Which race would you like to replace for another that we have yet to see.

E.g Altmer for Dwemer etc.....

Argonians for Teaseci,

Bosmer for Tang-Mo. Or Argonians for Imga.

Redguards for Tang-Mo.

Imperials for Sload.

I have no idea!!!
I barely know the original 10...
Lets see...um...
Highelves for Hobbits?

Edit: WAIT!
I want the Jester from Gauntlet! He was cool!

"Batters Up! Batters Up!"

Orcs for anything with a slither of imagination.

At least the Elves got their own lore to make them stand out from other fantasy elves. Orcs are exactly the same though - cursed elves, with low intelligence.

Either fix them Bethesda, or get rid of them. They are the one race standing out like a sore thumb in this lore-drenched world.

What other orcs in fantasy have had their god er... digested?

I'd gladly replace Imperials with Dwemer.

Dunmer for Dwemer...

Replace Imperials since they are the blandest race with something.
Goblins probably. I find the idea of a sneaky goblin witch quite appealing to play.

And that's enough to make them unique? Tolkein invented Orcs. He created a unique monster, derived of beautiful Elves to make their appearance all the more startling, and for some reason authors seem to think it's okay to just copy/paste this race into their own worlds. It's really not. And attaching some debatable lore about their god getting crapped out of another's rear end to add a slightly different twist to their Elven descent is not enough to make them unique.

I get the dilemma, I do. TES started off as an incredibly generic fantasy world, where Elves and Orcs were thrown into the mix simply because it was the done thing. With Daggerfall they really began crafting some incredible lore and creating a wholly unique world for their games, further expanded upon in Morrowind and Oblivion. The Tribunal of Morrowind was fantastic and really gave the Dunmer a brilliant footing in the world. We can all see the unique elements of their varied culture since that game. Even the other races that haven't been fully explored yet have their unique elements: the cannibalistic Bosmer; the mind-numbing architecture and culture of the Altmer; the tribal nature and physical forms of the Khajiit; the warrior ancestry of the Redguards and their lost art of the Ansei. Orcs have been unfortunately looked over, to the point that they are now part of an established game world, with lore and culture that is clearly lacking in their department. How do you fix that without contradicting the previous games?

Currently, it's just the same old generic Orcs from any fantasy world out there. It's embarrassing for the series given how much more advanced the lore for the other races is. They are constantly portrayed as cursed Elves with low intelligence. If that was just an Imperialistic propaganda view of the race told in books, that upon meeting and conversing with various Orcs would obviously be dismissed, then it would be fine. But it isn't. The Orcs I recall most easily are one from Morrowind who is hiding outside Caldera "behind a rock near a tree", who gives you a rock as a reward for helping him, thinking he's funny that he's given you a pathetic reward, when it turns out to be a diamond. And one from Oblivion called Lord Rugdumph, who makes up words in an attempt to sound linguistic, but clearly has an IQ of less than 50: "Ah... you are from the Fighters Guild, I resume. Good show. I am Lord Rugdumph gro-Shurgak. Let us conversate on the Lady Rogbut. I fear that whilst out rock-picking, she was apprehensive. Stolen away! My suspension is that ogres have abjected her!" and "Horrible creatures! Replete with horror and evil. They roam freely eastward of the estate. I look forward to you exterminizing them." Hilarious, Bethesda. Well done. You've created a joke race on the same literary level as Jar-Jar-Binks.

It annoys me so much, because it's awful writing. It's awful imagination. I expect better from games these days, and I KNOW that Bethesda can produce better. They've proven that countless times with the overall quality of their work. If such baseless and unimaginative writing was presented to a publisher by a new author, he would get laughed out of the office and told to return once he has his English GCSE. I have two things I look forward to most about Skyrim's release:

1) Checking that rain doesn't fall through bridges.

2) Checking to see if the Orcs have a sense of cultural richness about them this time.

I really want it to happen. They've done this so well with other races, the Dunmer in particular, that I'm sure it's just a matter of time before this race gets the attention it deserves.

/Rant over. Sorry for the overdose of opinion, I respect yours just as much. I'm just particularly judgmental about these things in games, since I have such high hopes for the medium as it grows.

You gave two examples of stupid Orcs. Let me give you four examples of normal Orcs.

1) Grogo gro-Shura. An Orc living in Anvil. Describes himself as a "soldier of fortune." He never says anything stupid. He never says anything which he thinks makes him seem more noble than he really is (which is really all that Lord Rugdumph is doing).

2) Lum gro-Baroth. Member of the Fighter's Guild in Chorrol. He never says or does anything stupid.

3) Lambug gra-Lurn. An Orc living in the Dunmer stronghold of Valenvaryon (now an Orc colony). She doesn't say or do anything particularly syupid.

4) Chaplain Ogrul. He is a chaplain for the Imperial Cult at Fort Darius in Gnisis. Clearlt not an imbecile. He neither says nor does anything stupid.

Now let me give you two examples of intelligent Orcs.

1) Gortwog gro-Nagorm. He is the leader of Orsinium in Daggerfall. He managed to get his race a homeland. The Orcs were raised from being animals to being a real race on par with the Bretons or Argonians.

2) Garothmuk gro-Muzgub. He's a smith in Suran. He is clearly quite intelligent. He knows a lot about weapons and, of course, he is a smith. Which shows he isn't a drooling idiot.

Okay, so the Orcish culture and lore hasn't been fleshed out as much. But how much do we know about Argonians?

Their in game representation is indeed very boring, however lore wise, I find them quite interesting. How many races do you know make cloths out of moth silk that literally tell the history of your family? Or brands wedding wrings in the form of tattoos? Honestly, the Imperials got pretty well shafted in game with no real representation of the rich culture that is presented in lore.

You call Orcs uncreative, yet they were the first presentation of the race to be something other than "Always Chaotic Evil Thugs". The so-called "Lore" of the Elder Scrolls is a giant joke at the expense of everyone who takes it seriously. TES is first-and-foremost a Generic Fantasy World, made unique by the unlimited freedom given to the player to be what they want, with few repercussions.Morrowind is the Black Sheep of the series.

I think this sums up Bethesda's games quite well. The lore for every race (other than the Orcs as I've already said enough about) is incredibly rich and detailed. Just check out the relationship between Argonians and the Hist, TheUnadoringFan, for something really bizarre. Unfortunately, Bethesda seem to svck at showing that lore visually and bringing it to life in the games. Other than Morrowind, as Scow2 pointed out, their games have failed to tell a story about the races unless it was through in-game books. Even in Morrowind it was only the Dunmer who were well represented.

Having seen the attention to detail placed into Nordic architecture, and Todd stating that historic building practices were taken into account when constructing cities, I have high hopes that Skyrim will do for the Nords what Morrowind did for the Dunmer. I just think it's a shame that we're having to wait for a game set in a race's province to really see their culture brought to life (shame Oblivion didn't delve into Cyrodiilic culture well at all). I want to get a sense of the Bosmer's gritty cannibalism; the Altmer's high esteem for art; the Redguard's dedication to the way of the sword, all in Skyrim. That's what would elevate this series from being a great game, into a great fantasy world, in my opinion.

Bosmer for Dwemer.

I'm so glad someone else feels this way. I HATE Orcs in TES. All the other races feel so fleshed-out with their rich lore and their 'racial personalities' (Altmer are arrogant and superior, Dunmer are standoffish and superior, ect). Orcs are just.... there.

I want to clear something up about orcs. Tolkien did not invent them. 16th and 17th century fairy tail writers used a similar word orke to describe ogre like creatures. Tolkien himself wrote to collegues that he came across that word twice in Beowulf and many more times the Poetic Edda. In Beowulf, the word is used to either describe a demon or sea-monster. In the Edda they are descendants of Ymir, the founder of the frost giants and the corpse that the world was fashioned from. Now Tolkien did do something new with the orcs and gave them a new story to tell. So has Bethesda. Bethesda started with a generic evil monster that has evolved into a playable race that is no more evil than any other race.

Instead of replacing a race, I would rather see the other races fleshed out. We actually know very little about most of the races in TES.

Part of the problem with in-game depiction of races in TES is that there is lore but its often easier for bethesda to go with a joke stereotype. Bosmer and Orcs suffer from this particularly. Nords too sometimes. Bethesda aren't the only company that does this. Depiction of dwarves in most FRPGs is usually drunken thugs with a Scottish accent.

Indeed, which is a case of incredibly poor writing, hence my comparison to Jar-Jar-Binks.

Any author worth his salt knows that creating a character (and god forbid an entire race) to work purely as a joke character is incredibly unrealistic and, to many people, annoying. It's like attaching a single personality to a character, and having that be their only defining trait. This warrior can be stubborn and frown all the time, this female cleric can be sixy and wear revealing clothing, and this Orc can say silly words for humorous effect and have a low intelligence. Characters need to be far more complex than that, with a variety of personality traits.

Sure, you can have underlying traits within each race, ingrained into them during their upbringing due to the culture of their people, but it's awfully immersion-breaking when you repeatedly run into Orcs and even the odd Bosmer that has been clearly created with one goal in mind: humour. I had classmates back in secondary school with more writing talent than that. Games need to strive for better than this. Bethesda is getting so close to fantasy novel standards for their culture and lore, but some races still need fleshing out. Orcs most of all.

Orcs are mentioned a bit lore-wise in 'The Infernal City' by Greg Keyes as well as around the games themselves. They are known to have previously been a different race entirely, and followed the Daedra Trinimac. But when Trinimac was cursed and changed into Malacath, so too did his followers change and become the first orcs. The Orcs still follow Malacath currently. I'm sure that all of that will gradually be expanded upon and fleshed out as the series continues.

Frankly, I think TES do a really good job of making all the races solid and interesting in comparison with other games. There aren't any purely evil or purely good races, you encounter good and bad people, not evil orcs and saintly elves. Despite this, you still encounter plenty of racist perspectives throughout the games.

Also, keep in mind how orcs started off in arena: as generic dungeon baddies. They've really become fleshed out over the series. Sure, they're still kind of cookie-cutter, but I still admire how Bethesda took an overused RPG villain race and turned it into something far greater. Hell, playing Arena now, it looks like the orcs are simply victims of a racist government, judging by the way the game and your character treats them as savages. Then they gradually fight for their rights and become normal members of society. You still come across racist attitudes towards them.

Orcs and Imperials are still rather bland, true, but give it time.

None. Each and every race in the game plays an important part.

wood elfs with dark elfs