I read a couple of books in Oblivion, and I realized that Cyrodiil in-game does not much up with lore.

The book "The provinces of Tamriel" states that Cyrodiil is endless jungle...really? Cyrodill is just a sterotyplical European forest!

Thoughts?

PS: I know, I misspelled the title description. It should be match, not much.

ya rly.

That obscure detail of Cyrodiil is a very small part of its now outdated lore. Talos changed it, end of story. Cyrodiil, as we have seen it in two Elder Scrolls games, has been a forest, but since Bethesda retconned lore in the past, this is nothing to get worked up over. Vvardenfell was originally to be all wasteland instead of just mostly wasteland, at one point. I think the forest look is rather fitting for the cosmopolitan heart of the empire. :shrug: Yes, people have noticed it before. No, this is not the first time Bethesda retconned an area and it won't be the last. The game has been out for nearly 5 years, so as I said, nothing to get worked up over. All the new lore on Cyrodiil is much more interesting than the old jungle bit.

The source of many angry, and well deserved, rants at Oblivion. I think the excuse they didn't want to create, and instead had MK do it in his own time, was pretty awful. I'm all for changing provinces when it's bland and uninteresting (ala Morrowind), but it was the complete opposite with Cyrodiil.

Why is a jungle, by default, an interesting place? Endless jungle means the same bland, repetitive terrain everywhere, and how would the Imperials form an empire when they're too busy fighting the diseases of their own homeland?

This. Tamriel is fantasy. Bethesda could do almost ANYTHING. Instead, they give us a bland world.

If you just stumbled across that piece of lore, what else have you not stumbled across, yet?

That will cause yet another flame war.

While I don't know how accurate the First PGE is,

The Imperial City

Refayj's famous declaration, "There is but one city in the Imperial Province,--" may strike the citizens of the Colovian west as mildly insulting, until perhaps they hear the rest of the remark, which continues, "--but one city in Tamriel, but one city in the World; that, my brothers, is the city of the Cyrodiils." From the shore it is hard to tell what is city and what is Palace, for it all rises from the islands of the lake towards the sky in a stretch of gold. Whole neighborhoods rest on the jeweled bridges that connect the islands together. Gondolas and river-ships sail along the watery avenues of its flooded lower dwellings. Moth-priests walk by in a cloud of ancestors; House Guards hold exceptionally long daikatanas crossed at intersections, adorned with ribbons and dragon-flags; and the newly arrived Western legionnaires sweat in the humid air. The river mouth is tainted red from the tinmi soil of the shore, and river dragons rust their hides in its waters. Across the lake the Imperial City continues, merging into the villages of the southern red river and ruins left from the Interregnum.

The Emperor's Palace is a crown of sun rays, surrounded by his magical gardens. One garden path is known as Green Emperor Road-here, topiaries of the heads of past Emperors have been shaped by sorcery and can speak. When one must advise Tiber Septim, birds are drawn to the hedgery head, using their songs as its voice and moving its branches for the needed expressions.

...to me this sounds rather more interesting than the Imperial City as presented in Oblivion, even when leaving room for bias. Dunno if they could've actually done something like that at the time, it might be that they retconned simply because it was too difficult/taxing on rigs or whatever.

That sounds AWESOME I would kill to see Oblivion like that.

Someone once wrote a great post about this. The jungle in and of itself is no better than a forest. The jungle is however an easily referenced symbol of the uniqueness and culture of Cyrodiil which was not present in Oblivion. It represents the lack of Nibenean/Colovian distinction, it represents the lack of cults, it represents the nonexistent politics, the nearly forgotten cultural melting pot that Cyrodiil was. Ignoring all that, Cyrodiil as jungle completely subverts the typical idea of a European empire. Another repost:

I have beat the mq and done all the guilds. Before, I just skimmed the books. I just recently started to read the books in full.

Well, just look at http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/18/2d/b6/colonia.jpg. There's many other examples, and many other forms of jungle. A jungle by definition, I believe, is the complete opposite of "bland" and "repetitive".



I may be wrong, but does Italy not have jungles? We all know how well the Roman Empire did. And I don't believe you can complain about "the same bland, repetitive terrain", when Oblivion gave us yet another cliché medieval damsel in distress feel.

Pretty much anything alien is interesting. It's what made Morrowind so awesome. Jungles are, to most of the world, pretty alien. It's rare we find jungles in well built up areas. Seeing trees that are outside my house is boring. I want to see something I've never saw before. It's not exactly like Bethesda would need to religiously follow the style of real world jungles, either. They could invent new flora, new styles, and even new creatures to go with it all.

Really, I am 100% happy it's not a jungle... Thats just me, then consider it was released in 2005, yup thats five years ago almost six. Technology has really increased since then. But I like how the landscape was diverse in the Oblivion

These are my thoughts too. I recognize that the lore will change with new games, and sometimes, this can be a good thing, after all, the Elder Scrolls lore wasn't always what it is now, it would have been much more boring if they kept everything like it was in Arena, which is exactly why the Cyrodiil of Oblivion is criticized so much, I think, you won't hear me complaining about Bethesda's decision to take dwarves, a race that, among the generic fantasy races, is probably even less varied in its portrayals than elves, and turn them into the Dwemer we know now. Because there, Bethesda took a concept that, honestly, I find to be fairly boring and tuirned it into something that I really would not have expected when I first laid eyes on an "dwarven" item, had they not done that, I probably wouldn't have bothered with any of the lore concerning dwarves at all. Now, I would have preferred if a race called "dwarves" did not even exist in the setting, and the same goes for elves (Orcs can stay though, since I actually kind of like them, plus in fantasy RPGs, orcs are usually just generic enemies that are given very little detail, so there's still much more room to do creative things with them.) but since they're already part of the setting, it would not really make much sense to just have them vanish without any explanation, so the next best thing would be to at least try to make them seem unique. But in Cyrodiil, Bethesda did the exact opposite, they took a province that actually seemed pretty unique, especially since the idea of a somewhat Roman-inspired Empire originating from a jungle region that seems more like somewhere in South-east Asia challenges the usual expectations from the genre, which in this case is a good thing, and turned it into just another generic fantasy world that has been done many times before, and in many cases done much better. The problem is not that Bethesda changed things, but that they changed things and, in the process, made them less interesting.



Well, we've seen an environment like the current Cyrodiil so many times in fantasy that it's really become rather boring to see it again, now, maybe the forest could still have been interesting if Bethesda had actually made an effort to fill it with unique and interesting locations, in fact, I'd say it can, the Unique Landscapes mods for Oblivion prove this, the problem is that when designing Oblivion, Bethesda did not do this, they just gave us a generic forest with no big surprises, while a jungle could be generic with no big surprises too, at least it's something that isn't quite so overdone in the fantasy genre, so it would feel more unique by default.

And I could think of a number of real life civilizations that were native to a climate with much jungle that still did pretty well, they might not have formed empires as expansive as Tamriel, but that's beside the point, this is fantasy, and fantasy, isn't, or at least should not be, about recreating real world cultures just for the sake of it, it should be about creating fictional settings that are unique and interesting, and expressing the creators' creativity without needing to be constrained by reality, it is also a good oportunity to explore how magic and other such unrealistic things might effect the way society's develop and people live, Oblivion's version of Cyrodiil offered none of these things, and the difficulties that living in a jungle would present to humans in real life could be explained using magic, I know I'd be much more readily accept that Imperials use magic to deal with diseases or something than the excuse Bethesda gave us to explain the absence of jungle.

And it's not just the jungle either, everything I read about Cyrodiil in lore before Oblivion was released sounded a lot more interesting than what we got in Oblivion, it's just much more convenient to talk about the jungle than to describe everything that Cyrodiil was. Now, I understand that, due to technical limitations, sometimes things that sound impressive in the lore can't be done proper justice in game, so I can accept things like the Imperial City not being as big as the lore would lead us to believe, but that's not the main issue here, in this case, it's more like Bethesda didn't even try, they could have created a unique world that was interesting to explore, yet instead they opted to give us a generic, Tolkien-esque fantasy setting, because I guess they think people want familiarity. To which I say, screw familiarity, I don't WANT familiarity, I want to see things I haven't seen before, and to be surprised, Oblivion really didn't offer that very much, at least until Shivering Isles.



I would not call Oblivion's landscape very diverse, I mean, yes, each region had different landscapes, but they didn't really feel distinct, yes, the Great Forest or Blackwood and such had different landscapes, but they didn't really feel unique. It felt like we just had transitions between "forest" and "forest with slightly different trees" or "less dense forest" the only places that really felt unique were the mountains around Bruma and other snowy areas, mainly because the snow made it quite distinct from the other regions. And the fact that it was released in 2005 doesn't justify that, because, at least to me, Morrowind's landscapes already felt more diverse.

Selbeth, I think they try to make it more realistic in Oblivion... I liked the Northern Alpine area, I liked the Blackwood area and how it was Swampy, they did really good in the area near Black Marsh. Although since I use UL it could make my opinion more biased. Then with the 2005 thing, Morrowind was made in 2003 and look at the animations/ Graphics. In Oblivion Graphics were much better and they used a whole new engine for the game, So a Jungle may of been too complex for them. If you were gamesas would you make a difficult to make terrain on a new engine? or would you go for something simpler? If you messed us on the harder terrain the people would rant. If you made a simpler terrain they would also rant... Which would you choose?

How do you expect fps to be in a jungle,oblivion is already shouted at for hardware problems so wouldn't a jungle make them even worse.

No, Morrowind was 5000 times more diverse and a less capable engine could handle it just fine.

I too liked the areas in Oblivion. While the transitions of landscape were smoother and ultimately less varied, I don't see it as a problem; the only reason Morrowind got away with it was because it took place on a geologically active volcanic island, and even then I'd like to have seen more transition between the Ashlands and the areas surrounding it; it's as if all the Ash Storms had some unseen border keeping them contained. Speaking of which, I also find it a bit odd that a 20-foot tall fence can contain the Blight Storms. At the same time, it somehow didn't affect the foyadae that it was blocking.
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But off of that, I do think that either Cyrodiil gets a lot more crap than it deserves, or Morrowind doesn't get as much crap as it deserves. Even if there was still a jungle in Skyrim, there would have to be a noticeable transition, because Cyrodiil stretches to Skyrim.

As for lore, I do have a defense. While each NPC has less conversation, they make up for it by the fact that just about each NPC in a city (minus beggars and guards) has something different and unique to say. In addition, unlike the Dunmer, who tend to live longer and reject change in favor of a nation divided against itself, the Cyrodiils have had 433 years of unity and working together; they're fundamentally different from the Dunmer.
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If Oblivion's Cyrodiil was so realistic, please, explain to me why every mine in the province was an abandoned, goblin infested cave? In Morrowind, I had the impression that mining was the #1 source of income for the empire, what with Caldera, Raven Rock, and anything else I might have missed.

Realism is in no way an excuse for the lack of an awesome jungle.

#1 source of income for the Morrowind province, at least.


I have a feeling the closest thing we'll get to a consensus is an agreement to disagree.

Personally, I don't see how the landscape of Cyrodiil is less interesting than Morrowind. Sure, Morrowind has mushroom trees, but much of it was the foyodas, Red Mountain, and lots of boring ashland with some lava pools and a bit of a burnt look in the southeast; and and grassy areas, with exactly one populated mine. (Caldera, and to the person who said Raven Rock, considering Raven rock was on Solstheim, and run totally by the East Empire Trade Company, I don't see the point in lumping it with Caldera) Cyrodiil has its charm, with a few streams ending in cliffs, creating little waterfalls. The Smooth transition between regions made it feel more like a real place, unlike in Morrowind, where the difference between the ashlands and fertile mushroom tree grassland were impassable terrain obstacles. Personally, I think what really gets oblivion accused of Blandness is the fast travel system. people fast travel to the closest city and then run to their destination, so all they get is a little snippet of land they're sure to forget about.

So, Morrowind has the same amount of in-business mines as Oblivion?

No, but they both have plenty of out-of-business mines

Sorry to be nitpicky, but there was a lot more than one working mine in Morrowind.

The majority of terrain types in Oblivion were all variations on "grass with some trees and shrubs". Morrowind had ash desert, fertile deltas, volcanic highlands, muddy swamps, savannah, rocky archipelagos, scrubland, pine forest and more besides. The striking differences in architecture between the three Great Houses shown also did a great deal in defining the feel of the areas, with each house having a very different approach on how to make the most of the land.