Yes he was. But I was "leading" so that people would get the idea that geography and climate are just as much isolating factors as islands. And the greater part of Cyrodiil is a lot different than a desert, a swamp, a tundra, grassy plains and, maybe, the forest of Valenwood, which seems particularly scary and impenetrable compared to the forests of Cyrodiil, though even then a bit of sharing (Imga! )wouldn't be amiss.


Mea culpa. I remember it had werewolves and wereboars, but thought it had wolves and boars too.

Yeah, they really should've had zarflebrax ballynoos in the game. Then we could call it "original." :violin:

That's some strawman-sounding logic there. I was talking about (as you well knew) Vvardenfell in relation to Cyrodiil and presumably the rest of the mainland continent, nothing to do with it's relation to anywhere on Earth.
I did not say "only islands have different animals", I was pointing out that geographical isolation (and islands are probably the best for extreme examples) is a reasonable explanation for the difference in fauna the OP asked about, assuming Nirn is like Earth in this regard.

As for your panda example, it should be noted that bears only occur on landmasses that have recently been connected to Eurasia.

If the question was "why aren't Morrowind's creatures in Cyrodiil", then you'd have a point, right? Because "It's because of the fact Vvardenfell is an island, basically" doesn't answer why, as per the original question, "MW had non real creatures and OB has real ones", does it? I mean, it doesn't even make sense. All it tells us is that Morrowind's creatures would be different. But different from what, and how strange would they be? This is, after all, where the discussion seems to be leading, and what your response seemed to be trying to address.


The point to different fantasy beasties being in different climates being?

Edit: Most of this speciation crap is irrelevant anyway for a world that has only been around for a few thousand years.

Funny you should mention America, because Cyrodiil did have some New World fauna.

I liked the traditional setting and fantasy fauna. And if you didn't like it, alien fauna was just a portal away.

Go ahead. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CallARabbitASmeerp

It's in one of the in-game books, I think, that it's explained that Morrowind's ecosystem (and I'm not talking just about Vvardenfell) is isolated from the rest of the continent by the high and nighly-impassable Velothi mountains and, on the southern border, by the Argon Jungle from which only weirdness can be expected.

I call it lack of creativity. And it started with Bloodmoon if you ask me.

I kind of agree with you there mate.

It feels as if there needs to be atleast more weird creatures even if it would be in a central area like Cyrodiil.

If they simply weren't able to be creative, then they wouldn't have been able to create the fauna of the Shivering Isles.

And of course, we still got Land Dreughs.

They were pushed into that by the fans who complained about the lack of fantasy wierdness in Oblivion itself. And to be honest, the things Shivering Isles weren't all that amazing. Sure, it was a great expansion and i loved it, but look at the huge murshrooms, we had those in Morrowind, the entire landmass of Dementia looks very simulair to the Bitter Coast region of Vvardenfell, Mania is a hippy Ascadian Isles region, Gnarls are a spin-off on Ents, Elytra are just huge bugs, Grummites, Scalons and Balliwogs are mutated frogs and most of the Daedra were already featured in earlier games.

Not trying to bash the Shivering Isles here, nor blaming Bethesda for anything. I know how hard it is to come up with something new.

The idea that an environment like that of -rehashed- Cyrodiil necessitates creatures like those in -reshashed- Cyrodiil, stems from the idea that game creators are bound by their own creation and that they have somehow created a world they cannot alter. What makes sense and what does not is entirely up in the hands of the writer. If they say "Rocks fall and everyone dies", then by all means, rocks will fall and everyone will die. In other words, a serious game designer will not cower behind things that he could change if he wanted to.

Oh, and don't give me the continuity nonsense. That's an even weaker excuse.

Good for you. In which case, you're spoiled for choice in a genre that calls itself fantasy but has little to do with the fantastic. So you don't bloody well need another more of the same traditional rubbish. "And if you don't like it, familiar fauna is just a CD change, video store, or library away." Or even a short drive to the local zoo.

Besides, I used Keith Emerson's flying piano to illustrate a point! Keith Emerson's flying piano, that is crazy [censored] bat[censored], you boring automaton!


I don't normally do the QFT FTW crap, but this is so damned solid and clear, I can't help myself.

Yeah, the kwama are definitly the most awesome creature in TES overall. :foodndrink:
However, can't agree with you about the other. Except silt striders. And the netch.


Well, the same could be said about Morrowinds creatures. Most of them are just giant bug. The others are big-headed lizards and dinosaurs. The Cliffracers are "Pterodactyles". The Netch is just mutated jelly fish. Although flying, I guess

And by the way, while I don't know about Arena, the giant mushrooms were in Daggerfall as well (From what I've heard, there were also special mushrooms in Redguard that you could bounce on). They weren't special to Morrowind.

The point is, there is hardly anything left than can be rightfully called "original". While I agree that the devs got kind of lazy with Oblivions beastiary, all I would ask for is that they would have, for example, taken a pig and a bird, merged them and called it a Sweenay-beest.
Or something like it.
In the case of including real life animals in their real life form, one could just give them another name. "Mountain lion" is a bit uninspired.

There is no need to make it something completely "unique", just make it different.

Making bizarre, alien things is child's play. Just go look at the album cover for some idiotic gothic rock band. Ooh! It's weird and strange and I've never seen it before! That's easy.

What's hard is putting that stuff in a world and having it remain a cohesive setting that makes sense in relation to itself. That's why Vvardenfell was great and why Shivering Isles, though also original, wasn't the same. A plane of madness by definition need make no sense.

Weirdness alone is just what you get with a slightly drunk concept artist. And it's been done before.

I have to disagree with you there. Unless you mean "Gothic Metal" then I agree as they seem to have very strange and oddly things on their album covers.

I have yet to see a weird and alienated Gothic Rock band album cover.

Ok, so I didn't try for any pop culture credentials. But you know what I mean.

Yes I do.. I'm just abit cranky right now.

Especially if you want "weird and alienated" from the genre standards.

I like some of the names of plants in Oblivon i mean 'Morning Glory'!!!! how can u not find that hillarious?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_glory

Because it had boars, bears and wolves? It also had horkers and grahls (authentic weirdness) plus spriggans (shoutout to Daggerfall). I don't think any of the creatures in Bloodmoon were out of place, the odd ones just like the real ones.

The plant that still makes me chuckle in Oblivion is "St. Jahn's Wort".

See, horkers are a good example. If you want to make something based on real life, ALTER IT GODDAMNIT! Boars were only remaned in BM. If, say, wolves were named "Skraelings" and were thinner, faster, and had... say... crocodilian jaws, that would be good.

I entirely agree with what both Adanorcil and Albides, but I had to post to further comment on this:

It just represents so well, my opinion that Earth is way more interesting and bizarre than most people give it credit. It is just so varied that, no matter what is "normal" for you, there are so many things that are incredibly different elsewhere. Maybe it is just because I study anthropology that I notice this, particularly with people, though it applies to flora, fauna, and other things too, but Earth has plenty of awesome, bizarre, interesting, weird, crazy, etc. things of its own. No matter how crazy and strange something you will make up is, there is something that, while it is different, is equally strange, so it doesn't take much to make anything interesting. If you pick things that are obscure enough to your audience, you could easily make something great from ideas entirely taken from Earth.

People need to walk outside their doors more often, especially in an age like ours when we can so easily get information about anywhere.

I do agree that Morrowind overdid the bug and reptile thing. Morrowind's creatures were far from perfect (except for guars, guars are awesome ), but they still had more effort put into them than Oblivion did, minus Shivering Isles.