It seems to me that Bethesda either can't or shouldn't make a game set in Elsweyr.

The problem here is Khajiit morphology. There are sixteen (seventeen if you include the Mane) types of Khajiit. These range from the housecat-like Alfiq to the Senche-raht which can be bigger than an elephant and are used as a sort of transportation (think a ginormous tiger that you can ride around on). That's a lot of models to create. It would be absolutely epic to stroll through Dune or Orcrest and pass by a Bosmer-like Ohmes trading with a Morrowind-esque Suthay-raht or a Cathay-raht (I imagine these guys as a furry Conan the Barbarian) riding around on a Senche, but it would be too much work for something that would be ultimately trivial to most gamers.

Another possibility would be a horrific retcon to make all Khajiit found in Elsweyr Suthay-raht or something. That would be a pretty low-blow to Lore nerds like myself, but would be way more feasible.

What do you think?

seeing that im not such a lore nerd i dont really mind. although it would be nice to see tham make tons of khajiit sub-types (whatever you call them) it sure would give them a lot of work. Then again i dont really care if they only do a couple of types that are similar to each other. but for lore-nerds it might not be appealing... :shrug:

Well, they don't need to do all of them. Just the major types.

That's the thing -- there is no major type. What a Khajiit looks like depends on the cycle of the moon (the Lunar Lattice in game-speak). Suthay-raht are more common than Alfiq, but in the Khajiit home province there would need to be a variety.

Have you played the Elsweyr - Desert of Anequina mod for Oblivion? There are many types of different Khajiiti, including Alfiqs and Senche tigres. The mod is made quite well, so if fans can do it this well Bethesda should be able to even do it better.

Unfortunately on my last install of Oblivion I downloaded the mod and decided to start from scratch after problems with CTDs before getting to the mod's content. I'll make sure to get it ASAP

I'm quite sure that the mod is well-made and contains the appropriate subtypes of Khajiit. I don't think that Bethesda lacks the will or ability to do it, I just don't think it could happen in the context of a development cycle. Mod creators don't have to worry about a schedule or funding when creating content.

I know that. I'm saying don't include all of the types. Just a a few, like five or six or something.

I think that maybe they should let the books handle them. Khajiit were very well-handled in Infernal City, and they did brush on the subtypes in a very natural way (there were some Attrebus thought were kittens, at least one Ohmes, several Senches and a few of the more familliar breeds). Either that or they should wait for gaming PCs and consoles to become some kind of super-processing megalith before trying to tackle it.

considering my "dislike" of beast races that would be the one TES game i might actually skip if they ever did make it. i hope they stick with the human realms and maybe the elf realms but leave the cats and lizards alone. i have a distinct feeling that game would feel to much like 3d Animal Crossing. :yuck:

I think it would be great for TES if they did this...in a few years. It would add more fans to the series, being that it would be Far Fantasy instead of the bland world of OB. Morrowind did that for SO many people, being in another world different houses, creatures, and people.

But it can't be ONLY cats. Bosmers and Imperials should be present at least.

thats the problem though....if you pick elsweyr it has to be majority kittens by definition. your better off sticking with human and elven provinces with beast races thrown in occasionally. same applies to the black marsh. im actually looking forward to skyrim and although they already did it i would like to see a modern interpretation of the redguards homeland.

They didn't already did Hammerfell did they?

Well, TES I had the whole of Tamriel but it doesn't really count, Redguard had only the isle of Stros M'kai as far as I know and TES II was set in the Iliac Bay which is a part of both High Rock and Hammerfell, but just a small part of it.

So they did parts of Hammerfell, but not in a way that I woyuld say they 'already done it.'
I agree with you, Hammerfell seems quite interesting, so it would be nice for maybe TES VI.

Y'all talk about the giant tigers like you haven't seen anything that big as a transport before. Wasn't a good ol silt strider pretty big compared to everything else in the game?

Except silt striders didn't move. Animating a four-legged giant tiger that's a natural sprinter is a lot harder to do too.

What would be hard to do? Valenwood. Giant tree city that's alway moving. That'd be hard to pull off. (although, maybe the game's central plotline is that the tree city has stopped moving for some reason)

Wait a decade or so for them to have the tech and the means before tackling the freaky beast race homelands. I'm not saying they shouldn't be done, just that they shouldn't be done until they can be done right.

I would much rather see black marsh anyway. Morrowind raiding parties fighting guerrilla Argonians wielding spears, now that would be something to see. It would be a very dark game........

@ dragon-konn: Oblivion's world was NOT bland.

I think that Black Marsh could be done well.

You could start somewhere on the south east coast that has been settled (I think) by the Imperials, with a majority of the map being the savage wilderness of Black Marsh, with some Argonian cities scattered about...I'm not gonna bother looking for the map right now, I can hardly keep my eyes open.

I almost forgot about the original post...that would have been sloppy.

I agree with you that they shouldn't make a game set in Elsweyr, though not for the lack of time or resources. I just don't like to encourage furries.

Given that Beth totally threw in the towel when it came to giving Cat and Lizard people Cat and Lizard bodies in Oblivion, yes. I'd have to say that Bethesda would be completely incompetent at making TES: Elsewhere. (really, no pun). You know you've snorted too much coke when you've forgotten what your own game series is supposed to be about.

Actually, the Silt Striders DID move in Morrowind, but they never went more than about a half-step forward or backward, and it was very slow. The Tamriel Rebuilt project threw a couple of them (actually walking) onto an open area of the map, and several more at the only remaining "silt strider farm". The free-wandering ones were later removed as "inconsistent with the lore", as there are not supposed to be any left in the wild.

Doing the bodies and animations for only 4-5 distinctly different Kajiit types, and having less-demanding mesh and texture variations to cover the remaining types while using the same "skeletons", would be the easier approach. I don't think that it would be any great challenge or budget-breaker.

Having games in the series where the various Kajiit or Argonians far outnumber the men and mer strikes me as being less "marketable", unless the location is along the border and includes small portions of two distinct regions: one of them either Elsweyr or Argonia, and the other a man or mer culture. Of course, *I* would buy it just BECAUSE it was set in a unique land of unfamiliar creatures and strange residents, but there are obviously others who wouldn't. I definitely don't want to see another "complete province" scaled down onto a tabletop, like Cyrodiil was in Oblivion, so doing a small "isolated" border area with small portions of two provinces wouldn't require mostly Kajiiti or Argonian NPCs. A significant proportion, yes, but probably less than half.

Yes, it's harder than making an immovable static object. But they had Mountain Lions in Oblivion and essentially a Senche would boil down to a retextured and resized Mountain Lion. It's not a technical problem.

The potential problem is mostly a matter of taste. Elves and humans are generally more poular than cat-people (except maybe in Japan ) and when they do Elsewyr not only will the majority of NPCs be Khajiits, the majority of playable races will also be Khajiits.

If they don't do all types, I'll hate the game. If you can't actually capture one of the most unique aspect of a fictional race in your game, then you shouldn't have wrote that part about them in the first place, simple as that.

But it's not actually impossible to do, the non-humanoid types could be implemented as "creatures", whereas the humanoid ones could be playable races, it would perhaps be time consuming, and add a bit more effort to designing and balancing races, but finally getting to see Khajiit live up to what's promised in the lore would be well worth it.



Elves are stupid and fantasy has long svcked out whatever portential for creative ideas might have once existed in them like a vampire, Bethesda tried, but the only way anyone could actually hope to create elves that are actually creative and interesting at this point is to make it so their hardly recognizable as elves, as all the interesting ideas you could do with them have already been done before, now talking cats, on the other hand, have not had too much of their potential exploited outside of their potential as cartoon characters and mascots.

Besides, we already have three too many types of elves and three more varieties of humans than we need, it hardly seems unreasonable to ask for a bit more variety in cat people as well.



As much as I consider Oblivion's Khajiit and Argonians a step backwards from Morrowind, that's a little unfair, considering that in some ways, it's a step closer towards how things were in earlier Elder Scrolls games, since in Daggerfall, their physiques were also not much different from humans, in fact, the Khajiit are a step above Daggerfall since they actually look like anthropomorphic cats, instead of just elves with cat tails. It's still a step in the wrong direction, mind you, seeing as in sequels, I generally want things from older games improved upon, and if that's too much to ask for, I at least don't want to see any step backwards, but it's still not entirely fair to say that they were missing the point of the races.



As far as I'm concerned, players who wouldn't want such a game have no clue what fantasy is supposed to be about, and should be completely ignored by Bethesda, fantasy is, or at least, should be, about creating unique worlds that are different from our own, not showing us the same old, boring, cliche world of elves and knights and dragons, but since Todd Howard thinks that gamers want familiarity rather than creativity, I'm sure that Bethesda doesn't care what I have to say.

A game set in Elsweyr could be interesting if done right, though I agree that gamesas shouldn't attempt it for another few years. The one area of Tamriel I really hope they never set a game in is the Black Marsh. I despise Aragonians with a passion, so a TES game set in the Aragonian homeland is a game that I would most defiantly pass on.

I agree with your sentiment about Black Marsh. It's a region we know almost nothing about from lore, and I could really go for a anti-Dunmer rebellion. Maybe something like Kovacius' border idea. I'd really like to see some more Dark Elves from Morrowind. I HATED the voices they were given in Oblivion.

Well not bland but a more generic medieval world with TES lore, creatures, houses, and races.

Black Marsh would be awesome, Valenwood too. It would be quite awhile before they could be done but I'm willing to wait.......



But not to long........

Or they could just have a single head model that morphs from cat-like to elf-like, using sliders in character generation.

Probably complex, but would be cool to see. After that, it's just a matter of having a height slider, as well as a cat-like creature model with a variety of different textures for the different breeds, as well as making it possible to talk to creatures again.