But the name itself implies the existence of soap, even if it's not provided in game. If medieval europe had been a true trash pile with absolutely no concern for hygiene, how comes knwoledge of sopa and thngs like public bathes, lavoirs and the like wouldn't have been widespread.

Sur it wasn't exactly squishy clean, but the medieval period wasn't a pile of inbred brutes caving eash other's skulls and [censored] their sisters amongst piles of their refuses and dejections.

Well, there really is no exact way to tell as their are no living witnesses alive today from that period. All we have to base our knowledge off of is the remains of what we've found. But there's nobody to tell us "Lemme tell ya all about it, this is what I did to stay clean back in 879 A.D..."

Of course they did, there were chroniclers and medical manuals going back to that time. There's tons of evidence for it. If you want to read wikipedia, even:

in the 8th century, soap-making was well-known in Italy and Spain.[6] The Carolingian capitulary De Villis, dating to around 800, and sometimes attributed to Charlemagne, mentions soap as being one of the products the stewards of estates are to tally. Soap-making is mentioned both as "women's work" and the produce of "good workmen" alongside other necessities such as the produce of carpenters, blacksmiths and bakers.


What is it going to take to prove to you that hygiene was not unknown before the enlightenment?

The ancient Irish were obsessed with being clean, and soap was known to them, as well. The Picts also thought that they had to be clean to get their benefits of their religious symbols, and water was a significant part of their religion, with the worship of everything from waves, to fish, to ponds, to fountains.



And what was written by medieval historians, or spoken by ancient bards and told to their descendants until someone in the modern age works out that the story they were told by their parents was older than their civilisation.

And, besides, how is what we find not good evidence?

Hell, there's even the town of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Baths_(Bath)#Redevelopment, a place of bathing from the Roman Era to the present day.

A big reason I think the Germans had the lowest number of plague deaths than all of Europe; they bathed.

I said there weren't any living descendants; you didn't read my post correctly.
And yes, I do believe that there was soap and hygiene back then; just not what it is today obviously.

No, you didn't say there were no living descendants (clearly there are, we're here now). You said there are no living witnesses alive today.

You also said



To which I replied



Clearly, its you who didn't read your own post.

Well that seems over the wall for me. Id hate to see everything nasty. Morrowind basically was filthy i think, and everywhere except the IC, Chorrol and Cheydinahal seemed to have some features that made it feel pretty filthy. Its a bit much to take the time to add a dead fly laying on the ground. I dont see why there would be grime in anywhere but in a sewer, and they have been made pretty nasty. And i dont see whats wrong with water being shiny, it naturally does that unless its covered in scum, you need to remember, its BASED on medieval times.

No, I meant that there isn't a person alive today who is 1000 years old who was born in the dark ages who can tell us verbally from personal experience. You're thinking about it too deeply.

Well to each his own I say. You like cleanliness; I like filthiness. :vaultboy:

I think its made clear in the lore that the Imperial civilisation (And naturally other non imperial civilisations) have many features which far surpass that of Medi-evil society, and I am not talking about the magical or fantasy parts but I am sure the Mage's guild has improved the average life for a citizen of the empire dramatically.

Well; for one, the black plague didn't happen because everyone was so clean. Cleanliness was a luxury only the rich (nobility) could afford.

There is one movie that pops to mind making a fairly good indication of filth in the middle-ages At least, that's what I think. Anyone seen the movie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excalibur_(film)?

I think Tamriel would be filthier than it is depicted in the game. Would I want it be more filthy. No, not really, the real world is dirty enough. Playing a game is way of escapism yeah?

I think the games depicted filth quite good without actually showing it. Bravil and Leyawiin felt dirtier than IC, Chorrol or Cheydinhall. Morrowind towns felt quite dirty and dusty, too. I don't think it needed to show all the dirt and crap.

The Black Plague was not transmitted by dirt, but by fleabites from rat fleas. That the pandemic spread so much was a direct consequence of ailurophobic superstitions which led people to eradicate cats, because cats are evil, durrrr. Once freed from the threat of evil cats, rats proliferated, rauaging crops and spreading their infected fleas everywhere.

It's not a question of bathing. Fleas don't care much about that, unless you spend your all day immersed.

Cool, I forgot about that movie. I searched it on http://www.amazon.com/Excalibur-Blu-ray/dp/B000Q66JXA/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1257442353&sr=1-3 but it's not available; that svcks. I guess ebay or something.

Well yeah, a game is a form of escape from the real world. But in my mind, it adds more immersion when it looks more real.

First I didn't read your post correctly, now I'm thinking about it too deeply?





And this isn't getting too technical? We know what they were like from primary sources, it doesn't matter whether they told us in speech or in writing.

Even if the Empire is 'medieval' it's not going to be like medieval europe.

Medeival european cities had at most (for the very largest) a few 10s of thousands of people, the Imperial city has a population in the hundreds of thousands (maybe as much as a million).

A few were quite a bit larger than that, more comparable to the lore-size of the Imperial City.

Constantinople, about 400,000 in the 12th C (it became depopulated after the Fourth Crusade wrecked it, though).
Venice, about 180,000 by the 15th C (I don't have an earlier figure for its population, but it was one of the largest cities of the High Middle Ages.)
Cordoba, by some overenthusiastic estimates 1 million under the Umayyads (more likely 310,000 to 350,000).
Paris, 275,000 in 1365 (an estimate supported by records of the time).

But the aesthetics you want (hunchbacked peasants with missing teeth, covered in pustules and feces, in the oppressive shadow of crumbling castles) is not more real. If anything, it's even less real than the abstracted, sanitized vision you dislike. It's a caricature and a myth which doesn't make much sense (people don't like being covered in filth, and castles are not going to be falling apart as long as they're not abandoned) when you think about it.

It's certainly fine for a "grim & gritty" setting, something like Warhammer maybe, but it's definitely not going to be realistic. It's just as excessive as the WaltDisneyian clich?, just in the other direction, and therefore as credible and realistic as its opposite.

TES has always been more high fantasy and I do agree with Gez. Dark and gritty is ok for dark gothic games such as Warhammer. Not all fantasy games basied in a medevil setting have to be like that.

Hehehehe, a wizard did it!

I think some of the cities are meant to be pretty filthy. Bravil is described by some of its inhabitants as a bit of a cess pool. I think the devs just weren't very good at pulling it off to look like that.
They did a great job with Crucible though, with crumbling buildings and open sewers pooling on the streets.

Medieval towns were pretty grotty though. Only some of the narrow streets were cobbled, and the rest turned into a muddy morass of rotting vegetables, sewerage and animal waste when it rained.
It would spoil pretty towns like Chorrol and Skingrad if you included that in a game though! Its nicer having just a few ugly ones like Bravil and Crucible contrasting with the picture perfect sort.

That's my explanation and I am sticking by it.

I think that Magnus' power-fart when he left the conference was somehow laced with super-lysol, which has kept the roads clean for countless ages.

Of all the games, Daggerfall and Morrowind conveyed the best notions of "filth", albeit more metaphorical and societal than literal. Shady underground societies, smuggling operations, heavy tensions between rival guilds, constant assassination attempts and unrest within the courts of nobility. This isn't the same as if we had dirt and feces everywhere, but I think it helped to imply the world wasn't as pristine as it was limited to by the engine and graphics at the time. I think these psychological effects on the player and the general tone/mood of each game speaks for more than is actually seen.

I don't know why (I think it's the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPdL2nSuiYM&feature=PlayList&p=4594D5EF6C24616E&index=29), but I always imagined the Imperial Simulacrum during the events of TES: Arena as a dark age in Tamriel's history. Not just in terms of political decay, but I've always viewed the time period with a darker theme (probably simply due to TES1's darker and more DnDesque theme). Still, if anybody ever makes a total conversion of Arena or a flashback to Arena, I imagine the city streets as being dark and ill-kempt, the entire world considerably more depressing than it is in Morrowind and Oblivion.

Ahem, back on topic...the Daggerfall dungeons seem to have once served the purpose of being an obscenely complex and labyrinthine sewage network. Have you seen those brick walls? Yuck.