Epicness of the main quest in TES V : The Elder Scrolls Series Discussion

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 11:05 am

Hopefully the next game will be less about gods, myths and religions and more about men and mer in their conflicts against each other (more political).

I think that that part of the conflict should be fueled my myths and religions though. It would probably make the two sides more opinionated and less willing to negotiate if violent conflict ever broke out. Not good in the real world, but genius in a video game. Especially if the player gets to pick a side, and it's later revealed that they're all wrong. Maybe there's just some sort of Arch-Manipulater generating conflict for his own means... like to incorperate a region into his empire, by instigating civil war and sending his armies in to aide the side that has more public support, thereby "saving" the region from it's own conflict.

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 6:54 am

-The Real Barenziah, Part X

Dagoth Ur is a spellcaster. This guy clearly has a firm grasp of magical practices. Whether his actual attacking style is what you say it is or not does not matter. No warrior or thief could do what this guy does.

Main quest epicness is not really a question of fighting gods as much as it is one of saving the world from random, long life living sorcerors, from what I'm sensing here

Miss that bit in The Real Barenziah, but as for Dagoth Ur, he presented as a "God" rather than a Traditional Spellcaster. When ya have the power of god, ya have high attribute of everything. Dagoth Ur's Wrath of Dagoth can easily seen as a spammable power rather than a spell.

As for epicness, its just usually tie with the last boss or high atmosphere within the last part of the game itself. It serve it well as a basis from Arena and in all of Morrowind and Oblivion Main Quests, but a change of pace from having format would be decent.

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 1:40 pm

Miss that bit in The Real Barenziah, but as for Dagoth Ur, he presented as a "God" rather than a Traditional Spellcaster. When ya have the power of god, ya have high attribute of everything. Dagoth Ur's Wrath of Dagoth can easily seen as a spammable power rather than a spell.

As for epicness, its just usually tie with the last boss or high atmosphere within the last part of the game itself. It serve it well as a basis from Arena and in all of Morrowind and Oblivion Main Quests, but a change of pace from having format would be decent.

The curious question is to which format? Another Dragon Break for several endings would be pathetic, in my opinion, and something isn't really very political if it's linear, is it?

» Sun Feb 06, 2011 11:48 pm

The curious question is to what format? Another Dragon Break for several endings would be pathetic, in my opinion, and something isn't really very political if it's linear, is it?

I can see something along the lines of the different city-states uniting against a common enemy toward the end of the game. Not necessarily a god or foreign invaders, but maybe some crazy Napoleon or Julius Caesar type character with crazy and suicidal ambitions at the cost of the people's freedom and the noble's power.

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 8:20 am

The curious question is to which format? Another Dragon Break for several endings would be pathetic, in my opinion, and something isn't really very political if it's linear, is it?

The player could be one of the causes of the destabilization of the region, and his/her identity could be concealed by the chaos that he/she created.

It wouldn't be that hard for a design team to come up with something better, that was just off the top of my head.

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 7:39 am

The curious question is to what format? Another Dragon Break for several endings would be pathetic, in my opinion, and something isn't really very political if it's linear, is it?

What wrong with another Dragon Break, or even if an occurrence of Dragon Break at all, or even with more than one branches or endings? Any element of the story that doesn't emphasize on anything divine would be a decent change of pace. A political element involving royals, parties, anarchists or any form of group in gaining control of the land/province or solving local problem with the emphasize of one of these groups would seem great, in my opinion.

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 7:36 am

Or they could just ignore whatever choices you made and end up saying "NUH-UH THIS ONE WON" in the next game. House Hlaalu sure is doing well for itself these days... :whistling:

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 9:41 am

What wrong with another Dragon Break, or even if an occurrence of Dragon Break at all, or even with more than one branches or endings? Any element of the story that doesn't emphasize on anything divine would be a decent change of pace. A political element involving royals, parties, anarchists or any form of group in gaining control of the land/province or solving local problem with the emphasize of one of these groups would seem great, in my opinion.

This type of quest would be good, although a little combat situations would still be needed.

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 7:11 am

What I hope is that, for once, we aren't asked to preserve the Empire. I don't like the Empire and would love to see it fall. I would like the option to fight against the Empire, if I choose. Being dragooned into The Blades to help the Emperor over and over is why I've only played the main quests of Morrowind or Oblivion once each.

Rock on. With the Oblivion crisis in the last game, I want the next game to start the week after in whatever province. The game would be so much more interesting if the imperial government was fracturing and breaking with the ambitious leaders of each race ramping up their war capabilities.

Skyrim was an Imperial name for a realm of governance. Now that there is no Imperial administration, "Skyrim" barely exists. It is an uneasy confederacy of city-states, if the third pocket guide is any indication. There is no unified, Skyrim force.

This is a very good observation. The provinces really are just administrative areas under imperial rule, but as we saw with Daggerfall, it's the kings and nobles who really matter in each country in terms of shaping politics and society. The races of Tamriel generally live in segregated areas of the continent, but we can see that racial bonds have less influence than political expediency in the case of Gothryd.

What wrong with another Dragon Break, or even if an occurrence of Dragon Break at all, or even with more than one branches or endings?

Because it's like a little league game where everyone always wins. There might as well not BE a main quest if every little leaguer gets a trophy.

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 1:36 am

Because it's like a little league game where everyone always wins. There might as well not BE a main quest if every little leaguer gets a trophy.

Way I see it though, that is before all the leaguers started beating each other into a bloody pulp and someone gave every leaguer a trophy just to stop the huge fight. I would not be surprises if Dragon Break didn't occur, but I like it out in the open as a last resort just in case if any other plans isn't plausible.

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 2:59 am

One thing I really don't want is another Daedric god antagonist. It's getting old.
Skyrim has some neat history with vampires. I would prefer some ancient vampire lord being awakened from the ice that uses undead armies instead of Daedra, if they did go with the boss concept.
I think they just might surprise us, though.

You know, I think this is a really good concept. I've always thought undead and cold regions go together so well...

And yeah, Aedra and Daedra rivalries need to be far more emphasized. I don't see why the Aedra can't summon thier own minions to destroy Daedric shrines.

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 12:47 pm

Or they could just ignore whatever choices you made and end up saying "NUH-UH THIS ONE WON" in the next game. House Hlaalu sure is doing well for itself these days... :whistling:

Exactly.

In Rome: Total War, you can be the Julii and make an alliance with the Gauls and conquer the Dacians instead, even though nothing like that ever happened in real history.

It's kind of funny.

Whenever we show concern that a certain feature of a previous game was cut out or tweaked in an undesirable way, the excuse is that, "it is it own, separate game."

Whenever we show concern about the fact that we're forced to make certain uncharacteristic choices in the main quest so that everything turns out the way the devs want, the excuse is that, "well, it's a continuation from the previous games."
:bonk:

As far as I'm concerned, the game shouldn't be about what the CoC or the Nerevarine really did. It should be about what you would have done if you were in that person's shoes and what hypothetically could have happened to the people of Tamriel as a result.

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 7:36 am

Alot of my characters dont even do the main quest. I play ES games like they were singleplayer D and D games, making up my own stories and doing things my character/build would do if it was all real. For example my nord hunter/trapper and my argonian witch doctor could care less about a big picture, they just want to skin animals and shrink dunmer heads respectively.

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 5:39 am

Voted for "Yes" cause although I like the god slaying quests I would like something a little different, soemthing like you suggested, a more political focused quest.

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 4:48 pm

I'd would like to see a invasion from Akavir.

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 9:16 am

Or they could just ignore whatever choices you made and end up saying "NUH-UH THIS ONE WON" in the next game. House Hlaalu sure is doing well for itself these days... :whistling:

Or if their writing team is up for a challenge, they could make a few outcomes of the MQ in ESV that all lead coherently into TESVI (assuming there will be one)

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 9:33 am

Really, Morrowind and Oblivion had pretty similar stories.

An uneasiness falls upon [Vvardenfell/Cyrodiil] after a series of mysterious assassinations of [Hlaalu and Imperial sympathizers/Uriel VII and his sons], foretelling the goals of the [Sixth House/Mythic Dawn], which seek to conquer Tamriel under the delusions of [Dagoth Ur/Mankar Camoran]. Hope seems lost, but wait! You [are Nerevar/found Martin] and by [fulfilling prophecy/lighting the dragonfires] you can stop the big bad guy! :toughninja:

What made Morrowind particularly special was the heavy presence of politics - I'm not even talking about ingame experiences, you know. What made Morrowind's houses different from Cyrodiil's counts was that we're aware of a very rich history, of conflicts and political intrigue. Assassinations and traitors paint a vivid background, making Vvardenfell's environment seem more dynamic and alive, as if things are always "happening in the background". This lampshaded the God plots a bit, but I definitely would like to see another absurdly circuitous and byzantine plot like Daggerfall's.

This guy wins the thread. He did forget one thing though - The constant word "fate" being thrown around.

It would be nice to have a main quest where your character can develop itself under it's own merits rather than being fated to defeat a god's minion, create a god, slay a god or help defeat a god. By god (!), leave the Daedric princes out of the main quest for once! The Elder Scrolls settings lends itself to so much more, but with Bethesda focusing so much on the Princes the game just start to blend together and the setting starts to grow stale. They need to make a game about the people and creatures that actually live on Nirn rather than the ones who made it.

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 2:37 am

As I've said, before.

What i liked about Morrowind's plot was the vagueness. You could really be the chosen one. But, more likely you're Azura's tool and being fed bullcrap the whole time.

» Mon Feb 07, 2011 3:06 pm

As I've said, before.

What i liked about Morrowind's plot was the vagueness. You could really be the chosen one. But, more likely you're Azura's tool and being fed bullcrap the whole time.

I actually kind of like that feeling of being the side-kick. Even in morrowind, sure your the main event, but really, like you said, are you really the hero? or are you just a puppet who can't see his strings. Morrowinds story is great in that regard, because everybody is a [censored]. You basically walk in to solve a cluster [censored], that all involved contributed to, and the villain is a good guy who got screwed beyond repair, and the good guys are the ones that started to whole mess.

Given that the whole Elder Scrolls thing is that the event that the game presents is foretold in an elder scroll, I don't think a multiple endings scenario is possible. However I'm quite certain that a multiple path scenario is possible, if beth keeps the important bits vague, than the player can maybe get to decide which people gets to decide those important bits.

For example, maybe the end scenario is a new king, so maybe you help the father make a proper candidate of his son, or maybe you helped the son assassinate his father.