I doubt Skyrim's landscape will be as bizarre as Morrowind's, but the architecture seems to be far more interesting. In the old Art of Skyrim video there were a few particularly captivating concepts of dungeon interiors, and we're also seeing some more "edgy" looking enemies such as Frost Wraiths. Though low fantasy like Oblivion, I get the impression that Skyrim aims to have a more brutal and "primeval" feel to it, kind of like Beowulf. Ancient, grotesque creatures and the like.

We'll probably have to wait until Summerset for another Morrowind-style province.

EDIT: Another important thing to me is the raw amount of artistic assets used in the game. Morrowind, as an example, must have had three or four different wooden table meshes. In the Hlaalu manors, you would find tables made of rich, smooth mahogany. The shacks and dungeons had dingy furniture cobbled together out of driftwood or something of the sort. Even the "Nord" buildings, as we saw in Seyda Neen and Pelegiad, were built with varying types of roofs and windows. In Oblivion, the shacks and cottages looked the same everywhere, and you could find the same chairs in the middle of a cave as you would in the Imperial City. :facepalm:

I know there are varying definitions of low/high fantasy (some people think that the distinction is fallacious) but I have to say all the ES games are high fantasy because of the prevalence of magic. Low fantasy to me suggest more "realism" but without the fact checking of historical fiction, as well as some elements of the supernatural.

Demons invading the world? Dude with the blood of a dragon? Totally high fantasy. Barbarian king fighting a wizard (ala Conan)? A little more realistic, popes and priests were pretty much wizards (people believed they could perform "miracles" ie, magic, so I don't know.

Morrowind's "alien" vibe might have helped, but it was the stronger theme, the greater attention to detail, and the variety of environments that made it superior to Oblivion in this regard. By Beth's own admission, Oblivion's gameworld was a far more generic one than Morrowind's... or Skyrim's. I'd say we already have enough information on Skyrim to judge its environments a significant improvement.

Can it outdo Morrowind in creating an atmospheric fantasy environment? I think so.

Markath Side seems truly beautiful and.....odd. Hope the best buyable house is there. And that town with the woman in leather armour infront of that building thats all autumn-y and leafy and Japanese-y. That's really pretty.

And to be fair to Oblivion, some of the cities we quite nice. Skingrad had that creepy thing going on, Chorrol looked pleasant enough, Bruma was very homey and I hope some towns in Skyrim are similar, Bravil might have been a you know what hole, but I really liked it with its houses built upon each other. But Cheydinhal was lovely, very idyllic. And the Shivering Isles was beyond beautiful, even in Dementia.

Pretty much agree with this, it was good, very good it also had plenty of variation around,. However it lacked the alien feeling of Morrowind, SI did not do a so great impact as we had seen it before.

I guess Skyrim will have more unique locations from the screenshots. This is something Oblivion lacked, yes it was unique dungeons but few landmarks.

Oblivion may seem kind of lacking with today's graphics, but at the time it was a beautiful, high fantasy setting. Morrowind was totally alien, and, while that may be fun on occasion, I think the masses have come to prefer environments more easily related to. I like alien, but this is the right direction, commercially and artistically, in my opinion.

This.


"Artistic" does not necessarily = bizarre & alien

We still haven't seen "Volcanic Tundra".

I don't take their excuse of Morrowind was "supposed" to feel alien, They Put effort in MW and not so much with Oblivion, theres nothing in Lore to say Morrowind needed to have giant mushrooms much less ones people live in, or desolate ash deserts before the game came out.

Instead they took a region never done before and RAN with it, they put the effort in the detail and diversity not in just the world but the entire vibe of the game, from politicks, culture, regions etc etc etc, and for a game were nothing moves or changes unless you attack it? shx Morrowind Walks all over Oblivion in that regard despite RAI.

Cyrodiil on the other hand was BRIMMING with descriptions and lore meat to sink ones teeth into and sounded more awesome then anything witnessed in morrowind, and then when the final product came we got.....that.

Nothing says they can't/could not do the same with Skyrim, no Im not looking for Snow mushrooms, but doing something other than Generic medieval setting would be scores of uniqueness and seperate the series even more from the generic medieval stone feel most rpgs are running around with. and that 4 tusked wolly mammoth, the ice wraiths, those kinds of things are a step in the RIGHT direction....

I dont think so. We will see impressive structure for sure but:
I think the next- and maybe the only time we will ever see something nearly as unique as Morrowind, is when we get an TES set on the Summerset Isles. Valenwood might also look interesting and odd (in a positive way)

Because of its strangeness, the scenery in Morrowind was initially very interesting to me -- but it soon lost its novelty. No matter how strange something is, once you've seen it a hundred times, it's not strange anymore. While playing Morrowind, I eventually had the wish to play the same type of game in a "generic" fantasy world, that is, in pretty, realistic forests, fields and mountains, which never lose their wonder and beauty for me. Oblivion fulfilled that wish very well, and Skyrim looks like it will do so even more.

We use the word "generic" to denote lesser quality, or blandness, or something boring. But in this case (and in many others) I find generic generally preferable over strange. I find the real world just as beautiful as any strange fantasy settings that have ever been created, in art or film. Furthermore, it is often assumed that if something is generic, it can be neither creative nor artistic. This is utterly false. (Bob Ross is so awesome!) Thus, I disagree with the original statement, that Oblivion lacked creative and artistic environments. And also, my answer to the question is obviously: definitely! We've already seen artistic enviros in the demo. Finally, Skyrim will be unique (just as Oblivion and Morrowind were), because no place will exist, in the real world or in games, that is exactly like it.

But they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I'm just glad that, currently, Bethesda apparently also likes spruces a little bit more than giant mushrooms.

Personally I would have been pretty disappointed if Cyrodil in OB had looked like some tripped out acid induced hippy vision like MW. I certainly don't feel that OB lacked creative and artistic environments. I would also be pretty disappointed in Skyrim if it looked that way as well. We're not in MW anymore, get over it.

Never been done before? Are you [censored] kidding me? I'll keep saying this til I'm blue in the face: MORROWIND WAS JUST AS DERIVATIVE AS OBLIVION. Bethesda looked at D&D, said "how can we make this volcanic island more like the Underdark?" and filled it with giant bugs and mushrooms, with lizards that served as mounts and beasts of burden, with warring Great Houses (they didn't even change the [censored] name!) that the black-skinned, stealthy Dark Elves aligned themselves with. That is [censored] D&D. That is the Drow. Then they looked to historical cultures for architecture, clothing, etc., exactly as Oblivion did. So no, please shut up about how "original" Morrowind was. It wasn't.

I thought Oblivion had much more enjoyable terrain to explore than Morrowind. Most of Vvardenfell is so ugly you could replace it with the wastes from Fallout 3 and no one would even notice :cryvaultboy:

He said they never did the province of Morrowind before (so they took advantage of it), not that it was 100% original. Of course it takes from things that existed before.

People say Morrowind was original because it developed it's cultures, while Oblivion was more like a walk through a park with castles in it.

I never played D&D, so I can't say anything about that. Make in depth comparisons, rather than just comparing names and what [censored] looks like. I'm interested now: What is drow religion? How are the Houses different from each other? How are the regions different? Who are their gods? How does their religious system work? What's the political opinions of the commoner? Do they differ depending on region?

Yeah thank you for responding to him, my comment would have been less than friendly :facepalm: jeesh ffs, and I guess he missed everything I said about the FEEL of morrowind, the stories going on and the detail they gave it not how it *********ing Looked.........

The Drow, known as dark elves both for their skin color and for their disposition, are an elven sub-race of highly xenophobic religious zealots, deadly assassins and sorcerers, primarily worshipping Lolth, the Spider Goddess of Chaos. They live underground, in an inhospitable land known as the Underdark, where giant insects and dangerous monsters lurk among the forests of giant fungus, and where Drow ride into battle on the backs of giant lizards. Drow politics revolves around orientation to Great Houses and lesser houses that align themselves with the former. These factions fight constantly for supremacy, using political intrigue and direct conflict, much to the pleasure of their patron Goddess. Because racism is so deeply ingrained in their culture, slavery is a fact of life for the Drow, relying on the forced labor of kobolds and other "lesser races."

The Dunmer, known as dark elves both for their skin color and for their disposition, are an elven sub-race of highly xenophobic religious zealots, deadly assassins and sorcerers, who worship the Tribunal, but historically worshipped the three "Good Daedra", among them Mephala, the Webspinner, whose sphere is obscured to mortals but who delights in causing chaos and strife. They live in Morrowind, in an inhospitable land known as Vvardenfell, where giant insects and dangerous monsters lurk among the forests of giant fungus, and where Dunmer ride into battle on the backs of giant lizards. Dunmer politics revolves around orientation to Great Houses and lesser houses that align themselves with the former. These factions fight constantly for supremacy, using political intrigue and direct conflict. Because racism is so deeply ingrained in their culture, slavery is a fact of life for the Dunmer, relying on the forced labor of "lesser races", chiefly Argonians and Khajiit.

Granted, Bethesda goes deeper than the surface comparisons, particularly with the inclusion of the Tribunal, and the interesting choice to blend the Drow stereotypes with Persian and Mongolian historical influences. They also water it down in places, But the thing is, they did this in Cyrodiil too. A race of former slaves, building on the glory of their former elven masters (who, in defiance of tradition, were not the "fair folk" that Western fantasy so often refers to, but instead a race of brutal sorcerers for whom torture was literally an art form), rising up to form their own continent-spanning empire, with Greco-Roman and Japanese influences in their culture, is just as unique and interesting as the Dunmer culture, and that was all stuff that was added in Oblivion (as well as the lore on Ayleids, who previously were only known as the Wild Elves who roamed Cyrodiil's forests).

EDIT: @MK-- The thing is, when people talk about Oblivion being "generic," they make the exact same sort of surface-level anolysis that I did about Morrowind. The exact same thing. Oblivion didn't shove its lore down the player's throat the way Morrowind did, but it was still just as present and just as rich. People who write it off as a stereotypical medieval fantasy don't have a [censored] clue what they're talking about. Period.

i really liked the enviroments in oblivion
i loved to travel through the forests and see some crazy stuff happening with npc and stuff!
haa good times

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibXK4NI7sUo

I think what Morrowind did differently was to have that stuff more integrated into the game. You could see the Tribunal, and join the great houses and such. Oblivion had some very cool backstory, but it did seem at times like almost everything interesting about Cyrodiil happened in the past and no longer had much of an effect on what was actually in the game.

That would be the Melniboneans, then. It all comes from somewhere else in the end. Nothing is original these days.

Thanks for the info on the Drow. However, when I read about them most of them are apparently "evil." Dunmer may be racist and cruel, but most of them aren't evil.

Cyrodiil isn't as bad as a lot say it is (I first played Oblivion, so I guess I can't complain that much). In truth, I don't mind the removal of the jungle that much. And it gets much more interesting come Knights of the Nine. However, I think they focused way too much on the melting pot of things and made the cities essentially Little Skyrim, Little Morrowind, Little Hammerfell, ect. I think they should have focused more on the differing regions. Colovia could have had more martial quests, while Nibenay had more talky and business (The IC did have a few with the corrupt captain and the merchant based one) based quests. I also felt like there weren't enough Imperial NPCs who weren't guards. It seemed to be too much of an even mix.


http://www.oxm.co.uk/26155/bethesdas-todd-howard-on-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim/

"With Oblivion, we're dealing with the capital province, and we wanted to get back to the more classic Arena and Daggerfall feel of a fantasy world that felt more refined and welcoming," Howard reflects. "A place that you instantly understood."

I like how they have many Colovians different kinds of names than the people in Nibenay. But I think they should have portrayed Colovia as more intolerant (but more traditional) and Nibenay as more tolerant (but more garish), but colder emotionally. The Nibenay was less focused on the Nine and cared more for cultural gods, or animal gods and has a lot of cults (the Ancestor Moths needed more focus). Oddly, they did the opposite and portrayed the Nibenese as the almost WASP like culture and made them the Divine Fanatics.

This could have helped gameplay too: If you want to visit a merchant with money and more goods, check out one in the Nibenese regions, or the Imperial city.

It was a generic medieval fantasy world. Just because it was supposed to be interesting, and some books from the previous games and a few new ones where in-game doesn't mean that Oblivion wasn't bland. Cyrodiil is very interesting indeed, different than Morrowind, off course but not in a bad way and not generic. The problem is that Oblivion wasn't set in Cyrodiil, not even close.
The heart of the Empire without politics, religion, culture or anything?

And about Morrowind being 'unoriginal'. Sure it is clearly inspired by the Drow if I read your description, but I most games don't have anything similar as (main) setting. If a game is 99% based on Sumerian, Babylonian, Mayan or any other not regularly used (historic) culture or setting, with the remaining 1% being the fantasy elements added, then it will be a very original game because there are no, or hardly any games based on many less well known cultures. There are loads of games, movies etc. with a medieval Europe 'forest with things to kill' setting, which is basically all what Oblivion had outside it lore books.

I hold heartedly applaud the fact that despite the lack of "stuff going on" in Oblivion, that it like all games still added to the Lore, what I don't like is that they did not take advantage of it, to me -It wasn't enough- it was pretty minor in comparison to past games but thats just me. unlike Morrowind, Cyrodiil actually -had- descriptions about its regions full on for years, and one means to tell me with all that meat on Cyrodiils Lore bones the IC is the best they could do? naah I don't believe it.

again I said I've nowhere to draw my views on Skyrim except from excerpts from the devs, I keep hearing "return to daggerfall" and medieval fantasy and the likes. I'm not looking for over the top trippy shrooms(even though TESIII wasnt), Im not looking for Morrowind 2 I'm looking for the Beth to show that same attention to detail they did in past games after Arena got off the ground, I don't think any sane person can argue against the aspect that if a game had Morrowinds attention to detail, factions, stories (emphasis on the s) feeling, life and stuff going on, with Oblivions RAI. that a game would be ***ing beast period.

So yes its to early for anything solid in this regard and a seaside town sitting on a cliff over boats is hardly generic, please just know its out of concern not complaint.

and from the looks of it if you fall YOU WILL DIE this time

cause some of the screens show some nice vertical environments which is awesome