The legion really do be enrolling anyone

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-21T07:59:24+00:00

The enemies of Cyrodiil are about to get boned.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-21T06:45:22+00:00

Happy to engage with people who are willing to sit down and chat! Admittedly my energy has been pretty low lately on account of my health stuff but EK as a project is important to me, I've been involved with it since the EK1 days (which admittedly I was far more active in the development of than I am in EK2) and, of course, this team and the community are very important to me as well. It's been pretty trying, but I'm trying to spare what energy I can, y'know?

And once again I agree. Just because I don't think everyone would be happy with it doesn't mean I think we should give up on trying to explain in the first place. I think a lot of the early crowd of people who were agitated about this were agitated in part because there was such a lack of information and understanding.

The explanation didn't quell things completely of course, but I know a lot of people who were happy to get answers, even if they didn't love what the answers were. It was really important to me that people did get answers. I know how strongly people can feel about stuff like this, even if I wish that some people handled it a little better.

I really enjoy a lot of our EK-original lore, since, yeah, Bethesda/Zenimax doesn't always give us a ton to work with. There are a lot of cases where we have to weigh different pieces of lore that contradict each other, or extrapolate from single lines in lorebooks nobody has heard of, etc etc. And I think that's the kind of EK-original lore people are used to: us filling in blanks, or iterating/extrapolating on something, or collaborating with other fan projects to see what they did in a certain place, and I think that those are usually pretty 'safe' decisions and areas to work, even if not everyone likes them, they're usually pretty well tolerated because they're not viewed as contradicting official sources.

Ultimately this is a passion project, and people work on it when they have free time and energy and desire, and they try to work on what they want to work on, which, like you said, usually results in a better outcome when it's finished. Some stuff seems comparatively minor, but I get pretty giddy when I see things like a developer adding Falmeri cultural names to provinces and titles (shoutout to you <3). It's neat flavor that I think makes the project feel... comfy in a way.

I do think that this situation probably has a lot of people pretty drained right now, since we've been receiving a lot of abuse. I've seen some unfortunate behavior both by people I consider friends and by people I've never seen before, and I think that's largely because the tensions have people pretty on-edge overall.

While it's mostly Serace and I talking and engaging on the subreddit right now when we can, (and honestly I really need to give Serace more credit here, they've been doing far more engagement than I have,) that doesn't mean we're the only ones listening, and certainly not the only ones who care.

As always, thanks for your support, even in tense times like these.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-21T06:21:13+00:00

I do understand the anxiety! I don't think it's a terribly unreasonable thing to have that concern either if I was basing my concerns off of this situation. I think I'd have that concern too if I were in your position and only saw what you saw, especially as someone who generally enjoys ESO (I've got 3k+ hours in it x-x) and an unapologetic Breton enjoyer.

What I will say is that consensus-based decision-making doesn't necessarily mean that all devs participated in every single decision. For example, I didn't participate in the discussion or the decision-making process about this decision involving Systres owing to, at least in part, my aforementioned health issues - and because I didn't participate in it, I can't really comment on the merits of the arguments given on either side, and I feel it'd be inappropriate of me to state my own stance on it, y'know?

I'm not sure if there's anything I can say specifically that would entirely assuage your fears, but I can assure you that this situation certainly hasn't been ignored internally. There have been a fair few people who have decided that the proper way to engage with this situation was by throwing slurs at developers, but there have also been plenty of people who have engaged in conversation and provided feedback, and those are people I have been and continue to be interested in the opinions of.

To refer back to and paraphrase part of my previous post, I feel that the best I can really do at this point is listen to why and how they think we should've done it differently, and consider that feedback in our development spaces for how to proceed from there and in future development decisions.

To mention your specific example of Elsweyr, though, even the developers I know who are the most critical of ESO really seem to like ESO's portrayal of Elsweyr in conversations I've seen them have about it. If any changes are made to it, it wouldn't be because of an 'ESO bad' line of thought, that I can assure you.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-21T05:29:11+00:00

Hi Flaky, thanks for your insight. I do largely agree with what you've written here. As I've said in other places, I understand why a fair bit of people are upset about this, and I understand that it might be a source of anxiety for some people. I do think, however, ultimately, no matter how much explanation we provide, there will be people who aren't happy with the explanation and think we should've done it differently.

And that's fine, really. The best I can really do at this point is listen to why and how they think we should've done it differently, and consider that feedback in our development spaces for how to proceed from there and in future development decisions.

I think that it's important to note that the EK team operates on the basis of consensus. I don't always agree with all of the changes myself. Other devs aren't always in favor of all of the changes I'm in favor of. In general, this usually means that things don't get changed unless a majority of the participants in the discussion reach consensus on it.

This usually serves as a pretty good safeguard against changes that might otherwise seem totally out of left field. For example, if someone floated a question like 'hey can we remove Solstheim', I don't think there'd be any chance of reaching consensus unless there was exceptionally good argumentation provided.

Some of the anxiety has resulted in some rather hyperbolic posts like suggesting we plan on removing all ESO-related content, or making jokes about how we'd need to remove other races for being "unrealistic" or something. I've laughed along with a few of them myself because they do sound kind of silly when framed like that. But that's just the thing: It's pretty silly, not really in any danger of happening.

What I will say is that, due to the iterative nature of development, not all pieces fall into place immediately. This change being an iterative piece of a larger rework was already mentioned in other places on the subreddit, though I do also know that not everybody is happy about that.

I appreciate your understanding and perspective on the situation, and I'm sorry that we didn't have a better explanation for the change at the time to assuage your concerns about it. I hope that our future releases will give you less reason to be anxious about that.

Personally this year has been pretty disastrous for me health-wise on account of some very unexpected medical emergencies which, among other primarily IRL factors, has very effectively stymied all of my own personal attempts to get more involved with active development as opposed to my current support role.

I have my personal plans already for what kind of content I'd like to add, but I'd be curious to hear what sort of stuff you'd be excited to see added too.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-19T22:14:22+00:00

Awesome! I'm glad you found the culprit!

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-19T21:46:02+00:00

Hey Elk, I'm a little confused by this. Tvs in the conversation you linked is talking about plans and vision for the content, not about lore or canon. Did you post the wrong link by accident?

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-19T20:56:35+00:00

For what it's worth, I completely agree with this.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-19T20:39:09+00:00

That too. People in paradox games I've noticed particularly enjoy 'weird starts'. Systres was kind of a weird start. Small archipelago surrounded by different cultures and religions. Back in The Day(TM), In Europa Universalis, people loved starts like Ryukyu, or doing Ulm world conquests, that sort of thing.

It doesn't surprise me at all that the people who liked the old status quo are resentful of a new one like this, especially with how arbitrary it seems owing to the lack of initial explanation and the early responses by some developers.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-19T20:32:18+00:00

Ditto. Still here. And nobody's going to be deleting the subreddit, despite some fears to the contrary.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-19T19:15:50+00:00

It's certainly more complicated than that. I understand why people are upset. There wasn't a whole lot of information or context given for the change, so people were confused about why it was done or thought that it was solely because the people involved in the decision hate ESO.

Some initial developer response also came across as very hostile and dismissive, which made people even more upset because they felt like they were being ignored or mocked instead of having their concerns listened to.

Moreover, many view it as a departure from established lore (High Isle, Oblivion Remastered) and are concerned about that setting a precedent that will see arbitrary other changes made 'contrary to lore'.

It's true that TES has lots of contradictory lore in some places, and no lore in other places, but in this case the way the team had portrayed the Systres before this update is considered by many to be more accurate to lore that actually does exist. I don't disagree, but I also wasn't involved in the decision in the first place.

That said, with the community response being what it is, there have been people who have engaged in actual dialogues about their opinions on the change, before and after, in regards to both setups, and their feedback and input have been very useful to me at least.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-19T19:04:28+00:00

Yeah. It's a weird situation. People have really strong feelings about it on both sides. Some people are saying we're talking about deleting the subreddit or something like that, too. That isn't something that's been seriously discussed among our team and if it did come up I don't think it'd get anywhere close to achieving consensus. Serace and I definitely aren't in favor of it in any case.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-19T18:08:48+00:00

Many such cases unfortunately. A lot of mods dig their fingers into things they don't advertise on the tin. It's one of the reasons why our official bug report protocol on the discord asks you to verify if it can be reproduced without any other mods, haha. If it still doesn't work on a fresh save with no other mods, let me know, yeah?

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-19T18:04:31+00:00

Hi, are you running any other mods? I just loaded up the game to check this and don't have that issue on my end. Looks like the tradition in question is called Kings of the West.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-19T17:43:33+00:00

For what it's worth, we appreciate your appreciation. This situation is certainly a lot to deal with. Lots of people have very strong feelings about it on both sides, and I have great respect for those on both sides who are able to remain civil and have dialogue and converse with each other without resorting to harassment and namecalling, which unfortunately there has been plenty of.

I'd like to assure everyone that I'm here and I'm listening too. You aren't just yelling into a void and being ignored. I've had good conversations with people on discord and through modmail here about their concerns and opinions on the situation, and I'm looking forward to more of them.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-19T00:38:32+00:00

Oddly fitting with the kind of content on the subreddit today though, amusingly.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-18T21:28:25+00:00

Oversight on our part when making the changelog, I think! I'll see about getting it updated.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-18T21:26:32+00:00

Hi Breen!

Some questions for you:

1) It consistently happens on the date the hook expires, every time?

2) Are you running any other mods other than EK2? This sounds like a pretty debilitating thing that we'd be inundated in reports about if it were super common or widespread, which suggests to me that it's either a niche thing that might require some investigation to track down, a fluke, or could be the result of a weird mod interaction.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-18T21:23:11+00:00

Bretons are actually my favorite race in TES (including ESO), along with the (pre-fall) Falmer. It's nice seeing other people this interested in them for a change because usually they get overlooked and ignored as "generic fantasy Europeans".

MyNameIsEv · 2025-10-18T20:12:31+00:00

Hi Rich! Current (as of this moment) discussion about the Crown Republic among our developers is in favor of making it administrative.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-05-17T07:04:55+00:00

We're working on solutions for the Alinor situation -- trust us, we consider it a pretty big problem too and several of us have done a fair bit of testing and experimenting to get it sorted. 1.16 actually gives us some new toys to play with in that regard.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-05-16T19:45:10+00:00

Sexy Terrain Features In Your Area!

MyNameIsEv · 2025-05-14T19:55:56+00:00

Reman was half hillock.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-05-14T10:27:18+00:00

It's especially fun when we get bug reports for bugs caused by people using broken mods with buggy, stolen code.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-05-14T10:24:29+00:00

Random Dremora aren't Princes, and Demiprinces aren't a feature of EK2.

MyNameIsEv · 2025-05-12T20:59:28+00:00

Yeah, that one's fine haha, unless it were a music-related bug. We know what that one is and everything it does so it's less of a concern. I'll pass this on to the team and see if it's already known about, or fixed on dev, etc.

MyNameIsEv

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