I know this post was a while back, but I have to point out why I disagree with it.

First off, Feudalism never ceased to exist. Any in depth study of modern western culture will show we still use it to this day. Classic example, the declaration of independence. That is a feudal document. Such a document only makes sense in a feudal system. The U.S. gov't is quite feudal as well, the "king" or fed. gov't has so much power, but trusts his vassals, that is state gov'ts to run most of his kingdom's affairs. These vassals in turn have their own vassals, which most states call counties (oh my!) Some states break it down even further, and the counties have townships. Feudalism never ceased to exist once kings became powerful enough, it just adjusted slightly and stopped being called that. Right up to modern times the old aristocracy inherited lordships and such in England, France, and all the countries that ever actually were Feudal. (Germany, Italy, and Spain never really were feudal nations if you get right down to it)

Now, my answer as to why this is beneficial to the Emperor? Why not? If the emperor leaves local governments with the power, then that in turn ensures the loyalty of the people. Rome did this all the time. Think of the Herodian dynasty in the province of Judea, for example. In ancient systems, local leaders were very often given control when somebody new moved in. And even if there are lots of hereditary rulers in Cyrodiil, the Empire can move in whenever it wants to switch things around a bit.

Those people still exist today, they're called middle management.

Exactly.

Have any of you ever read articles of organization for a corporation? A corporation is absolutely a feudal entity, things are structured according to a feudal agreement. Middle management is the perfect example of what I am talking about, and why it is useful for the empire to keep those old dynasties around. Lets say your company is bought out by The Empire, that is to say, a large corporation. Why doesn't the corporation appoint all its own governors to rule your company? Well, because the existing management knows what it's doing a lot of the time. It is better for the company to leave them around. Even if those management personnel were previously bitter rivals. This happened a lot right here on good old earth. One King takes over another, but instead of killing that king he says to him, "Hey Rex (Rex is my generic name for a king, as it is Latin for "king"), how would you like to be my count? Come on, it's better than being dead ain't it?" Look at Rome, and you see this happen a lot, especially when you look at "Client Kingdoms"

Last I checked, the mayor didn't have droit de seigneur nor the right to tell me where I may live, what I must do to earn a living or the right to send me to Iraq as a conscripted serf. Alll you are doing is naming hierarchical structures, but ignoring the constitutional issues that differentiate Laissez Faire Capitalism from Feudalism. Modern democracies are not simply a sliding scale of power with the people at the bottom exercising no influence on those at the top. I can make a claim against a government department that has wronged me, under a feudal system I would have no right to complain if the queen's ministers came and appropriated my land.

When the hierarchy refers to ownership, it is feudalism. When it refers to legal jurisdiction, it federalism.

You can always have an opinion. But it's not the same thing as a fact.


But there isn't any evidence that there's more to Morrowind than what we saw. And there certainly wasn't any evidence in or after the game that it was anything of a "representation".

As for power struggles, Cyrodiil doesn't have as much infighting as Morrowind does. Even so, there was the competition between the Fighters Guild and the Blackwood Company, and the Order of the Worm's plans to destroy the Mages Guild.

The difference is that my opinion is supported by facts. You have been creating facts to suit your opinion, and not just in this thread.

No, my opinion is based on a different perception of the facts.

Now you are just being silly.

Though more importantly you are trying to frame the issue. The argument so far has been that Oblivion failed to create an atmosphere betting the capital of an Empire. Commonly accepted causes for this includes an absence of a dynamic political structure and any sort of cultural information. Now no one has said that these things don't exist.
In fact part of the argument so far has been that the image painted by Oblivion contradicts the previously established image, an image in which did have atmosphere, politics and culture. So these do exist but Oblivion did not show them. That they happend in the game behind closed doors as you suggest is silly. They were not present in the game.
Now if you want to eventually compare this too Morrowinds lack of thousands insignificant villages or suggest that we imagine them. You are comparing the wrong elements. Daggerfall, Redgaurd and Morrowind did not fail to create an atmosphere that gave the impression you were present in a part of the Empire. It showed culture and politics. Redgaurd better then Daggerfall and Morrowind better then Redgaurd.
This is wrong. Though if you take offence to the word 'wrong' I suggest you take a word from the links I gave you. I believe inconsistent, incoherent, are excellent picks but they amount to the same thing.



While you have a dictionary at your hands, I strongly suggest you look up the meaning of the word infighting.



A different perception indeed. 'Blind', I reckon.

Silly? I think that saying it lacks any political struture or cultural information is sillier. And political structure and cultural information not absent at all, it just is just less than Morrowind's.


Not only did those things exist, but many of them were shown in TES IV. It looks like you're just ignoring or discrediting them because they aren't portrayed like Morrowind's politics, culture, and atmosphere were.


I did. And it's got more than one meaning. But you know what I'm talking about.


No, optimistic. I find it better than "Morrowind-centered".

That's like saying there isn't any evidence that there's more to a poem than a collection of words. If that's really how you see TES, there's nothing left to discuss, is there? Games are what-you-see-is-what-you-get and by extension there can't be any politics in Cyrodiil since we saw none. Debate complete.

Lore-centered. Text-centered.

Do you remember which forum this is?

It is telling that very few of Oblivion's greatest faults are documented or described in the books it added. The point of lore is not an abstract explanation for every aspect of a video game. You have to understand that some decisions and depictions have absolutely nothing at all to do with lore. Attributing some narrative intent to them gets you nothing more than frustration from the community and would get you blank, incredulous stares from the devs if they were here.

Not quite. There is no actual evidence that there aren't any politics in Cyrodiil, in fact, there is some evidence to the contrary. On the other hand, TES III had evidence in favor of it being the size it was depicted.


Last time I checked, just about all of the criticism given here on Oblivion has been in comparison to Morrowind.

Wrong. It's in comparison to the image of Cyrodiil that already existed, which you would be familiar with if you read lore, instead of creating it retroactively to fit shortcuts in C++

I'm well aware of the image given to us by the PGE 1E. However, aside from the fact that the image was from over 400 years ago, but the Daggerfall manual mentioned that Cyrodiil has no native race. And Bethesda was nice enough to give us a more up-to-date PGE.

Edit: And those changes are certainly more explainable than vast size-changing.

Oh if only, if only the capital city of the universe had been mentioned in other places as well.

*sigh*

The 3rd PGE's section on provinces is just a summarized history lesson (the stupid version, in some cases), a Wiki-style account of current events, and an offhand gift of sentience to some other mammals. Given that the 3rd PGE predates the Oblivion Crisis that magically did away with everything that made the region interesting, shouldn't it have found its way in there?

The province had already been defined before, and lord knows Ted Peterson couldn't write anything intriguing or new about Cyodiil, because the game wouldn't live up to it.


Also, absence of lore isn't lore. It's the absence of it. (Why do I have to make sentences like this?)

Defined from 400 years ago. From a document outdated in reality as well. A document included with a less-than-successful game.


I'm still not seeing the "absence of lore". Maybe there's somewhat less lore, but certainly not "absence".

[quote name='Crimson Paladin' date='May 6 2009, 04:58 PM' post='14278108']
Defined from 400 years ago. From a document outdated in reality as well. A document included with a less-than-successful game.
[quote]
Your utterly irrelevant second sentence worries me, although it is indicative of a perspective which would explain a lot.

Since the 400 year old document (which is accompanied by others whose existence you still conveniently ignore, even after I called you out on the issue) was not updated into a modern form in the 1 year old document, it still stands. Unless Cyrodiil's culture, religion and politics were replaced by a big fat nothing, which is what you seem to think. Absence of lore isn't lore.

The Daggerfall manual said that Cyrodiil had no native race. Since when has TES actually remained unchanged?


And you actually except Cyrodiil to be the same as it was 400 years ago?

And as I've said countless times, they have culture, religion, and politics. It just looks like nothing if looking at it from a Morrowind or PGE 1E perspective.

You still haven't shown that there is anything beyond the vestiges of a political system. Show us some lore from Oblivion that can measure with what one would expect of a http://www.hbo.com/rome/ of http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/266926/the_rise_and_fall_of_the_mysterious.html, http://www.imperial-library.info/pge/ and http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?s=&showtopic=983467&view=findpost&p=14231179.

And you actually have an example of what should happen when monstrous immortal creatures start appearing from portals and almost effortlessly waste a fortified city in the heart of the Empire? This isn't any normal enemy, these are the forces of Destruction.

And they succeeded in destroying 1 (one) town. Other than an AI package called MQMartialLaw applied to NPCs, Cyrodill shows no sign of change before, during, or after the Crisis.

People should go hysterical, lose faith in all but the local authorities, trust their defense to opportunistic tyrants, slaughter Daedra worshippers, conscript Mages and Fighters Guild members, recall the Legion, squabble over who will lead the militias, utterly reject the claim of a playboy priest, misconstrue the Dark Brotherhood cult as Daedric, lynch Dunmer, strike deals with Bandit ringleaders for protection, strangle trade in a state of panic but give a free pass to Elsweyr's Skooma, generally fracture and withdraw inside fortified enclaves, and be overwhelmed by refugees from outlying villages.

Bethesda should learn their lesson that if the Main Quest is going to be epic and apocalyptic, they have to actually change something in the gameworld and make it about the events. But that doesn't jive well with the kind of RPG the series is. In Morrowind they chose something that didn't require sweeping changes, because the story had some subtlety.

Are any of your arguments to do with this thread?

Paws:

I really don't have much to add there.

No.