I'm a newbie at this forum and I tried to do a search or two to see if this topic had been raised before. I didn't find it, so I apologize beforehand if this has been discussed to death earlier.

I found the architecture and landscapes in MW and OB vastly different, and it made me wonder if Bethesda had been influenced by real-life architecture. Oblivion is in many ways a typical mediveal Europe, with Bruma looking slightly like the Scandinavian viking towns and Imperial City looking slightly like Roman architecture. The landscapes, nature and wildlife is also very European.

Morrowind, on the other hand, looks very much different. Granted, there is much in MW I haven't explored yet, but towns like Balmora and Suran reminds me a lot of the Middle-East, and Vivec looks like it was inspired from the Far East. This is also emphasized by the fact that Morrowind lies to the East of Cyrodill.

Any comments? Is there any truth in this or am I just wildly speculating?

well, Morrowind has always been regarded as very exotic in TES lore so it would make sense that the building seem somewhat alienlike. Cyrodill on the other hand is the capital of the empire and therefore it should resemble more to 'home' (europe during the Roman Empire). Also I get the idea that the developers of TES 4 were more lazy regarding architecture so they just ripped of existing buildings.

Different cultures, so different architectures. You'll notice in Morrowind the Imperial towns bear a European style, while the Dunmer settlements bore a more unique appearance depending on the Great Houses (Hlaalu, Redoran, Telvanni, Indoril, etc.), as well as the more dated Velothi (Vivec, Molag Mar, Ghostgate, tombs) and the exotic Daedric shrines. And Solstheim had Nordic arhitecture as well.

In Cyrodiil, each city seems to have its own architecture, all seemingly based on various European settlements. For example, Anvil resembles Spain (I think), while Bruma echoes the Nordic architecture. Not completely sure on the other cities though.

The irony is that Oblivion Cheydinhal is supposedly meant to resemble Dunmer architecture, yet it looks nothing like any of the Dunmer towns in Morrowind. If you squint it has a few similarities with Mournhold, and it's possible that in mainland Morrowind, nearer to the Cyrodiil border, different building styles predominate, but it still looks very incongruous at first glance.

It does more closely resemble the Tudor style of foreigner's villages like Seyda Neen and Pelegiad. Though those tended more towards the rustic.

I'm so thoroughly over Oblivion's puzzling design choices that I'm not even going to vent on how much it svcks.

So would it be fair to say that cities like Suran and Balmora look more like the Middle-East? Not that Bethesda meant for everything to be a parallell, but that there could be some form of influence in the architecture of those places.

Which is why it should be even stranger. Capitals are the focus of wealth, power and people, from all over the empire. Capitals have long histories involving these people and their powers. By making them more mundane they become boring compared to the strange backwaters of the empire. How can there be less magic in the whole capital then in the Yurt of an Ashlander?

But like Albides said, I don't understand the logic behind it.

Now that you mention it, there are some similar shapes there... I just didn't really notice due to the distinct lack of purple in those villages. Cheydinhal seems to be built with the assumption that making something purple makes it look Dunmeri.

In fairness Vvardenfell may not be the best place to look for traditional Dunmer art. It was relatively recently colonised, and the ash wastes necessitate certain unusual architectural choices; hence Redoran beetle houses, whereas Telvanni architecture is just weird due to, you know, half-insane ancient paranoid wizards of doom, and the Hlaalu towns have a strong Western influence from the Empire. You might need to go down to Mournhold or Tear to find the heartland of Morrowind and its traditional architecture.

Of course, Vvardenfell has plenty of ancient and highly traditional cities of its own, e.g. Vivec, so that's questionable at best. But hey, Oblivion. What can you do?

Not really. Dunmer have been on Vvardenfell for ages.

Ages? Ashlanders, maybe, but apart from them, only Vivec has been there very long. The place was only opened for settling recently before the Nerevarine came along. But I don't have any exact year, so I guess "recently" could be stretched a bit.

edit: The "http://www.imperial-library.info/mwbooks/guide_vvardenfell.shtml" seem to imply that the house centers is old as well. I guess some of the others could be as well.

Yes, so Dunmer have been there for ages.

Inverted logic. Town design was slave to arbitrary choices to make them have their own cells, and to have identical features in cathedrals and guilds for ease of gameplay. They designed an mmo, but even World of Warcraft settlements are less codified.

For starters, their capitol city was of Ayleid design, and Bruma was of Nordic design.

I always found this funny. Cheydinhal is supposed to be Dunmer influenced, but the only Morrowind architecture it even faintly resembled were the Imperial-built colonies. Ironic, no?

At least it makes them feel as if they're still at home in Imperial occupied Morrowind.

Imperial settling. In other words, charter towns like Pelagiad, Caldera and (perhaps) Seyda Neen.

Not to mention that most of Morrowind wasn't actually in TES III; just Vvardenfell, Solstheim, and Mournhold. We don't know all of the architecture of the mainland.

Really? But wasn't mining made legal at the same time? Ebony, glass and the like, I mean. I've always thought it was those that kept the settlements in the rougher parts up and going.

Caldera is a mining town. Pelagiad was a small town set up by retired Legionaires. Seyda Neen is the home of the Census and Excise office on Vvardenfell.

More than likely it means that the empire at the point started exploiting the natural resources of Vvardenfell, whereas before the left them untouched for the Dunmer.

Of course Bethesda was inspired by real life, the influences are pretty clear in Oblivion, less so in Morrowind, but I can't think of any work of fantasy that never had even one thing in it that resembled real life.

As for the clear difference between Oblivion and Morrowind, it's quite natural that they would look different, since Morrowind is set on an island in the eastern province of Morrowind, with a primary population of Dunmer, a race of elves with very different history and culture from Imperials who make up the dominant population in Cyrodiil. It should naturally look different, that doesn't mean Cyrodiil couldn't have still been quite interesting and creatively designed while still not making it look like Morrowind, and in fact, if it had stayed true to how it was suggested to look in lore before Oblivion, it would have, but I guess Bethesda just decided they wanted to make a game set in Generic Fantasy Land.



I always found that odd, myself, then again, it might be explained by the fact that we never saw a large portion of Morrowind, and perhaps on the mainland, some places have archetecture resembling Cheydinhal. While it might make sense from a lore stand point, it still is not a very good explanation to use, since when players here "Dark Elf archetecture", they would generally think of some form of Dunmer archetecture they saw in Morrowind, at least those who play it would, yet Cheydinhal has nothing to that effect.

I think we're making excuses if we think the Dunmer ever built anything vaguely resembling Tudorbethan homes. That's just spreading the mediocrity across two provinces instead of one.

I do like however that the "Dunmeri influence" don't take form in bug shells being part of the Cheydinhal building style. Where would they have gotten those from anyway? It's just better to asume that the colour purple has some kind of significance on mainland Morrowind, probably in the western parts.

Still, I do find it strange that such influences can cross a very large and supposedly dangerous mountain range as the Velothi mountains (and the Valus mountains after that). People immigrate, of course, but still - wouldn't many of those be people who want to get away from Dunmeri traditions?
Then again, the "influences", if that's what the purple colour is, are so small that it doesn't really matter anyway.

Morrowind did happen in Vvardenfell, which is completely on the other side of the province from the Cyrodil-Morrowind border. It's possible that a toned-down Hlaalu-esque architecture can be seen in mainland morrowind, and that when combined with nordic architecture results in the architecture used in Cheydinhall. I'm not arguing with you. As a matter of fact I thought the same thing first time I set foot in Cheydinhall. I read the splash screen, then looked around, and was like, "What?". It, later, occured to me, however, that even though I (the player) had visited the Morrowind province many times while role-playing the nereverine, I still had not been everywhere in said province. That means I truly only saw a little of what the great nation of the dunmer has to offer. (Can you tell I'm biased in the favor of the dark elves?)

What I'm saying is this. The armistice happened some 400 years ago. Possibly mainland dunmer were subjected to the same amount of "new cities" springing up as we see on Vvardenfell. If you look at these newer establishments, like Caldera, you can see definite resemblences. I know that Caldera is an imperial town, but who's to say that the dunmer haven't adopted a bit of the architecture over the last few centuries. We simply haven't seen enough of Morrowind to make that distinction, yet.

Mm, I certainly would!