Huh... What do we know of Nordic or Khajiiti culture either?

Imperials are "distinctive" becuase they are different from the only other extensive milieu, the Dunmer? That isn't a good track record, that's not even a list.

Considering the context of the argument - I claim that Oblivion did not answer the question of who the Imperial are beyond their generic racial blurb, and provide examples to show the complexities involved in the real world equivalent of that question - and considering your reply to that was somewhat ad-honiem, I don't feel any obligation to explain it yet again.

But since you're arguing the excistence of all this information, feel free to write that essay that tells us who the Imperials are beyond their generic racial blurb. Tell us about their social and political organisation, the influence of religion, believes and philosophy. Tell us how it came about and how it influences the present day Cyrodiil.

If it's all there as you claim, it shouldn't be too hard.

No, there is still no confirmed cause of the Dwemer disappearance only theories

Just an very, very widely accepted, logical, sensible guess.

From one country alone, I may add. what about the Dwemer in Hammerfell, and any who may have split off from the group in skyrim during the journey there?

Uhhh, didn't they disappear too?

And if no lore says that they DIDN'T dissappear, no piece of lore says they're still around either.

Really, It gets so tiresome how people take stabs at Oblivion all the time. Yes there is voice acting, the 90s are gone so get over it. Yes it was simplified that tends to happen, deal. Yes it had many unoriginal fantasy monsters, it was bound to happen eventually. Yes there are some ugly people there were plenty in Morrowind too, in fact everyone in Morrowind was ugly. At least Oblivion has a few like Carahil who are not. Oblivion allows your character to actually look different from everyone else unlike Morrowind. Oh no they made it easier on you so you don't have to wander around anymore, horrible! If you don't like fast travel: don't use it! Yes leveling is annoying but whatever you shouldn't be completing the MQ at level 5 anyways.

Here goes. Dug this up from a previous debate.



And you've still yet to show any decent Dunmer culture outside of the factions of the Great Houses and the Tribunal Temple. Most Dunmer in Morrowind I saw were a lot more "generic" than the Imperials in Oblivion. At least townspeople in Oblivion each had unique dialogue and went about daily schedules.

Best post ever...and to think I wrote an essay on that and got flamed for it in TES general

man, how many times have I torn each and every one of those apart. Gets pretty boring to do.

Voice acting is fine, but it's not worth losing all meaningful dialogue for.
Simplified and dumbing down are not the same thing. This was dumbed down, which ties into the rest:
The monsters are cliche fantasy when the lore had established very interesting creatures to use. That's just laziness and cowardice.
Ugly people: Fine
Looking different: Nope. Every character is a featureless blob of dough.
Easier? it had a built-in walkthrough! There's a difference between a game not being hard and a game playing itself!
Fast travel: there is no alternative, stop deluding yourself. If there was any incentive to travel normally instead of walking being a bland and featureless chore then maybe I'd agree, but there's no game outside the quests and all the quests you fast-travel to.
levelling svcks.

You know it's supposed to be an RPG, yeah?

And this is just gameplay! Lore and story were almost totally absent, if you can call the bland pile of good vs. evil drivel a story. And lore was absolute zero if I ever saw it until KotN.

Walking being a chore? Oblivion has the best environments I've ever seen, and when I step outside of my house I see an unbroken mountain wall with quartz veins and frozen waterfalls. If a game can rival the Gaidhealtachd for beauty, I definitely don't consider travelling through such a spectacular environment a chore.

Oh, and how I play my game does not affect yours, so stop pretending it does just to get what you want. That is the essence of the argument against fast travelling, as it is optional. That's not my opinion, it's peremptory fact.



Please read this thread and then do what others have done and backup your argument with fact or observations.

I'll disagree with you but the arguing would be pointless. And as a matter of lore I think there was plenty enough lore. People want lore about the Dark Elves though eh? I don't like Dark elves they are pretty much douchebags for lack of a better term.

Yeah, Morrowind did have much more lore than Oblivion in my ophinion. Especially the stuff about the sixth house, the Great houses, and Morrowind history. all you had for istory learning in Oblivion was the brief history of the empire, and there were countless books in morrowind about the Great Houses and the Tribunal.

And Morrowind's "ask people about anything and they give you a paragraph or two on it" was much less realistic. Especially since in Oblivion, people actually have places to be. And they actually conversed among each other, saying other things. Although I will say that I would like a bit more dialogue than Oblivion, but no need to have as much as Morrowind.


The only thing really dumbed down was the compass. Skills were simplified.


We also got humans, high elves, dark elves, wood elves, lizardmen, and orcs in the games. Why isn't that considered cliche? And the creatures in TES III and TES IV, counting expansions, all did a good job of fitting in their respective environments.


While Morrowind had more diverse faces (notwithstanding they used a small selection of face and hair models), Oblivion saw people with different skin pigmentations within the same races. Look at the Blue Team Gladiator or the Grey Prince. Or the various guards.


Cyrodiil was a lot larger than Morrowind. The only reason we walked so much in Morrowind was because unless there was a Divine or Almsivi Intervention hub or a travel service, it was the only choice to getting there.

Since when were cliche fantasy LotR ripoffs good environments?
Again, no it's not. If there were incentives to do otherwise, I'd agree, but it's not.
I'm not pretending thay you liking bland cliche fantasy crap effects my gaming enjoyment. I'm just staing that Oblivion is bland and faceless.

Okay, want backup?

Cyrodiil:
In previous lore, Cyrodiil was said to be a deep, dense jungle with a myriad creatures that were very original and threatening, and that was nothing compared to the culture. Cutthroat politicians, not least of whcih the Imperial Battlemages, all trying to get as much power as possible by any means neccessary. The cities were massive and strange, not least of which the Imperial city.

What we got: A cultureless Gondor ripoff with no identity or meaningfully unique hooks to the setting.


Imperials:
Before, they were a cross of Roman and Native American empires, with thier native culture divided in two between the heathenistic, barbaric Colovian Highlanders who had strange traditions involving tattoos and feathers contrasted with the Nibenese snakes and con men, who were much more Roman. what we got: A bland, featureless, cultureless race that is just ambiguously white.

Oblivion and Daedra: I could go for days on Oblivion, so you may as well just go to TIL. However, what we got were fantasy hell and fantasy demons, without even the cool hooks and wierdness of real-world Christan Demonology.

Free-floaters: There were a lot of things in Oblivion that could have simply used lore, such as the aleswell quest. But then instead he mentiuoned some "vantos' third law." what is that? who is this man, important enough to have several magickal principles named after him? we get none of that, because it would have required thier own original lore from earlier, which would have scared off the casual gamer, or used originality to make up a new lore-character, which they did not do.

I can go on?

PS: I don't like Dunmer either, but since there was no lore in Oblivion, we don't have anyone else to talk about.

Way to just ignore what people have been saying throughout the whole thread, Swift-Blade. Also, disregarding half of what people said in no way makes your arguments more legitimate. No, having 6 or 7 faces is not more diverse than what Oblivion did. No, fast-travel is not completely necessary, please stop deluding yourself. The game environment is no more bland than miles of ashland with the occasional lava stream or godless cliffracers. There are as many books about the Mythic Dawn and Ayleids as there are about the Great Houses. Please play the game for longer than an hour, and you might realize there are more books than "A Brief History of the Empire." A LOT more books, actually. Lore was not totally absent, even that guy I spent pages arguing with agreed. Seriously, stop acting as if Oblivion was the worst game ever because it wasn't Morrowind in Cyrodiil like you wanted.

It is optional as in it is "an option in the game", sure. An option that has no gameworld explanation. An option that removes any risk, like a cheat. An option that caters to the instant gratification types that go on to sue their college after not being employed in their chosen field 3 months after graduating.

Oblivion didn't destroy ES lore because its changed some things, but the thing is it didn't ass a whole lot, it was like the devs weren't trying to create more lore for TES, its like they were using existing lore as a guidebook to making Oblivion instead.

More like it wasn't Oblivion in Cyrodiil like I wanted. It was LotR in Gondor.

And if it was Morrowind, I'd like it less. I've played Morrowind.

as for the books, most books were ripped from older games, and what few were new were pointless crap like 'ten Comands, Nine Divines" in the unending quest to remove that scary originality from the game, making it a polytheistic Christianity-lite.

and it;'s not the worst game ever, either. That's Legendary, for the 360. Such a good premise too, but I digress. it was the worst TES, because it wasn't TES. It was a bland LotR ripoff.

Look, this thread is done with. either you can mistake a bland, empty, cliche, good vs. evil story for valid TES or you don't have such a prodigious sense of wishful thinking. I'm the latter, so bye.

What's your point? Dagoth Ur was evil we are good, we kill evil. Morrowind was no different.

So you dislike it because of things outside of the game like Christianity and LotR?

Talk about an overblown sense of self-importance. It is much better off without you. Just when people were beginning to calm down, even agree on a few things, you stormed in, all high and mighty, listed your opinion as fact, claimed that you already tore the opposing arguments apart, and now say thread over because you win. Just... wow... I was dismayed at the bizarre hatred of Oblivion on this forum for a while, but I guess I've been naive because I didn't expect it to get this far. Talk about sad.

Hardly. You had the nefarious motives of Azura, the less than honorable intentions of the Tribunal plus the revelation that they lied about how they acquired their powers. Moral ambiguity, do you speak it?

Also Caius Cosades was a druggy

Underlying fact that it is good versus evil is still the same. Motives of other characters or not you still have to be the good guy and kill him because he is naughty. You have to refuse to be evil and destroy the heart. Good vs. Evil.

A bit like giant walking insects that teleport the player without risk, like a cheat.



I know I'm going to sound like an (censored) for saying this, but that was pretty ridiculous. I find that walking is a pretty good explanation for most things involving movement.