It depends on what part of the City. There are references to shining white gold tower, but also backstreets with collapsed staircases and packs of alley cats (do cats live in packs? Um, prides?).

I also realise now that Morrowind had a very messy vibe to it, but it was more dusty than dirty. Places like ALdruhn felt like the air was full of ash and sand. Their shacks seemed more squalid than Oblivion's. Hmm, Bravil, with its green decaying wood, and earthen streets, would probably be a good base for the filthcommon to most backwaters and villages.

For the record, I'm studying history at university... so I know all about how filthy people were back in the day. My Assassin's Creed reference was simply to show what a filthy village could look like in a video game.

You have a point there on the different areas of the Imperial City. The main street would probably be kept somewhat clean, maybe by people washing it with rags and mops.

Morrowind would be awful if it were a real place. Swamps are very nasty places, full of bugs and vermin.

You mean that the sewage from the other towns would wash down into Bravil?

No, I mean Bravil would be what the dingier towns would feel like.

Oh, and the Dunmer had soap and perfume, as well.

Another thing is this isn't our universe. Cyrodiil is based on the Roman Empire, but it is not exactly like anything in our world's actual history. Perhaps the people of Tamriel are actually concerned with hygiene. You can't completely compare them to our world. It's not a stretch to assume that people in Tamriel actually like to be clean. It wouldn't be too hard for these people to clean as we do. The homes look very clean and the only noticeably dirty places in Cyrodiil seem to be Bravil and Leyawiin. The people in Tamriel probably care about hygiene, otherwise, everything wouldn't look like it was supposed to be clean. Some places look dirty, but Cyrodiil is clearly meant to be a civilized and clean place.

Yeah, using primary sources like a Terry Gilliam movie and Assassin's Creed, I might get the same results you did. :rolleyes:

Meanwhile, more http://www.godecookery.com/mtales/mtales08.htm don't seem to agree with your clich?s. I bet you probably think that medieval swords weighed around 50 kg, and that knights in armor had to be hauled onto their horses because they couldn't move. You also probably think the "droit du seigneur" existed for real. As did the Smurfs.


Right. Before we had microscopes to see that germs existed, we had no reason to want to be clean. Of course. :rolleyes:

By the same token, it's only been since the last like, 100 years, if even that, that civilization has become concerned with hemoglobin and breathing. In the Dark Ages of Aged Darkness, people asphyxiated all the time because they were too stupid to know they needed to breathe. Now that we know about the ATP cycle, this is a thing of the past. Gosh, we really are incredibly superior to our ancestors of 40 generations ago!


Then why did they make bathhouses, and bathtubs, and had an active soap industry going as far back as the ancient Gauls (who invented shampoo)? Charlemagne asked his stewards to tally, amongst other valuable resources, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/carol-devillis.html. The modern form of the Marseilles Soap was first defined in 1370. Yeah, yeah, people didn't know anything about hygiene before the 20th century, they were just primitive ape men living amidst their feces.

Not just that, but it's a very diffrent world, and it's more past the medevil point anyway since it is kinda "clean." Also, they can't have too much and blood dark grity stuff, as much as I would like to see it. They need to keep a certain rating. People already moan that you can strip your chracter, image what they would say if you could chop of limbs or have [censored] or whatever. There are always people who will make an outcry.

I think the existence of magic is really a major point, because although it doesn't pertain directly to cleanliness (as far as we know, that is; there may well be alteration spells that affect hygeine), it does vastly alter the social development of the Elder Scrolls world in comparison to our own. You really can't use Earth examples to prove your point here. Although I don't believe the majority of people in Tamriel have serious magical skills themselves, there is common and cheap access to magical by-products that can be used by anyone, like potions and enchantments. As has already been mentioned, 99% of diseases are curable by potions and Temple blessings (dont mention the Corprus!!) and that would have been a significant factor on Tamriel's social dvelopment due to longer life expectancy, lower birth/infant mortality rates etc.

Anyway, if you want a yardstick on Tamriellic cleanliness, just look at those prissy Altmer. Can you seriously imagine your average High Elf going without at least three baths a day? Got to keep that golden skin shiny, you know.

lol yeah, you have a point there about the High Elves. But then where do you think all their garbage and waste goes? I'd assume they'd just throw it outside the boundaries of their city or into the lake or something. Does magic really pertain to mundane stuff like that?

Well, just because we haven't seen it in the game doesn't mean it doesn't exist - it just means that gameplay-wise, there is no use for it. I would bet that there are water-purification spells, for example. I'm not sure about waste; if this was Morrowind, I'd say they had some bizarre species of bug that lived on garbage; seems to fit with the rest of Morrowind lore but for the rest of Tamriel, I don't know. It doesn't have to be just a "wooshy wooshy garbage disappear!!" spell; there could be any number of methods that make clean living easier for a world born out of and based on magic.

For what it's worth, I do think many areas of Tamriel would be dirtier than they are portrayed in-game. But for the most part, for the reasons I mentioned, I think cleanliness in general would not be as hard for the people of Tamriel as if is for the people of Earth.

...the real question is why do you think it couldn't/wouldn't? Magic flows through Mundus, Magic MADE Mundus. Most people in TES seem to be able to cast at least a low-level fire spell, why couldn't they cast an even less costly spell to clean up feces or such?

That's largely a flawed game-mechanic representation, though, the idea that everyone can at least cast some form of basic spell. In reality, the magic-user-to-rest-of-the-population ratio is pretty slim. Not to say that magic doesn't shape their world (including this area), but not the extent where everyone's magically Mr. Cleaning their waste.

http://appft.com/

Yeah, there wouldn't be much point in a Mages Guild if everyone and their dog was skilled in magic. My feeling was that everyone has access to magical means, without necessarily being skilled in it themselves. I mean, the whole world grew out of magic. It's bound to have developed in a totally different way to ours.

Edit: I <3 you, Prow. Like honestly.

Yeah, on that note, I would also assume that there are lots of High Elves who don't know a thing about magic, even though the games say that High Elves are natural spell casters. That doesn't mean necessarily that every single person is a spell caster. I mean, that's like saying everyone today uses cell phones when in fact, there are still many people who use lan lines, albeit, old people.

And just because people have the ability to clean themselves or their waste or their house with magic, doesn't mean that they will. Elves, I'd assume, can become just as lazy and complacent as humans.

MMmm True.. but still, who's to say the Mages guild doesn't offer magic cleaning as a service? Really this is all speculation, and so far all of this points to the fact that we don't know what people do with their waste, but there obviously isn't much around, so therefore they must use some method. Add magic and baths and sewer systems in and I think we have got enough evidence to say that Tamriel should be pretty clean.

I think it's really just due to the fact that consumers nowadays don't want to see a game where the NPCs are filthy and the castles are falling apart. Everybody likes things that are Hollywood-ized and 21st Century-ized where it's all clean and neatly packaged. Look at all the movies out that are set in medieval times; they're nothing like what they should be. Same goes for computer games, especially role playing ones. But hey, that's where "role-playing" comes in. I can always pretend that everyone lives in a purtrid environment even though the game doesn't look that way, because I'd much prefer a filthy, squalid medieval world to the pristine clean environment that the games portray. :twirl:

What movies would these be? I immediately think of LOTR or Braveheart etc.. they certainly aren't clean. Then again I don't watch many movies.

Hah! Look at Rivendell and all the Elves, man! Look at Legolas. That guy looks like he just got done having his hair brushed and makeup put on. There isn't one piece of garbage or speck of mud or booger or skidmark on the walls or infrastructure of Rivendell. Now how realistic is that? I mean really.

I think there was another comedy movie with some black guy and the film was called "Black Knight". Don't know if anybody has seen it. But what got me was just how well lit up everything was and how it was so clean. Castles are freakin dark as caves, unless you have a plethora of candles in them. But hey, that's Hollywood for ya; make everything nice, pretty and shiny and packaged in a cute little box for the audience. And therefore, ipso facto, ergo, apply the same thing to computer games.
This is all just my opinion, though.
I think Troy, starring uhm.... Brad Pitt, was it? I think that movie was all hollywood-ized too. Didn't see it though.

That's because Elves are ELVES.. look at gimli and aragorn etc. They usually have at least a bit of grime on them.

Boy, you sure are intelligent. How ever did you come up with all that intellectual insight? Surely it couldn't have been from reading Dr. Seuss stories.

I think it's human instinct to try to stay at least on the cleaner side of filthy though, if we're comparing this to real life for a moment here.

I mean, royalty were usually pretty clean, and the higher-ups were too. They could even eat so much to get fat (Which was a good thing back then).

I'm not meaning to go against anything that anybody's saying, but generally people no matter the times like to stay clean. Bath-houses were a really big thing in Rome, 'course then again they added all sorts of weird attractions to them. But the point is if it wasn't human instinct to avoid germy things we'd probably all be sitting in piles of filth not caring what we looked like.

And then the whole "attraction" thing comes into play when people are worried other people will think of them as dirty if they look dirty.

People in the old days still did things to look/seem healthier, just not the extent we do today where we can drive down a street and purchase a toothbrush, soap, washcloths, and other hygiene products. They did what they could, but they also knew everything was a valuable resource.

You'd expect Cyrodiil to be cleaner, since it's the Economic/Power center of the Empire. :nod:

But still, it isn't that hard to trip into mud, walk down into a pond, and wash it off without wasting more then 10 minutes.

wouldnt the game go lagging if there was rubbish all over the place?
also, in the CS all the beggars carry a disease. Isn't it strange they dont cure themselves at temples and chapels?

Cyrodiil cities as painted by Oblivion have been called "doll houses" before, and for a good reason. Morrowind didn't give off those Barbie-Disney-perfect impressions, but if you want to play a really dirty looking game, try The Witcher, Arx Fatalis or Dark Messiah.

The important thing here is that the lack of filth has no background in lore because none is required. It's a matter of art and style, a matter of visuals, not of lore. A conscious choice was made by the devs of Oblivion that Cyrodiil must appear tame, harmonious, clean and highly civilized in order to be as opposite as possible to the chaos of Dagon's realm. It wasn't meant to be a realistic portrayal of medieval times. And even if it was, waste and filth management isn't really the first thing that springs to mind as the pillar of realism.


Some people still think you're 13. I wonder why.

I thought people in the Mozart days (18 century) wore all that powdery make up to cover up their smell and hide all the marks on their skin?