TES VI: Valenwood? Or whatever that area has been re-named to under the Altmer's benevolent yet firm guidance of their lost kinsmen.


We've seen more-human like ones in the early installments. No breed is truly 'extinct', they're born as whatever based on the Lunar Phase of their birth. It's just that not enough people would be interested in playing as a barely-sentient quadruped or a spell-casting housecat that can't really talk.

Either that or TES VI: Elsweyr/Black Marsh.

I know it's not an exact bet but I'd put money on the next game being one of those three.

But Bethesda's Dwemer are *not* a classical fantasy race, and have almost nothing in common with traditional "dwarves".

Nope, a breed couldn't go "extinct" unless part of the moon cycle disappeared. The only way you could get rid of Senche Khajiit is if Masser and Secunda were never Full; they both just skipped from waxing to waning with nothing inbetween. That's ridiculous.

Man, I'm grouchy today.
Don't mind my nitpicking.

The snake-men and whatnot aren't just facially difficult, and I think you're severly underestimating the difficulty of properly animating a talking tiger / housecat / whatever.

Me personally, I would love to visit Akavir and learn more of the Nerevarine's fate

Khajiit heads in the games are already very cat-like, and their talking animations are fine. Khajiit pretty much range from Bosmer-like, to the type we have in game, to tiger-like (which could be modeled closely after a sabre-tooth cat like Skyrim has). From there, you could just play around with the scale and skeletal deformations to get a good wide range of representations.

I'd rather see Black Marsh, though. As much as I like the Khajiit, I don't like deserts.

Elsweyr has mountains, jungle and temperate forest as well.

There are only really four Khajiit subspecies that matter: Ohmes, Suthay, Cathay, Tojay. These appear to be the main bipedal ones. The -raht variations all seem to just be bigger and more built versions of those four. So using fur colour/patterns and build options in the character generator, you basically have all eight of those already. The four-legged species would not be playable, for about a billion reasons (no opposable thumbs throws a real wrench into quest design), so they would be NPCs only. No real need to give those ones unique faces anymore than you would for horses or sabrecats, just use voices/skins/garments to differentiate them. Done deal.

As far not doing Valenwood because jungle would be too hard... before screens were released for Skyrim, I assumed it would be a lot of heightmapped 'mountains' a la the Jerall Mountains in Oblivion. But no, they're some pretty badass craggy spires, with clouds and snow drifts and dynamic snow on rock. Given the budgets a modern AAA game has, and given a very specific and extremely central technical problem, these things are overcome. It's not as if jungles haven't been knocked out of the park in games before.

What?

Yeah, though the desert is its defining feature. I'd expect Elsweyr to be dominated by desert in a similar way to how Skyrim is dominated by snow and mountains. Some areas free of it, but still the place as a whole is largely covered by it.

Why can't it be in Summerset Isles? It makes sense story wise so far.

Hammerfell is definitely a contender for 6. She and Argonia are the only wild cards in the war. Elsweyr has been split, and only the Mane, a special breed of khajiit, can unite the kingdoms.

Unless the Thalmor get booted out or you play as a pro Thalmor High Elf, you probably would be killed for setting foot on their island.

Slave revolt.

I'm now convinced I was wrong about Elswyr not being an option.
Good TESA
Terrible TES

What guilds would you join? Who would bake your sweetrolls?

Any the team wants. I don't know, I'm not on the payroll.

Elsweyr is an option, like any other place. We wouldn't be the all important Mane.

I think a combination Valenwood/Elsweyr, since they're both "smaller" provinces, would be cool and manageable. Plus they'd have a quite a bit of diversity to spread between them. Getting both would help push the Thalmor plotline along as well. Ideally you could join the Thalmor or resist them. Leading an invasion of Elsweyr from Valenwood or helping Valenwood rebels throw off their High Elf masters, or something like that.

Doesn't Valenwood suffer from most of the same problems as Summerset anyway? I'd imagine none Bosmer, Altmer or Khajiit wouldn't exactly be welcome there either.

My money's on Elsweyr or Summerset.

As mentioned the major Khajiit races can be modelled without it being too much work, in the end the player may be offered to play only as one Khajiit race anyway. Since both Elsweyr and Valenwood combined are about the size of Cyrodiil, putting both these provicnes in the next TES game would be something incredible.

As for Summerset, it's very interesting politically and story-wise. Who knows how the TES world will evolve until the next game. Maybe an unlikely truce is formed in the future and the Dominion just begins to open up to outsiders again, would make for a good setting too, ending up a stranger in a recently opened yet xenophobic society, nobody liking you at first sight, it was kinda like that in Morrowind as well...

For that to happen the Thalmer would have to be either removed from power completely, or alternatively suffer such heavy blows in upcoming wars that they are no longer capable of setting their own laws which is incredibly unlikely.

If I recall correctly, there are human settlements in Valenwood as well as a sizable Orc population in the capital. Of course, that was before Valenwood became Mainland Alinor, so how knows what the situation is like there now. Since the Thalmor backed the An-Xileel during their bid for independence, the Argonians might be tolerated as allies to Alinor.

Even if non-Altmer/Bosmer aren't welcomed, all the better I say. I think it'd be interesting if the oppressive nature of the Thalmor regime has an impact on the player if he's not one of the elite. Maybe the Thalmor are apply some sort of dhimmi to non-mer who live in Alinor. Bonus points if game imposes this tax on the PC too if he's not an Altmer or Bosmer. Maybe once a month you get a message that its time to pay up, and if you don't get to a designate spot within a few days, you get a sizable (but not kill-on-sight by itself) Bounty.

However, in such a case, I'd also like to see player get some Altmer/Bosmer-only options. For example, treated better by the authorities and easier access to some exclusive Thalmor questlines (non-Altmer/Bosmers would have to jump through a lot of hoops, such as doing a ton of Radiant quests for the Thalmor before he earns their trust--conversely, an Altmer/Bosmer would have to jump through similar hoops to join whatever underground resistance movement exists).

I loved that book. Is it in Skyrim?

Yep.

Or someone looks around and says, "Whoa! We've done this before. Last time we did it, the world was destroyed! Let's not do it again." Or there is a convenient, mutual enemy (like Thras! Again!) who epitomizes what everyone hates about bad guys, who are just wrong.

TES VI: Elsweyr, will most likely be avoided as dealing with quadrupedal characters/NPCs would be a bit awkward for both the developers and players to handle..
Most likely Black Marsh or Valenwood (I vote for Valenwood)
Summerset will not be happening anytime soon.