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It's super cool when you mention "traps" like wards and stuff. I always had a game sense of what was good or not but it's fun seeing you break it down.
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Jan 28, 2018 03:40
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cheetah7071 posted:My impression my first playthrough was that the Stormcloaks were a bunch of troublemakers who failed to understand or care about the intricacies of the real world
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Jan 30, 2018 17:29
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Weren't the native people in Skyrim elves? How's that for irony?
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Jan 30, 2018 17:34
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Humans aren't native to any part of the continent of Tamriel but they arrived a long rear end time ago and there have been dozens of generations of a Nords in Skyrim so by any reasonable definition they're natives by now e: I think Nords are relatively late arrivals for humans, meaning they've only been there for six hundred years (I think) instead of all the way into the poorly recorded mists of history cheetah7071 fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Jan 30, 2018 |
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Jan 30, 2018 17:39
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I thought the Nords were the first humans to arrive in Skyrim, and among the first humans to Tamriel.
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Jan 30, 2018 18:00
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I think I got myself confused by remembering that Tiber Septim came about that long ago, and forgot that he was in the last wave of migration, not the first.
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Jan 30, 2018 18:13
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Yeah, Ysgramor was way back before the Dragon War, sometime around 5,000 years before the events of Skyrim.
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Jan 30, 2018 18:33
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It's a very silly mistake to make because I'm currently playing TESO which is set I think 200 or so years before Tiber Septim and there are Nords everywhere
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Jan 30, 2018 18:39
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Tiggum posted:I immediately realised that the Stormcloaks were racist arseholes, because that much is obvious. But when you find out that they're actually not even the first people of Skyrim, just the last lot of invaders, any claim to legitimacy they may have had just evaporates. Like, if they were actually the natives then they may be racist arseholes but at least they have a point with regard to being conquered and subjugated. But no, they're the loving conquerors finally getting a taste of their own medicine and they can just completely go gently caress themselves. Not to mention certain secrets you learn about the organization later which utterly delegitimizes them and proves once and for all that anyone supporting them are idiots.
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Jan 30, 2018 21:27
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Who were the first people in Tamriel is REALLY hard to figure out because there are flat contradictions in numerous books. The best I can surmise is that this is a case of deliberate confusion on the part of the writers because of the conflicting propaganda of multiple races and the world actually still being incoherent in the late dawn era/early merethic. From numerous sources, the best interpretation is that every continent (possibly except Ehnolfey) had humans at the absolute beginning. Several (but possibly not Atmora and we just don't know about Akavir) also had elves, and at the very least Tamriel and Akavir had beastfolk. This makes cosmic sense as well as historical sense since humans are simply the lesser spirits who thought creating the world was a good thing whereas elves are the ones who were quitters and pansies. They don't have separate origin stories or anything, they're just spirits with different opinions. The earliest humans (possibly along with the beastfolk) battled alongside Shor against the elves backed by the anti-Lorkhan gods, possibly on multiple continents. The humans lost and were either exterminated or enslaved or interbred with by the elves. Probably some of all 3 in different places. Whichever, millenia passed before humans had a significant presence anywhere again, but there must have been a large number of them living as slaves in Cyrodiil before the ancestors of the Nords arrived from Atmora. In Yokuda the humans exterminated the elves, in Akavir the beastfolk exterminated the humans (and any elves), and in Tamriel the elves utterly crushed the humans and mostly crushed the beastfolk who had not already exterminated one another (the khajiit in particular are probably guilty of wiping out several relatively peaceful beastfolk races) Melth fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Jan 31, 2018 |
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Jan 31, 2018 04:06
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Time to start the Days 10-12 (pl)Under Saarthal As I only found out several weeks after recording this, I somehow didn’t save the last episode right and ended up without those great fire resist boots, several tomes, and an elsweyr fondue without even knowing it. Melth fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Jan 31, 2018 |
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Jan 31, 2018 21:52
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Seconded about the factions in this game. None of them are very good. For me, the Companions (Fighter's Guild stand-in) was the worst of the lot. Melth, you've alluded to doing a warrior character at some point, are you going to show them off? I won't spoil anything if so, but holy gently caress, the whole faction is completely terrible. Worst Elder Scrolls faction ever, IMO. The College of Winterhold is so-so, as you say- it has a very perfunctory feel to it, which is a shame because there are some neat ideas. The Dark Brotherhood makes me laugh because everyone in it is an idiot (we've already seen them attack in broad daylight, carrying explicit murder orders signed with somebody's actual name;) and the Thieves' Guild starts off dumb, gets kinda neat for a while, and shits the bed at the end with dumb story beats and a few truly awful dungeon crawls. Still not as bad as the Companions, though.
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Jan 31, 2018 23:36
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Melth posted:Time to start the call it a dragon break.
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Jan 31, 2018 23:36
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I think the College is fairly middle of the road. Like, it doesn't completely poo poo itself too hard at any point so I guess that makes it a standout in one way, but the highs of the Thieve's Guild and Dark Brotherhood are much higher imo. I don't really recall the Dark Brotherhood having any glaring problems either besides having some extremely generic filler quests.
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Feb 1, 2018 00:25
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The College is the best of the four guild questlines Skyrim has to offer. That tells you everything you need to know about Skyrim's guild questlines. None of it flattering.
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Feb 1, 2018 00:29
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The mages quest line would probably be a lot more enjoyable if they had just skipped the whole dumb order crap. The thieves guild... let's just say they have chosen a very appropriate location.  You might argue that the archmage has just fully embraced the whole mysterious adventurer who joins and does all the work quickly and efficiently (unless they get distracted by side quests or other guild chains). No need to get excited. Someone will come along to solve everything in exchange for a worthless item or two and some spare change.
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Feb 1, 2018 01:16
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Poil posted:The mages quest line would probably be a lot more enjoyable if they had just skipped the whole dumb order crap. Very true. And yet, the Psijic Order poo poo is nowhere near as retarded as being forced to become a werewolf after doing like 4 quests, being forced to go along with all of the fantastically stupid poo poo
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Feb 1, 2018 01:29
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I honestly think it's a lot better than Oblivion's mage questline, but that's not really a hard bar to meet.
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Feb 1, 2018 01:39
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There was supposed to be more detail about College members getting blown up on a day to day basis, like one quest which was partially cut and has left a number of dead named students scattered around the northeast of Skyrim. Two of these now-deceased students also left quest scripts about a magical meadery. Which is a running theme, half of the professors have unused scraps of quests left in the files, another would ask you to hunt down former members of the College to aid the frequently mentioned local reputation problem. Nirya and Faralda also once had more of a running rivalry (and favor quests to open up marriage). Bethesda almost filled out the College, until they didn't. Phinis warns against 'the summoning of undead'. Which was mostly removed during the move from Oblivion to Skyrim, until Dawnguard happens, and raising the dead is teeechnically different. It's a fine enough faction. Aren runs the place like most dragonslaying player characters will, ie not at all. He's no Trebonius, though!
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Feb 1, 2018 02:27
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:I honestly think it's a lot better than Oblivion's mage questline, but that's not really a hard bar to meet. Now I actually loved Oblivion’s mage guild and thought it was the high point of the game. The only downsides to me were the lack of explanation of what the heck the soul gem did, a bit too little fanfare for Mannimarco, and not getting to keep the awesome dark artifacts you acquired and then pointlessly turned in. But it’s got a wide variety of quests, the closest that game has to memorable characters, many great rewards for a mage, and a mostly solid story with a fairly good pace, etc. In this game I’ve actually only done the DB once because I hated it so much. I’ve done the thieves guild twice because I thought surely I was misremembering how bad it was. Companions all the way through only once but I start it on most warrior characters. While the dark brotherhood felt the most padded and boring (I am especially dreading 9 separate walks to stupid Falkreath on this character) and was a MAJOR disappointment compared to the first half of Oblivion’s where you had lots of different quests, many with optional objectives and great rewards) I will admit that it at least serves its basic function of being helpful for Assassin characters. True you get all your gear at step 1 and then never receive ANYTHING useful again in like 20 quests (except one VERY slightly upgraded set of that initial stuff like 90% of the way through if you do some optional stuff), but that’s something. The companions questline is just wretched and a failure on every level. At least it’s mercifully brief at like 6 quests plus a bit of mandatory filler. But the story is stupid. You’re FORCED to become a freakin’ werewolf even though you being one has no bearing whatsoever on the ‘plot’. You don’t get to do ANY great warrior stuff or learn anything about the awesome legends of the original companions. None of the companions has a background beyond growing up as a warrior who joined the companions or a personality beyond whether they’re jerks to you and like being a werewolf. And then it doesn’t accomplish its most basic goal of being a good source of resources for warriors. Halfway through the questline you get skyforge steel weapons with much fanfare. They are inferior to weapons available from level 1 elsewhere. You have to buy your own armor which is of GARBAGE quality available as trash items from level 1. And there isn’t even an option to get companions light armor even though half the companions and 100% of knowledgeable players will wear light! Your ultimate reward is a two-handed weapon and thus unavailable to 90% of players even though it’s being recorded just for you to use, but that’s ok because it’s absolutely useless anyway. Even against elves it contributes nothing of value. And without any fanfare at all one-handed people can pick up a shield which is maybe the 3rd best unique shield in the game, but inferior to high level generic ones. But the Elder Scrolls has never wanted to give fighters guild people anything usable for some reason. Fine. But you get lots of trainers and that’s supposed to be the main perk. Except wait, no, you don’t get that either. Several of the companions trainers are uselessly low-skill, the best trainers are usually elsewhere, and worst of all there isn’t a light armor trainer at all! To add insult to injury, absurdly powerful gear is handed out like Halloween candy in the other guild quests. I’ve already said that for no reason the thieves guild get the most powerful sword in the game, plus a great bow. The thieves guild are the last people who should be getting good weapons! And the dark brotherhood have the master light armor trainer! Assassins are the last people who should be any good with armor! But worst of all, it’s just such a disappointment to have the fighters guild suck in Skyrim in particular. If there was ever a province to have great support for warriors this is it. Every single city from the smallest village should have some kind of fighters group even if they’re just local thugs brawling in an inn. They should be jarls and guards and imperials and stormcloaks and heroes and villains and tied into tons of quests with lots of groups to join and the companions as the very best who you earned your way into like the arcane university. At the very least I was looking forward to some great battles, maybe killing some unique monsters a la Beowulf, and then boasting and partying in the mead hall. But none of that happens.
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Feb 1, 2018 16:35
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I actually like the DB questline because the whole point is that they've been wrecked so hard all they have left are lovely rejects who miss the point, tryhards, and a clown. I mean, look at what they wear. The alternate way of dealing with them is fun though. Mannimarco in Oblivion was a huge letdown after reading up on who he is in the imperial library. All that buildup and he's just a lovely wood elf. 
RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Feb 1, 2018 |
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Feb 1, 2018 16:39
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The real reward of completing the Companions questline is being able to exploit its members for free training. The College questline would have been better without the Psijic nonsense. All they do is show up mysteriously and blather some vague stuff that amounts to "a bad thing is gonna happen, we won't tell you what or do anything about it ourselves even though we totally could, we expect you'll take care of it though." And then at the end they just show up to fix the problem anyway despite spending the whole questline insisting that they wouldn't, robbing the player of any feeling of accomplishment. Mountaineer fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Feb 1, 2018 |
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Feb 1, 2018 16:48
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I dunno, slaughtering Arcano was more satisfying than anything I did in any of the other guild quests for me personally
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Feb 1, 2018 16:59
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Yeah, I may be misremembering my lore, but isn't Mannimarco supposed to a sload? and an undead one at that?
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Feb 1, 2018 17:04
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Zeniel posted:Yeah, I may be misremembering my lore, but isn't Mannimarco supposed to a sload? and an undead one at that? You're thinking of N'Gasta. Mannimarco appears in Daggerfall where his race is unknown but clearly human or elf of some kind. It's canon that the Warp in the West allowed the King of Worms to become one of the owners of the Totem of Tiber Septim and use it to ascend to Aetherius, so who knows how he even manages to show up in Oblivion. I wouldn't be surprised if the Mannimarco in Oblivion was just an imposter. Mountaineer fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Feb 1, 2018 |
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Feb 1, 2018 17:10
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On the topic of the Psijic, I got the sense from them that they're doing the whole defenders of history schtick. "We know that a thing is going to happen, and that you are involved, and that we are here for it, but apparently we don't take the thing away until a specific event occurs and it has to happen or else. Also we can't be more specific because HISTORY ABHORS A PARADOX." Also the reason they aren't being more specific about things could be because they only know the future in broad strokes, not details. It's real easy to gently caress up history if you don't know exact details.
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Feb 1, 2018 17:23
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It's probably 'cos of quantum.
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Feb 1, 2018 17:24
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Mountaineer posted:You're thinking of N'Gasta. Mannimarco appears in Daggerfall where his race is unknown but clearly human or elf of some kind. It's canon that the Warp in the West allowed the King of Worms to become one of the owners of the Totem of Tiber Septim and use it to ascend to Aetherius, so who knows how he even manages to show up in Oblivion. I wouldn't be surprised if the Mannimarco in Oblivion was just an imposter. I think there's a theory that there are two Mannimarcos post-Daggerfall, one who's still mortal and one god, since he both got the Totem and didn't.
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Feb 1, 2018 18:06
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Staltran posted:I think there's a theory that there are two Mannimarcos post-Daggerfall, one who's still mortal and one god, since he both got the Totem and didn't. Wasn't there a book in Morrowind interviewing Mannimarco briefly after the dragon break and he was just like "uh don't ask me lol".
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Feb 1, 2018 18:10
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Mannimarco is also the main villain of TESO though I'm not that far in the story so I dunno how it plays out. The game is set during his rise from mortal necromancer to full-on king of worms
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Feb 1, 2018 18:41
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Mountaineer posted:You're thinking of N'Gasta. Man I remember being a kid and insanely confused at N'Gasta Kvata Kvakis, until I read about what it's supposed to be on the internet and doing an expression somewhere between  and  . I still associate that name with the book title automatically because I tried so hard to figure out the riddle.Apart from that, or maybe even thanks to that, Morrowind really ruled.
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Feb 1, 2018 18:59
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RBA Starblade posted:Wasn't there a book in Morrowind interviewing Mannimarco briefly after the dragon break and he was just like "uh don't ask me lol". Yes, though that’s a different dragon break. He’s talking about the huge one back in the first era when he was young, and he suggests that he learned the way to eventually ascend to godhood millennia later with another dragon break from it. Staltran posted:I think there's a theory that there are two Mannimarcos post-Daggerfall, one who's still mortal and one god, since he both got the Totem and didn't. As far as I am aware, that is definitely true and quite clearly shown. Right there in oblivion you find necromancers praying to the newly ascended and quite clearly real “God of Worms”, and there’s continued proof that god mannimarco is still out there. For a while when Oblivion came out I was theorizing that the guy you fight is an impostor, but now I believe he’s definitely just a very lazily done real mortal Mannimarco. They didn’t bother actually making him a unique super lich because that would involve work and some creativity, so they just made him a high HP high elf (at least that’s supposed to be his race, unlike with Mankar Camoran who should DEFINITELY be a wood elf but is instead a high elf.
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Feb 1, 2018 19:06
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The main reason I like the Skyrim Dark Brotherhood questline is because the final (or near final, I think you do some cleanup at home afterwards) objective is so cool that it colors my whole opinion of the guild. The reverse is true of Oblivion's mage's guild
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Feb 1, 2018 19:09
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cheetah7071 posted:The main reason I like the Skyrim Dark Brotherhood questline is because the final (or near final, I think you do some cleanup at home afterwards) objective is so cool that it colors my whole opinion of the guild. The reverse is true of Oblivion's mage's guilthem d 
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Feb 1, 2018 21:54
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Yeah I'll agree that the Morag Tong is conceptually cooler than the Dark Brotherhood, though since they're in Morrowind nothing you do for them is interesting in the slightest.
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Feb 1, 2018 21:57
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The Morag Tong were the only interesting implementation of a mafia-type assassin's guild, in that their poo poo was so well codified in laws and customs that you could show guards that the Morag Tong told you to kill that guy and you're clear, which also builds into their well-earned fearsome reputation and mistique. Unfortunately they also often required you to murder quest-givers (IIRC) and gently caress yourself out of rewards, because more often than not you'd assume that guy was a commoner like the other 5 thousand with nothing important to say if you'd never talked to them before. So ehh, a mixed bag. It needed refinement, and Oblivion did some things better and some of them much worse. Guess which carried over into Skyrim.
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Feb 1, 2018 22:49
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Yeah I hate the dark brotherhood. If they were discarding the mages and fighter’s guilds, why couldn’t they get rid of the stupid DB? It’s not bad enough they’re a cult instead of just assassins, I’d grudgingly accept that if they worshipped a Daedra or something that made sense. But no they’re like “We worship the abstract concept of the nuclear strong force. The nuclear strong force demands blooood!”
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Feb 1, 2018 22:52
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They're hardly the only people in Tamriel worshiping beings outside of the normal Aedra+Daedra cosmology. It's actually pretty common! e: though whether the assassin's guild really needed to also be a cult to one of these beings is a separate question
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Feb 1, 2018 22:55
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I thought the DB was probably the best faction questline in Skyrim - you're an assassin, you do assassinations, and some of those assassinations are awesome and creative (most notably the final one). At the very least, for a few there's creative ways to do it too. Plus if you ignore the bits with the loving clown there's a decent plot in there with a meaningful antagonist in the form of the Penitus Oculatus guy. It's still probably not as good as Oblivion's, but when you mention any quest in Skyrim you get that. Skyrim is great gameplay with bland quests and no flavour. Oblivion is terrible gameplay with great, fascinating quests. Mages Guild in Skyrim is pretty good, though you don't feel like a student or real apprentice like you do in Oblivion. At the very least it's well set up in terms of making you feel like an actual mage (as opposed to the thieves guild where you are basically a fighter), it's got an antagonist that you can love to hate, and tons of interesting little side quests and unmarked quests (some of which are basically half done though).
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Feb 2, 2018 01:35
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From what I can tell from memory, The lore behind the College is that Shalidor founded it. Something I find frustrating about Skyrim is that despite being set in Shalidor's home province, you (a) Only get a small amount of quests related to him and (b) can't even learn the spell Shalidor's Mirror, which was a series staple since arena. In fact, the College questline would probably a lot more tolerable if they had left the Psijics out of it completely and maybe had Shalidor (or at least his spirit) contact you. Mage's reaching out beyond death wouldn't be untested waters for the Elder Scrolls, since an apprentice wizard was able to pull it off in Arena.
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Feb 2, 2018 02:00
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