Not as racist that other out-and-out racist thread, though (albeit a pretty silly one, that).

Link me so I can go hater bashing

No, I enjoy playing as an elf occasionally and I'd prefer they'd stay... attractive, one might say.

no thanks not needed if anything imo the kajitts already resemble asia the skyrim pic

No thanks.

I don't see it as silly. This way we can play our fantasy from real life as our role play. A slight girl can play a huge sword swinging Nord or a huge weightlifting guy can play a delicate girl elf.

I also don't see that much resemblance in many races here. Frex, we have a water based reptilian race where the females have large mammalian like briasts. I don't remember seeing that all that much here on earth.

One thing: We have not had multiple races within our species for thousands of years. Race is a social construct to separate people, but if you think about it, it really has no meaning, especially biologically/genetically speaking. There is no genetic difference between a white European and a black African. Those genes are just expressed differently due to their seperate ethnic/ancestral background. Two different races are genetically different, but not to the degree of being two separate species that cannot mate with each other. An example of race would be us, Homo Sapien Sapien, and Homo Sapien Neanderthal.

Now, the races of Tamriel each have their own ethnic identity. You could say some of them have multiple ethnicities within one race. Now you can say each one of these could be heavily inspired by a real ethnic group here on earth, but race really has nothing to do with it; only that races exist in Tamriel and not here. You could argue that all of the "races" of men are one race, and all of the "races" of elves are one race. But it's hard to say because this is fictional and these different groups of people are physically influenced by magic and the will of the Aedra/Deadra.

This is why I hate threads that are like "which real life race are the Elder Scrolls races equivalent to?" They aren't. Why can't Imperials be Imperials, Redguards be Redguards, and Dunmer be Dunmer? The simple fact is, there's no real-life equivalent to ANY of TES race. They're all unique. Sure, some take obvious inspiration from real-life sources, like Imperials having Roman names, but they aren't Romans. They're Imperials.

OP, all of your comparisons are just huge leaps to try to connect anything to real-life races and cultures.

The Tsaeci

Another one of these threads? Ugh, [censored] this mono-race/culture suggestions, it takes the fun out of a race. Use multiple influences with homemade ideas. Now that's much better. How else were the dunmer so loved? They're a giant amount of other cultures.

Exactly. And boy, too many threads spawned in the lore forums with someone trying to compare dunmer to x culture/race in real life, as if they discovered something new. No, the races are a mixture, so look outside the superficial layer.

If they were going to add that Imperial Race later in the game cycle, I don't see why they made them into bland white people instead of some type of asian for the sake of diversifying races. Why were the Imperials added to Morrowind as bland white people?

I don't understand why everyone feels that they must be represented in TES.
What about JRPG's? Seriously, they don't depict any race other than asians, and yet people don't (to my knowledge) ask for european influences in JRPG's.

JRPGs don't really seem all too clear on race, but I can provide many strong examples of European influence in them. Demon's Souls is practically all western fantasy made by Japanese developers, Dragon Quest just can't get much more stylized medieval European if it tried, Kingdom Hearts is... Disney, and Final Fantasy just flat-out varies with plenty of influences from Europe, Japan, culture-neutral stylized fantasy, and imaginary steampunk. They most certainly are not just a reflection of Japanese culture/heritage... not by a longshot. I wish I could find at least one RPG that takes place in, say, feudal Japan instead of medieval Europe, all the time, but not even JRPGs really ever delve into that setting, much.

I Feel only Altmer look or seem Asian at all, Dunmer could be but its hard to compare when Asians aren't blue so that's the only reason ill say no to that.

I have to agree with Velorien. I don't know about closely, but they definitely do in some ways. Maybe we can't pin a specific real world race onto a TES race, but it would be naive to believe the developers weren't influenced even slightly by real world races and cultures when creating TES races. In fact, I'd call that impossible.

Be honest with yourself.

I've seen Dunmer be compared to just about every culture ever.

People are more easily attracted to things they can understand. I can make up anything and call it anything I want, if you are unable to make any connections with my creation it isn't going to be appealing. It's why games are constantly made of humanity and not completely made-up aliens. You could make a really interesting game, but not many people would want to play it.

I went to school with a girl of Philipino descent and some of the Wood Elf faces in Rhedd's improved headpacks for Morrowind bore a lot of similarities to her family's facial features. I'm not sure if that's technically an "Asian" appearance or a "Polynesian" appearance.

All in all, I don't really think that "race" representation is all that important in a fantasy game, as others have also mentioned above, but it's not necessarily racist to anolyze the races in a game based on real world prototypes, either.

I guess if anyone really feels that a given set of physical characteristics is underrepresented, they can always make their own facepack. That's the beauty of a moddable game.

There's also a program out there called LOOXIS which allows a user to create a 3d model of a head/face based on photos of a real person. I haven't fiddled with it, but probably it's possible to convert the results to .nif for use with Morrowind.

Yes, taking inspirations is fine. But people suggest that they are the TES "version" of real-life cultures.

For example, Altmer as Chinese: I didn't know there was a city in Ancient China that captured the sun's light, broke it down, then spread it over the city like the Altmer, as mentioned http://www.imperial-library.info/content/pocket-guide-empire-first-edition-aldmeri-dominion.

In fact, people really need to start reading the http://www.imperial-library.info/content/pocket-guide-empire-and-its-environs-first-edition in general.

While I really dislike the parallels to earth cultures and wish that Beth had never started down that path in the first place, I would tend to say that the only Elven race that seems based on east Asian culture specifically is the Altmer, mostly on the Chinese - an ancient and relatively conservative culture with an inbred sense of superiority and a notable amount of ethnocentrism. I think the Dunmer (and the Dwemer) are based more on Mesopotamic cultures, the Bosmer just loosely on aboriginal cultures (and on the popular notion of wood elves) and the Orcs just largely on northern barbarians. While that at least implies Mongolian to some extent, I wouldn't limit it to that.

Because most of them are well-justified. Like the Japanese they're possessed of a powerful nationalistic and ethnic pride that extends to xenophobia sometimes. Like the Turks a large segment of their population are nomadic hunters. Like the Hebrews they were led to a new homeland by a prophet, and forcefully integrated into occupied land to set up a theocracy. Their naming conventions are intentionally Assyrian in feel. Their mythology and religion bear resemblance to Hinduism as well as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And just like Canadians they ride around on giant bugs. (I think that's what they do in Canada. I don't know much except that milk comes in bags there, so who knows what craziness goes on up there.)

The Akavir are the Asian culture in TES

That's like saying that the Bretons are the European culture in TES.

I meant the MAJORLY Asian culture, in terms of architecture and names and stuff,

High Elves are pretty much Japanese but the Akavir are less subtel

While some of those things are true, most people are just grasping at straws when they say what the Dunmer are. Nomadic hunters? Someone will compare them to any culture that has nomadic hunters. Xenophobia? They find one xenophobic culture, never mind that most ancient cultures were rather xenophobic, and just about everyone on Tamriel is too.

Of course the Dunmer takes some inspirations, but saying the Dunmer "are" ___ is boring. Discussing similarites is fine and can be interesting, but saying one culture is a real-life one is boring.