Worldpedia: Whiterun | Skyrim
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 มิ.ย. 2024
- Whiterun is home
PATREON: / ghostcharm
MERCH: ghostcharm.myspreadshop.com/
DISCORD: / discord
TWITCH: / ghostcharm
00:00 - Intro
02:49 - The Origin & Legend
08:34 - A Homebase
12:34 - The Layout & Design
16:53 - The Architecture & History
22:04 - The People
25:50 - If You Can Make it There...
28:37 - Retiring? Consider Whiterun
29:43 - Favorite Nook
30:35 - A Special Place & Outro
#whiterun#skyrim#worldpedia#ghostcharm#villain#hero#npc#lore - เกม
thank you so much for always showing up and supporting the videos. love you guys
No thank you for entertaining me for around a year now maybe longer. Your videos are well thought out, your scripts are entertaining, and your content is relevant to my interests. This is the kind of channel I had been waiting for.
Bro if I saw you irl I would kiss you on the mouth cause bro these videos make me feel every wonderful feeling you can imagine. I watch your videos and I feel warm, happy, safe, and content. you are an amazing story teller and while I haven't had a lot of experience with some of the games you comment on I feel still included on the information because of you, like I don't have to climb up a 10,000 ft wall and rather im being gently guided through the land of gatekeeps.
good one man, take care
Do the imperial city or alinor next, please!
Even though you’re a white brown concordant supporter, I still love the content, Storm Cloaks rule.
Man's always got this friendly, intelligent demeanor, taking me back to home. Top tier creator.
Ghost really is the host with the most
His voice is like velvet. I could listen to him talk about literally anything
Honestly such an underrated goat
Feels like sitting in an Auditorium to listen to history :D
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, *God Tier* 😄
Ritualistically bonking your head on the Warmaiden's sign is an absolute given. A deep-seated instinct. The confidence behind the statement, "you WILL do this," is not the least bit misplaced. You WILL do it.
So I'm a minority? Yay?
Don't get me wrong. I've hit it with swords and arrows for fun a couple of times - yet never became tradition
I DID IT.
I have the Switch version with all the DLC. I hung my *Master Sword* upstairs on the wall when you first turn right with my Hyrule Shield and Breath Of The Wild armor a elven bow, helmet, shield and moon ore in the cabinet underneath with certain rings and enchanted things.
Every single *playthrough I do*
Even if I still build a home from the Hearthfire DLC. I always find myself going back to Whiterun.
That Whiterun is just cozy.
@@TheOlondo damn guess im a part of the minority too then, didnt even bother with whiterun till a few hours in my playthroughs so i never had any real familiarity with it
@@datbanan2717 That sounds really boring. You can't even shout without spending time in Whiterun
Man this is nuts, I remember back when you had 10k and I did a double take because the quality was insane. Great to see your channel growing, you absolutely deserve it
Holy shit he has 150k now!?
yee, big boi ghost
Yes his videos are top notch quality
There's still a lot of us here. His quality was standout & narration felt natural. Can't say we didn't see it coming lol.
would absolutely love to see a Rapture entry in this series. Was just so iconic to the scifi/horror genre of videogames. Also, Yharnam from Bloodborne.
Yeah that's what I was thinking lol
both really similar interesting worlds
I'd agree to both of those. I'd love to see some fallout entries
my man
🤝
Anor Londo
Ideas:
- Rapture from Bioshock
- The Imperial City from Oblivion
- Novigrad from the Witcher 3
- The Citadel from Mass Effect
- Ravenholm from Half Life 2
- The town from Pathologic 1 and 2
- New Vegas from Fallout New Vegas
Rapture is great but also I think Columbia would be a great place to talk about too
Majula from dark souls 2
Kaer Morhen in The Witcher franchise
New Vegas is such a good idea, can't believe I didn't think of it.
Vivec City
Raven Rock
Skaal village
Solitude
Windhelm
“I’m making a video on Nazeem soon”
Looking forward to it! I always love a good Villainpedia!
Damn near making me tear up over here with that ending, "A Nord's last thoughts should be of home". But when I think of a safe space "Home" in gaming. It's got to be Mass Effect's 'Citadel' or the 'Normandy', places that are always there throughout the series to go home to.
My home is Skyrim and Solesteim....
Not one city just all of it, make me the king already, its not like I'm not tangoing with the Jarl of Solitude already... ....
The best part of whiterun, the song itself. Possibly one of the most beautiful pieces I've heard in a game.
agree 100%
The song IS Skyrim
Especially when it's set as the background music in a wingsofredemption clip video
@@balthasargerard7246 real tawk
Crying emogis in the chat piemps, crying emogis in the chat...
Why did a video about a virtual city make me tear up. “A nord’s last thought should be of home”
I’m so glad your channel has been blowing up - I joined your channel at 10,000 subs and it’s been fun seeing your progress man. Keep going.
same here
Shit I only subbed about 2 weeks ago and I feel like he had half his current subs, One of the rare channels that is just great from the beginning.
Forever grateful for the "We don't deserve Bloodborne" video from 6 months ago, that's where I was hooked from! Everything on this channel is Gold, truly
The size of cities in Skyrim is something I feel conflicted about. I have downloaded several city expansion mods that make cities bigger, and while I do enjoy having more things to look at and places to walk, there isn't actually much more to *do*. In that way, I actually appreciate Bethesda's decision to have more compact cities where there are fewer buildings, but every single building has a purpose.
Exactly. One of the things that make Bethesda games unique is that almost every NPC comes with their own story, quest and lives. It just wasn't possible to make larger cities considering how much additional content that would involve.
The Witcher 3 cities are bigger, but 90% of them is just props. Including the NPCs.
But that’s a mod. If larger cities were planned from the beginning and given purpose, it would feel a lot better than a tacked on mod made by a handful of hobbyists.
Ghost's videos have that same cozy atmosphere that Whiterun does, which just like the town itself, always keeps me coming back.
This series is literally like having someone joyfully tell you a bedtime story. I love watching these and falling asleep to them
As a wood elf main, I like the Drunken Huntsman. It was the first place I found where anyone positively comments on the player character being a Bosmer.
When I first played through Skyrim I ended up marrying Ysolda before I did the quest "A Night to Remember." There's no unique dialogue to represent that you not only cheat on her with a Hagraven, but bought the wedding ring from her. I can only imagine how that interaction would have played out if Bethesda had thought that through. 😬
"a nords last thoughts should be of home" Amen to that
The one place that has burned into my mind as "home" as far as fantasy universes go is Majula. Out of all the Souls hubs, Majula has this incredible feel of safety in a world that just wants to crush you repeatedly. I would absolutely love it if you did an episode on that.
My first Elder Scrolls Experience was Skyrim VR, only a year ago. I can still remember the first time I saw Whiterun, I was just shocked. I'm still on that one save after 130+ hours, and yet I still always come back to Whiterun.
Wow your first Skyrim experience was Skyrim VR….that’s insane….mine was on the PS3 back in 2011 and I wonder how our first impressions differ or are still similar
@@thewhizbang Mine was PS3 2014.
I remember playing Skyrim a little bit and was disappointed by some of the changes to certain things. Like the jumping exploit and potion/spell making wonkyness.
But walking out of Helgan being destroyed then into Skyrim and seeing that amazing view for the first time...
Oof, very emotional. Then the whole adventure to Whiterun, as soon as I stepped in I said to myself "Yep, if I can buy a piece of property here I'm buying it *ASAP* It's perfect!" - Myself
The the property you can purchase in Whiterun reminds me my own house. I even have 2 bedrooms upstairs.
The cool thing about Whiterun being the natural progression is the first merchant you meet is a good man who cares about his sister, the next time you hear his voice, he says he'd sell off his own sister if he had one
Karliah (you read that in Nick Valentine's voice)
27:51 is probably the best part of this whole video.
The music, the panning through bits of the city, on top of everything else about almost reminds me of a movie where at the very end, after everything crazy finished happening and the protagonist returns back home and meet up with some random guy who just starts talking about life as the ending to the movie.
This guy really is the ghost host with the most. Love these videos and I'm glad i could jump on one early.
Whiterun's size is definitely incongruous with it's intended feel as a major city. It feels more like single castle or small fort; a defensible structure at the top of a hill, with a walled settlement around it.
Yeah but it is a problem with most TES games. In lore Whiterun is at least as big as novigrad in lore as the major trading post of skyrim.
pretty sure i read somewhere that skyrim's map is scaled down by like 10x so realistically everything would be 10x bigger if it wasn't for file size n optimisation n stuff. could be wrong tho idk
@@berilsevvalbekret772 Not just a problem with elder scrolls. World of warcraft's settlement sizes aren't really believable either
@@landotucker It's kind of a universal problem in games. Outside of games where the city is the entire map, the Witcher 3 is the only game I've played that really makes a city feel like a city. Engine/hardware limitations will always be a bitch when it comes to something of that scale.
Awww yeah! Love the work you've been putting out, keep up the amazing work! If possible I'd love to see you do one on Jet Set Radio Future! =)
I'm calling it now. This man's gonna be at 1M subbs in less then a year. We have all the signs right here.
-excellent video quality
-fantastic story telling
-charisma
-passion for the topic
All in all, the host with the most.
I teared up a little after this "nord's last thoughts should be of home" bit near the end of the video
So comforting and sentimental
For what it’s worth, I think that Whiterun was a notably larger city before the Oblivion Crisis.
Like the Western Watchtower and that one guard post on the way to the Pale seemingly suggest that Whiterun once had a fairly widespread wall surrounding the planes.
But you may ask “Where’s all the rubble?”. Honestly man I couldn’t tell you, but it could be that they hauled off the rubble from ruins to use as materials for repairing the main cities.
I played Skyrim 10 years ago when I was in college and Whiterun was and still is a special place and memory for me. The distinct music that starts when you enter thru the city gate in the early morning, kids playing around, the smoke drifting from the forge, the sound of hammer on anvil, a guard passing a random comment, a blue sky with clouds, the raw sunlight....my God...I used to sip my morning tea when visiting this city, wishing to live here, a simple life with simple pleasures. This video brought back fond memories. Thank you Ghostcharm!
I remember in my first playthrough, I had no idea how to get into Whiterun and mark didn't really help me, I wandered around the city walls and somehow missed the gate, then I went inside one of the farmhouses stole some gold, got caught and went into prison, slept over and here I was before Dragonsreach telling Jarl about the dragon attack, man that was nostalgic. Whiterun sure is like a second home to any Skyrim enjoyers.
"A Nord's last thoughts should be of home"... with that danm violin in the background... makes me sentimental, as few things do. Thanks pal.
The quality scope and passion out into these videos are amazing, I can’t wait for the next Worldpedia this is an amazing concept.
28:40
"why not"
- decon from fallout 4
For a suggestion: I grew up as a Nintendo kid in the 90s, so when I think of a cozy town to hang out in? I think of Kakariko Village in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. My favorite Zelda is Majora's Mask, so no idea why this one stands out more than Clock Town. It could just be that it was one of the first towns in a game I played that felt lived in and alive. And that theme... Just makes me want to lie under a tree and take a nap. But then literally underneath it all is creepy dungeons of a bloody past? Amazing.
I just love it because it's so cozy. No racism, excessive poverty, or death thrown in your face just like in other cities. No NPC is really depressed, stressed out or panicking. It's colorful and simply structured, so you can easily and quickly get what you need to continue your journey. It's quite simply cozy and comfortable.
I mean... that nobody is in a bad mood is kinda a sign for bad world design or in this case rather a sign where improvement is certainly possible (Whiterun is imho superbly designed and filled with interesting people).
And let's he real here, Windhelm racism is a small problem compared to what Morrorwind presented us with the Dark Elves....
While Nords are unlikeable people, the Dark Elves could have been the founders of the KKK lol
Besides, where my bros the Argonians and Khajiit at? Certainly not to be found in Whiterun 👀
My favourite is Rifton. It combines so much bad and so much good, it's mostly filled with good people, but you also have blemishes all over the place.
The promiscuous hostel keeper, the rude Armour merchant, the brute that immediately interrogates you, a guard wanting to scam you before entering, MAVEN, that ophanage woman, the Thieves Guild. Even the bad goes through so many scales of grey, its beautiful.
Also, nice trees NGL
There's something about Whiterun that I can only describe as "home". Everything about the way it feels, looks, and sounds, on top of the *fantastic* score by Soule, makes Whiterun feel like I'm coming back home; even when stepping there for the first time.
Whiterun to me just always felt like the most alive city in Skyrim. Every city in Skyrim has the issue that there simply aren't enough people around to fill the streets and buildings. But Whiterun stood out, it always seems as if there's something going on, the layout of the city is really great. I never dug this deep into the lore of Skyrim, Whiterun or TES in general, but I always felt like there were just so many things that come together just right in Whiterun. It feels authentic and open and I suppose that it's not covered in snow all year contributes to the cozy feeling you get, when you come home from all the adventures in the harsh climate.
And to your "It's cool to see when things get destroyed to make the player feel the urge to take up action": I immediately thought of ESO which I just started playing a few days ago, where it seems like every city and orderly working place gets transformed into a burning battlefield the moment you arrive. And I absolutely hate it, because I have no relation to the place yet and I somehow feel guilty for playing the game and progressing the story because I feel like the cause of destruction. If I don't mess with the city, it stays well forever...
Skyrim is a very special game, for everyone, it's not inherently full of colors, not bright, but not entirely dark. The whole of Skyrim has something cozy about it, rather than feeling like a fantasy, it feels like a storybook. Whiterun, the central city, the home of the companions, and the very place where the dragonborn truly becomes a legend. Vital in trade, in conflict, it's position and history are full of Nordic pride, a place even more home to Nordic culture than Windhelm. With its wooden roofs, and grand wood carvings, the inherent feel of "This, this is Skyrim, the home of the Nords," is much more impactful here than anywhere else.
Solitude is imperial, pristine, very much like the Imperial city in Cyrodiil. Markarth is dwarven, old, mysterious, content in letting things remain at a standstill, even while the gears still click and wind. Falkreath is elven and enchanting, ever aging, dense with wood and flowers. Riften is clouded in business, underhanded, nothing very noble, nor honest. Winterhold feels isolated, empty, a shell of a place which used to call itself the capital, a home of misery. Windhelm feels cold, and walled off, unaccepting, like the people who live there. Dawnstar feels young, but sad, as it's small, and merely a port. Morthal is muddy and slow, like the marshes around it.
However, Whiterun is different from all of these, it's full of prideful people, who will always stick to their beliefs, owing and respecting the lives of their ancestors. Be it in the mead hall of Jorrvaskr, where the familial feeling of the companions can be found, together in arms, in strength, in merry times. Or be it the quaint tavern of the Bannard Mare at night, enjoying a bottle of Honningbrew Mead. Or even simply sitting in the city center around the Gildergreen in the afternoon, resting as the citizenry passes by. The place feels warm and cozy, as if everyone knows everyone, whether in hatred or in peace, they are all children of Skyrim. Sitting down in front of the fire whilst in Breezehome, enjoying the crackling fire, it's cozy. The feeling of nordic pride is felt in the buildings, the history, the people, it feels like the true heart of the region. And as well as the heart of us, the player.
This whole long winded comment does essentially say the same thing as what was talked about in the video, but I really resonate with how special Whiterun truly is. It's not mysterious, not cold and closed off, not pristine, but not much to be found in dirt. Sure, there are things going on under the surface, but it affects nothing in the feel of how truly amazing such a place is.
I will remember this place for as long as I live, for it's part of me, as someone who loves this flawed, and chaotic game. It's not the best, yet it's somehow perfect. And the heart of it all will always be that cozy city of Whiterun, where the blood runs thick, and the heart beats true.
If you can't tell, I love this place. Sorry for the long comment.
I will never forget varrock from Runescape.
From my first journey there being lead by my friend so we could buy black armor from the shop there, to near 15 years later me teleporting there as a base of sorts, always stopping by the grand exchange before a new adventure, to me just wandering around the city talking to guards, drinking tea.
Such a wealth of memories.
This has to be the cosiest, most fun in-depth look at a Skyrim city, or any gaming city in general. Please, complete all the Skyrim cities! I would binge the whole thing time and time again.
i thank the otherworldly entity which shoved your videos into my autoplay because i was just listening to YT in the background, and then your Lich King video played and ive now watched like 15 of your videos, they rock
Okami has always been one of my favorite games, it would be cool to see a Worldpedia entry on Kamiki village or even just the land of Nippon.
Agreed!! This would make for a marvelous Worldpedia entry.
One thing that should be pointed out. Yesgramor and his 500 Companions (hence the name for the warriors in Jorvaskor), were not settlers but a response by the Atmorans. See Sarthal was the first human settlement and the Snow Elves...well they found out humans multiply like rabbits AND there was something with powerful magic under Sarthal (The Eye of Magnus) that they wanted. This is talked about in the book "The night of Tears"
The Snow Elves made the mistake of not being able to kill all of the humans in their genocidal war against the them, when the survivors returned to Atmora, Yeasgramor basically said "Alright, get the boys, get the weapons and the ships, we're going knife-ears hunting!" Hence why his axe "Wuthrad" translates to "Elf grinder". Well one genocide deserves another and as it turns out...a bunch of very pissed off Atmoran Nords were better than the Snow Elves at it and forced the surviving Snow Elves underground...that leads to them getting tricked by the Dwemer and becoming the Snow Elves but that's a whole other story.
By the way, binge-watched your Villainpedia episodes along with Hero and NPCpedia. Love your works, mixing in the humor with the teling of the lore, cheff's kiss bud. Keep it up!
On the topic of whiterun's size, I've always supported bigger cities. But only on the condition that it doesn't lose something special to the elder scrolls which you touched on in your video. Namely the npcs and how almost every inhabitant of a city has a name and even a home. Sure other games have bigger cities and the spectacle is incredible. But how many of those games are filled with nameless crowds devoid of personality and identity. And how many of the doors in other games cities actually open? Outside of 'Whiterun Guard', every inhabitant of an elder scrolls city has a name, a personality, and (unless they're homeless) a house they go home to. And you can enter all of their houses! This is something special and (as far as I know) unique to the Elder Scrolls, and if I had to pick between larger but more generic cities and cozy, quirky Whiterun I'd pick Whiterun every time.
Great video and excellent new series! Reminds me of my childhood: I didn't have xbox live so I ran around Halo: CE's multiplayer maps, especially Blood Gulch, and just found them so cozy and familiar . That's why I like Red vs Blue so much, it filled those little nooks with characters and stories and life.
So that's my vote: Blood Gulch from Halo. Lots of the OG Halo maps have this weird "I'm being watched" feeling too.
Warcraft's Dalaran (northrend) and Goldshire my version of home within the game. Goldshire's total of 3 buildings has always stuck out to me, and Dalaran's underbelly that I spent hours running around as a little kid, drinking the elixir to try to turn into a bug and fly around and explore. Using my little zeppelin toy to try to infiltrate the alliance portion of the city. Goldshire's video might feel a little bare unless you went into detail about the community of players that hang out there, but Dalaran would be a kick ass video.
I have a special love of video game environments and world lore... this channel really just has it all 👌
Check out AJ Pickett for dnd lore if you haven't already. He's the best and ghost charm is getting there!
I do like the smaller compact size of the game's cities. The fact that you can enter all of the buildings and they all have proper interiors is what makes games like Skyrim feel so immersive. An open-world pet peeve of mine is when they create massive cities that are basically there to just look good, but not serve any kind of function. It just reminds me of that old Ed Edd n Eddy episode where they make a cardboard city that's MASSIVE and looks like a real city, but is ultimately just derelict and empty.
16:31 This is probably because castles are in a better defended position if they are built higher up. The attackers can get tired, there are limited paths to the castle, and siege weapons can come close to the castle
Oh man… instantly, those opening keys of streets of Whiterun hit me in the chest. One of the best tracks on one of the best soundtracks of all time.
I will say that the reason the cities are so small is they had to run on the Xbox 360 and the PS3 which only had 512 mb of ram. Most PCs and even phones have at least 6 gb nowadays which is 12 times that. So having a lot of buildings, npcs, and textures simply wasn't an option on hardware that anemic
Thanks so much for this dude. Love your videos and 100% agree that Whiterun is one of the cosiest and most memorable areas in Elder Scrolls (Balmora a close second)!
21:52 corporate needs you to find the differences in these 2 pictures
I would love to see more of these worldpedia ones for the elder scrolls
This came out at a perfect time! I was currently defending white run from the stormcloaks for the civil war questline and listening to this really got me pumped and helped me understand more of what I was fight for! Awesome video! for the next Worldpedia I think Solitude would be perfect! that place always feels like it has so much history and depth!
i would absolutely adore a video in this series about the various iterations of kakariko village from legend of zelda. it's a town that's always felt so cozy to me, regardless of the game.
What makes Whiterun best city imo is the background music, it's the first major city you come across. Some the NPC annoying or nice makes you feel at home. But it's small enough to know everyone and they interact more with eachother then the npc in the other city's. Plus the background music is cozy
This is fabulous. I've always been impressed with the quality of this channel, since I started watching after I got your "The Master" video, and I'm now even more impressed. if I may, I HIGHLY recommend that you check out outer wilds if you haven't already, seeing a video on that game would be cooler than I can explain.
10:40 GOD DAMN IT I do indeed slap my forehead into the sign of war maidens
Clock Town from Majora's Mask has a lot of personality. I'd love a Worldpedia on that.
My first experience was on PS3 2014.
I remember playing Skyrim a little bit and was disappointed by some of the changes to certain things. Like the jumping exploit and potion/spell making wonkyness.
But walking out of Helgan being destroyed then into Skyrim and seeing that amazing view for the first time...
Oof, very emotional. Then the whole adventure to Whiterun, as soon as I stepped in I said to myself "Yep, if I can buy a piece of property here I'm buying it *ASAP* It's perfect!" - Myself
The the property you can purchase in Whiterun reminds me my own house. I even have 2 bedrooms upstairs.
I like Whiterun, and Breezehome is a nice little home but... once you go Honeyside in Riften, you never go back. It has it's own entrance directly from the overworld, it sits right on the lake... it's just a bit more cozy in the long run.
I did the exact same thing with my playthroughs; Whiterun was home for my first character, then Riften, then Markarth and so on. It is for sure too tiny 😂 but it is for sure cozy and still feels like home every time I load in to hit up my girl Avenicci. I would love to see more Worldpedias! You seem to have infinite knowledge of Tamriel, so maybe do Morrowind or another Elder Scrolls locale? Or a Vault from Fallout? Midgar from ff7? There are so many good options
Whiterun is definitely 100% the best "city" in all of skyrim. I never get tired of it or doing the many quests there. It just has that homey feel to it that the other city's don't quite have. Plus the landscape's around it are so beautiful and magnificent.
It looks nice but it's just way too small to be a capital of trade but that's a problem as a whole in Skyrim.
I found you while looking through Elder Scrolls content during my most recent playthrough of Skyrim, and I'm very glad that you've made a video on a place that truly feels like a home away from home to me.
You've really gone ahead and called me out on the "ritualistically slamming your head into the swinging sign of War-Maiden's" part, too, it's so cool hearing that someone else does that too!
If you're looking for more Worldpedia ideas, you mentioned Lumbridge, and now I'd really like to hear what you cook up for Lumbridge. Other ideas include the starting cities in FFXIV (Ul'dah, Gridania, and Limsa Lominsa), Goodsprings from Fallout: New Vegas, or, uh, just about any Hyrule from the Zelda series.
Thanks for starting this series! Can't wait to see where it goes.
My first exposure to Skyrim was when a friend's brother was playing it. He happened to be in Whiterun at the time and the first thing I thought about when I saw it was "That looks a lot like Edoras".
Skyrim ended up being my virtual home once I started to playing in 2015 and it helped bring my writing muse back to life. In the span of four years, I wrote about 50 one/multi-shots. The game and the wider TES lore gave me so much material to work with. I'm forever grateful to the game.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Microsoft doesn't lock Playstation players out of TES6: Hammerfell by keeping it exclusive to X-Box with no plans to cross-platform. Buying an X-box isn't an option for me because, in all likelihood, by the time TES6 drops, I'll have a PS5 by then and all my other favorite franchises are cross-platform. I would essentially have a system for a single game and that's a waste IMO. I had four games tops for the PSP back in the day but that was still a more worthy investment. In the event PS players are locked out because Microsoft decides to be a jerk, my only real options are to either borrow my sister's X-box...or I just don't play at all. To preempt: no, I'm not a PC player and have no plans to start being one.
Wow! I caught a Ghostcharm video early!
Whiterun truly is a city worth remembering due to several reasons I'm not going to bother listing
Oh boy, I love this new series already!
Guess you can't escape WoW with this format. I'd love to see a video on any of _your_ favourite places in Azeroth.
But especially I'd value an entry about Tirisfal Glades / the former kingdom of Lordaeron. The reason:
It has always been my favourite place, I rolled forsaken and totally vibed with the spooky atmosphere. But what really got me in the long term is how this place is just oozing with history - in the grand scheme of things, but also with all the tiny individual fates that you get to explore through the first quests.
You see, I only had veeery little contact with WarCraft in the form of WCIII LAN parties before I started WoW, so I knew next to nothing about all the lore, but even to me as a noob it appeared obvious how many important events must have taken place in this transformed area.
To me it's a place that perfectly shows how to combine storytelling with game design. It's not simply a "spooky zombie fantasy rural area", it tells you so much about the entire world and its recent (and ancient!) history.
The Heroes Guild and the Guildwood in the original Fable. It serves as your hub and the place heroic adventurers of all types (you and named NPCs) call home. It's where you meet the first friendly NPC and where you go to get training and quests. As you near the end of the game your mentor betrays you, the kindly Guildmaster is killed, the Guild is sacked, and you and your fellow adventurers are scattered. You can still play the game after the main story quest is complete but the game feels notably colder because the path to the Heroes Guild is now blocked and you can't go "home" again.
Fable 2 takes place hundreds of years later and your new character can visit the ruins of Guild. This is the first time you as the player have seen it since before it was attacked in Fable 1 and I remember it hitting me to see this once warm and friendly place of camaraderie and heroic feats now a dark, quiet, and empty ruin. It was especially felt in the hall of fate where your Fable 1 character's deeds were represented in once colorful murals, now faded and crumbling.
Us: "Ysgramor"
Ghostcharm: "YEESgramor"
0:12 to answer your question, a city needs a Cloud District. Have you been there yet? I bet not
this was damn fantastic, nostalgic, and reminiscent. Please do every city in Skyrim, at least the major ones.
I love how "Jonder the Tiny" is a forward scout so if you see him, you're going to see him small, in the distance ahead of you. You know, yonder, that tiny man...
Ideal location,
1. Centralization in Skyrim
2. First house is here
3. Affordable
4. Near many mines, hist tree, mammoth trap
5. Near a few of my other houses where I keep a family
6. world zoned so its kinda safe
7. Near a blacksmith to sell
8. Near a blackmarket dealer
9. Near the entrance to the town.
10. secret entrances and exits.
11. Hoping to maybe be the Jarl might need to name a successor.
Always thought there would be more Holds.... from Whiterun, the Jarl can easily control a place like Riverwood, but a settlement like Rorikstead is too far away, there have even been mods to fix this... and on the new edition a house is near rorikstead....
I randomly put skyrim into the search box and your video popped up as one of the first results, and I really love it! I hope you can make this kind of video about Markarth later, that city is so fucking confusing but super charming also hahaha
21:59 whoa didn't have to call us out like that
If there was ever a place or area I'd love to see covered, it might have to be Pre-Searing Ascalon from Guild Wars 1. It's _tremendously_ comfy but has a surprising deep amount of stuff to do, even before they added the Vanguard quests and Nicolas's gift collection
This is the video that's making me subscribe. I love the way you've described this city, and the genuine fondness I can hear in your voice, because I feel the exact same way about Whiterun. Awesome video.
2:33 What a nice way to start. Actually never played Elder Scrolls series, but I've seen all the meme videos on the net. (I've bought it years ago, but never got the time to play.)
Oh man the Ebon Hawk is my favorite virtual nook. Nothing quite like a freighter full of maniac droids and hilarious outcasts to make a ship feel like home
pros:
- its a great and iconic city, and it always resides in my brain as a special location
- its extremely memorable as it is the first city you are likely to visit
cons:
- nazeem
Nazeem isnt a con if you catch him outside the city
Man you almost made me cry, Whiterun is truly a place for amazing experiences, i will never forget this city.
Please keep making videos like this, specially about The Elder Scrolls, they are one of the best i could see in the wild
I think one of the reasons Whiterun (and the other cities for that matter) are so small, is because Bethesda would have to name, voice, and write every single inhabitant in the city. It's a staple of their games that every single npc is interactable and has something new to tell. As opposed to something like, say, the Witcher... where the major npcs are strewn about amongst a massive crowd of nameless npcs meandering about. If I go into a city in a bethesda game I expect pretty much everyone to be a named character, with a given daily routine. Doing this for all 75 inhabitants is already an impressive feat as it is, so I don't blame them for not making it any bigger.
I think in Fallout 4 they started going the route of adding unnamed npcs to certain places (like your settlements) to make them feel bigger or avoid having to use named characters for such a system, but before that it was never used in any of their games.
add its small size and the general proximity of the buildings as well the fact nearly all of whiterun is constructed of wood. a single spark can set this whole place ablaze. its even funnier when dragonreach itself also has a wooden skeleton that a dragon could easily get out of if it had half a brain.
You got this vibe like we're talking about this while at a bar, chilling. It's a very personal touch, along with the pauses, phrasing, and tone of your voice. Don't lose that bud.
_"Away from the stank and commoners..."_
*(Cue medieval drawing depicting people throwing a bucket of feces out their window)*
Glad to see this channel branching out. It's become a personal favorite recently and I'm grateful the content is getting even more diversified.
10:51 I never thought to headslam the sign but yeah I will now
The open cities Mod takes away the load screens and Whiterun is just a gate you can open like a door. Pretty sweet!
Wihiterun was the town that inspired me to install the "Killable Children" mod.
Favorite city. Hadvar doesn't lie when he says it's the best of all the holds.
I think the small size of Whiterun is an outstanding game design choice relating to very same thing you praise earlier: It’s the tutorial home base.
Practically every RPG starts you off in a town or city of small size, to provide you with an overview of the mechanics, allow you to understand the NPC quest / dialogue system, provides necessary exposition and backstory without overwhelming you, lets you pick up some rinky-dink training quests. You gain the freedom of exploration coupled with intimacy.
Amalur did it. Fable did it. Oblivion did it (sort of). Morrowind did it. Witcher did it, etc.
We praise Wild Hunt for how well CDPR did Novigrad, for instance. But imagine being dropped right into the middle of it and being told to go adventure. It wouldn’t work; that’s why White Orchard and Whiterun do.
When you highlighted how easy it is too traverse whiterun, I rememberee being so lost in that town on my first playthrough somehow.
Location lore vids. I dig it. Looking forward to more!
It's a retro series, but take a look into King's Quest. Tons of classic fantasy, with pretty cool, fleshed out locations from each game. King's Quest VI's setting is particularly good stuff: Land of the Green Isles. Generally regarded as myth to the rest of the world, vague boundaries, islands come and go, drastically different cultures, political skullduggery... all existing close to "the edge of the universe." Lots to unpack, I would think!
"I'll take you to a Mario Kart track if you want" haha I love that
Your videos are amazing! The amount of subtle interactions and encounters you described as well as settling down there brings back so much nostalgia. Great video!
21:45 They could have done a thing where the plains district got folded into the sky district and then they could have had a much larger plains district where you only got access later. That way findign yoru way around the small elite area is simple while allowin the city to be big.
Whiterun is my all time favorite town in skyrim.
Just this nice trading City + mythical place of old days.
+i'm a balgruuf fan. We're called gruufers
++ it always reminds me of Rohan from Lord of the rings. Horsebanner and all.
+++ maybe the eagle is the deadric shrine of lorkhan so it's seen as evil to elves?
I would love to see a Worldpedia entry on Columbia from Bioshock Infinite. It's such an awesome location.
Love your videos, just added over a dozen (over 2 dozen?) videos to my Shit-to-listen-to-at-work playlist.
Keep up the great work.
I think the size of Whiterun proper is perfect, Layout, Density, All of it works perfect, To make Whiterun feel more realistic, I would add a bunch of NPC houses to the Whiterun outers, The Whiterun walls would have been built years earlier, So assuming the city gets more popular over time it would make most sense for houses to be built outside the walls. In terms of other cities they also feel just right, Windhelm and Solitude have identical reasoning to me, Big walls, Good layout, *Could* add houses outside walls, Markarth feels as it should, A bunch of people moved into a Dwemer ruin and live in existing arcitecture, Dawnstar, Morthal, Falkreath, Ivarstead, Dragonbridge, Rorikstead and Riften all feel like relatively new settlements and have room to expand, The ONLY "City" that doesn't feel right is Winterhold, It's been years since the great collapse, There SHOULD be more housing in the area.