of the omniscient narrator for the first half of the story: he gives you, the player, context about the continent and its peoples that you need, but have no way of knowing (without the story being 80 hours long, at least). His mother, Cahciua, serves the same literary function for the second half of the story. It's a great parallel! Sadly, the second half of the story was too rushed, so Cahciua often feels like she's going beyond gap-filling narration to simply spewing out constant lore dumps, which weakens her effectiveness. But Zepla doesn't really touch on anything like that. She's just like "I liked Erenville's mom because of this one line she had in Living Memory." ...okay, great.

The most interesting thing that she's touched on so far was the "speak with three farmers" quest in Heritage Found, noting that it was extremely boring to do when she was in this crazy new zone and her head was filled with questions. I think it's a brilliant underpinning of Dawntrail's main problem. It's hard to explain why succinctly, but the long and short of it is that, in the past, and especially in HW and ShB, the game has been good at having the main characters lead the Player Character to discoveries or along courses of action that you, the human player, want to make or take. When you, the human, are thinking, "I want to do X," and Alphinaud or Y'shtola or G'raha or whoever are like, "We need to do X, come along, Player Character," you think, "YES! WE DO NEED TO DO X!" and it feels great.

Dawntrail is the furthest from that the game has ever been, and "speak with three farmers" is just the perfect example of that. You, the human player, are thinking, "we need to learn more about these devices and what's going on with the passage of time here," but then Sphene says, "We need to learn how crops are watered here." You're thinking "NO! WE DO NOT NEED TO DO THAT!" But the Player Character has no agency; they're just the output of a video game character creator to which the video game's main camera has been affixed. So you must go learn how crops are watered. And it feels like crap. And there is a LOT of that in Dawntrail.

Edit: credit to Zepla, she does, shortly after the hour mark, mention this lack of freedom/agency as a player in the face of actions you're forced to take but don't want to as a major issue. Kudos to her for that.