First: accents.
-All scum have english accents. Thieves are cockney , Simple legionaires who die by the second are english , High elves Have a fake sounding upper class "snob" accent. The dunmer voice is archetypical- it just doesn't suit them at all.
-American actors more often play heroic characters. These people don't have the same accents of their race for instance- tullius sounds american (canadian)
- "evil" voices. If you disagree with me on this then please, education is free. If you didn't work out that mercer frey will be an obstacle to you by the sound of his voice then you are probably an idiot. Secondly- Astrid's voice... She might as well yell "I AM A DARK AND MYSTERIOUS ASSASSIN".
Redguards- Women still sound american in skyrim, men sound like something else. In some cases the accent sounds inefficient for the language that they speak. But in most they sound very friendly, yet stupid. Why?




Secondly- Clothing and armour and weapons. (and a lil architecture)

- Thalmor robes. Am i the only one to think that such a "high" culture wouldn't have it's lawbringers walk around in morbid black Cloaks that are half mage robe and half SS uniform. The whole Talos thing is illogical. Why would you persecute people Countries away for a slight variation on religion? Don't point towards the crusades- That was over land. Skyrim has nothing for the altmer.

- Orcs. There are various levels of agreement on this that you may possess. If you read up on them in the past games you will know that bethesda did them wrong. Probably to make them fit better with a mordor image.
-------- "Orcish" in daggerfall was the best armour/weapons in the game (ignoring daedric) In morrowind it was Of a sophisticated design With a clear samurai inspiration and ornate paterns. Even in oblivion did their armour posses intricate detail and shape. In books orcs are described as being the best Armourers in Tamriel. Who make high quality items based of high elven design. In skyrim orcish armour and weaponry looks Rather crude,savage, impractical and... argonian. I can see a tiny Amount of elf influence in the waist and it's not a total mashup but it still doesn't relfect the previous games.. Orcish weaponry is crap too. Strangely throughout the series the green hue in orcish weapons was been only for weapon's and daggerfall's armour. I think greener armour Would help Tamriel's orcs being better distinguished from other orcs (who usualy have black armour)
-------- The tribal thing. Iv both read that orcs are Equal to eachother regardless of rank and six and more recently that there is one chief and the rest are cattle. I don't see how this system would work in larger orc settlements.

-Dwemer (i always have to pick on them)
In morrowind.. Dwemer Ruins were about 80% metal. This metal was brown, Although i imagine it bronze in looks as the graphics were poor. Rooftops were eccentric and pointy whilst Interior hallways were of a sensible size. The round ship like doors were probably a locational thing. Dwemer used kegs for storing misc items and Drawers/chests for the good stuff because they were sensible. Redguard had parts that were golden and had more art in them whilst oblivion dwemer used more a silvery metal. That's fine- There were different dwemer clans in different places and so some minor variations are very acceptable.

Then with skyrim there's a feeling of tod saying "let's make our dwemer more like tolkien's dwarves, for the casuals?" They Half did this. Buildings became 85% stone and 15% metal. Hallways became illogically large.Towers stopped being so silly. Dwemer art changed in that carvings in the stone became more prefered to smooth walls and the occasional painting. To compensate- Bethesda put traps in places that dwemer would regularly traverse and turned the sensible Chests into Illogicaly designed urns with an impractical shape and a tiny lid. If you take this one step further- These stone ruins are occupied by the Twisted elves known as Falmer Goblins.Moria comes to mind because If that wasn't Ripped off from Lotr then i am confuzled.

Lastly- Misc
Alduin- Yes, Because the most evil of the dragons must be spikier and darker and have glowing red eyes. Parth is a top bloke, so he must be green with blue eyes. (Doesn't begin to argue about the black/red dragons i red about in mysterious akavir)
Falmer- Must of course be very much like morias goblins (ice flavoured)
Children- Must be annoying

Uh, the Thalmor are trying to unravel the Mundus and ascend to Aetherius. Talos is holding the Mundus together. That's why they're persecuting people.

Oh, and the Falmer aren't goblins. If you read up on them you would realize how they were once Snow Elves but were poisoned by the Dwemer and used as slaves - BTW that's why the traps are there. To harvest the souls of the Falmer to power the machines. Which is another reason why they aren't Tolkein dwarves.

First part of that comment- How does worshiping talos/not worshiping talos effect that? (and why is he doing that? What happened when he assended?)

on falmer- No. I knew that they were snow elves. But let's look at things.

Moria goblins . Once were elves, Twisted by Sauron/morgoth/whatever

Falmer goblins- Once were elves, Twisted by Dwarves.

How do you kill a god? You stop people worshipping him. Without Talos holding together the Mundus, the possibility of mortals ever existing will dissolve, and Mundus will fade into Oblivion. The Mer will ascend to Aetherius as they are descended from the Aedra. At least that's what I can recall from the top of my head. There's a book in the Imperial library on the Thalmor and the lore heads will save me soon.

I agree there is "stereotyping" in TES games, but I don't mind it. There are plenty of people I've known in real-life who could be called living stereotypes, but I'm not about to confront them to tell them "hey, do you know you're a stereotype and you need to change the way you are?"

One thing I'd really like to see in the next TES (or some other RPG) is a game in which not everybody speaks English. It would be cool to see orcs or Thalmor (whatever) speaking their own languages; not everybody in any world speaks the same language. I know I'll probably never see this, but see, everybody wants something different from these games. Me? I just do my best to enjoy them.

how about you stop moaning and be happy they actually put some effort into the voice acting?

sure it couldve been better but if you never played oblivion you have no idea how horrible it wouldve been if they didnt

this is a perfect blend of WHY ARE THINGS DIFFERENT and WHY ARE THINGS THE SAME.

It should make you feel better (or worse) jack, that I didn't even know it was you at first because you changed your avatar, and yet I was still disagreeing with everything you said in this post.

They aren't shallow stereotypes. You're just making connections in your head that aren't there because you're cynical and pessimistic and you look for the worst in things.

And as far as the Dwemer go, the ones in Skyrim were a different clan than the ones in Vvardenfell. In-game books even comment on how their structures are different. It was an intentional change of style. The whole idea of thinking they made it Tolkien-esque "for the casuals" is just silly, I think the Skyrim Dwemer ruins are infinitely more interesting than the ones in Morrowind which all looked the same.

No joke, Morrowind's dwemer ruins were a mess. Endless halls of yellow on orange on brown with an occasional lava pit to spice things up. Even the centurions looked more like angry bananas than anything else.

I like to think the stereotypes found in the Elder Scrolls are profound stereotypes.

Your wish, granted:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=eYltef5VTyQ#t=299s

It's not stereotyping if they really are that way. If what you say is true, then they really are that way. If what you say isn't true, then you're stereotyping.

If it wasn't then everyone would be confuzled. From what literature do you think DnD, and games like this arose? LOTR was the grandmaster of them all. So to say that someone is doing "well" at copying certain features of LOTR, is giving a complement towards authenticity and internal-to-DnD-world references geared toward those who know the lore.

That you think this is a 'bad thing' is where you are confuzled. It has elves too! But much sword & sorcery arose with almost Tolkien as a sole source. Many things were only made different enough to avoid direct claims of whole sale copying of material, but to say that something is similar to Tolkein!? That's usually good.

Some effort into the voice acting? I wouldn't go that far. This game has more one liners phrases that will make even Arnold Schwarzenegger blush. To choose from Oblivion voice acting and Skyrim's it would be like choosing the best of the two evils. The only voice acting I tip my hat to is the Khajiit voice. Skyrim did a great job on this one.

Where does this idea come from? The Lord of the Rings wasn't published until the mid 1950s. Even The Hobbit, which was written earlier, was much later than works like the "Conan the Barbarian" stories, the works of Lord Dunsany, and dozens of other high fantasy writers. In fact, most of LOTR is derivative, based on earlier tales and myths.

Sword and Sorcery was a well established genre long before Tolkien wrote those books.

This debate comes up in every thread about Skyrim's art style... Tolkien did not invent fantasy, nor was he completely original with LOTR, but he did popularize the genre. That's pretty much an indisputable fact of history.

Even at that, Orlando Furioso isn't a recent entry either. Or Beowulf.

I'm not disputing the popularity. I read the LOTR in the late 50s. I was also reading Fritz Leiber; his Grey Mouser stories probably had as much of an influence on later Sword & Sorcery writers as Tolkien did, and the first of those stories was published in the 1930s. Robert Howard's Conan stories also date from the 20s and 30s.

I'd say the most creative fantasy writer of the 20th Century was Lord Dunsany. Most of his work dates to before 1920, and was certainly an influence on Tolkien.

I think we can afford to honor Tolkien for what he did, while not taking away from those who came before him.

Agreed. Skyrim's ruins are much more interesting and aesthetically pleasing.

---
In what gaming system? Show me anything that shows it was a popular 'game'.

My assertion was that the gaming phenomena (the DnD, and many derivative games), came about due to Tolkien's works. I didn't say he created the genre.

My apologies. You started your post with:

I assumed that "them" referred to the literature, not to the games.

It's possible that a lot of game designers are unaware of the fantasy literature genre that came prior to LOTR. I'm not convinced, though, given the incidence of trolls, ogres, dark elves, vampires, undead, and a host of other fantasy "standards" which are found nowhere in LOTR. The Thieves Guild and Mages Guild are direct thefts from the Grey Mouser stories, and the settings, with city guards, castles, etc., are more like Grey Mouser as well. The above mentioned bestiary, to include things like walking skeletons and liches, is much closer in flavor to Conan, as are the dungeons you find in fantasy games.

In my opinion, the mainstream fantasy game genre derives as much from Leiber and Howard as from Tolkien. Most of the games from Baldur's Gate to Skyrim have much more in common with Conan than they have with Frodo.

I disagree for profoundly obvious reasons that I shan't share.

I will however say this: You failed to tie your "body paragraphs" to your "thesis."

He missed an even larger point-- unlike the real world, Talos is a demonstrably real being in TES who stands in direct opposition to the goals of the Thalmor of unbinding creation. By outlawing the worship of him, and prosecuting his faithful, they weaken him and get one step closer to knocking him out of the pantheon.

How did you want her to sound?

"Like oh my god! I want to like, totally welcome you to the dark brotherhood, for real!"

I've removed some posts. Discussion of real world religion is still prohibited on this forum. There are plenty of places on the internet where you can discuss religion, but this forum isn't one of them.