I ask this because I went on Oblivion today and I forgot how tankish the Imperials are, especially the Legionnaires. And how the Nords were more drunken barbarians than honour-bound warriors, and the Dunmer were of course still a high and mighty race.

Do you think Skyrim represented the races well, or are there places where you thought they were better represented in past games?

Personally, I preferred Oblivion's Imperials. As a mostly-neutral-but-kinda-leans-a-bit-more-to-the-Imperials-guy I didn't like the smaller, scrawnier Imperials in Skyrim with their poorer armour and irritating voice. When an Oblivion Legionairre yelled "THEN PAY WITH YOUR BLOOD!" you know you're [censored]. But the Imperials in Skyrim are so... small and weak...

However, I preferred Skyrim's Nords and Orcs. In Oblivion the two were too similar in terms of personalities and culture, IMO.

Not the Altmer. I think some people think they're all like the Thalmor.

It certainly made me feel that way for a while... There should have been talks of resistence or even locations with an Altmer/Bosmer population who are hiding from the Dominion in Skyrim.

Appearance wise, i think they did a really good job. How characters act...not so much. Too much stereotypical good/evil going on.

I saw less of a reason to choose a different race in this game than in games past. Maybe they were trying to let any race become any class, but we could do that before. It just might have taken some more development time with the characters.

No it didn't, but I feel that's mainly due to a severe under representation of some races.(Khajiit/Bosmer mainly)

I dislike the beast races representation in Skyrim. They look and act too much like humans.

Interesting, I never got that impression, minus the boobs.

I think the representation was fine, although the Nord representation IMO could have been much better. Not much on their culture was really shown at all. There's all this talk of tradition and such, but not a lot was shown. Especially with things like ships, as they're supposed to be the best sailors, yet most of what we see for ships are wrecked.

There's a number of things I didn't like about the races.

Argonians and Khajitt are under ultilized in Skyrim and it's even more blatent in the DLC's where there isn't any Khajitt or Argonians.

Bosmers look horrible, Female Imperials also look horrible (Vex being an exception).

Skyrim's Nord Guards are horrible in comparasion to Oblivion's Imperial Guards, "Stop Right There Criminal Scum".

Redguards are not battlemages, I didn't like how they had magic as some of their bonuses

Now for the things I liked regarding the races.

I loved how cool the Altmer looked. You can create a really cool looking Elf that has golden skin but isn't horribly golden in color.

Nords look so much better then they did in Oblivion and the females easily have the best looking human faces.

I also like that I'm not at a huge disadvantage if I pick a particular race. If I picked a Breton in Oblivion, I'd have a huge disadvantage concerning Melee Combat. I don't have that problem in Skyrim. It's not perfect though but it's a small step in the right direction. I kinda wish that you could choose which skills you want the +5 and +10 bonuses too instead of having set bonuses.

VIsually, the representations for all races except the beasts were fine. I rather they didn't make everyone a stereotype of their race. Everyone had a varying body type, voice, and temperament, though I wish there were a few more race-specific voices like the Nords, Dunmer and Imperials had. I also wish the beasts weren't so human, as someone else had already mentioned. The concept art http://www.videogamesartwork.com/games/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/argon-male http://www.videogamesartwork.com/games/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/argon-female http://www.videogamesartwork.com/games/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/argon-faces http://www.videogamesartwork.com/games/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/khajit-male http://www.videogamesartwork.com/games/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/khajit-female http://www.videogamesartwork.com/games/elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/khajit-face What we got was animal people heads with painted human bodies and a tail that looks like it was stapled on, especially on Argonians.

Culturally, everyone was shafted. Religions were pretty watered down, once again having the Nine Eight Divines be the central religion and even then it was underrepresented.

Everyone, even the foreigners, had Nordic-style clothing. Solstheim only got a total of three new clothing sets, with two of them being recolors of the same outfit.

Once again, the arts were mostly ignored even though the Bard's College was featured in the game. Wasted opportunity, if you ask me.

They did do a better job than the past games, though.

Makes sense considering their homelands are on the opposite side of Tamriel.

Some races weren't represented at all. Namely Bosmer. There are only like three named Bosmer I can recall.

No but I do understand it to a degree. You're in the homeland of the Nords so it does make sense the other races aren't represented as much as say in Cyrodiil's melting pot. I definitely would like to have seen more "nordish" culture than what was represented. I agree with the statement about the Altmer too. There is too many who think Altmer=Thalmor and I think they weren't defined well enough through the game.

Have to say this is the one thing that I am highly disappointed in. I like to have to make hard choices sometimes. I believe each race SHOULD have defining points and if you want to "break the mold" so to speak, it is going to be difficult. As it is now, Breton=Bosmer=Redguard. It doesn't matter one bit what race you pick because in the end everyone is sitting at 100. IMO that's sad.

Atlmer is my favorite race, and surprisingly I think it's very well represented in this game, if people have the Altmer=Thalmor impression they didn't play the game carefully enough, that's all I can say. There are enough Altmer NPCs in this game that represent them from many aspects: shrewd businessman, extreme elitist, eccentric researcher, old veteran, clear headed scholar, loyal soldier, etc. I actually think overall Altmers are one of the better represented race in this game.

Bosmers and Bretons are the ones that really lacked attention IMHO. While the representation of Altmers may be misguiding, it's still better than lacking a specific representation at all.

I actually agree with this to an extent. The problem with the Altmer representation is that the majority of it is very subtle except for the Thalmor which is constantly thrown in your face which gives newcomers (and even some veterans) of the series a big misconception between not only Altmer and Thalmor, but Dominion and Thalmor as well.

That's the one big problem I have with Skyrim at the start. All the races will be the same regardless of what you do. In Oblivion that is absolutely not the case due to Birthsigns and Attributes, both were absent from Skyrim. Well we do have Birthstones but it's not the same and it doesn't have the same choice and consequence that Oblivion had. There is no 2nd choosing of Atronach in Oblivion, it's either you stick with it or you restart a new character. With Skyrim you don't have any consequence, hell with Legendary resetting that pretty much eliminates any choices you may not have liked in regards to perks. I do like that it levels me up indefinitely but we have truly lost the choice and consequence for decisions. There is no bad decision now because you are railroaded and in terms of RPG mechanics, that's weak. Gameplay wise it's great but from a roleplaying pov it's just weak and lazy.

Altmer and Bosmer kind of got hosed. Dunmer are well represented, with NPC's spanning the gamut of good to bad, but the High and Wood elves are just kind of there. The Thalmor are really in-your-face bastards on such a level that when you meet good Altmer like Niranye or a couple others, you expect them to take a shot at killing you or be so arrogant as to be intolerable. And the Bosmer really get nothing.

I actually like how the Khajiit are put forward in Skyrim. Quietly fighting against prejudice with a smattering of Firefly-esque "We're not thieves. Well, yes, we're thieves, but not theives"