elder-scrolls-general-chat

[spring pasture]

I don't care, I'm still waiting either way.

[foggy dawn]

I feel the polish every single time Oblivion Remastered crashes to desktop, true.

[abstract cairn]

true TES fans would buy it either way

[spring pasture]

I started with Skyrim in 2024 so I'm relatively new to the entire series, so being treated with a proper remaster felt like such a blessing to new fans of the franchise.

[foggy dawn]

I started the series with Oblivion and I am pretty sure I'm going to have more fun in Skyblivion than I did in Remastered, lol.

Fan projects tend to crubstomp official releases in terms of quality and attention to detail, on the whole.

[spring pasture]

I love Oblivion Remastered, I want to keep my copy of Skyrim as Skyrim and not a conversion.

[foggy dawn]

You have a team of superfans of the original work pouring through every asset with scrutiny that would not be given to a commercial release. Because it's a passion project.

[abstract cairn]

mf i did not type emojis out

[spring pasture]

I feel like both Oblivion Remastered and Skyblivion serve different purposes for different types of people.

I like the more official experience.

[foggy dawn]

Skyblivion is for people Chad enough to own PCs.

Exclusively. 😎

[spring pasture]

Oh I own a PC.

[foggy dawn]

I gathered that.

Honestly what they ought to do is just make the thing run as is on modern consoles and sell it for like $20.

Morrowind I mean.

Morrowind's (INCREDIBLY DATED) gameplay mechanics would just not mesh very well with modern AAA graphics. That would feel horrendous.

[obtuse ivy]

is morrowind not on modern consoles or am i misreading

[foggy dawn]

That would be like piling the UE5 engine on top of Minecraft.

[obtuse ivy]

i know morrowind is on xbox

[foggy dawn]

I actually have no idea.

If so that's what I'd buy.

[spring pasture]

Then remake the gameplay.

[obtuse ivy]

morrowind is a ancient game

[foggy dawn]

But that ceases to be a remaster, and becomes a remake.

[obtuse ivy]

even if they remade the gameplay it wont really

bring in any more fans id say

i tried morrowind and i tried to like it and it just wasnt for me 💔

[foggy dawn]

Even if "Bethesda is making it" it's sure as hell not the Bethesda employees that were there when Morrowind was being developed originally. There's like 3-4 of them left in the company I think.

[spring pasture]

Then let it be a remake.

[foggy dawn]

So I'm not sure what authenticity a Bethesda remake would lend at that point that you feel a fan project lacks.

[spring pasture]

Just- I'd love to keep Skyrim as is without a mod pack converting it into a whole another game.

[foggy dawn]

?

[foggy dawn]

I couldn't really get into it either, so hyped for Skywind.

[spring pasture]

A proper remake of Morrowind by both Bethesda and Virtuous would be lovely. They've shown excellence with Oblivion Remastered, I think they can pull it off again.

[foggy dawn]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[spring pasture]

Also, giving both Arena and Daggerfall modern stability and performance and to polish them would be nice.

[obtuse ivy]

does morrowind have a large fanbase?

[spring pasture]

From what I've heard is that Daggerfall is loaded with lots of bugs and issues nowadays.

[foggy dawn]

Arena is utterly unsalvagable.

Daggerfall Unity is already fantastic and still being developed and modded.

[spring pasture]

Why is Arena unsalvagable?

[foggy dawn]

Look at some gameplay videos of it and Daggerfall and explain to me how you would even begin to turn it into a fun modern AAA experience.

In Arena the exterior landmass is just a bunch of areas of map that loop forever, you can't mechanically travel from place to place because of that, and buildings are very rarely laid out in any meaningful way. NPCs have the barest of what could even be called dialogue. The story is conveyed through (not a lot of) text popups giving narration.

It's great that you love TES and are interested in the heritage of the series but there are some things that are best left as history.

I wouldn't even deem Arena worth playing beyond poking around in it for a couple hours to go "lol this is old af, crazy it started here".

Daggerfall is actually a fairly fun game, with the asterisk of it's a fairly fun game if you like old janky computer RPGs. (I do, from time to time.)

There is no meaningful way to "remaster" them into something that could be marketed like Oblivion Remastered.

[foggy dawn]

Also, in Daggerfall, the exterior landmass is the literal size of the UK.
As a result, it's 99% empty. There is NOTHING to see out there, and thus zero reason to ever travel by manually walking places. There are places that would take literal days of ingame time to walk to. You are lucky if you stumble blindly across a dungeon entrance or two.
To a dungeon that is an absolute nightmare of size and labyrinthine design.

The randomly generated dungeons are frequently actually easier to navigate than the handmade major quest dungeons.

And all the dungeons are composed primarily of identical pieces of rooms copy pasted a zillion times. That you see, in every single dungeon.

[abstract cairn]

only place you can get Morrowind right now is retro game shops on 360/ps3 or online via Steam or Amazon. its hard to find

[abstract cairn]

because it looks like Doom and plays like Pong

i tried to play both of them as their free on steam but i have them just for the sake of wanting to own all TES games

[foggy dawn]

Daggerfall is worth a couple dozen hours at least.

But temper your expectations and keep in mind it came out in 1996.

It came out in an era, in fact, when a game having mouselook was a new and confusing concept, lol.

[abstract cairn]

i will give credit Daggerfall was more playable then arena and managed to stay installed a bit longer but only way they would be playable is to reboot them fully and make the same game on new everything

[foggy dawn]

All the have to do is make a product for a non-existent audience.

Ez-pz.

[abstract cairn]

if you repackage the game as it was story wise and all in modern engines and such the fans from those days would prob go after it

[foggy dawn]

Absolutely not lol.

You clearly have not met Daggerfall fans... Imagine Morrowind fans, but more fanatical.

I actually can't imagine a remake that would make them happy.

[spring pasture]

I just thinking a slight face lift and make the game run better

Arena - Reboot?
Daggerfall - Polish & Patch-Up.
Morrowind - Remake.
Oblivion - Remaster. (already done)
Skyrim - Do nothing with it, it's fine as is.

[abstract cairn]

there is a handful of things that could be fixed/changed within skyrim

[dim reef]

Skyrim could use an LOD upgrade

The vanilla LODs were good for 2011 but now they show their age. Pop ins and odd details are very noticeable especially when you're on high mountains

Maybe increase the draw distance while they're at it as well

[gleaming flume]

I think the next emperor should be a dunmer. It's the most logical choice.

[spring pasture]

I think they should bring back the character creation intro

Establish your race.
Create what your character looks like.
Name your character.
Establish your birth sign.
Establish your class.

We need that for Skyrim

[dim reef]

I mean the stone things are essentially Skyrim's version of birth signs

It's just not as strict as before

[pulsar root]

No, the classless system of Skyrim works fine.

[dim reef]

New logo?

[feral viper]

I'm anti-Race as well.

Anti-Class, Anti-Race.

[inland shale]

Pelinal Whitestrake was anti-race as well

[pulsar root]

Anti Elf*

[feral viper]

Whitestrake was a symptom of the problems with Race as a whole.

Identifying entire people groups, their attitudes, and their abilities, by phenotypical appearance is an outdated and fundamentally wrong approach to basically everything.

[foggy dawn]

Good point, the game and lore should have no conflict in it, that would improve things.

[feral viper]

Race doesn't exist in reality. It's an entirely fabricated social concept that has no actual deterministic factors.

And yet, WE have plenty of conflict.

So your sarcastic attempt at criticism doesn't actually hold up to scrutiny.

[foggy dawn]

And yet, WE have plenty of conflict.
Name a war from this century or the previous that was not based on cultural and/or ethnic conflict, lol. WTF are you talking about?

[dim reef]

I am sure 4 trillion $ company would do that

[feral viper]

You appear to have missed my point entirely.

[foggy dawn]

They should really open source them after 5-10 years.

[feral viper]

Race does not exist. It is an outdated over generalisation of the complexity of culture and heritage that was born out of an era where science was explicitly bigoted.

Fiction has clung to this as a crutch, rather than putting the effort into developing anything even remotely close to a realistic representation of cultural diversity.

[foggy dawn]

race doesn't exist

meanwhile, in reality, groups of people who self-identify as different races routinely take turns killing each other
Cool story.

[feral viper]

TES perfectly reflects this issue, because it actually has a game where the effort was made.

Morrowind.

The Dunmer are a culturally diverse broad ethogroup that contains a wide tapestry of people. Because the effort was made to make them a better reflection of how culture and societies actually work.

Meanwhile, when you lean on Race as that driving identity, you get Skyrim. Where everyone is a paper thin meat head Viking dictated by the stupid racial identity of Warriors.

Now, Morrowind still had its problems, but they were largely mechanical. The Dunmer weren't developed with their Racials in mind.

Because Racials are stupid.

[foggy dawn]

I can't believe they wrote a story based on the outmoded idea of groups of people who look different and wear different types of hats disliking each other.

That NEVER happens in reality, terrible writing.

[feral viper]

Once again, point missed entirely.

It's like you're intentionally trying to miss it.

[foggy dawn]

Hopefully they put more racial conflict into TES6, just to piss you off.

[feral viper]

https://tenor.com/view/missthepoint-the-point-gif-7984004

[wide salmon]

anyone else at Quake and can you log into ESO

[foggy dawn]

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Races
I believe you should contact the people running UESP and inform them that Race ™ isn't real and that this article should be deleted.

[wide salmon]

If your going to be that pick why are you even playing

[feral viper]

Let me try being explicit, since this is so hard for you.

Whitestrake's story perfect reflects the problem with Race. It's visually driven. Pelinal attacked the Khajiit because some of them looked similar to the Ayleids, and he assumed they WERE.

The assumption that people who look a particular way are directly associated with a particular attitude, particular practices, or particular abilities is inherently flawed.

And this issue extends to gameplay, which was the POINT. By having Races as a character creation point, you DICTATE this problem, rather play into internal biases in-universe.

You might as well say something as stupid as 'Vaccines cause Autism'.

You can't even use theory correctly, so it's clear in still talking over your head

[livid ingot]

I agree with Terical. Doing away with an option for choosing a race will open up character customization in a big way. Stuff like height, voice, eye-color, hairstyles, etc would no longer be locked. And you could mix and match bonuses if that's still a feature.

People wanting to make a character that is half-Dunmer, half-Nord for example would be no problem in that sort of system

[feral viper]

Using Race as a pre-packaged stereotype, rather than a prescriptive character identity, could still be useful.

The key is the ability to customize, rather than having that identity imposed on you wholesale.

[livid ingot]

Yeah, I imagine you could choose a dominant 'phenotype' and then make whatever alterations you see fit

You could make an Altmer that grew up in the Imperial city with an Imperial accent, imperial hairdo, etc

You could make a character with a Orc, a Khajiit, a Imperial, and a Bosmer as grandparents

[feral viper]

Yeah, like, you can pick the preset 'standards' for Races. These include the Phenotype (you basic appearance) and a few modifiers, which reflect the stereotype in Tamriel.

Or you can customize, where you pick the Phenotype and then pick your own modifiers.

[pulsar root]

Yeah no I'm not gonna go the anti race route.

[foggy dawn]

What's race? Race DOESN'T EXIST! Thus spoke Terical. gavel

[feral viper]

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm just in favour of better character customization and better reflection of the sodding setting

[feral viper]

An issue with how Race is typically handled, is there it imposes standard block of stats on all characters

[foggy dawn]

An actual issue with how RaCe is handled in Skyrim and Oblivion is that they made it insanely boring, thankfully there's a great mod to fix it in Skyrim
https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/1315

[feral viper]

This limits the range of characters you can actually express.

It's impossible to play a Shalidor, for instance.

Want to play a weak Redguard who has no martial aptitude? Too bad, you're not allowed.

Want to play a warrior Altmer? Too bad, you have a permanent handicap.

[foggy dawn]

Want to play a warrior Altmer? Too bad, you have a permanent handicap.
Have you ever actually played a TES game?
They have literally no handicap towards warrior shenanigans in Skyrim, and in Oblivion they get an easily ignorable -10 to STR and END/SPD.

[pulsar root]

Depends on context, I think a warrior altmer is fine and acceptable.

[foggy dawn]

They're one of the better choices for spellsword builds.

[feral viper]

This all plays into just how shallow and frankly terrible characterization has been in TES since Morrowind.

Character individuality doesn't really exist. It's combinations of prescribed shapes you loosley slap a name on.

And it's why Daggerfall remains so much superior in that regard.

Want to play a martial savant Altmer who is jacked to the nines? You can.

Want to play an anemic Nord Warlock? You can do that.

Want to play a heat sensitive, nocturnal Breton? You can do that.

[eager remnant]

I would love to see Daggerfall's character creation return. Instead of fixed racial attributes, give us back the option to distribute Attribute points that actually suit our roleplaying concepts. I would also bring back some version of Daggerfall's Advantages/Disadvantages. And I would retain Skyrim's Standing Stones (instead of birthsigns). Standing Stones were a brilliantly flexible, immersive way to customize a character.

This may be a hot take, but I think Starfield's character creation is the finest roleplaying chargen system Bethesda has created since Daggerfall. I hope they will expand and improve on that approach with TES6.

[glass marlin]

I would like this too.

[foggy dawn]

Instead of fixed racial attributes,
Neither Oblivion nor Skyrim really had that, in practice. Wooooo~, I get +10 to swords on a new character and one marginally useful daily ability.
That comes out in the wash of leveling in like an hour of gameplay.
The race you pick in character creation has actually never had less impact than in Skyrim, where the selection is pretty much purely cosmetic and any character can opt to specialize in anything.

Imperious fixes it at least. 😎

Character creation would benefit from having more unique upsides and downsides.

[feral viper]

Agreed.

I think, in terms of streamlining the process, using Race, Birth sign and Class as prepackaged options that allow people to build characters quickly, but the having a deeper character design process for those who really want to get into the nitty gritty and make unique characters, is the best way forward.

These things aren't prescriptive, they're stereotypes. And sometimes you may want to play into those stereotypes.

But sometimes you don't.

And ideally, both should be options in character development.

[pulsar root]

I like the racials each race has. Not a fan of any downsides or anything like that. I don't want to "punish" anyone chosing a specific Race or elf.

[foggy dawn]

It's not punishing anyone to give them a downside to a corresponding upside. It's giving them more avenues to roleplay. In Imperious the race you pick actually makes a pretty big difference to the gameplay experience.

Orc, for example.

Orc

Health: 105
Magicka: 80
Stamina: 115
Health regen: 1.0%
Magicka regen: 2.75%
Stamina regen: 5.5%
Carry weight: 350

* Bloodlust: When entering combat, gain 25% movement speed and 300% Magicka and Stamina regeneration. Bonuses gradually decay to zero over 20 seconds.
* Shockwave: Once per battle, jump to cause a tremor that staggers opponents and may knock them off their feet.
* Strength of Steel: Weapons and armor are 20% stronger, but enchantments on them are 20% weaker.

Quest reward - Stagger 150 enemies with Shockwave to unlock...
* Berserk: 1/day - Doubles attack damage and critical strike damage and halves spell costs for 15 seconds. While off cooldown, may activate randomly in combat.```

[feral viper]

I also agree with you, @eager remnant , about Starfield's character creation.

I still have my problems with it, of course, but it's better than anything Bethesda has made since Daggerfall.

And some parts of it definitely have crossover value with TES.

[livid ingot]

It was mindblowing they let you have parents. I immediately went and visited them the first chance I got

Unfortunately there wasn't much to do with them. Maybe there would have been more if I had played longer.

I'll return to give Starfield a second chance some day

[feral viper]

Yeah, it was a brilliant idea. Though a little... Middling in the execution.

Basically summarizes Bethesda though.

I have a single Starfield game though, and I do occasionally play it. And when in I do, I always go visit my parents.

Middling as the execution is, it's just so... Welcoming and homey that I don't really care that the execution isn't top notch.

[inland shale]

The parent thing was like recording 300 player names for codsworth to say, novel, but neither here nor there

[granite star]

Hi everyone. If this is the wrong section for these questions please let me know the correct section and I will move it to the correct section and I will delete it from the wrong section. For the elder scrolls 6(xbox series x/s/what it comes out on): 1. Does anyone hope that for the console version of the game, that the mod storage limit will be closer to "starfield(100 gb on xbox series x)" than to "skyrim("2 gb on xbox one)?, 2. Does anyone hope that the game has one or both of these skill trees: "A. Unarmed/hand to hand" and/or "B. Necromancy"? And 3. For the game, when mods/creations become available, does anyone hope that mods from skyrim are carried over/similar mods aka creations become available(examples- cheat room and Potion of Ultimate Leveling)?
https://creations.bethesda.net/en/skyrim/details/6c5277e5-fd8f-4df2-b324-0a60cfa1340a/Potion_of_Ultimate_Leveling__Xbox_One_

[inland shale]

Lol, mods will not carry over. 200% guarantee.

[dim reef]

They give you gifts across the game and appear in multiple story locations like the astral lounge

[foggy dawn]

And 3. For the game, when mods/creations become available, does anyone hope that mods from skyrim are carried over/similar mods aka creations become available(examples- cheat room and Potion of Ultimate Leveling)?
Not remotely technically feasible... Mods cannot transfer between entirely different games.
But, many popular mods tend to get remade for new TES games.

Like something that fixes how poorly soul gems work.

[midnight stag]

I don’t understand why people think es6 workers are affected by starfield dlc workers I don’t think they are diverting workers from es6 I’m pretty sure they have their own separate team and possibly a smaller number of people I don’t know but that’s my understanding

[wind torrent]

i always wondered, will bethesda add new playable races in a next tes game?

maormer, falmer and goblin maybe?

unless we got finally the akavir as playable races

[dim reef]

You can technically play as a falmer already. Just put on a blindfold and increase the audio

[feral viper]

Unlikely, though possible.

[feral viper]

Now, technically, if you did away with strict Races and had a more customizable system like Daggerfall, you could very easily express whatever group you wanted within the system.

Just say'n.

Take a Merish phenotype, scale down complexion to make them pale enough, take some traits that make you more of a corsair-at-heart, maybe a touch of poison resistance (to reflect their snake-cult)...

Boom, now you have a Maormer.

You could probably even squeeze a Goblin out of it...

Merish Phenotype, minimise body mass, make them short... Green complexion. Then take a bunch of traits focused on stealth and ambush, or crafting primitive tools. If the physical editor is robust enough, you could even give them a bit of a hunch.

Bam, made yourself a Goblin.

[dim reef]

I'll still recommend the blindfold option

[feral viper]

May be tricky without VR. Directional hearing, when you're using just a screen, is going to give you usable feedback.

[dim reef]

Starfield’s second DLC is different team from TES VI. They are testing those people whether if they are capable of leading roles TES VI and future titles

[feral viper]

They can't do worse than some.

[brave merlin]

Is it my internet, or are the bethesda servers down?

Nvm its internet, mb guys

[honest wolf]

Any big maiq the liar fans in the house?

[feral viper]

Nah. He's really just a meme machine with no actually relevant place in the setting. I .. actually kinda hate his existence, in fact.

But considering my stance on the setting these days, I guess I've mellowed on him.

[inland shale]

It's an easter egg, similar to seeing a Stan Lee or a Kojima cameo but instead of Todd Howard it's Maiq

[feral viper]

I've also never been fond of the Stan Lee cameos, and can't stand Kojima at the best of times, sooo...

Not liking Maiq is par for the course.

[dim reef]

Tbf Todd himself has made some cameos here and there. He was in some of the paintings in FO4

Maybe in ES6 he'll physically appear as an NPC

Cos' Emil appeared as an npc in Fo4. Maybe Todd will try his hand at it as well

[noble verge]

Even if the 2 race origins in Oblivion remastered were just the original game's male/female stats decoupled from player gender, I think it was a good idea that ought to be expanded upon in future titles to allow for stuff like Khajiit subraces, or Rim-men or Reachmen.

[feral viper]

That I cannot comment to, as I have not played the remaster.

[foggy dawn]

Variations would be a step in the right direction, an even bigger step in the right direction would be making the choice something beyond a trivial +/- to a couple skills/stats and one uninspiring once a day ability.

[noble verge]

I think the most important thing isn't necessarily mechanics but rather how the world perceives different races.

[wise quartz]

Waiting for an official trailer for TES 6 has me dying.
4k+ hours into Skyrim across xbox 360, ps3, ps4, pc, and xbox series x and I just can't do it anymore.

Bethesda I beg, some promising news, please. ;0;

[noble verge]

When creating a character, you get to choose one of two "origins" that provide the male and female attribute distributions for OG Oblivion, and there's a little descriptor for each one. For example, for Imperials it's Nibenese (male stats) or Colovian (female stats)

[dim reef]

TES VI will be long wait lol

[noble verge]

Some of them allude to stuff from ESO. One of the Breton origins is Systres from the ESO High Isle expansion, and the Bosmer origins are from two different Valenwood regions in ESO.

It's not much but it reveals that the Bretons still live in Systres despite it being labeled as part of Hammerfell on one of the world maps, and it reveals that Reaper's March (named for being a hotbed of warfare after the Second Empire's collapse) still has its Second Era nickname.

[dim reef]

At least 3 more years

[foggy dawn]

Do yourself a favor and play Enderal. o7

It gave me the same feeling as playing Skyrim for the first time.

[wise quartz]

I already did. I'm hella burnt out on that and just plain ole skyrim. Played through Bruma a few times too

[foggy dawn]

Nehrim? 😅

TES6 is probably a 2028 at the soonest kind of thing.

[pulsar root]

I'm not gonna make assumptions because my previous Bethesda related assumption has been wrong so... we'll see. >.>

[feral viper]

That's an improvement, to be sure.

[wise quartz]

I just need them to confirm it.
I just need to know it still exists with a no BS trailer. ;0;

I demand the goods

[foggy dawn]

Well, it's in development.

I do not have the highest hopes for it.

[wise quartz]

Lemme just lick a trailer.
Taste a screenshot.
I yearn

[foggy dawn]

For reference, Skyrim was first "confirmed" in 2010, because of a trademark application.

A trailer came a while after, then winter 2011 release.

[wise quartz]

But they teased back in 2018-
No news for SO LONG is super wack

[foggy dawn]

What I'm getting at is, don't expect anything substantial until it's realistically a year or so out from release.

[foggy dawn]

That was a mistake.

Imagine an alternate reality with no Starfield... We'd probably be looking at TES7 trailers right now.

[wise quartz]

For real.
The biggest tease in gaming, for me at least.
I played Morrowind until the disk stopped reading, and Oblivion on two different systems too. TES is one of my all time favorite gaming universe. ;-;

[feral viper]

The 2018 announcement was just to get people to stop asking about it on the forums, and to quell rumours that they had abandoned it.

It was never more than a 'Yes, we will make another TES, stop asking please'

[wise quartz]

TBH Starfield was a bit of a let down due to emptiness, but it wasn't bad.
Played through it without mods, and now I use mods to have more population and places to explore.
I'm a loot golbin, I need places and things to loot >:l

[wise quartz]

That makes me wanna eat nails

[foggy dawn]

I have seen nothing that makes me desire to play it.

[wise quartz]

For SF or the next TES installment?

[foggy dawn]

Even if I was craving a space exploration action RPG... It's like #5 on the list.

[foggy dawn]

Starfield.

[feral viper]

A lot of us thought it was a bad PR decision that would backfire on them when it actually dropped.

I stand by that position.

[wise quartz]

I was extremely hyped because I'm really big into space/scifi fantasy, and thought it would give me the same awe as Skyrim when it was released, but it fell flat for me. I literally cried over it and my husband felt so bad for me. If the next TES has the same effect on me, I'm going to be extremely disappointed.

[wise quartz]

THat's what I'm honestly afraid of.

[pulsar root]

I wouldn't worry. Starfield's problem is its content spread throughout several planets and thus several world spaces. ES and Fallout has it in one World Space(DLC not withstanding)

[wise quartz]

I personally would want more dialog options with companions, more variety with quests, but mostly, more locations, especially on planets that have bigger cities or main story locals.

[foggy dawn]

I inherently resent it because its development left TES and Fallout rusting on the back lawn like abandoned cars, the fact even people who like it generally tell me "eh it's pretty fun" as their most glowing review just adds to that, lol.

[feral viper]

Expect disappointment. Don't give into Hype, that way leads only to heartbreak.

When you expect a steaming pile, it's easier to find enjoyment in what you actually get.

[inland shale]

Or probably early/late 2027 if they keep to schedule

[foggy dawn]

Seems unlikely.

[inland shale]

🤷‍♂️ It's their official schedule.

[foggy dawn]

Per what?

[inland shale]

What do you mean per what?

[foggy dawn]

What schedule?

[inland shale]

You can look it up it's old news. They've been keeping to schedule when adjusted for 2 year delay

[foggy dawn]

🤔

[inland shale]

Indiana and Oblivion dropping this year pretty much confirmed it

[harsh crown]

If there is no official statement that backs these claims, then it sounds like nothing more than rumors and speculation.

[inland shale]

LOL, okay then mr.gaslighter, took you awhile to think whether to delete that huh

[timid drum]

No need to be rude mate, bros just doing his job.

[harsh crown]

I am not gaslighting. You are the one taking my words out of context. Simple as that. If there is no official link from an actual Bethesda source, then as mentioned, the claims are nothing more than speculation and rumors.

[inland shale]

Is it really speculation and rumors? I would simply call them leaks instead of gaslighting

[harsh crown]

Again, if it is not from an official Bethesda source, then yes, it is speculation/rumors. And as per the #rules, both are not allowed.

[foggy dawn]

I am not getting my hopes up for it prior to 2028 personally. I also fully expect it to be bad.

[eager remnant]

After the Microsoft acquisition Bethesda Softworks stated: "...the timeframe for Bethesda Game Studios titles has not changed at all." -and - "Time frame-wise, it would still be about as long as you'd expect when you look at Fallout 3 to Skyrim to Fallout 4 to Fallout 76. It's still going to be those periods of time, that hasn't changed."

[foggy dawn]

Relative from what? Starfield's release?

2023 + 5 = 2028 🤔

[jade plover]

Why 5?

Morrowind 2002
Oblivion 2006
Fallout 3 2009
Skyrim 2011
Fallout 4 2014
Fallout 76 2018

It takes 3-4 years to make a game for them, so 2027 for tes 6 is pretty realistic

Btw how did it take 4 yeats to make fo 76 considering how empty was it on the realease? What did they do all that time?

[foggy dawn]

An even better question: why did they make Fallout 76?

[abstract cairn]

I don’t much care for fallout as I did but being that I live in West Virginia and that’s where the map is kinda feels awesome that most the main part of the map is where I live

[dim reef]

Starfield took 5 years because of covid and the whole 1000 planets gizmo

Bethesda's dev cycles usually last about 3 years or at worst 4 years

[foggy dawn]

True, developing empty planets takes a lot of time.

[dim reef]

It does. Even if they're empty generating so much will take a lot of time

But apart from that their dev cycles aren't that long

ES6 has been in production for roughly 2 years now. It went into early dev near the end of 2023.
Best case it'll come out in 2026 and worst, 2027

[dim reef]

76 took 2-3 years to make. Not 4

[jade plover]

Yeah, i was wrong, fallout 4 came out in 2015, not 2014

So it took 3 years for fo 76

[dim reef]

It could be either 3 or 2 given the trouble the dev period went through

[dim reef]

Huh. What happened to the messages. They're deleted?

[dim reef]

It is TES chat so I deleted my messages

We can continue in FO chat lol

Ok

Do you guys think TES VI will have loading screens?

[dim reef]

It has to. You can't keep track of as many objects as Bethesda's games do without instance loading. But they must've found ways to mask the loading better this time.

[dim reef]

I think it would be great if they implement in Starfield. I would be more hopeful for TES VI

[jade plover]

Sometimes its just impossible to mask them, you cant mask a loading at the cave entrance or at the door

[dim reef]

Shouldn't be too hard. Look at earlier GTA games for example. Whenever you entered interior locations, they played an animation of the protagonist opening the door then switching to the interior

The camera was always placed at an angle obscuring the door itself so you can't see that the interior hasn't loaded yet

[jade plover]

Im not sure if its better than usual loading screens. Old GTAs have a few interiors while in tes there are lots. It would be annoying to watch opening door animation every time when you go inside of a house

[dim reef]

It is going to take time to load one way or another. Might as well add an animation to make it appear smooth

Although i don't think it's going to be as noticeable in an ES game as it is in Starfield.

Starfield's problem was that almost every quest sends you across multiple star systems so you needed like 4-5 different loading screens for a single quest.

1 for exiting a building, 1 for entering your ship, 1 for taking off, 1 for jumping to a star system, 1 for landing on another planet, 1 for entering another building.
And then repeat all that once again to turn the quest in to the questgiver.
That's what made it so immersion breaking. Even if the load time itself wasn't that long.

With ES you won't need all that. The only loading you'll see is between interiors and exteriors.

[jade plover]

True

[feral viper]

Well, you CAN, you just need to be really smart about it.

The main issue is, the usual solution to the problem is to load cells adjacent to the occupied one, so you aren't tracking all the objects in the world at once.

The problem is, this becomes more complicated to do when you're rendering further view distances, or moving quickly, resulting in pop-in issues.

On top of that, saving positions when you unload assets ALSO takes processing power. So if you're not careful, you can end up with the process taking almost as much processing as just leaving the objects in place.

[dim reef]

Yeah so essentially unless you have a nasa super computer it's not possible

[feral viper]

We're getting to the point, in a technical sense, where no loading screens should be viable. Combining multithreading and just more raw power is more and more reaching the point where these sorts of issues aren't going to be a concern any longer.

Even for Bethesda games, I don't think the technical load is the main concern. I think Gameplay is.

[dim reef]

It's not limited to Bethesda either. Valve's games also face this problem. HL:Alyx had a lot of loading between levels.
Pretty much any game that keeps track of things like that will have to do it that way

[feral viper]

I can cram 2000 cabbages into the cockpit of my space winnebago and on my mid-level PC not get any noticable lag (though, admittedly, I play at like 45fps...) so even with Bethesda's optimization it's not THAT big a problem.

But when you start having truely open environments, you create other issues. Issues with gameplay, AI, and general interaction, that would change how a lot of systems interact.

[dim reef]

On one instance sure. But imagine doing that on 50 different individual ships or planet settlements

All that just further confuses me why they had to go with a 1000 planets

But anyway. Back to ES

I doubt those problems would exist on one map like what we've seen before

[stark flower]

"2000 cabbages into the cockpit of my space winnebago" was the laugh I needed this morning.

But yes, let's stay on ES here.

[feral viper]

Yeah, in talking about the technical side of things, using Bethesda's latest game as a benchmark for possibility.

[jade plover]

Are you sure it will be one map? Considering how much bethesda like procgen i wont be surprised if in tes 6 we will point on random spot in the world to travel there and get generated chunk of hammerfell around

[stark flower]

Understood, and no worries. Just a reminder 🙂

[feral viper]

With what is possible in Starfield, we can already see that the general density of the TES worldspace should be achievable without major problems.

At least in loading and rendering those spaces relative to the player.

The new gameplay and AI issues, on the other hand, are a whole different topic.

[dim reef]

I doubt they'll go that route again after the reception Starfield got

[dim reef]

Yeah. Starfield did showcase a lot of cool tech even if it wasn't utilized well.
If ES6 uses them properly it can go perfectly fine

[jade plover]

I think npc would be a bigger problem in this case. Imagine if fallout 4 didnt have loading screens. Then in Boston your cpu would have to work with 200-300 or more npcs doing something around you

[pulsar root]

Proc gen on Starfield's scale was necessary due to the sheer fact it was set in several planets(1000). Its not necessary for just one map of a province. Not rocket science. Proc gen is still gonna be there but its not gonna need to be so massive. A lot of locations in ES are usually unique and there's far less repeats(The mining caves MIGHT be similar but they are the minority and locations in Skyrim are for the most part handcrafted)

[feral viper]

Nah, you just locally activate NPCs from memory as needed.

Like, even in Skyrim, the Foresworn aren't wandering around in the Reach while you're over on the Rift.

The issues deal more with LOS rendering and activation, things like windows actually functioning like windows, verticality, etc.

[slow loom]

Some npc are always loaded, such as quest npcs that travel from one town to another. You can see their markers travelling across the map. Although they seem to be immune to combat encounters if out of view.

Caravans in FO3 and 4 travel the map. So it seems obvious that there are some amount of npcs that stay loaded even if far out of view. Npcs in buildings and dungeons stay loaded and can follow you outside in rare instances, mods that allow this make it more common.

Fallout 4 holds combat npcs in place till the player gets close or the whole map would be dead 5 minutes after loading. That's why you always suddenly hear fights break out just as you start to get close. Settlements cause fps problems even if you aren't close as some simulation is happening.

The game has some capacity to simulate travel for at least a few npcs and probably could do more if it wasn't for hardware limitations.

[dim reef]

Those npcs aren't loaded per say. The game just keeps track of where on the map they are. They are only loaded once their location come into view of the player.

[feral viper]

Yeah, it's less loaded, and more just a location tracker. None of the AI, animation or modeling is engaged.

Usually. There are some exceptions to this, but they seem to come up with specific situations rather than all the time.

For instance, that penitus oculatus agent will never get ambushed, and never engage anything on his travel route. However, if you disable Delphine's Essential status, she will almost always die walking from Riverwood to Kynesgrave, and brick your save.

These sorts of interactions only seem to trigger when you've gone in and changed something though, so they're probably unintentional.

Now... World cells in Skyrim are the equivalent of about 58m squared. So, if you're only loading the cell the player is actively in, and all directly adjacent cells, you'd only have to load objects within about 175m of the player (at most, almost always less).

Which should be more than doable.

The problem comes from LOS activation if you have clear viewlanes.

Because if you can SEE something 500, 1000, 5000m... Well, it can't really just be, like... Low Rez sprites anymore. So you also need to activate the cells expanding conically in the direction the player is looking.

And these cells could change far more rapidly than the adjacent ones, simply because panning is a lot quicker than actually running.

And they can lead to a lot of activating and deactivating of assets, actors, and effects.

An alternative would be to expand the general activation range to, say, 3-5 cells in every direction. Effectively meaning everything within half a kilometer is active.

Which is an easier load, but is still going to have LOS issues if you have a vantage point that gives you a clear look across a valley, for instance.

You could also direct-FOV load, and treat the camera like an activating spotlight, though that has traditionally been... Touchy to execute. It especially tends to result in a lot of pop-in problems.

Which is all a very long winded way to say, rendering lots of assets is definitely doable.

It's making those assets DO something that's the hard part. And the solutions to doing so efficiently are all with their one strengths and weaknesses.

[wide garnet]

This is something I’ve been thinking of for a while because it simply doesn’t make sense. But I’ve got nothing, so I’m turning to the lore-heads here:

A while back, I asked which Daedric Princes would support, oppose, and be indifferent to the Inquisition (for my Dragon Age: The Lost Scrolls fanfiction), and one of the answers I got was that Molag Bal & Meridia would support the Inquisition. Surprised, I tried to rationalize it with what I know about the TES universe, but I’m still stumped.

So my question is, why would Meridia and Molag Bal, together, support the Inquisition when, canonically, they hate each other’s guts?

[feral viper]

Because both are inherently focused on control. They just differ in regards to how they go about it.

[feral viper]

Bal wants you to submit. To understand your place in his hierarchy and accept your inferiority.

Meridian just wants you to do exactly what you're told, when. You're told. She doesn't care about your acceptance or compliance, and would strip you of all thought and identity if she could (and she can).

Both would be quite fond of an order bent of enforcing it's will on the nation's of Thedas. Because it presents an opportunity to enforce THEIR will.

[pulsar root]

Obey, or else.

[noble verge]

I'd think they'd have more interests in larger institutions like Orlais or Tevinter, organizations that already have the power and infrastructure to implement Molag Bal's vision of mortal enslavement or Meridia's ruthless machinations.

Those empires are both oppressive yet also serving an important role as bulwarks against threats to the rest of Thedas.

[wide garnet]

That may be so, ||but Fen’Harel is still on the loose, and he probably won’t take kindly to either of them. (https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Fen'Harel)||

[feral viper]

@stark flower may be able to direct you to where you can

[stark flower]

already been resolved, thank you though!

[feral viper]

https://tenor.com/view/thumbs-up-double-thumbs-up-like-agreed-yup-gif-14284264219182206721

[dim reef]

Meridian can go away I still have to finish the quest for the sword cuz I sadly came across the orb

[pulsar root]

[dim reef]

I hate that thing

It's the only daedric quest I hate

And I put the sword in a chest and forget about it way better weapons out there

[feral viper]

Yeaaah... It was really not the best designed quest...

The weakness of Daedric artifacts is another major sticking point too. They're far too easy to obtain, and just not really that useful compared to your own crafted items.

[jade plover]

Bethesda must limit craft in their games so players wont be able to make stuff more powerfull than unique artifacts. It will stimulate people to explore the world more

And yes daedric quests must become difficult, multi-staged and have different endings

If player is roleplaying very good chatacter thete must be an option to reject dardra or destrot the artifact like in Vaermina's quest in skyrim

[feral viper]

I feel like the approach to crafting is fundamentally flawed in these, and many other games, anyway.

It should be more about controlling your look rather than part of the direct equipment scaling

Craft your drip, not your hit.

I... Hate that I said that.

https://tenor.com/view/jim-halpert-the-office-i-suck-suck-loser-gif-5709439

[wide garnet]

@feral viper @noble verge Thank you for your responses to my question. Now I’ve got another question. How will the various reactions in Tamriel react to Corypheus’ proclamation (||https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Corypheus||):

“I once breached the Fade in the name of another. To serve the Old Gods of the Empire (Tevinter) in person. I found only chaos and corruption. Dead whispers. For a thousand years I was confused, but no more. Beg that I succeed, for I have seen the Throne of the Gods, and it was empty.

I do have that some factions will start scrambling, while others will see opportunity.

One I definitely have down will be that the Synod will almost immediately cast their lot with the Inquisiton. Publicly, it’s to ‘safeguard the Empire’, but, privately, it’s also because the Inquisition has already discovered several powerful magical artifacts.

[feral viper]

Honestly? Par for the course in TES. There are empty and dead realms aplenty in Oblivion, most of Tamriel's organizations wouldn't give a rats ass.

The synods reaction would probably be more like...

https://tenor.com/view/big-deal-we-all-feel-like-that-all-the-time-bender-futurama-gif-12494683

[wide garnet]

Here’s some more information from my fanfiction:

Because of the energy released from the Anchor interacting with an Elder Scroll, Thedas and Mundus have become “hooked together”, for lack of a better term. The Psijics have learned that Thedas and Mundus are now in a “symbiont circle”, so whatever happens to Thedas will happen to Mundus as well.

Maxwell (My Inquisitor): You mean that, if Corypheus wins, Fade rifts will tear apart Tamriel in the future as they did in Southern Thedas?!

[noble verge]

I figure that from a Tamrielic perspective, Corypheus would be most analogous to Dagoth Ur- a mad blightedr mage seeking to make himself the god of the world.

His claims might be dismissed as madness but they won't be able to ignore his archdemon, Venatori, and Red Templars.

[feral viper]

Now, whether or not he gains much on the way of tradition in Tamriel is a different issue altogether.

Tamriel has lots of gods, and lots of other planes. They wouldn't be as impressed by his relationship to the Fade.

[dim reef]

Considering how Corypheus doesn't win a single time across all his appearances throughout DA, i doubt people would see him as anything but a complete failure

It's genuinely hilarious just how many times he loses

Although Dagon has also failed like a billion times trying to invade Nirn and some still worship him so maybe Cory will have some fans too

[noble verge]

I'd think the Fade would be more associated with Aetherius than Oblivion due to its connection to Thedas' magic.

At least until the rifts open and demons pour out, at which point parallels would be drawn to the Oblivion Crisis.

[dim reef]

The fade and the real world were also once one and the same before the bald wolf raised a wall

[noble verge]

Yeah, that was one of DAI's flaws, that Corypheus sits on his hands for much of the game while you dismantle his forces and schemes bit by bit.

[noble verge]

Something also worth noting is that major powers in Thedas only took up arms to stop Corypheus when he got involved in their business. Specifically, with how he meddled with the Orlesian civil war and attempted to sabotage peace talks.

(Even if none of the Orlesian leaders actually had any intention of reaching a truce)

One question is whom he'd be able to sway to his side in Tamriel, and how. If I recall, he took advantage of the Venetori's displeasure with Tevinter's slow decline, the Templars' blind obedience to their superiors and dependence on lyrium, the mages' desperation to not be killed or forced back into Circles, and the Freemen's displeasure with Orlais' civil war.

[feral viper]

Tamriel is full of fringe cults, so gaining SOME followers probably wouldn't be hard.

But it's unlikely he'd gain the same sort of traction. Unless he could convince a body like the Thalmkr.

[dim reef]

Yeah there's way better quests out there but I also feel like some quests are too short and not enough options for RP factors

Like the storm cloak rebellion there should be more options than betrayal of the faction you get the crown for

Also the rewards aren't that exciting I always thought items from cyrodil would more of a nice touch instead of in game items that are based off of Skyrim armour if you join the empire

It's been 200 years. Cyrodiil's fashion sense has likely changed into what we see in Skyrim

[wide garnet]

What a co-inky-dink, I noticed that as well. That’s why I gave him a “field agent”/apprentice inspired by Darth Maul.

Corypheus: “This is my apprentice, Vrak’moul. He will find your false Herald.”

[wide garnet]

There are already Fade Rifts opening in Tamriel, mainly around ancient ruins and battlefields. According to Solas, any location that has immense, intense emotions tied to it has a high probability of having a Fade Rift.

There’s also a prophecy from the Elder Scroll that was found in Thedas that’s encapsulating what’s happening in both Thedas and Mundus:

When the Dovah return and the Heavens are pierced, the balance of power shall be disrupted, the potential of magic shall be heightened, and the ghosts of troubles past will come back to haunt the present. There’s only one question: are you ready?

In game terms, the events of previous games have consequences that will make themselves known in TESV/DAI.

[noble verge]

I'd imagine the Vigil of Stendarr and possibly other Aedra-worshiping military orders may also be willing to help the Inquisition.

[wide garnet]

Here’s another plot point I’d like some opinions on from the lore-heads:

During one adventure, Matthias (my Dragonborn), Maxwell (my Inquisitor) and their companions are flung back in time to the Dragon War, encounter a cell of the Dragon Cult obsessed with blending the races of man, mer, demon (Fade), daedra (Oblivion), Dovah, and beast (Argonians, Khajiit, etc.) in order to create the ultimate army of “super soldiers” for Alduin. When they meet the mage in charge of this, they’re surprised to learn that he’s a half-mad Dwemer mage who’s “over-specialized” in Alteration magic because he believes it’s the key to reshaping life itself.

After killing the Dov in charge of the cell and escaping “back to the future”, they find that the Dwemer Mage has surrendered his knowledge to Herma-Mora, but “saved a backup copy” of his knowledge to a Dwemer Lexicon for the Inquisition. This leads to several things that I, at least, think is hilarious, such as accidentally turning a male Orlesian noble into the infamous Lusty Argonian Maid.

[tardy tiger]

Well art style changes matter more. Especially when one looks at them in TES3 and the weird jump into the false Cyrodiil of TES4.

[tardy tiger]

Hard to tell for the Cyrodiil side of things tbh since TES had no idea what to do with them (Also why Tullius feels weird for the supposed Governor of the Imperial Province).

The Civil War itself feels like it's missing an ending of the Moot given both sides were fighting over the Nordic High Kingdom.

[dim reef]

Ig Todd was really into Lord of the Rings when he made TES4

[feral viper]

Which explains some of the problems. But not all.

But that's a taste thing, and if I get into the artistic side of TES I'm going to very quickly get myself into trouble.

Cyrodiil's general fashion was pretty consistent between Arena, and Oblivion. We can't really say whether or not it's remained that way into Skyrim's era, because of the location, but it's always been kind of...

Shakespearian. The armour has flitted between generic medieval and romanesque though.

[tardy tiger]

Also the Counts the Empire has in their heartland. Even though the Empire has been using Governors since Redguard.

[feral viper]

How dare you cite continuity errors!

At least Blizzard acknowledged when they made mistakes.

The TES solution has been to just shrug it away, of use unreliable narrator as a crutch to try and escape the problem

[spare plaza]

https://tenor.com/view/panda-lurker-shy-hiding-tree-gif-15734280

[noble verge]

TES Legends depicted the use of several Imperial styles throughout the games.

[tardy tiger]

TES legends if I recall is a mix of ESO and TES5

[noble verge]

Blizzard rewrote Warcraft's lore multiple times, and don't get me started on about the Terrans in Starcraft.

[feral viper]

Yes they did. Well, more or less. Technically they were typically retcons cached in uncovering previous explanations were explicit lies, but...

When they claimed Falstad was dead, and were corrected on it, they addressed the issue

Not to say Blizzard is any better, quality wise. It's basically been gibberish since Illidan's "Redemption Story".

[tardy tiger]

Blizzard has always been "too free" with writing I'd say. Because they don't really have limits are just told the end goal. Which is why things can be a complete mess with characters.

Or very toxic depending on how the team is. Like I recall someone put a Orc character into a wheel chair because another guy liked him

[tardy tiger]

Shadowlands was the weirdest attempt of a redemption (Sylvanas) and they went about it like they were writing for another character (Arthas).

[noble verge]

Redguard and Oblivion take place during different eras over 400 years apart, in different provinces. Hardly a retcon for things to have changed over that time period.

[noble verge]

As opposed to Garrosh "I'll do it again" Hellscream

[feral viper]

Absolutely. It also leads to nonsensical character decisions.

Like in Cycle of Hatred. The whole story is Thrall learning the truth about the Orcs and the formation of the Horde. And his conclusion at the end, after learning that the Draenei were innocent victims who actively refused to seriously fight back and chose only to defend themselves and their settlements, comes to the conclusion 'There can be no peace now that our ancient enemies have joined the Alliance'.

THRALL. Not Garrosh.

[tardy tiger]

TES3 had Governors though Morrowind had Dukes governing Distrcts with an Imperial Proconsul above them. It was the same Empire with the same writing team.

TES4 has always been a terrible depiction of the Heartland of an Empire and especially the Third Empire (rip Shezarr no one will ever say your name).

[noble verge]

Different provinces

[feral viper]

I'd say that the writing in TES is no better, no more insulated from retcons, and no more coherent, of course.

But Blizzard is at least honest with their changes. When they retcon something, they admit it. When they make a continuity error, they admit it.

[tardy tiger]

Same Empire with the same Administration.

[spare plaza]

Basically same type of people, both places. I know from first hand experience 😛

Blizzard is the same as Bethesda

[noble verge]

The difference is that Cyrodiil is the heart and center of the Empire, while Morrowind is a foreign province under Imperial control. There's no reason to implement a colonial bureaucracy in Cyrodiil.

[tardy tiger]

It's the Imperial bureaucracy not a colonial one. They always had Governors just TES4 really didn't want to do anything well Imperial which is best shown with every City doing its best to not be Cyrodilic.

[noble verge]

My bad, the proper term is Provincial Governor.

UESP provides a handy list of all the Imperial governors in the lore here. Something of note is the fact that the title is used all the way into ESO, and something else noteworthy is the fact that across all the games and out of game lore including those that come after TES IV, none of the Imperial governors preside over anywhere in Cyrodiil, even in ESO's version of Cyrodiil, which reinforces the idea that it's a strictly provincial title not used in Cyrodiil.

[tardy tiger]

Provincial Governor is a Governor of an entire province.

It along with Military Governor and Imperial Proconsul handle the Entire Province. Not the regions of the province that will be for Governors, Dukes and Provisional Governor

[noble verge]

Regardless, every governor across every game has been stationed outside Cyrodiil, including ESO which features several sections of Cyrodiil.

[tardy tiger]

If we could say anything of TES4 is that it tried to retcon Governors out of the Empire in place of Counts. With a very different and Hereditary roles. As again TES4 is a terrible depiction of the Heartland of the Empire that uses Governors

[feral viper]

Which was nonsense anyway, and it's clear they didn't even understand how Counts function in a medieval hierarchy.

[noble verge]

It's not a retcon because like I said, no lore ever mentioned governors within Cyrodiil.

[tardy tiger]

It is a retcon.

TES4 really did not want to do Cyrodiil. Espically if they're trying to change how the "Empire" is run

[feral viper]

I would go so far as to say TES4 didn't want to do TES. And went out of its way to make it's self as indistinct and generic as possible, so that it could fit into whatever branding they wanted.

[noble verge]

There's stuff across TES that are retcons. The lack of governors in TES IV are not one because there was never any lore stating that the Imperials appointed them in their home province.

[tardy tiger]

The lack of Governors is because they don't want to write the Empire. Even TES5 shows that with how the Empire is so very removeable for a so called "Imperial Province"

[feral viper]

Why wouldn't they? Cyrodiil consisted of the first kingdoms conquered by the Septum Dynasty.

It wasn't a founding province, it was a collection of literal kingdoms conquered by a foreign warlord, who them moved his administrative centre to the centralised city-state of the Imperial City.

Cyrodiil's time as part of the Septum Empire was only a few decades longer than anyone else's.

So if they still had governors in other provinces, there's no real reason they wouldn't have in Cyrodiil as well.

[noble verge]

That it wasn't a founding province is irrelevant. What's relevant is that Tiber Septim made it the center of his authority and administration when he founded the Empire.

[feral viper]

And if Tiber instituted governors for every single other occupied territory, why would he make an exception for the Cyrodiilic kingdoms he conquered as well?

Especially given his tendency to oppress dissidents and undermine independent territorial authorities.

The best you could really argue is that the Governor's started CALLING themselves Counts after a few generations, and Tibet's descendants were too weak to correct them and keep them in their place.

[noble verge]

Because Tiber Septim decided that Cyrodiil would be the center of the Empire's authority, and it was the Imperials that he employed to impose the Empire's authority on the other provinces.

[tardy tiger]

We're also talking TES4 which had silly things like this Dunmeri architecutre. Wonder if Narsis or Kragenmoor uses it
https://images.uesp.net/1/19/OB-place-Cheydinhal.jpg

[feral viper]

You know the answer to that.

[feral viper]

So? Did that stop... Well, literally my empire from using governor-like titles even for their core territories?

Rome instated governors to administer directly neighbouring cities. The Persians estates Satraps for all of its territories, INCLUDING Babylon it's self.

If not a retcon, it's just another example of how poorly thought out the worldbuilding of Oblivion was.

But I'm out. I'm not going to ruin my Godzilla high talking about Oblivion any more than I already have

[noble verge]

Rome and Persia are irrelevant. Speculation is irrelevant. All that's relevant is that both before Oblivion, and after Oblivion, the Septim and Reman Empires have consistently been portrayed as having governors appointed in some regions but never Cyrodiil.

[tardy tiger]

Governors is the Empires way of ruling.

If they used Counts then those counts would everywhere instead of Governors. It's just another thing of TES4 not wanting to do the Imperials which is a noticeable writing problem of the Imperials (nevermind how much of a mistake they appear).

Even in TES4 you could remove the Empire and nothing changes. Even the "Dragonborn Emperor" nonsense is easily removable.

[noble verge]

Existing lore points to governors being the Empire's way of maintaining Cyrodiil's authority over the other provinces, sometimes temporarily (like Tullius), sometimes for long-term.

[feral viper]

Nevermind that Counties are small Fuedal holdings in a structured hierarchy, and their existence would imply that the leader of Cyrodiil is a freaking Duke.

Even Morrowind is divided into multiple Duchies, but Cyrodiil? Nope, just one. Because someone doesn't know how Medieval Hierarchies work and just liked the word Count.

[tardy tiger]

Existing lore would point to Governors being retconned. As after all Tullius is never called a Governor outside of the Intro that has a bunch of errors said by Ralof. The player is not ambushed with the Stormclaoks and no one calls Tullius a Governor.

If the Empire had a Feudal "homeland" then it's so called "Provinces" would also be Feudal.

TES4 has no idea what it was doing other then showing how much of a mistake the Imperials are to have been made.

[feral viper]

https://tenor.com/view/im-getting-mad-tina-templeton-the-boss-baby-family-business-i-am-getting-angry-it-makes-me-angry-gif-22838229

Imperials weren't a mistake.

The complete unwillingness to commit to any sort of identity for their culture, is the mistake.

Even the paper thin Nord treatment would be an improvement.

[tardy tiger]

slight correction.

TES3s "Dukes" were renamed Governors.

Dukes were assigned to Districts which Vvardenfell was one with the others being named after the Great Houses. People of Morrowind tells us of an Imperial Proconsul but very little of it.
Said dukes are the "Emperor's representative" and have the "Imperial Guard" protecting them (Imperial Guard being the plate armour wearing dudes)

[tardy tiger]

It's really their biggest problem. No one wants to write them. Sure you'll get pointless books but their reliably gets tanked every time the player is around Imperials and their groups which would be fine if the games weren't set in their Empire or went to their centre of power but unfortunately they have been.

ESO has done nothing which is why every time they went there they focused on the Dark Brotherhood or the Daedric Masters of TES. Zone wise Blackwood focused on the Daedra and I think the Longhouse Emperor's, Gold Coast was focused on the Dark Brotherhood and West Weald was focused on the Bosmer and the Daedra.
Bethesda simply has shown they have no interest in them.

[feral viper]

Well, considering my generally negative opinion of the setting lately, maybe that's for the best for me.

The less they're written, the less damage is done.

[noble verge]

Regardless of the terminology used to describe the rulers of the regions of Cyrodiil, we know a lot about how it's organized and it was not a retcon, because up until TES IV, Bethesda didn't provide much information about how Cyrodiil was organized. TES I had only one city in Cyrodiil, the PGE 1E's map introduced a few Colovian cities, the books in TES II and TES III, even those taking place in Cyrodiil like the 2920 series, didn't delve deeply into how the province was laid out. Anything behind that was speculation.

We also know that even after TES IV, Bethesda continued to adhere to the convention of having Imperial counts in Cyrodiil, and Imperial governors in other provinces, as seen in ESO.

[glad cypress]

This is actually a pretty good point, the High King is absolutely not a governor elected by the Empire, nor does any mention of one ever appear. Maybe they have retconned it, or maybe it's just preferential treatment to Nedes and Nords, and Hammerfell will have a governor (if they go there for 6).

[noble verge]

Tullius is only in Skyrim temporarily to take charge and put down the rebellion.

Which would make sense because at the start of the game, none of the Imperial loyalist jarls- Elisef, Idgrod, Siddgeir, and Igmund- are really fit to lead armies.

[tardy tiger]

Imperial Administration and Government is an afterthought.

Hammerfell will have Kings as its outside of the Empire so it shouldn't have Governors and stick with the standard Kings and Queens.

[noble verge]

Many of the provinces had petty kings even during the Empire. Even Skyrim's holds were described as being ruled by kings until TES V changed the title to "jarl".

Morrowind was in some ways an outlier in that it had just one central king, mandated as part of the terms of the armistice.

[tardy tiger]

Skyrim is the game that pretty much adds to the mess of the Empire in that from a dev point why does it exist it can easily be removed. Is it a Province or a client state.

Morrowind at least had a whole treaty about it but Skyrim is just a Nordic Kingdom to where the Redguard retcon to the Empire and the creation of the Imperials being a pointless thing.

Everything in Skyrim is Nordic outside of the Generic Divines.

Oh Morrowind would have petty kings. They're just named differently now and have insane dev bias compared to everything else. Can pretty much call the leaders of the great houses or major cities petty kings.

[feral viper]

Right, back to something productive, since I don't think the setting is even salvageable without a Blizzard style retcon at this point...

[feral viper]

As I said, i think that the main advantage of how crafting has been handled in Bethesda games lately, lies in customizability rather than raw stat manipulation

The drafting systems in place already focus on assembling parts to create a cohesive whole. But they use it to drive stats rather than raw aesthetics.

This sorta works in the case of firearms, but isn't quite as applicable to medieval weapons or armour.

When everything is made out of steel and composites, the materials stop being particularly important, but in a fantasy setting there extra important.

At the same time, you've got nonsensical quirks like Pockets adding carry weight... Which is isn't how weight works...

Instead, if you take the same crafting system and apply the ESO motif aspect, while using Colour/Texture as the identifier for material, you effectively create a visual customization system with billions of possible permutations (if, for instance, only using Skyrim's models as your basis for math).

[dim reef]

They might add FO4/Starfield style legendary gear drops in ES6

[feral viper]

Oh, they most likely will.

And it'll be terrible, IMO. Just like they're terrible in FO4 and Starfield. They're sorta tolerable in FO76, but only because the nature of it as a live service game.

[dim reef]

Eh. I like them. The only thing i dislike is that the unique legendaries are mostly not unique. You can find like 3 different laser rifles (from 2 different quests and loot pools) that have the same never ending effect.

I'd suggest making quest related legendaries be a one time thing that can't be found in loot pools

Like if a guild quest rewards you an inf. bolt crossbow make it so you won't get it from random legendary drops

Same way make it so the legendary effects you get from random drops can't be found from quest rewards.

[feral viper]

My problem with them has always been that they basically render Unique weapons obsolete, are far too randomized to be particularly useful, and basically just serve as superfluous padding to increase play times using the same loot-driven dopamine rush as looter-shooters.

I prefer my powerful pieces of equipment to be the results of dedicated work and goal setting, not constant dice rolls and grinding the same 3 ruined shacks in the woods until RNGsus blesses me with scraps.

[dim reef]

No. Unique weapons like the broadsider, deliverer, junk jet etc. exist separately. Legendaries are just one extra tier of Unique effects.

In fact I'd prefer actual unique weapons with different models to be separate from ones that are just stat upgrades

What they need to do is not mix quest rewards with random legendaries

Let stuff you get from quests be actually unique and let random loot drops be unique on their own

[tardy tiger]

And not scaled. At least to add some value to them.

[dim reef]

Yeah. Let the quest rewards be entirely separate from the random loot pool

4 does do it to some extent like the automatic laser musket which can't be found anywhere except the MM questline. We need more of that.

[feral viper]

Still don't like them. They're a Looter Shooter phenomenon, and only exacerbate the Murder Hobo problems in RPGs.

They're right up there with the infuriating HP sponge dynamic in combat.

The entire 'Legendary' dynamic is, at least IMO, a unilateral failure. Legendary Weapons are just meaningless grind to try and RNG your way to relevance within the scaling creep, and Legendary Enemies are just tedious HP sponges that draw out already overburdened simplistic combat well past it's staying point..

[wide garnet]

Well, that’s something to fix in a VC.

[feral viper]

VC?

[eager remnant]

I'm guessing he's referring to our Verified Creator program.

[feral viper]

Aaah, that'd make sense.

[feral viper]

I am also hesitant to rely on them though. In fact, I think relying on modders, Creators, or not directly official developers to fix core problems with the games design is a losing perspective.

Expecting others to fix your poor decisions, rather than just trying to make better decisions, isn't a way to progress.

[wide garnet]

You got it right. Want a cookie?

[feral viper]

https://tenor.com/view/cry-sad-cookie-spongebob-gif-5527062

[wide garnet]

Sorry, Charlie. You have to earn it.

[glad cypress]

I'd like having different variations of weapons and armour, but I think a legendary system would feel out of place when they can make uniques like all the other entries in the series. A high quality steel greatsword being stronger than a hackjob steel greatsword made by a bandit in a cave makes sense to me

I was actually going to explain why I think legendary weapons wouldn't work, but honestly finding a blessed iron dagger on a random enemy in the middle of nowhere makes about as much sense, and never really took me out the experience

[feral viper]

TES already has enchanting as a mechanism. It doesn't need Legendaries added on top of that.

Especially given that... Well... Legendaries as a dynamic were really always just magic in the first place, and never made any sense in the settings.

So for TES, you'd just be cramming in two layers of Magic.

[glad cypress]

That's a good take on it, it really is just wasteland magic

[shy hamlet]

Hello everyone, I am a novel writer from China. If my novel borrows part of the world view of The Elder Scrolls, will this infringe on intellectual property laws?

[slender patio]

Is this the right place for a concerned fan of The Elder Scrolls to voice their expectations, wants, and concerns about TES6 development and be heard by Bethesda Game Studios devs and to ask those devs about their goals and expectations for the game?

[dim reef]

You can do the former. The latter... well

[slender patio]

Based on interviews and track record Bethesda has probably known exactly what they want TES6 to be since development on Skyrim wrapped. Given the decade and a half of titles released since then you’d think the Bethesda devs would have a solid idea of expectations in the gaming industry but then starfield happened, a game with problems that the studio should have figured out 10 years ago.

My expectation for TES6 is exactly what you’d expect from the creators of Skyrim who have watched titles like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 succeed. Oblivion Remastered was a successful experiment in blending technology and taking a classic BGS game and making it more user friendly for modern audiences. I’m hoping they learned all the right lessons. They have the benefit of hindsight and decades of experience but all it takes is one stubborn producer to railroad a development team toward a mediocre product.

I think TES games succeed when the writing is creative and strange, the world and gameplay is immersive, and the developers get to poor their creativity into their games.

Morrowind had the best writing, Oblivion had the best magic system, Skyrim had the best world to explore, and Daggerfall was the most ambitious. Fallout New Vegas is more popular than Fallout 3 for a reason.

ESO and FO76 have had their time to shine. Single player open world RPG players don’t want MMO mechanics and don’t want gameplay to be a grind. We want interesting stories to keep us captivated and an immersive and imaginative world to experience them in. The philosophy of “your players won’t appreciate your writing so don’t even try” by writers like Emil Pagliarulo is wrong.

[slender patio]

In TES6 I don’t want and endless supply of thoughtless fetch quests. I’d like to see quests that begin looking like a fetch quest but turn into an interesting adventure. I don’t want quests to clear out a basement of rats or roaches. I want quests that align with my character’s goals based on how I decide to role play that character, which means options. Being the prophesied hero chosen to save the world by the gods is fun and epic the first time through but gets old on repeat playthroughs. I want the freedom to be anybody. I want dark humor to come back to the franchise. This isn’t The Legend of Zelda. I want different elements to have visual affects on targets like a chard corpse or a frozen body broken into pieces. It needs to have hit box recognition for different body parts. I want a dedicated button for casting spells and a dedicated button for blocking regardless of what is equipped in my character’s hands. Why in Tamriel can you not jump while sprinting in Skyrim? Odd choice. I want the option of dyeing my clothing and armor. I want more customization for decorating my house or keep. Maybe I want a trophy wall with the skulls of every creature I’ve slain. Maybe I want a head on a pike outside the front door that says “enter at your own risk” or maybe I want the home to look like a Valenwood greenhouse.

I want attributes to come back. I do not want perks that give a 5% increase in damage. Increasing a skill alone should increase its effectiveness. Perks should change the way you play.

I want realistic hunting and skinning like in RDR2. I want “cities” with more than 10 buildings. I want a.i. that doesn’t make enemies or friendlies walk right into the line of fire. A little sense of self preservation would go a long way.

I think I want what every TES fan has been asking for for years. End of rant.

[dim reef]

"Fallout New Vegas is more popular than 3"

Bruh. NV is the lowest selling 3d Fallout game

As for Emil, he doesn't write everything. His words don't really mean much if the entire team doesn't agree with him. It's just his opinion.

Also. I know this is personal preference but "Oblivion has the best magic system" is a tad questionable

[pulsar root]

I don't even know what Emil said and I'm very suspicious if he actually said x things.

[dim reef]

He was going on a bit of a rant when discussing Starfield when he said that. I don't think he meant it

And like i said even if he does believe that i doubt he can do much if the rest of the team doesn't agree with him.

Also i don't get the whole attribute criticism.
"I want attributes, not perks that do +5% damage" that's exactly what attributes did tho?
You put points into strength and it increased your melee capabilities a little. Same thing

[inland shale]

Yes.

[feral viper]

More detail would be needed.

Specific aspects of the world it's self are one thing, but 'World View' is a bit nebulous. Nothing about TES's worldview is novel, and it's derived from thousands of years of social and philosophical thought.

If anything, you'd probably be drawing more from Gnosticism than TES. At least if I understand your statement.

[copper mulch]

Hoping the mix the perk system of skyrim with the attributes or atleast bring attributes back into tes6. More options for perks was a nice addonition to the one perk every 25 skill ups in oblivion. And more build options always good

[feral viper]

The old approach to Attributes was just bad.

However, the idea still has value, and could be reincarnated into something more useful.

It's main problem, as with all the main problems of the past, was linearity. All attributed progress the same way, every time.

And that sort of linearity stifles character options.

[slender patio]

Exactly. “Perks” that do what attributes or just leveling a skill used to do is simply a pointless extra step. Perks should transform your gameplay because they are a limited resource that you’re forced to choose between.

[slender patio]

I agree that the concept of gaining attribute points through leveling is a better concept than how it was executed in the past, but Oblivion Remastered largely fixed Oblivion’s old leveling problems. It gave you a “perk” at every 25th interval in a skill for free so you feel like your character is actually getting more skilled at that activity. A perk tree on top of this system would be ideal rather than to replace it.

[dim reef]

Why? They both do the same thing. What's the point in separating them

Perks can serve as both unique upgrades and normal stat boosts

Also Skyrim does have attributes. It's just reduced to the 3 main things that are basic to everything else i.e health, stamina and magicka

[feral viper]

They call them attributes, but they're really just Resources.

[dim reef]

Tbf that's what attributes always were

[feral viper]

Nah, Resources are used in an active way. Attributes were just numerical modifiers that were applied to things..

The Attribute System I've played with in the past, at least on paper, is attaching the Attributes directly to Perks. You then use the aggregate score to gate non-Skill related Perks.

[dim reef]

We did have attributes like endurance that served the same purpose before (increasing health and all that).
Now they're just focused on those 3 basic things. Instead of having separate attributes for sneak, combat, speech etc.

[feral viper]

So any Perk which, reasonably, would involve being stronger, gives you a point of Strength.

You then need X Strength in order to be able to choose, say, Increase Carry Weight as a Perk.

[dim reef]

I do hope they work in stat checks in the next game. Having all checks be tied to speech isn't viable everywhere

Like it's funny you can join the college of winterhold with a speech check even if your magic skills are at like zero

That should've been a magic check instead

[pulsar root]

I think the attribute system is just(At least to me) a very common RPG system. Level up increase your stats, many people find that appealing and its a very simple way. It may be "Spreadsheet but I don't hate it(Unless its super limited like in Oblivion where 100 is the max). Perks are also nice but knowing you leveled up your stats as you level is a very good feeling, some perks don't necessarily do that.

[slender patio]

Carry weight should increase automatically as your strength increases. Separating the attribute from the system that it governs is obtuse. A perk called “extra pickets” that doubles your carry weight would be worth a perk point.

[slender patio]

By removing the attributes and devolving to the 3 stats system removes the passive advantage of increasing your attributes. Instead of increasing your carry weight with a perk and your melee damage with another perk which requires multiple level increases, you simply increase your strength which does both. Seamless, fluid, simple. Perks that do what attributes already did is just an extra step with no benefit.

[feral viper]

My problem has always been the enforcement of particular bonuses. Carry weight and strength is a good example of that disconnect.

The way it's always worked, has been unilateral. Increase strength, increase carry weight, increase weapon damage.

But this sort of dynamic doesn't reflect the actual nuance in that idea. It doesn't allow you to skip leg day, or focus on your core, or any of a hundred other ways that Strength is represented.

[timid drum]

But surely walking all over Tamriel being over-encumbered would strength the whole body lol

[pulsar root]

Strength increasing carry weight and well obvious increased damage with weapons increase is logical(Or damage with weapons). That makes sense

[slender patio]

That’s what perks should be for. They should grant you an ability that reflects your chosen specialization that separates you from the common man.

[feral viper]

And I'm saying it ALL should be handled within Perks. It within 2 seperate systems.

[shy hamlet]

The settings and world structure in my novel have some similarities with The Elder Scrolls. Does this constitute infringement?

[dim reef]

If they do bring back attributes they should work like how they work in Fallout where it's not just arbitrary boosts to skills but each attribute has their own unique function

Charisma affecting speech checks.
Intelligence affecting xp gain and terminal hack difficulties.
Luck determining critical hit chance etc.

Oblivion actually did it well with just the luck attribute. It was a really cool attribute that determined chances of a lot of random events across the game. Wish the other attributes were like it.

[feral viper]

Unlikely, but it depends on how closely they resemble eachother.

When in doubt, change names of things.

[tardy tiger]

I would like one change in regards to factions and that's more requiring you to do stuff the faction wants skill wise.

Not some code looking at your skill level but say a magic guild requires you to cast a strong spell sort of thing.

[slow loom]

Morrowind had that sort of system. You needed certain skill levels in Restoration and such to continue on with the questline.

[tardy tiger]

Morrowind required skill levels but you only needed to cast magic a few times which I think was soul trap.

[eager remnant]

And even in that case we could use a scroll instead of casting a spell.

[feral viper]

Yeah. I'm more in favour of practical challenges rather than flat number checks. Quests which require you to use particular spells to complete them, rather than the game just going 'Yup, your Conjuration Skill is high enough'.

Skyrim sorta did this, but all the necessary spells are so baseline that it never really felt like any amount of progress.

[dim reef]

I think we need more spell variety

The ones we have are fine but very basic.

Most of the cooler magical stuff in lore is only showcased in setpieces. We don't get to use them ourselves.

Or sometimes when we do, they're just reskins of existing spells with more stats

[feral viper]

For some of that stuff, we need better basic systems for the magic to play off.

Burden, Corrode, Drain, even Telekinesis simply don't interact in any meaningful way because the basic underlying mechanics aren't there for them.

All the game really allows for is direct damage magic. It's not designed from the ground level to support more diverse approaches, which really limits the range of spells you could play with.

Which is doubly unfortunate, considering how basic and bare bones combat (the one thing you can really apply Magic to in game) is in TES.

[pulsar root]

The basic spells could just have one version and have them scale as you get stronger.

[slow loom]

ESO has a semi good system for spells. You level it up and then morph it into a different version of the spell.

[devout violet]

Hi everyone 👋😊

[jade plover]

They should add more utility spells to interact with the world

Rerurnt unclock at least

[feral viper]

They need to redress core mechanics in the game first, unfortunately.

Things like NPC states and tracking, pathfinding, object rendering and terraforming (which won't be a thing until they start really using Voxels) etc.

In this regard, I think that Starfield really sets the expectation. And that expectation is not good.

[dim reef]

Starfield does a lot of core things well. The game just doesn't utilize those mechanics the best

NPCs for example can actually jump around instead of getting stuck trying to find a path up something

The movement in general is really stellar in that game. It's a shame how little it's utilized

[feral viper]

The pathfinding is wonky and doesn't react to the environment super well. It looks for particular points to interact with, instead of being able to react to the environment as a whole. Which is why you get enemies who will boost up onto gantries but don't get up on most roofs or shipping crates independently.

It also still utterly lacks a baseline mechanism for tracking unconscious entities, resorting to quest-specific recognition and thus rendering EM weapons basically garbage (all but like 2 quests will just treat you as having killed everyone anyway).

And it still has problems with Y axis interaction and movement, with entities picking a particular Y elevation to move at and then directly transitioning to another to keep moving, rather than more natural tracking.

The character movement was a great step up, but there's still a lot of very core problems with things that hamper any future progress.

[dim reef]

I think roofs are purposefully gated off from npcs otherwise you'd end up with situations akin to brahmins stuck on roofs of Sanctuary hills in FO4

But outside of civillian areas the normal combat areas have climb points everywhere. I'm pretty sure it's dynamic. Anything can be made climbable by enemies

And the thing about movement axises is that your companions can go multiple ways. It's especially really impressive in zero g environments. Enemy AI however can't seem to do anything as advanced.

So again. It's doable. The skeleton of the mechanic exists. They just didn't use it much

[pulsar root]

Or just stuck in houses for no good reason >.>

[feral viper]

Sad Roach Noises

But yes, the skeleton is there. But that's all it is, at present. A skeleton.

[midnight stag]

Why in the world is everyone not wanting es6 to release in the same timeframe as gta 6 I mean one’s totally fantasy and the other is modern day crime game what is the problem they’ll still make money for Microsoft

[lilac meadow]

where can you find the channel rules?

[spare plaza]

#rules

If you need clarification or questions DM @vast rain

[lilac meadow]

oh, i just really wanted to know if it's against the rules to say that, i hope that for tes6 Bethesda doesn't go woke...

[dim reef]

What does that even mean

[feral viper]

I have a simple rule.

When someone uses the W word, I stop paying attention to them entirely.

[feral viper]

They have a surprising amount of crossover. And GTA is simply the bigger title.

I'd rather they release at least 3 months apart, so that there's less direct competition between them.

[midnight stag]

Well I think they should separate it from the fact that both Bethesda and rockstar games have their own respective events

[feral viper]

Anything releasing against GTA6 will effectively be going up against the second most anticipated game in history. That's a lot of heavy lifting just to get noticed.

The only game that could reasonably compete would be Half-Life 3.

[pulsar root]

Its best to not ask that.

[dim reef]

No way. Half Life is popular but not "made 1 billion in 3 days" popular.

At this point i don't think anything compares to GTA. It's miles ahead of anything else

[wide garnet]

I’m not holding my breath for TES6. They’ve hired one of the writers from Fail-guard, and, besides, I can’t hold my breath that long anyway.

https://tenor.com/view/aladdin-genie-its-a-joke-i-do-that-joke-gif-25377954

[dim reef]

Funny because VG had some of the strongest writing in the entire DA franchise. I'm looking forward to see what he does

[jade plover]

If there was strong writing it wouldn't have failed

[dim reef]

Strong writing doesn't really determime success sadly. Otherwise GTA 5 would be the best written game in the world

[jade plover]

I didnt play it, so idk, but i heard people mostly complain about bad story and characters

[dim reef]

DATV had pretty much everything stacked against it. Even it's own publisher. It's a wonder the game was finished at all. It's what they say, doomed from the start

Even if it was the best game in the world i doubt it would've succeeded with the conditions it was released under

[dim reef]

I mean people do that about Bethesda's games as well. Doesn't make it true.

And it certainly doesn't stop their games from succeeding either. VG suffered from badluck right from the start

[jade plover]

Well, since skyrim quests in bethesda games are aqtually bad, but people dont buy their games for quests, they buy them because these are good sandboxes

[dim reef]

Not to say it's perfect or anything. It has it's flaws like every other Bioware game. But definitely not enough to fail

[dim reef]

You sure about that? Plenty of people love their quests

Their main questlines are often criticized but people usually love their side quests

[jade plover]

I dont know any of these people🤷🏻‍♂️
Me and my friends play it because of cool world design and lore

[dim reef]

That's the thing really. People love their game for plenty of reasons. Many appreciate their writing too. So the loud minority screaming "writing bad" doesn't stop them from succeeding.

DATV however came out after Bioware has already been dragged through the mud for MEA's mediocre launch and Anthem's... frankly disastrous failure.
Expectations were already pretty low and then news came out that the game was originally a live service game which further drove people away.

Then the marketting for the game itself was godawful. After the first trailer they literally had to come out and say "guys wait for the gameplay trailer, this one doesn't represent the game well" like bruh why didn't you start with that then??

This is something Bethesda knows how to handle well. Even after 76's launch and Starfield people are still excited for ES6.

They know exactly how to market things well and get people interested no matter what happened before.

[jade plover]

I wouldnt say its because of good marketing, we dont have anything about tes 6 other than one cgi teaser. It isnt marketing, people are excited for tes 6 because for many of them its a favourite game series and they just hope it won't be f***ed up. Many people in this chat though already said that dont expect anything good from it

[dim reef]

If that were the case Starfield would've failed as well after what happened to 76. But it didn't. Despite it's mediocrity it was one of the best selling games of 2023.

They know how to market things well. Even the radio silence now is better than saying something stupid and regretting it later.

They have Todd.
He's their ultimate uno reverse card.

Somehow he always convinces people to board the hype train

[jade plover]

With starfield yes, it was a good marketing, i agree. They actually made people think that the game is much better than it is, so thats why it has so many negative reviews

[nova star]

hey i need help with cavern of the stormcaller

[nova star]

???

[eager remnant]

I prefer the writing in Skyrim over the writing in Oblivion. I think Morrowind had the best main quest writing though.

[dim reef]

https://tenor.com/view/morrowind-elder-scrolls-tes-pulp-fiction-gif-18365098368995329387

[nova star]

hey i need help with cavern of the stormcaller can anyone help ??

[feral viper]

ESO?

[nova star]

skyrim

[feral viper]

Ok, what's the problem? Maybe I can find the solution

[slow loom]

My understanding of DATV is it went from dark fantasy where the world is going to end and no one has time for your feelings. To one where all the characters sit down and try to have surface level conversations about everyone's feelings, who hurt them and how. Imagine Game of Thrones being made by Disney with a target audience for 12 year olds and you start to get the picture.

[feral viper]

I mean, half of Lord of the Rings is talking about feelings. And the world is LITERALLY ending.

The two things aren't mutually exclusive.

Now, I'm not defending Veil Guard, and it's got some serious issues with writing (though that's par for the course in video games in general) but the common modern idea that you can't have both is flat out nonsense.

Hell, even within BioWare's own library, Mass Effect is 90% just talking about each other's feelings, and working through personal trauma. The remaining 10% is the extinction level event.

And that worked fine up until BioWare decided to scoot across the carpet with that terrible ending.

None of which is relevant to TES in any way. Bethesda has its own writing problems to deal with, and I genuinely don't think critiquing BioWare is going to help them there.

[pulsar root]

You can have both, but when a more silly tone becomes super common in these series franchises, it loses value. But that doesn't just include video games. Some movies do it to and it annoys me but thats off topic. I don't think a writer from Veilguard is gonna somehow be the doom of Tes(Unless they're virtue signalling on Twitter but thats also off topic)

[feral viper]

Oh absolutely. The Marvelization of stories has been a net negative, IMO.

A lot of writers seem to have missed what made the humour of early Marvel movies good. They've stopped using humour to break tension, and use it just to be flippant.

Which undermines drama.

At the same time, they've diluted characters INTO the commentary. Which is another problem..

[heavy heron]

"The Marvelization" 🤓

[livid ingot]

I don't think the humor has really changed. It's just almost been two decades now and we're sick of it. People are hungry for sincerity/authenticity, we're drowning in irony

[feral viper]

Nah, it was used in spots previously for the purpose of breaking tension.

Now, they just use it everywhere, not breaking tension but undermining it entirely.

They utterly misunderstood why it worked, and why people reacted so well to it.

Thor Ragnarok being the clear exception here, because that movie was basically a comedy through and through.

Sheogorath is a great example of this in TES. The character is a buffoon, who is used solely as a comedic inclusion for the Lols.

He went from a quirky, callous and dangerously erratic force to a clown, and he's basically nothing but a joke now.

[lean comet]

With the recent news. I hope Bethesda are careful with their writing strategy.
If I start to get a whiff we are about to relive the abject heartbreak of BioWare's demise, I'm.. I'm just not going through that again, I can't.. TES VI would have to become the first Bethesda RPG, ever, that I skipped. 🙁

Sorry I'll leave it there. Just needed to vent for a second.

[feral viper]

And what recent news is this?

[cyan forge]

This is a gross misunderstanding of BioWare as a whole, BioWare games are 80% "Hey do you have a minute" and have been ever since KOTOR.

[eager remnant]

I presume they're referring to this: https://www.thegamer.com/john-dombrow-bioware-mass-effect-dragon-age-bethesda-game-studios-senior-quest-designer/

[slow loom]

You all seemed to miss the part where i said surface level conversations.

[feral viper]

Aaaah, ok. Hadn't seen that.

I will say, however, that pedigree means nothing to me. Time and time again, I've seen lauded creatives produce utter garbage.

Take each product one by one. Don't let someone's reputation get ahead of them.

[cyan forge]

You can respond to finding out about the Morning Wars with "well your people should be careful, Tali."

Just a one sentence, scolding response to finding out about that time the Quarians were nearly genocided (not that they didn't deserve the wars, the way they treated Geth was horrendous and the Geth really were firing in self defense)

Shep doesn't really get deep with their companions until after they have literally died

[slow loom]

You are welcome to your opinion as am i to mine.

[pulsar root]

Its more of humor overwhelming the entire product or in this case storyline filled with humor and not allowing emotional moments/seriousness to breathe.

[cyan forge]

Yes, as we all are, and just as you are welcome to express your opinion, I am welcome to contend it.

[feral viper]

Which was my point.

The Marvel effect was basically "Oh, people react positively to the jokes, we should add more" while entirely ignoring the context that made those jokes impactful and poignant.

[cyan forge]

I'm just hoping that as they write for TES6 they don't start hiring writers from Zenimax over to Bethesda. ESO is a nightmare lately

[slow loom]

As i said above its Disney-afied

[feral viper]

I mean, it's no worse than the last 3 showings from Bethesda.

FO4, FO76, and Starfield, have not been particularly well written.

Not exactly BAD, but also not good.

And nothing in ESO has fallen to the level of Oblivion.

[slow loom]

I agree that Bethesda games have shied away from their darker origins.

[feral viper]

They also shy away from actually making any sort of commentary.

A story without commentary is a story without a point. And a story without a point isn't worth telling at all.

[cyan forge]

Oblivion was great, ESO had gems such as Ithella and "oh wanting to stop the three banners war is bad, you have to help the monarchs continue their senseless violence for cyrodiil because uh... look you just have to okay?"

Never forgiving Zenimax for the Ascendant Order questline

[feral viper]

Ah, must be new here.

[cyan forge]

New to the server, not new to elder scrolls.

[feral viper]

My contempt for Oblivion is the stuff of infamy round here.

[pulsar root]

I can't comment on ESO, I barely played it.

Edit: Ok I played a bit but I barely got out of the game outside Stros M'kai and near Wayrest in Highrock

[cyan forge]

Let me guess, is it the un-jungled Cyrodiil? It's usually woodland cyrodiil

[feral viper]

Oh no, it's far, far more comprehensive than that.

So much so, and I go into detail, the mods get mad at me.

[cyan forge]

🤝 professional hater nice

[gloomy anchor]

[feral viper]

On the plus side, it's stories are decently paced, and getting rid of Miss Chance in combat was a plus.

[cyan forge]

Yeah miss chance was my biggest problem with Morrowind. In daggerfall you could kinda game it a little easier in character creation but Morrowind had my Expert in Spear losing fights to literal animals because I could somehow not hit them

[feral viper]

Which is more positives than I have to say about New Vegas but that's a whole other story.

I do think that the Ithelia story arc highlights a second problem with a lot of modern video game writers. At least in the west.

The utter and total lack of understanding of logic.

'It works if you don't think too hard' isn't an excuse.

[slow loom]

You are on a whole nother level to most of us here with the lore.

[feral viper]

Which is why I have grown to hate it, yes.

Go deep enough down the rabbit hole, and you find that it's all balsa wood and chewing gum.

[cyan forge]

I haven't played Ithelia's expansion, but between her design and her whole "prince of paths unexplored" shtick I genuinely just think she was a mistake from a studio that relies too heavily on the Princes

The Daedra imo are fundamentally uninteresting if you look at them too closely

[slow loom]

It took me quite a few playthroughs of TES games before i cared about the lore on more than a surface level.

[feral viper]

I see the opposite, it's just no one wants to do anything interesting WITH them.

Because they're easy villains and require no further consideration than just 'Its am evul demon'

[slow loom]

I liked the Daedra mostly because they spiced up the side quests.

[cyan forge]

By design, Daedra are one note characters. They can never be anything more than their domains. Malacath and Merid-Nunda have something interesting with the Fallen Aedra thing and Malacath's connection to the orcs' Pariah curse, but Sheogorath will always be insane, Dagon will always crave destruction, and Mola Gbal will always want to crush and dominate

[feral viper]

Take Boethiah as an example. It's all murder, treachery and conspiracy with the writers. Because they never want to bother going any deeper than the surface.

Ask yourself, why were all of Boethiah's greatest champions heroes and nation builders?

They're not one note, but the approach to them has always been one note.

[slow loom]

We will probably never know the writers original intent for the progression of the lore at this point.

[cyan forge]

I can answer that question myself, because nation building is 90% murder, treachery, and lies

[feral viper]

But this problem exists across TES.

EVERYTHING is one note. Because people either don't want to go any deeper, or are incapable of doing so.

[cyan forge]

They can't even approach their own themes right

The Ascendant Order questline has you fight a guild trying to stop the world war going on, but instead of engaging critically with you being a hired sword for nobles who just wanna hang their flags from White-Gold, the writers write the Order off with a half assed daedra plot

[feral viper]

But I'm falling in the rabbit hole again.

I don't think the setting of TES is salvageable. Full stop. Bethesda either doesn't want what I want, or is incapable of actuating on it, so it's a dead point.

The games, the mechanics, and the systems? Those still have value. Bethesda can still make a great Fantasy RPG, even if I think the setting it's self is slop.

[slow loom]

We have been to a few of the Daedra realms. The real problem is once the storylines are over it has no impact that can be felt beyond that realm. This can be said about most Bethesda quests though. Sheogorath shows up in Oblivion and Skyrim and gives you the same weapon both times as if neither happened.

[cyan forge]

Well yes that's because artifacts aren't objects

They're fragments of that Prince's soul, and they return to the Prince when their wielder has stopped fulfilling the Prince's design

[feral viper]

And honestly, I don't think there is a single writer in the gaming industry they could fix the Setting for me. Nothing short of sweeping retcons and rewrites could do that.

[cyan forge]

The Hero of Kvatch stopped fulfilling Sheogorath's plans when they went and mantled Sheogorath during the events of Shivering Isles

So Wabbajack would, naturally, return to being creatia

[cyan forge]

I think honestly they could reboot the setting in a satisfying manner with TES6 and give us some crazy First Era stuff to do

[slow loom]

Well its just one example but it could be said for all the artifacts. I suppose the games being set 200 years apart allows for them to be taken back and regifted.

[feral viper]

Basically everything would have to change. There are a few scraps here and there, it even the core cultures have been so squandered I see no reasonable way to course correct.

[cyan forge]

I want to see the cool stuff that's never going on in the foreground of the setting

[feral viper]

The ships already capsized and sunk. You'd have to build a new one to try again.

[cyan forge]

There's a small ayleid civilization in Black Marsh and constant rumors of the Saliche killing people in the woods of Cyrodiil but this just, never gets acted on?

[slow loom]

ESO has been going for this long and releasing expansion after expansion for the story all this time somehow.

[cyan forge]

ESO lives PURELY off of daedra quests

[feral viper]

Anyway, I'm going to dip out of the rest of this conversation before I get too hostile about the writing.

Someone ping me when gameplay comes back up.

[cyan forge]

They have not released an expansion that doesn't involve a daedric prince one time

[cyan forge]

Elder Scrolls gameplay needs a rework too if I'm being totally honest lmao

[feral viper]

Oh absolutely. But the bones are there.

They need a lot of fleshing out though.

[slow loom]

I just want story progression, not something that feels like only you know about and the next game wont address or make reference too almost at all.

[cyan forge]

Skyrim and Oblivion's melee combat largely consists of TF2 pyro game play (hold W and press M1), magic keeps getting less and less fleshed out in every new release, and armor ends up meaning nothing because at 100 armor skill category in Oblivion and Morrowind all armors would be the exact same while in Skyrim you could use smithing to just make one piece of armor more and more and more powerful infinitely

[slow loom]

I imagine something like a side quest that involves more than one or two daedra at a time and has consequences to the world.

[cyan forge]

No! Less daedra!

[slow loom]

My point being dont make the world feel so disconnected.

[cyan forge]

How about a quest that focuses on the Bretic old gods? The ancestor faiths they worship, their cults and witch covens? The things you see in books or hear about in rumors but never actually get expanded on, that'd make the world feel interconnected

[feral viper]

I've usually put it like this.

Bethesda has a lot of the tools it needs to make a truely revolutionary RPG. They just need to use those tools properly.

[slow loom]

Maybe you have to choose between one of the artifacts and screw over one of the Daedra which buffs their spawn. I'm just spitballing here.

[feral viper]

They don't have ALL the tools, but they have a lot of them.

[cyan forge]

I've always said that Bethesda would have a damn good setting if Bethesda would stop touching it

[slow loom]

I have said in the past that it would be interesting to see another big name in the industry take a stab at the TES franchise.

[feral viper]

Well, Nords, Bretons, Imperials, Bosmer and Altmer are basically write-offs now. They're so far gone there's no saving them.

Dunmer are fine. Khajiit are shaky but ok. Argonians and Redguard are teetering on the edge.

And Orcs are just... They exist, I guess.

[cyan forge]

Part of it is the way they do the games with the blank slate character. In order to not have to interact with a character who feasibly could have been anyone, they have to jump across the continent, skip an entire era

[slow loom]

In my opinion the next game needs to have closure to the Dunmer storyline and have them play a sizeable role.

[cyan forge]

If they went the Witcher route of having you play one person, they could easily make a series that follows one story

[cyan forge]

Skyrim wrapped up the Dunmer story arc. Their Gods' tapping of the heart of lorkhan doomed their people, and their mistreatment of the Argonians led to an invasion that stole half the country away. That's your closure, the Cursed Race screwed themselves over

The dunmer have been characterized by a superiority complex and overwhelming greed built into their culture from day one, eventually it was gonna bite them in the ass

[slow loom]

I suppose there is some closure in Skyrim but it still doesn't feel fully complete to me. Imagine them coming back and being a super race that all the other races need to unite against. All the while the Dwemer start up all their old war machines and underground facility that have long since laid dorment.

That would feel like a final sort of storyline for me for the TES series.

Pretty much all out war.

[feral viper]

You can't wrap up a peoples story without extermination. Everything else is just a new chapter.

[cyan forge]

I mean this in the nicest possible way, I think you are confused.

The Dunmer do not have war machines, or under ground facilities, that is the dwemer.

[slow loom]

Actually you are right my mistake the Dwemer is what i mean't.

[cyan forge]

And Yagrum Bagarn spent the entire second era trying desperately to find any trace of his people. He settled on the conclusion that they had somehow bound their souls to Walk-Brass (the numidium that Tiber Septim used to conquer Alinor), and the destruction of the Numidium in the 3rd era in the Iliac Bay destroyed the Dwemer

Their very souls were wiped from reality, they do not exist anymore

[feral viper]

Well, the inhabitants of Umbriel indicated that they may have encountered Dwemer out there.

But they went way, WAY beyond the normal realms of Oblivion in their travels.

[cyan forge]

I immensely dislike that, it cheapens Yagrum's entire existence

[feral viper]

The whole traveling of Umbriel is... Weird at its core
.

[cyan forge]

Umbriel was a weak story tbh

[feral viper]

Very interesting depending how deep you want to run those threads, but weird

You have to delve into Kabala and Gnosticism to really pull those threads though

[slow loom]

My fanfiction about the Dwemer would go something like this. They get banished to a different realm but find their way back somehow. Once back they activate their underground fortresses which rise from the ground splitting and ripping the world open. Lava pours out and deep underground magic is exposed, corrupted and reshapes parts of the world. Similar to WoW Cataclysm and how that changed the world.

Then the Dwemer robot army move out and conquer massive sways of the land. Rebuilding it in the Dwemers own image. Technology is advanced several ages as people start to reverse engineer Dwemer techology. Soon a massive temple is constructed that blots out the sky as the magic from the world is consumed and reformed into a new Dwemer god.

This is just for the fun of it with no real lore bases.

[cyan forge]

Yeah I can tell it's got no lore basis

[slow loom]

It would make for some interesting landscapes and ability to change up the wildlife.

[feral viper]

Neither do most official stories, so...

https://tenor.com/view/eh-meh-jim-jim-halpert-the-office-gif-25317293

[slow loom]

I would imagine the technology of the world looking a lot closer to steampunk with magic to supercharge it.

[feral viper]

Magitech is rad, and TES was supposed to have it. But they chickened out.

[slow loom]

I have seen those dwemer bike mods for skyrim and it doesn't seem out of the world of possibility.

[feral viper]

Got whatever the Disney Hellscape Oblivion was, and that was that

[slow loom]

Lord of the Rings is popular just copy that. 😛

[pulsar root]

Sorry, was busy looking at Gamescon

[feral viper]

How DARE they release a DoW game without Eldar.

https://tenor.com/view/harumph-harrumph-blazing-saddles-melbrooks-youre-in-trouble-gif-16604766

[cyan forge]

Sekiro anime, but no Armored Core DLC, thank you fromsoft

[tardy tiger]

Blood Ravens stealing the Eldar before the Ultramarines do

[feral viper]

Better them, than Tazryn

[midnight stag]

Is it anyone’s general theory that es6 will release on the next gen consoles because of maybe the need to have ai integration for the game to work

[nimble pond]

Cannibalism is nasty, so nasty. Nasty like a honeybadger. But seeing as how Cannibalism and Bosmer are a thing, would be cool if you could at least temporarily take on the physical form of whatever you eat, or at least take on their unique abilities? Kinda like Kirby
Unless that's already a thing in TES?

[midnight stag]

Basically they would use the power of the device to control ai to control the environment and world better they tried a little in starfield but to a degree that they could control on the console but hey I might be wrong but if I’m right it would explain a lot of what Bethesda has in the pipeline for the future

[jade plover]

What exactly do you think ai would do?

[inland shale]

I doubt TES6 will have a dungeon master, that is more of a Wayward Realms shtick

[nimble pond]

The real question, will coconuts be weaponized?

Cactus clubs?

[slow loom]

That sounds like something that would be better suited in a Final Fantasy game.

[dim reef]

^ true lol

[feral viper]

I mean, it wouldn't be THAT hard to implement an improvised weapon system they would allow you to do such a thing. Throwing a cactus at someone isn't really any different than throwing a chair.

[dim reef]

You could already throw random things as weapons in Fallout with the junk jet.
So that shouldn't be too hard

[feral viper]

The biggest challenge would be assigning where to hold whatever random thing you're using as an improvised weapon. Beyond that, simple stars assigned based on object weight would be super easy.

[reef forge]

I am terrified for ES6, if it uses old or refurbished engines, or scripting technologies. It will be the end of everything. If its story has anything agenda related it will be a laughing stock. If the bugs are comedic it will be ridiculed and shunned. This isn't a joke this is actually important imo. I won't touch this game personally if there are obvious fall offs that are due to pandering or in house influencing that break off from the world that is Elder Scrolls. It's just personal to gamers not to be taken lightly.

[pulsar root]

..... Creation Engine 2 is a fine engine, there's nothing to worry about. And agenda? Like there's been no agenda in any Bethesda game unless you're part of the "Anti woke" crowd(I hate the term so much)

[feral viper]

Typically, Agenda is code for 'Anything I don't like'.

And frankly, if you think bugs ruin a game and make it a laughing stock...

Find another company.

Bethesda has never, once, released a game without hilarious bugs. If you expect them to now, you're just being an ostrich.

[feral viper]

More diplomatically...

What's with people lately bringing up the Talking Heads of YouTube nonsense again?

This is like, 3 times in the last week.

[eager remnant]

Popular game engines are always "refurbished." That's what the numbers following their names mean (Unity 6.2, Unreal 5.6, ect). A game engine that is never "refurbished" is a game engine that will become quickly obsolete.

[lilac meadow]

i said i hope tes6 isn't woke! i don't think these game's need to have sexualized content they were fine without

[cyan forge]

is this serious?

[dim reef]

Laughs in The Lusty Argonian Maid

[feral viper]

https://tenor.com/view/blink-blinking-what-confused-blacklist-gif-13641169

Sexualised... Woke...

https://tenor.com/view/princess-bride-you-keep-using-that-word-i-dont-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means-gif-15708582

[feral viper]

No, you know what... Not even quipping.

[timid drum]

Try, you don't care. Personally, while I don't always agree with Terical, they do provide good feedback and insight. No need to be rude.

[feral viper]

Oh, I don't care about their input any more than they do mine. It's the flippant dismissal of human rights issues that I have problems with. And I'm tired of being flippant in my addressing of it.

[timid drum]

Ah yeah fair point

[harsh crown]

1: This discussion is in regards to a video game series.
2: There is a lot to the Elder Scrolls Lore I recommend looking into.
The lore can be rather dark, and there are even some aspects of the lore that we can't discuss here because of the #rules

[feral viper]

The lore is irrelevant to the issue.

Well, at least we agree on something.

The Stormcloaks may have been likable, if it weren't for their Talos Worship.

Because screw Talos and his whole sodding dynasty with the Mace of Molag Bal.

Well, the Aedra aren't much better in the grand scheme of things.

Nothing deserves worship. Those demanding it least of all.

[cyan forge]

Death to Talos, death to Tiber, and death to Zurin Arcturus

[feral viper]

Not according to more recent lore. The 'Comatose' Hypothesis was pretty solidly dead even before I quit the lore community.

The 'Pillar' hypothesis was the more common one, at least a year ago.

[cyan forge]

I cannot believe Bethesda tried to make us sympathize with Talos worshippers in Skyrim considering Tiber Septim used Walk-Brass to level entire swathes of Colovia, Elsewyr, and Alinor just because the Altmer didn't want to join his empire

[pulsar root]

Considering how a lot of them just disappear because the Thalmor are jerks. Yeah I think we're right to sympathize with them,besides our knowledge of Tamriel/Nirn is way bigger then the average denizen ingame.

[feral viper]

They do. Both Dibella and Arkay communicate with their chosen in Skyrim, they send avatars in Morrowind, the directly bestow blessings to the Divine Champion in Oblivion, and there are about a dozen divine interactions in ESO.

[feral viper]

Not to mention the whole plot of Redguard, the Barenziah incident, potentially Culchain...

[cyan forge]

The Thalmor are right for banning Talos worship, some of them have probably buried people who saw Anumidium

Oh sod off

Humans live in elven ruins, speak an elven language, worship elven gods, and go to war to incorporate elves into their empire

[pulsar root]

Thats not an excuse to kidnap people making them disappear. And again these humans aren't exactly all aware of what happened 200 something years ago

[cyan forge]

"Alright here's our one rule for peace: Stop worshipping the genocide god."

"well screw you I'm gonna worship the genocide god"

Tiber septim is worshipped BECAUSE of his war crimes. He is literally the Imperial god of war

[pulsar root]

So you think its ok to kidnap people?

[harsh crown]

As a friendly reminder, please remember to keep all comments within the guidelines of the #rules

No this is not directed at anyone specifically, just a friendly reminder

[cyan forge]

When they worship Tiber sure. Would you not disappear and kill Molag Bal cultists?

[feral viper]

Knowing Kirkbride though his writings and my few interactions with him, I'm almost certain the current development regarding Talos Worship was based on real world religious history.

History I cannot even begin to scratch the surface of here, due to the rules.

[pulsar root]

Thats not even the same

[cyan forge]

Men be like "Mer can't talk about genocide" after genociding the Falmer, genociding the Ayleids (that sided with Alessia), using the Numidium on Alinor, signing up with thr Chimer with the explicit desire to genocide the Dwemer

It isn't elves who sack Orisinium every century

[cyan forge]

You're right the Molag Bal cultist doesn't hide behind "our victims deserve it" they go "I'm evil. I love being evil. I want to be more evil. Death to the innocent." like a respectable villain

[feral viper]

ONLY men have engaged in Genocide, that we know of.

Mer did some horrific stuff too, but they haven't done that.

[cyan forge]

Men were enslaved by ayleids one time in the Merethic era, liberated by the Dynari ayleids, and haven't stopped killing elves since

[feral viper]

Some of it arguably worse, true, but not genocide.

[cyan forge]

Anything an Elf has done over their centuries long lives a Man has done worse in his 60 short years

[feral viper]

Well, I'd say it was even before that, that Men were on the killing spree.

Both the Nordic conquests, the attempted extermination of the Direnni, and the attempted extermination of the Chimer, predate the Alessia uprising.

[cyan forge]

The night of tears was a siege on one city because the nords were holding back on a magical WMD the falmer wanted to study, and once again Men went on an extermination war

That's not what genocide means

[feral viper]

Unlikely that they wanted to study it. If they did, it wouldn't have remained in Sarthaal.

The Falmer likely wanted it BURIED. Buried and forgotten.

[cyan forge]

The Falmer sacked Saarthal for the WMD that the Nords held over them, and in return the Nords killed every Falmer they could find, stamped out their culture, burned their architecture, and drove them into hiding

[feral viper]

The Falmer burning the city to the ground and abandoning it instantly, leaving the Eye where it was, fits what we know about them and things they didn't like.

As soon as it's not a threat, stay as far away from it as you can.

[cyan forge]

The Ayleids didn't go far enough

[feral viper]

https://tenor.com/view/angry-angry-panda-panda-mad-commercial-gif-5416416

[cyan forge]

They should have fleshsculpted Alessia into a statue titled "The price of arrogance" or something

Reminder that Alessia turned on the very Ayleids that liberated her people before having children with a cow

[feral viper]

Nope, nope, not going down this rabbit hole again. Every time I get sucked back into this lore it just makes me hate TES more.

I'm walking away.

https://tenor.com/view/squidward-spongebob-walking-away-walk-gif-24993317

I have to spend another 2 hours failing to learn how to play TEC anyway.

Advent and Vassari I understand. TEC? Not a clue.

[lilac meadow]

yeah but that was funny it didn't feel like some kind of forced political messaging

[cyan forge]

Gay marriage was legalized in the Empire before it was IRL

[harsh crown]

Let's not mix IRL with in-game things please.

[cyan forge]

Every single threat is beat by people of all races coming together to fight off whatever apocalypse is on the horizon

[feral viper]

Well, in the USA anyway.

And trans and gender fluid individuals are already canon to the setting. Have been for some time.

[lilac meadow]

was it really?

[cyan forge]

Like, fantasy settings like TES tend to be "woke"

Because fantasy where everyone is a jerk tends to get boring, look at warhammer

[harsh crown]

You should really look into the Elder Scrolls lore. There is a lot.

[cyan forge]

I've been with the setting since morrowind and have played everything I can get my hands on

[lilac meadow]

yeah but that's too vague i played the crap out of skyrim and never once noticed anything that stood out like some of the above examples

its mostly just a game yk

banned

[cyan forge]

What on earth did the bot censor there??

[lilac meadow]

were we ban ned

[cyan forge]

Regardless, I'm gonna say it, fantasy has always been woke, you just didn't notice because you were a kid having s good time

[feral viper]

The auto censor can be touchy sometimes.

[cyan forge]

That's all I'll say on the subject

[lilac meadow]

how would you know i wasn't an old man

[feral viper]

I firmly believe, if you aren't writing some kind of commentary, your story has no point.

And a story without a point isn't worth telling.

[cyan forge]

Argonian has been typing for a long time and I'm getting nervous so the conversation is over

[harsh crown]

Certain words, even if not profanity, are blocked by the filter because they have been used in excessively negative context far too many times.

[lilac meadow]

isn't that bad?

censoring what people can and can't say doesn't seem very democratic

[feral viper]

Hell, even Romeo and Juliet was commentary. It was never a love story, it was just turned INTO that during the Victorian Era.

[harsh crown]

That is why we have #rules for a reason

[lilac meadow]

i tried to say lol and for somereason i couldn't

[cyan forge]

Discords are little planes of oblivion, not democracies

[harsh crown]

It was likely due to a word within your messsage.

[cyan forge]

Argonian do you get paid to do this

[lilac meadow]

you're a bethesda moderator?

do you have any inside knowledge on tes 6

[harsh crown]

That's what it says next to my name

[cyan forge]

That's obviously gonna be NDA knowledge

[harsh crown]

Any information about any future Elder Scrolls games will be announced if/when the highers say so. 😅

[cyan forge]

I hope the commentary of TES6 is even more pronounced soeven people like yuhyes can understand it

[feral viper]

Your portrait just made me think of this, Argonian...

Did you get to see Shin Godzilla during the limited theatrical rerelease?

[harsh crown]

I did not 😭
(give you 1 guess where I was)

[cyan forge]

I hope todd howard personally beats us over the head going "ALRIGHT PEOPLE HATING OTHERS BASED ON THEIR RACE OR RELIGION IS WRONG AND SO IS GENOCIDE" I hope he physically comes to some peoples' houses and lectures them

[dim reef]

Complaining about "woke" things in a video game Discord sounds like forced political messaging

[lilac meadow]

but what about the nord's

[harsh crown]

Highly doubt that's going to happen

[lilac meadow]

they were strongly opposed to the other race's living in their skyrim

[cyan forge]

Yes this is why the altmer dragonborn killed ulfric

[lilac meadow]

and to most they were the heroes

[feral viper]

That was half of it.

The other half was 'Young Love isn't cute or harmless, and can be incredibly harmful, especially when boys prey on girls'.

[cyan forge]

Uh... I can't think of anyone who thinks the stormcloaks are unironically heroes

[lilac meadow]

talos?

[feral viper]

Half Romeo's interactions with his friends were cut from latter (and many modern) editions, because they're calling him out on him chasing after the first cute girl he thinks will hook up with him

[cyan forge]

it is uh, definitely wrong to find yourself agreeing eith the stormcloaks' desire to evict non nords out of skyrim

[lilac meadow]

yggsramir?

[harsh crown]

Let's not bring IRL into this

[lilac meadow]

yeah but it was part of the game

[cyan forge]

ysgramor is a war criminal and is directly responsible for the falmer beinf the way they are

[lilac meadow]

yeah but it's just a videogame

[harsh crown]

In-game and IRL are not the same

[cyan forge]

and talos was a war criminal who dropped a reality altering nuke on an island of people who didn't want to join the empire

[lilac meadow]

a video game that is responsible for everyone being here in the chat today because it rocked

[feral viper]

Anyway, Sins calls.

[lilac meadow]

i hope the game is based but also woke so that we can see the duality of life and people don't always get a safespace to hide in.

[cyan forge]

"Skyrim belongs to the nords" is the stormcloak rallying cry

[feral viper]

https://tenor.com/view/sins-of-solar-empire-soe2-soe-soeii-gif-27111395

[harsh crown]

Once again, let's stick to discussing The Elder Scrolls, NOT IRL

[cyan forge]

Argonian whatever they pay you isn't enough

[feral viper]

Oh no, the Dunmer were there long before Ulfric was born.

The exodus into Skyrim was about 190 years before the game, the Dunmer had been present longer than any Nord alive.

[cyan forge]

It's actually the Falmer homeland. The Nord homeland is Atmora

[feral viper]

They... Didn't?

[cyan forge]

Yeah, the Nords shouldn't have lost the Great War if they didn't want to give up Talos worship

Being totally honest, Nords can't do the whole "might makes right" thing AND hate the Altmer at the same time

[feral viper]

The Dunmer fled to Skyrim after a meteor decimated Morrowind. There was no war.

[cyan forge]

The Altmer are the strongest military in tamriel, so clearly the nords should listen

[feral viper]

Weeell... Legends kinda put the kaibosh to that.

[cyan forge]

Well, Baar Dau mostly devastated the island of Vvardenfell, it was Red Mountain that obliterated the province

And also the Argonian invasion

[feral viper]

They could only compete with the Empire using a magic Macguffin that let them remotely spy on the Empire.

Without that upper hand, the Dominion would have lost much earlier.

[cyan forge]

Shouldn't have lost your entire spy network and surrendered

[feral viper]

They didn't HAVE a spy network. They had an artifact.

[cyan forge]

I'm saying the EMPIRE shouldn't have lost their entire spy network, several provinces, and White Gold before surrendering

The Altmer proved they were better, even if through use of magic

[feral viper]

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loathe Legends, and think it's an even worse story than anything in Oblivion.

But as it stands... The situation presented is that the Dominion needed a divine cheat to compete.

[cyan forge]

And to their credit one altmer swordsman is equal to three or four human warriors

[cyan forge]

Like humans haven't been relying on divine providence. Pelinal, the Dragonborn, Numidium

Men have yet to win a single war where they were not backed up by a literal agent of the divines

[feral viper]

Oh, I'm right there with you.

But again, I hate Legends. I think it strips every bit of nuance and geopolitical complexity from the Great War and turns it into a worthless one now Macguffin story that a Hero comes and cleans up

[dim reef]

Mer apologist detected

[cyan forge]

Yes, because I like being right

If Talos is a god, how come he can't save your family from our justiciars in the night? Checkmate, nordlings

[feral viper]

Legends striped everything interesting from the Great War, and made it another 'No one can do anything themselves, better call a Hero to clean up the mess' story.

Like, needing a Hero to solve and apocalypse is one thing. If anyone can rise to the occasion, then it mutes the threat.

But a geopolitical conflict? You don't need a sodding Hero to solve that. That's just a cop out.

The Reman Dynasty had a monotheistic cult.

The Cult of the One.

[cyan forge]

The Alessians worshipped Akatosh, alone, claiming they would "purge the elven taint from his name"

This is Marukhtian work too, because that Imga just hated everything elven

[feral viper]

Akatosh was viewed as the expression of the One, while we still don't know how they handled the other gods and Daedra. Were they angels? We're they Spirits?

We don't really have any information (or didn't when I stopped following).

[cyan forge]

They followed saints outside of The One

Like Pelinal, or Perrif. In general they just hated elves

[feral viper]

Not just Elves. They hated all non-Men..

Which was ironic, given Marukh.

[cyan forge]

God I hate Marukh

[feral viper]

Marukh is the Erebus of TES.

We could have had MINOTAUR. EMPERORS.

But no, that monkey-priest decided Men were the superior species.

[pulsar root]

I can bearly find much info on what Tiber Septim. Some of it is vague and thats irritating

[nimble pond]

Update: In the end, turns out both Man and Mer are inferior failures. The Gods get angry and eat everyone, Cabin In The Woods style.

[azure vector]

where is it

[jade plover]

There are too many messages in this day, can anyone make a summary of what i missed please?

[feral viper]

Talos Sux

Everything else was largely irrelevant and not worth repeating

[nimble pond]

An in-game journal we can write in indefinitely throughout our journey?

Also, why is it we can never write and send any letters? We have a courier and receive mail already

And lastly, proper food storage containers.. just not satisfied with current kitchen layouts.

And just saying, it's been brought up before adding rainbows to the weather system. I'm just adding it would be cool if they added doorways at the ends of them that take you somewhere if you get there before it fades away, like another Oblivion realm for a random example.

[slow loom]

Everything you just said is pretty random not just the end part.

[jade plover]

I think he is pretty cool

[feral viper]

Gin is a stream of consciousness type fellow. It's why we love him, random ideas at random times help drive conversation

That said, I do think that the reason we haven't had any sort of real journal, note taking or similar system is pretty obvious.

Since Morrowind, these games have been designed first and foremost for Consoles. And typing out anything but the simplest of text, on a controller, is a right pain in the ass.

[tardy tiger]

Not really. Altmer are more known for magic while the warriors are Redguards, Nords, Colovians and etc.

[tardy tiger]

The real issue of the Alessian Empire is we have no idea when they went after Minotaurs. Because man Minotaurs got no lore until ESO and they just threw it at the Alessians.

It has 1000 + years of rule and it would be very odd at the start where they were having Werewolf Generals and whose influence created Vampiric knightly Orders.

[feral viper]

We also don't know when Marukh was active. Because Imga supposedly have shorter lifespans than Men or Mer, but Marukh was both a contemporary of both Belharza and the early Alessian Order, despite those two things being a century apart.

Because no one has a sodding timeline, or can keep any of these events straight.

The setting of TES is an organically grown hodgepodge of ideas, footnotes and claims with no actual coherent structure or deeper thought put into it. And the longer it goes on, the more this shows.

[cyan forge]

Restoration magic and alchemy can unnaturally extend one's lifespan, as can Divine intervention. As Akatosh's high priest in Cyrodiil, I imagine all three would have been open

[tardy tiger]

Life extension is a pain but it's really more on TES not thinking of it much when writing life spans of rather important people.

Elves have their own issue of know having multiple ideas of Elven lifespans.

[nimble pond]

Maybe they could add a voice to text? Or with these consoles, some sort of touch feature with a companion wireless device to the console. Maybe Xbox will make something like that in the future. I think some controllers have like a mini-keypad, maybe that coukd be the standard for controllers. Idk, lots of ideas to try

[dim reef]

Cyberpunk's text message system is pretty cool. They could implement something like that with letters

[nimble pond]

I kind of like it like that in it's own way. Not really tied down to anything

[nimble pond]

For a unique hammer weapon: basically when you tap with the crosshair aimed at the ground it will launch a directional visible ground tremor in the direction you were looking at, causing an enemy to flip up in the air and fall back down and also knock their weapon out of their hands. Now, if you hold the attack button while aimed at the ground instead of tapping it, it will create an AoE tremor instead of a directional tremor. Causing all enemies around you to pop up in the air. Now I would add this to it if possible... but it'd be pretty great if the attack also made all their armor come off and fall on the ground.

[dim reef]

Ah so the Gravity Hammer from Halo

[nimble pond]

Sort of lol, but better

[eager remnant]

I do too. I think of TES lore as a folk tale, a wonderfully anarchic stew of sometimes unrelated ideas, contributed by several minds over several decades. To me, there can be richness in folk tales that is often lacking in the more rigidly controlled stories and lore invented by single authors working alone.

In this context TES lore reminds me somewhat of the King Arthur legends. These were written by several authors over a period of centuries, each grafting new ideas onto the ideas of earlier writers. By the time it achieved the state most of us recognize it had become a hodge-podge of unrelated stories that no longer made sense. But, for me at least, it remains fascinating and compelling.

[feral viper]

I think it has plus sided and down sides.

More and more, I think TES is leaning on the down side, as it tries to become more concrete and less mythic in it's worldbuilding.

Similar to how I firmly believe Horus Heresy has been actively damaging to Warhammer.

[tardy tiger]

Depends really I find.

Lore can work when it reflects the game world or just talks of places the games have not been to yet.

TES3 does really well on Morrowind and Dunmer lore.

And then there's Imperial lore which we can say is just a lie. Like their lore wouldn't be an issue if we were not constantly around their Empire, Heartland and so called culture which in turn makes any lore that tries to talk of them unreliable because their lore doesn't reflect their world.

[feral viper]

Regardless, I think Bethesda would have to work a miracle to get me to like the setting again. And I don't believe in miracles.

[feral viper]

That said... I DO think this is more and more viable.

Not only are dictation programs better than ever, but they're also becoming far more ubiquitous. So some sort of simple integration should be more than possible.

[pulsar root]

Too much vagueness and contradictoryness just makes it hard for me to even care if there's very little absolute answers. Like I don't mind some things just left hanging in the air(See the Dwemer's fate as unknown). Too much leaning onto the vagueness isn't a good idea. Some of it is necessary though.

[tardy tiger]

Mystery wise the disappearance of the Dwemer is fine
How the Akaviri look really shouldn't be.

At the least the Kamal and Tsaesci should have known physical appearances.

Tsaesci due to the Dragonguard/Blades.
Kamal because they had a Dynasty within living memory of Tiberius

[solid lance]

Have they added rhe ability to delete spells yet

I just want to delete all the stupid spells I made when I didn’t know what I was doing

Now I have a bunch of random trash cluttering my list and I just want them to go away….

If they added creaaaaaation clubbbbbbb then somebody could do it forrrrr themmmmm Wink wink

👀👀👀

Oh skittles, I meant to say I’m just yapping in a manner that could be construed as complaining

Nah Xbox doesn’t have any of that fun stuff

I’m hosed :(

Bethesda add modding support to console and my attention for fallout season 2 is yours!!!!

[pulsar root]

Microsoft is far more willing for mod support compared to Sony(And Nintendo).

[cyan forge]

There was a favorites wheel in oldblivion

[nimble pond]

Do they have sleeping sand in Hammerfell Deserts?
Not like all the sand. Just a specific sand patch sometimes found in certain desert regions. Could be an alchemist alternative to paralyze. Just straight up put them to sleep right on the spot.

[thick heron]

Any news on Oblivion Remastered updates?

[thick heron]

Very cool

[jade plover]

Rarely agree with you, but you are right. Its because tes lore doesnt have a certain author and have been written by lots of people

[jade plover]

Agree here too, it is one of the issues with oblivion world building - it is absolutely unrelated to lore

[slow loom]

I think the lore is just stuck. They want to make a game that feels like it progresses the world without actually progressing anything that would make future games harder to make. Some example words of what I'm getting at: Recontextualization, Reframing, Emphasis and De-emphasis, Figurative Language, Mindfulness and Awareness. It all leads to the lore feeling stale and mostly unchanging in my mind.

TES lore feels like owning one of the best libraries in the world but all the books have the last 10% of pages missing.

[jade plover]

Can you give some examples of this?

[feral viper]

I think it has more to do with a lack of concern for continuity, of an unfamiliarity with their own material.

Warhammer did the same thing, and it wasn't until Matt Ward that they ran into trouble with it. And only then because he patchwork rewrote large sections of the lore with no consideration for how it got together with what remained.

[jade plover]

I thought warhammer has the most solid and unshattered lore among all fantasy series

[feral viper]

Warhammer 40k, I mean.

The less i talk about Matt Ward, the better.

But Warhammer Fantasy is a great example there too. It's grown organically, and remains coherent. Even after an entirely new studio (Creative Assembly) got involved.

Warcraft. Forgotten Realms. Ashan. Dragon Age.

None of these have the same problems as TES. They have their own problems, sure, it coherency isn't one of them.

Starfield confirmed a suspicion I've had for awhile. At least for me.

Worldbuilding is not one of Bethesdas strong suits. They gained that reputation because of Morrowind, and I solidly think it was premature.

Worldspace design and the spark of innovation? Absolutely. They remain arguably the best in the industry there

[dim reef]

You will find quite a lot of people disagreeing with that I'm afraid

[jade plover]

Well, i have never played any warhammer game, so i don't know

Did they spoil something in lore?

[slow loom]

For starters we find out a lot about the Dwemer in Morrowind and basically what happened to them bar a few details. Then Skyrim comes along and recontextualizes their disappearance with the reason being down to tonal architecture basically. So in essence we learned a little but changed nothing about the overall story.

We find out the Falmer story in Skyrim but it ends with they are stuck this way and there is nothing you can do. Whether you know this lore or not they are still just enemies to fight and nothing changed.

Most of the main storylines in TES are cyclical storytelling, where most of them end how they began like an episode of a cartoon.

Almost all the Daedra stories have zero progression and are really just small events that play out over and over again from game to game. Also usually ending with nothing major changing.

The Guilds in TES are usually focused around completing fairly small tasks in the grand scheme and then returning to nothing changing. The thieves guild are still mostly petty thieves bar The Grey Fox. Dark Brotherhood is still just a few people running around in a cave or dungeon. The Fighters Guild doesn't exist in Skyrim and is replaced with a werewolves guild.

I forgot the Mages guild which usually have the more interesting storylines but always fall flat for me because they end right as things start to get interesting.

[jade plover]

Im not really familiar with dnd lore, i only played bg 3. But it seems for me even more random than tes lore. I think it was made with main idea of "whatever you make up is possible"

[slow loom]

It's hard to explain in this discord what ruined the Warhammer lore. Lets just say they had something setup in the lore and they changed it because you wanted to.

[jade plover]

I still don't get what do you want to change in TES. Can you give an example of open world rpg that doesnt have these issues in similar cases?

[slow loom]

Dragon Age series until Veilguard. Mass effect trilogy. Witcher series.

[jade plover]

Witcher doesnt really rely on lore. If you don't read any books in the game it won't change your understanding of the world. Its more like a bonus for fans.

[slow loom]

It's still a continuing story where past choices matter even if only a little at times.

[jade plover]

Ahh i got it now. You want tes to have choices that matter

[dim reef]

ME suffered from the same issue. It does carry over choices but plenty of big choices have no payoff

[jade plover]

Yes, that would be cool. And bethesda is definitely capable of it. Civil war quest line in skyrim changes jarls, guards and few buildings in cities. Not much but something

[dim reef]

DA was slightly better in that regard but even they realized it's not possible to keep track of so many things with VG

No matter what you do, it's a losing battle.

[slow loom]

I can imagine it being quite hard to write for the longer it goes on.

I mostly just want to feel like the world is progressing instead of feeling like disconnected stories playing out.

[jade plover]

So you want parts of elder scrolls series to be more interlinked

[slow loom]

I'd like most parts of the game to feel almost like an ongoing story. We go from the powerful Mages Guild of Oblivion to a half destroyed barely holding on Mages Guild of Skyrim. Then the psijic order shows up and it ends. Will TES6 have anything to do with the psijic order? Probably not and it will be some unrelated story about a new evil of the day. Everything just feel like it stays the same.

[jade plover]

Thats a great idea

[pulsar root]

I don't believe things stay the same. Reocurring characters are very low though. Tamriel Pre Great War(Oblivion) is kinda different then post the great War.

[feral viper]

D&D lore is immense. Even if you only look at the Forgotten Realms, it dwarfs most other settings.

Even if we ignore the species like the Le'Shay, Vaati and Spellweavers, Spelljammer, the Planes, AND it's connection to our real world, the history of Abier-Toril covers about 30,000 years, more than a hundred civilisations, close to a thousand wars, and tens of thousands of name dropped characters (some of which are more developed than others).

Most countries in the Forgotten Realms have as much history as Tamriel.

This size can make it feel random in BG3, because you're really only seeing the points of overlap between all these factors, which are relevant to the game it's self. But if you know about the wider lore, it seems less random.

TES is very different in this regard. It tries to achieve the same thing, but IMO fails. Whereas the wider the lens for D&D, the less erratic and random it becomes, TES goes the opposite.

The more you know, the less cohesive and interconnected it becomes.

Forgotten Realms becomes a complex weave of overlapping Venn Diagrams. TES becomes a dart board with a bunch of random holes punched in it.

A prime example of this is...

When did the Veliothi Exodus occur? Different sources place it in the late Dawn, middle Merethic, or early First eras.

Problem is, that's at LEAST a range of 2500 years. If the Dawn, that's technically a range of infinite years.

But a lot centers around when exactly it occured, and we have extant civilisations with records TO it. Yet no one can actually agree when it happened.

[slow loom]

I think this Trey Parker quote sums it up pretty well:

We can take these beats, which are basically the beats of your outline, and if the words ‘and then’ belong between those beats, you’re screwed. Basically. You’ve got something pretty boring.

What should happen between every beat that you’ve written down, is either the word ‘therefore’ or ‘but’. So what I’m saying is that you come up with an idea, and it’s like ‘so this happens’ right? And then this happens,’ no no no no, It should be ‘this happens, and therefore this happens. But this happens, therefore this happens.’

TV shows use to be one off episodes with every little that has relevance to the next episode. Now TV shows have a main story that continues on for an entire season if not the life of the show. While smaller stories and character development happens around it. I think TES still follows this old style of writing where most stories are one off affairs that carry very little over to the next episode/season/game.

[feral viper]

Yeah. A similar approach is the Layer approach.

Every time you give a mechanism or event, and someone can ask Why or How, you need an explanation. And then for every Why or How in that explanation, you need an explanation.

Most people won't go more than 3 layers deep. But let the Iceberg Hypothesis, you should have deeper layers than what you expect your readers to actually push through.

Star Trek does this fantastically.

How do ships travel faster than light? Warp drive.

How do Warp Drives work? They create a Warp Bubble.

How do Warp Bubbles work? They create a stable pocket of space-time which allows the ship to partially transition through Subspace, allowing for much rapid travel than would be possible in Real-Space.

Most people aren't going to go deeper than that. Though Star Trek's lore DOES, and can actually reward people who do ask the further questions.

TES doesn't do that. It just throws out a bunch of factoids and data points which no clear way to connect them coherently. The ongoing and constant attempts by the community to string these together is either evidence of Bethesda's 5D chess game, or the lack of coherency.

And after Starfield, I lean towards the latter. Considering that game basically mocks you for even asking those questions.

[tardy tiger]

I do wish the Goverments were more different in the Civil War between the Empire and Stormcloaks.

Like keep the Jarls and High King on the Stormcloak side but have the Empire with Governors. Seems like a missed opportunity to add more differences between the Nordic Rebellion and the Imperial Province of the Cyrodillic Empire.

[tardy tiger]

Reminds me that we don't know what state the Ayleids have.

Was it Ayleid City states or some Holy Roman Ayleid Empire?

We don't know and have conflicting sources. Both could be true in the sense of a decentralised Empire or they were city states before someone unified the city states.

[pulsar root]

Lack of reoccuring characters doesn't entirely help either(The ones that do are not noticable enough)

[feral viper]

And like... In the real world, this inconsistency makes perfect sense. Because we have conflicting accounts from different powers over thousands of years, and incomplete records.

The march of time, and the nature of record keeping, means we're constantly piecing together the past and revising history.

But Tamriel is written so that some history is accurately recorded, and some other stuff is not. It's inconsistent in how time impacts records, and accounts, and even language.

Take the Stormcloaks for instance.

The Pact of Chieftains was made THOUSANDS OF YEARS before Skyrim. And yet Ulfric wants to cite pre-pact legal precedence for his duel?

That would be like one of us trying to cite the law code of Hammurabi.

Also, totally unrelated.

When are you going to become Sad Little Wisp Arthas Menethil?

[tardy tiger]

I feel it would've been fine if Skyrim was more Cyrodilic. But Skyrim is already working to Nordic ways there's very little Cyrodilic influence outside the name of the gods they use.

The moot has followed Nordic ways which is why Torygg became High King.

The fact Skyrim is still very Nordic rather undermines Ulfric's "return to Nord" thing.
Edit: Ulfric's "Skyrim for the Nords" and "True Nords" when Skyrim is just very Nordic only makes his whole thing weird.

[tardy tiger]

I, like Blizzard can choose to ignore things. Therefore that silly part of Shadowlands is not canon (still funny they wrote Sylvanas like Arthas during that whole expansion).

[feral viper]

Acceptable. Shadowlands was... Something that exists.

[inland shale]

It's weird for you because it's a misconception. The Stormcloak's enemies are the Thalmor, the Empire is an obstacle, not the true enemy. If you think otherwise that also makes Hammerfell an enemy of the Empire as well for resisting the white-gold concordat.

[tardy tiger]

Hammerfell went independent. Stormcloaks are fighting for Independence. Ulfric's going on about "True Nords" and "Skyrim for the Nords" so it's weird when the game can't really make a difference between The Province of Skyrim and Ulfrics rebellion.

Not the weirdest thing tbh. That goes for Altmer in Windhelm not having similar issues as Argonains and Dunmer are from the Nords.

[dim reef]

I think he's trying to prevent any future un-Nordification of Skyrim

[inland shale]

It's really simple if you consider that Talos is an important part of Nord culture. As per the Argonians and Dunmer, it's not weird either, you'll notice Dunmer and Argonians don't have issues in Stormcloak Riften either. The Dunmer in Windhelm created a ghetto which is causing tensions, meanwhile Argonian workers in the docks are angry, thievish and skooma-addicted while also disliked by both Dunmer and Nord, it's weird that they're still better off than Khajits all over Skyrim, but no one talks about that.

[tardy tiger]

Windhelms Dunmer are forced to live in that area.
Argonians are banned from living in the city they can enter it but they cannot stay.
If the Nords are having issues that segregated the Dunmer and Argonians then they're going to have more issues with Altmer due to the Thalmor.

Windhelms writing is Nords on the others causing those issues. As it's a Windhelm issues as yes can be seen with Riften not having that issue.

Only the Khajiit caravans are banned from entering the cities.

[inland shale]

There is no proof that they are forced to live only there, but we have proof that they choose to live there collectively. 1st the book "dunmer of skyrim" a dunmer supremacist book explicitly writes that the dunmer purposely took over a section of the city to make it their own and wish the same for all of Skyrim. Secondly, Niranye the Altmer merchant in Windhelm explicitly states that the Dunmer choose to live there. Thirdly, there are multiple shops and workers all across Windhelm of Dunmer and Altmer origin that are not living segregated, keep in mind that segregation is not a thing in Riften or any other Stormcloak hold and "Scourge of Gray Quarter" accounts that well... Lastly, I'm not sure how good your lore knowledge is, but this is something rather normal from a proud Dunmer perspective to not want to mingle with "beastly" Nords.

[tardy tiger]

It's not the friendliest for outsiders. The Dark Elves were all forced to live in the slum called the Gray Quarter. The Argonians can't even live in the walls. They're all stuck out on the docks.

I'm a Dark Elf and I live in Windhelm, so yes, I live in the Gray Quarter. You must be new around here, or you'd know they don't let my kind live anywhere outside that slum.

Dunmer don't choose to live in the Gray Quarter the Nords segregated them there.

Altmer are weird because again Windhelms Nords have no reaction to Altmer despite Skyrims many issues with the Altmer given the Great War to the Thalmor after Ulfrics actions at Markarth (25 years). Windhelm would've been the best place for that given it's the centre of the Stormcloak Rebellion.

This is a Windhelm Nord issue as seen that Riften doesn't have this issue.

We even have Brunwulf adding to it being a Nord issue,

I'd like to, but it's not as simple as that. Most of the folk in the city believe as Ulfric did, that outsiders should not be trusted. Until those people learn to accept the Argonians, they must remain outside, for their own safety. Old habits don't die easily, and we Nords can be as stubborn as stone.

Ah yes Niranye the one involved in criminal activities.

Someone has made a whole post about the Gray Quarter which is useful for sourcing.

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/afgxkp/eight_myths_of_the_gray_quarter/

[inland shale]

You haven't really refuted any of the evidence I have given you yet or provided any proof besides "Because I said so". There is nothing weird about Altmer mingling in Windhelm because there is no enforced segregation. Niranye dealing with the thieves guild has nothing to do with segregation, so that's a red herring. Outsiders as not trusted is a general theme in Skyrim. Orcs don't trust outsiders, Skyrim does not trust Khajit etc. I've already given proof for the reasons why there is no trust in Windhelm Argonians, you ignored that also.

[tardy tiger]

There is enforced segregation. You are literally ignoring ingame dialogue for Windhelm itself.

[inland shale]

Give me a quote then, I'm waiting for you to actually share something based on lore

Your claim was dunmer are forced to segregate. So don't try to move the goalposts.

[tardy tiger]

And you compeltly ignored my post which had the quotes in.

It's not the friendliest for outsiders. The Dark Elves were all forced to live in the slum called the Gray Quarter. The Argonians can't even live in the walls. They're all stuck out on the docks.

I'm a Dark Elf and I live in Windhelm, so yes, I live in the Gray Quarter. You must be new around here, or you'd know they don't let my kind live anywhere outside that slum.

[inland shale]

Yes, my bad, I missed them since you did not attribute any names to them. It's better, however the amount of evidence still overwhelmingly points otherwise and you ignored all that. Your two quotes can be attributed to misinformation spoken by NPC's. In which case let's eliminate Niranye's testimony as well just to be fair. That leaves still the fact that Altmer are not segregated, and even some Dunmer are not, for example Idesa Sadri lives in the house of Clan Cruel-Sea. We are also left with the lore books that allege ulterior motives from the Windhelm Dunmer and parallel examples from other Stormcloak cities that do not care to enforce such policies.