I've heard on this forum that Cyrodiil was supposed to be a jungle. Is this true? If it is, why did Bethesda make it a regular forest? No time? Too hard to make a jungle?

I'd say there were various reasons. The middleware used to make the forests - speedtree - did support jungles, so I think the "too hard" and "not enough time" arguments don't have legs.

Judging by the art direction, I think that after Morrowind they wanted something a little more accessible and traditional. I guess they saw going back to tradition as a welcome change. See Todd's http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/426/426475p1.html here.

Prepare for the inevitable deluge of gripes. I feel they're justified, though.

Hmm, I see. Thanks. Well besides making contradictions in the Lore (I am reading some books that do indeed say Cyrodiil is a jungle), I think it makes Cyrodiil kind of boring. I mean jungles would be amazing to explore, instead of the generic forests and fields. (Sigh) Oh well. :shrug:

Almost everyone does, dude. Myself included.

Yeah. The jungle was an upset to me. Tropical Rainforest my ass.

In regards to the jungle, the city design concepts were poor too (most notably the Imperial City) and the lack of Colovian and Nibenean culture was disturbing.

It was also once said that Cyrodiil had no native race. They simply did another retcon. Then again, the 1st PGE wasn't the best source of information in the world. It may have simply been bias. And the 3rd PGE makes no note of such stuff.

Edit: And, as Todd said, consumers like familiarity. And Bethesda is in it for making money, not catering to us.

Yeah it was all a little disappointing but don't get me wrong I still like the game but now I just really look forward to the next one and hope it actually follows the lore and makes the environment and all the gear how it's supposed to be. Man a jungle would have been sweet.

Not sure about this familiarity aspect. There are plenty of jungles in games. There may actually be as more or as many successful Console and PC games set in jungles as in deciduous forest. Actually that all rings empty to me.

I've been trying to put in-game dev decision-making and inter-media merging as a basis for all these dumb changes ... and that was involved, but:

Look what really happened. A lot of stuff was created then junked. So much damage was done that I no longer believe this is devs' choices at all - and some of it bears no relation to game marketing requirements or money-making necessities. What's left? Inter-Boardroom politics - with pressure from people who do not have a clue about rpgs. I do not think they are intentionally malicious or unsympathetic people - just out of touch with what is really possible and what people really want - they think in rounded terms. Nothing we can seriously access here on the Forums.

On that basis it's a miracle that so much was saved - so it was the big next-gen console launches that did it. With that out of the way the expansions were a great improvement. So the big money passed on and business got back to more normal.

Sad that it happened as a mainline TES release rather than being presented as a 'special' - and following all that the modders have the challenges in their laps.

Let's hope that gamesas is now sufficiently cash-rich that they can afford to do it the ES way in future.

And that's good?

I may not be a frugal and stoic as you, Crimson, but I want to be catered and pampered by Beth and any other company I buy from.

Something to consider is that the Empire is roughly based of Rome. Can you imagine Roman soldiers wandering around in Jungle? To be honest, the flora that they selected for Oblivion felt more suitable to me, despite what the PGE says.

That probably why the legion is heavily based in the west, where it isn't a jungle.

That doesn't mean originality isn't a good idea.

Now I can more-or-less buy Colovia as a more rugged, Italian landscape. That's fine. The Nibenay river basin, though, could have been heavy rainforest at the same time. That would have been particularly neat since the 1st ed. PGE specifically noted a cultural clash between Colovians and Nibeneans, while in Oblivion they're kind of all the same. A greater distinction between those parts of Cyrodiil would have been very welcome, and it would have allowed them to keep the medieval feel in areas while also providing more exotic locales elsewhere.

So I'm going with laziness as an explanation. Laziness and dodgy retcons. The potential was clearly there, and there aren't any really convincing reasons why there couldn't have been a rainforest. Sure, it doesn't make a lot of sense from a climatic perspective, but since when have TES games ever bothered with geographical realism?

I like the forest. It makes me feel more at home, being a resident of the English countryside. Morrowind, with its bizarre setting, alienated me and made me feel uncomfortable, which is why I stayed at Solsthiem most of the time during the game. The Shivering Isles were unsettling to me also, being so weird like Morrowind was, although it fits more being the realm of madness. If Cyrodiil was a jungle, I would have had a difficult time getting used to it.

I'm from England too, but if I wanted to see English countryside, I'd just go outside...

It's really a matter of taste, but I see fantasy as one genre that allows considerable room for, well, the fantastic. And when fantasy doesn't make use of the fantastic, I see it as no better than a poor man's historical fiction. But I especially don't read or play any sort of thing to be coddled. I do it to live vicariously. Escapism and all that. And since I'm living vicariously, I'd want new experiences, not old ones.

You?

Geography isn't biased. Of cource it was all about making money, but that's not a good enough justification for me, and a really bad one at that if you ask me.

How has no one pointed out the 1+1=0 contradiction in this yet? We ARE consumers. Money is made by catering to consumers. Consumers do not prefer familiarity to the extent that justifies this change, and the proof is in... well, the prequel. And as for you suggesting that retcons are a good thing... well maybe you shouldn't have read into the fact that the lore community makes dragon break jokes.

Robbio: The Empire is based on Rome. Cyrodiil =/= the Empire. This is blatantly obvious whether you look at the crap Cyrodiil that came on the disk or the two lands of Nibenay and Colovia described by the PGE. Nordic tradition combines with the cultural weirdness of Nibenay with it heritage of indigenous tribes to create a potent force, which manifests as an Imperial power similar to Rome, mostly limited to government, military, state architecture, and a few naming conventions. I blame it in the Tcaecsi.

Indeed.

While I'm not from England or anything like that, if I wanted to see real life, well...I'd see real life. I play games to escape to fantasy.

Why does everyone obsess over the jungle? Shouldn't you just be more worried about lack of finer detail in Cyrodiil's design?

We are the minority; we aren't important. These forums are populated, especially the Lore Forum, by people who fell in love with Morrowind. Bethesda was appealing to the bigger crowd.

The problem is that this same said majority would likely have been equally pleased with a jungled cyrrodill as they "were" with the serene pastoral cyrrodill-- the reason for this, is because they simply did not know any better.

for those that DID know better (which suggests already that you are a lore buff, because you actually READ the pocket guide to the empire), the pastoral cyrrodill is a pitiful dry wafer, when you were expecting a delicious butter cookie.

Disturbing? That's a little extreme, don't you think?

That's because they ignored adding any cultural depth to the game world for some bizarre reason.

I've gotten used to Natural Environments (Which thickens foliage so much that Nibenay often feels like a jungle) that I forgot how Cyrodill was supposed to be jungle. Eh, I'd read somewhere how they "explained" Cyrodill's transformation from Jungle to Forest. However, I'm having difficulty finding the reference right now. I am a tad dissapointed in the Imperial City, but, it works enough for me to imagine what it should have been. ...Well, okay, maybe not, but I'll defend what I can for now and just make due with what I got.

Mankar Cammoran's Commentaries on the mysterium Xarxes.


Contains the line "behold the realm of the red king once jungled."-- concerning both CHIM, and it's effect on the world of reality.