I have do disagree on "Maybe TES attracts people more of that crowd than traditional fantasy" part - Oblivion went "traditional" not because of the fans, but because of the team and it's leadership - as I sad Haward is practically phobic of high fantasy judging by his interviews, so I'm not surprised that being the head of the team he pushed everyone to "tone it down".
Oblivion was a success, because of the long like of factors, starting form it's amazing graphics and ending with a general significant increase of people who play computer games since Morrowind. And added to that Morrowind created a "legend" - a good portion of old time gamers swore that it's the best thing since sliced bread, and that heated up the interest to it's "progeny", people who did not play Morrowind because it's to old had an interest in the hyped series anyway. So the overall success of Oblivion is largely based on steady and firm popularity of Morrowind, that persuaded many to check it out.
And a lot of the old fans found Oblivion to be rather bland lore wise... Even some of the new once who did not see Morrowind at all where disappointed, without even having a point of comparison.
Having sad that, I don't mind a bit of familiar - imperials are there to provide that influence - Caldera in Morrowind looked almost exotic when compared with the rest of the land But "familiar" is a complex concept, if you visit the cold parts of the globe forests, of for example north of Russia are very different from Canadian once, even the trees are not the same, so why would Skyrim have similar foliage to the north of America of all things? It's simply not logical and makes the impression of a rather "narrow" view of the world on devs part.

Well I don't see why people think that the things they are doing with Skyrim is just Fallout. Level-scaling to a bigger degree was Oblivion and they just used Fallout to work on perfecting it. Perks have been in Daggerfall and Oblivion and once again they used Fallout as a testing ground to improve the system. It's not fallout, it is just features that they have been working on for a long time and are putting in the latest incarnations of those systems into Skyrim.

@Sshodan I don't understand why people have a problem with Cyrodiil looking more like Medieval Europe. Just because it isn't Earth doesn't mean it doesn't look similar but different. I mean, even Morrowind has similar looks to the real world. It looks like a volcanic hot spot on Earth and a marsh from Earth with a little bit of something new (giant mushrooms and warped creatures from the blight) with a few giant worms and flying jellyfish. This is the most unique looking place even in the lore because it would stand it would look that way sense the heart of lorkhan, an extremely powerful object crashed there and created Vvardenfell. The rest of the world looks more normal yet unique. Skyrim will look like a mosaic of environments from earth that could have no worldly reason to exist. Like Fall Forest, it looks like it's perpetually in the Fall, completely out of place with the tundras and pine forests not far away. That is an alien world, you just have to realize that it parts of a place don't have to look like alien landscapes right out of a Giger story.

And again, who is talking about Fallout? The tread is about the series being unique in comparison to other fantasy themed games. Fallout is not one of them.

Once again, can you read? My reply up above was to point out that the systems being used in Skyrim are not unique to Fallout and were derived from systems that were already in the TES games.

Sorry, buddy, SKYRIM will be AOC Eglophian mountains single player, with dragon like any other RPG that in reality will probably act a moving oblivion gates.
The uniqueness of skyrim will be you singing Te Deum to obtain F.E.A.R bulletime.
Your character will be created like in Fallout, with atributes and skill bare minimized, tending to Hexxen.
Thats the very probable settings, enjoy it or not..

I don't think that the main concern in original rant is Fallout, if you read past the first line. And kind of grasp the main point of the post.
And people who keep mentioning Fallout in every tread only add to the fire of rather ridiculous "fallout with magic" statement. I prefer to ignore that part - one needs to form a proper concern that makes sense before discussing it.

P.S. As I thought, as soon as second person mentioned Fallout that's where the tread goes down the drain... Everyone started ignoring the real point of concern and originality and went back to Fallout-Not-Fallout argument... *sigh* In three treads at the same time... For something that has no serious basis people sure like to argue about ti

The culture is more Celtic than it is Scandinavian. They need to put more emphasis on that.

Well obviously it was a mistake that Todd Howard said he liked Conan the Barbarian because now somehow it's become "common knowledge" that Skyrim will be an Age of Conan copy. /sarcasm

He said that he liked Conan and that it would feel like Conan, a barbaric, brutal land. Go watch Conan movies and get the feel for the atmosphere, that's what he was talking about, not that it would be Conan...

Now about dragons. People complained that they didn't have dragons in their main games (some dragonlings) and now that there are dragons in the game, the same people complain that they are. Also, the dragons of TES aren't like those from other RPGs, they have an ancient language that gives them all their powers. They don't even inherently breathe fire like EVERY other dragon in any story. They speak a dragon shout to create fire. Also they can breathe cold, wind, make a powerful push effect, slow time and even make a blink effect. I'd like to see a dragon that ever did that in any other story....

I read past the first line but only felt like commenting about the fallout comment. It just isn't true that it is fallout pasted into TES when Fallout had those systems from the other TES games. That's all I wanted to comment on, not the rest of his post.

Now I agree with you that the "fallout with magic" is annoying and not true and that is exactly what I posted to denounce.

Culture should be more Skyrim and less earth anything, that's where the real emphasis should be.

Sleign - and by actively denouncing that you only attract more attention to the foolish clime that is ridiculousness enough that it should not even be mentioned, and encourage people to poke at it and start thinking about the nonsense. As long as they did not drop a nuclear bomb on Skyrim since the last screen shot there is nothing to even talk about

"as hyped for this game i am- does it not strike you that this will be fallout+magic+ vikings+ viking snow world+mammoths and dragons?"

No.

Nirn has cultures that are unique and cultures that are intentionally based on something else (as, believe it or not, many people like that). If you want uniqueness, hope the next game is not set in a human province (as they are the ones that are usually based on real world).

And where exactly did you find the fact, in lore that suggest that Nordic culture in TES is based on something concrete in earth culture? And even better, why is it based on regular-American-impression-of-the-"Nordic"-culture-in-general ? I happen to know a thing or two about both Vikings and Celts, and I can tell you that it quite exotic and extremely unlike anything I so in TES games so far.
And if I get another bland Oblivion experience I woun't be hoping for anything, I'll just find a game that does offer something interesting to explore. I love TES but if it's going to degrade in to pseudo historical simulator I'm out of it, because Oblivion was just boring.
We have plenty of good pseudo historical games already starting form Gothic and Dragon Age and ending with The Witcher, TES was supposed to be something different, but it se4ams they want to just jump on the same old bandwagon, sorry if I don't fancy playing the same old thing over and over again.

Ok for conan but what i was saying its that the GAME MECHANICS will be very similar to AOC or any other MMO dito RPG for whats matter (Inser t WOW if you pleased). IF it looks like conan world well at least we will have pretty landscape and settings, actually its the only game i still can stand to play.
I never asked DRAGONS. And people that asked DRAGONS probably were refering as dragon in the lore, where they were smart and NON EVIL. They had their diferences but that doesn t make them evil. Althought the first thing in war is try to devoid the ennemy of good traits.
Yes they WILL work as other RPG, unless there s someone still bright in tess gamewritters (Sorry but in Oblivion the game writter IQ must have been similar to a 5 year old kid), so back to track The Dragon will probably work as ANY assinine MONSTER, or other RPG. Its the player KILL HIM!!!!!
As the Moderators are chokking "we want to join dragon /evil thread" and as we know we will have to battle them, you see there s almost no doubt dragon will be DUMBLY used, there s 90% probability to be the final Issue. Exactly as in any dumb RPG, which TES tryed to avoid,or seemed try to avoid until Oblivion release.
As you can see buddy your point is shallow and superficial, dragon power is the least, dragon use is the problem.
Now tell me how can you win a flying creature that combine 1) Fire breath, Ice breath and blink ? Especially with sword and shield.
Really only doing a TE DEUM, but since TE DEUm never saved anyone ....

AMEN

ONE MORE TIME

AMEN

Morrowind borrowed heavily from real world cultures and landscapes. It WASN'T just a volcanic wasteland, any more than Skyrim is likely to be just a frozen wasteland, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is either lying or didn't play MW and hasn't seen the various Skyrim teasers. MW had the Bitter Coast swamplands with its huge trees and stagnant pools, the Ascadian Isles with its plantations and farms, the rocky and barren Azura's Coast, the dry but fertile Grazelands, and the volcanic and ashy wastelands that everyone points out.

Graphics and computing power allow "busier" landscapes, but the generic approach of OB wasn't the answer, at least in my opinion.

What unites all of those landscapes is that they looked barren. The Bitter Coast region probably the least so, but still, really quite barren.

There were many things I did like about Morrowind: depth of culture, fast travel system, lack of compass, blacked-out unexplored areas, even the purely text dialogue. All of these aspects were superior to Oblivion's, IMO. But the wilderness just looked and felt like a vast emptiness inbetween interesting places (I admit even that can be justified with lore and has it's own virtues). I don't want to unjustly accuse people of nostalgia, but I really don't remember anyone praising the "unique" and wonderful wildlife back then. I remember people complaining they were being constantly attacked by jumping one-eyed worms, angry fish and cliff racers. Sorry to be blunt.



I agree with that.

I quit reading at this point.
I want uniqueness too, but wanting stuff to want it?
Nords aren't vikings, they are a culmination of Norse culture + dev's thoughts. How Mongolians fits into this I don't know...


Uhhh, but back on topic. Unique yes, but it should make sense too...