Hmm, going through town I just watched two NPCs come out of the pub arguing. They got into a fight with one another, their weapons of choice, fists. Could this be a step closer to Zenimax eventually introducing the Fists weapon skill? Probably not, as I’ve seen other NPCs get into a fist fight, but one can dream.
I just picked up a quest from the Bounty Board in Gold Coast. I need to go kill the beast known as Ironfang, than steal the company ledgers. This quest is a World Boss quest, similar to the ones you’ve probably done countless times in Worthgar. This quest is going to have to go on the back burner, I have assassinations to attend to.
After wandering through Anvil for twenty minutes or so looking for the quests person who will start me on my path of murder, I gave up and went to an outlaw den to sell my stolen goods. Well, that makes sense, the quest giver for The Dark Brotherhood was in the Outlaw Den, for future reference, always check the den when looking for illegal things to do.
Now, I need to kill an innocent and get noticed, shouldn’t be too hard.
Done and done, off to the docks to speak to the person I spoke to at the Den. Oh, it’s happening. A courier with a letter has found me. Yup, that’s what I expected, nothing but a hand print. Getting a little excited, there is just something strange about being able to assassinate innocent people in Tamriel. Oh man, what has this game done to me? Oh well, off to the lighthouse.
After speaking to Speaker Terenus, who I might add sounds and looks like a badass, you’ll unlock the Dark Brotherhood skill tree. The passive skills are;
Blade of Woe – Call the weapon of the Dark Brotherhood to your hand and deliver a killing blow to an unsuspecting target. Experience from this target is reduced by 75%. This ability does not work on players or difficult targets
Scales Of Pitiless Justice – Bounty and Heat resulting from a witnessed Murder or Assault is reduced by 20% (4 Tier)
Padomaic Sprint – Grants Major Expedition, increasing your Movement Speed by 30% for 6 seconds after killing a Justice NPC. (4 Tier)
Shadowy Supplier – A contract from the Brotherhood provides beneficial items once per day.
Shadow Rider – Aggression radius from hostile monsters is decreased by 50% while mounted.
Spectral Assassin – 15% chance to shroud you when using the Blade of Woe, shielding you from being witnessed and receiving a bounty.
Firstly, I’m getting tired of passive abilities. I know creating active ones are a lot more difficult to balance and get to work properly, but passives are nothing exciting. A player can’t control a passive ability it just happens. Where is the fun in that?
What exactly is a “Justice NPC”? Is that any NPC since the guards can’t be killed?
Shadowy Supplier sounds interesting. I’m going to need to level that up and see exactly what type of items we can obtain from them.
Okay, now to my first murder.
These are my first encounters with loading windows for the new DLC and they are an improvement, but I am still getting some seriously long loading screens. Luckily this is PTS and it might be corrected for launch, fingers crossed.
I’ve always wondered why exactly ESO received a Mature rating by the ESRB. This DLC is the reason.
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The first mission went off without a hitch. Finding the target, by sneaking through his manor, was fun. As I continued the sneak the NPCs had a great interaction with one another allowing me to hear tidbits of information and pieces to the overall puzzle. This is a small feature but I really like it. It added a lot to the mission. Without the conversation happening in the background, it would have felt no different than sneaking through a house in any other part of Tamriel. Good Job Audio Team!
The target is marked with a Dark Brotherhood hand over their heads so it’s a bit easier to track them. I can only guess that as we progress the targets will become harder and harder to kill.
Whoever did the voice for the Black Door could easily get the voice of the house in a future Amityville Horror film, I half expected the door to say “Get Out!”
After completing the first assassination and handing it in, I received one skill point, Shrouded Armour and a Purple Unidentified Sithis’ Touch Weapon (random purple item).
Opening up the unidentified weapon it was a purple Dagger Champion 160. So it turns out that the loot does vary which is good because I was a little saddened by the Champion 100 weapon I received.
Shrouded Armour is a costume that gets added to your collection. It looks good but it’s nothing spectacular. Looks very similar to the Thieves Guild leather costume. If we could somehow obtain the look of Speaker Terenus that would be my look for a long time. Until then I’m going to remain the Gentlemen Killer.
That’s it for now. I’ve run out of time to play. So far, this DLC has me a lot more excited and engaged than Thieves Guild did. I don’t know if it’s the fact we can actually murder people with incredibly epic kill cams (style deaths) or if the story as me interested. Who am I kidding, it’s the killing.
There is so much more for me to explore in this DLC. I’m going to try and dive deep into the poison crafting the next time I get to login. Until then, keep killing innocent people and next week I’ll have a much more detailed impression of this DLC as I should be able to spend a lot more time experiencing it.
