To all the people asking, the Mod in the background in Glenmoril. If this is your first time seeing this mod, I highly recommend you to DO NOT PLAY IT. It's very confusing and unfinished. If you are to play it, play Vigilant all the way through first... you will still end up confused, but you will at least be interested and confused :)
this is bla bla bla to me only because i have not had any interest in ESO, sorry but i like my RPG's in single player only, i don't want to play a damn MMO. if they were to recreate ESO in a single player game i might agree with you because i would have played it, they would have to turn all the other players into armies that the player had working for them so they might have to change some of that games lore to fit the single player setting to make it feel real to the story in ESO but in a single player experience. so i would like to see what you see in these stories by this one writer you think is so great, but i just can't get into ESO because i hate online multiplayer games.
@@5226-p1e I am focusing in the stories I like, best one of which is the clockwork city. It is everything you could want from a prequel DLC. It explores a forgotten part of TES lore that we only see briefly in TES: Tribunal, shines light on Sotha Sil and turns him from a corpse (the only thing we saw of him during Morrowind), and turns him into a tragic character yet wise character, all without taking anything away from Morrowind. It also explores forgotten concepts like the prisoner without taking degrading them. I made a video about it some years ago: th-cam.com/video/sM2Rlm5AHoQ/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=Cotho. It might be a bit dated, but it gets the point across.
bethesda started almost exclusively hiring skinwalkers who make games based on the belief that a person's flesh tastes a lot better when they play boring mobile facsimiles of games we actually enjoy
That was the peak of Elder Scrolls, really, of RPGs in general. When beast races had a beastly silhouette, not just being humans with animal heads. Can't bring myself to play Argonians or Khajit in other games because they are just... bland... nowadays.
Classical big companies like bethesda have one very special thing in common: They make me ask myself how it is even possible to be so incredibly bad at your job. Like SERIOUSLY think about it: You have hundreds of employes working full time being well paid and you still end up with something that looks like a mod or worse. If you arent yet with me, let these names go thorugh your head: Bethesda, EA, Ubisoft, Mojang, Blizzard, Paradox. Mojang has 600 Workers(everything included) and still manages to release content that looks like a few days of work for a single average modder every two months. Its normal.
Hm I don't know if there is an english language equivalent, but in German it is called the 'Peter Prinzip'. Basically, when someone is good at his job he gets promoted to another workplace. WHoever has a burning passion for his job does it well and gets promoted to someplace else, losing his project and his passion. Until he finally is dropped at a job he is very bad at, then he gets promoted no more and stays where he is worst at. That leads to every major company after some years ending up having just the wrong people in the wrong jobs. The bigger a company, the faster this negative selection. Maybe that explains the problem you are mentioning.
Lack of passion and onset of laziness maybe? I feel like they're a developer that lack a consistent vision, even though they've made my favourite video game franchise, I feel like they lack a consistent vision and probably have become a little lazy because of resources and money.
The decision makers at Bethesda and Zenimax are probably one of the closest examples we get of genuine lizard people. Completely out of touch with the playerbase and mankind at large, only propped up by the handful of genuine human elements left in the company. They've read "How to market to humans for dummies" and end up releasing almost otherworldly soulless and robotic slop like Starfield and Fallout Shelter because the algorithm said this is what humans enjoy. When it all ends up flopping they're at a loss since their alien lizard minds cannot actually process genuine human thoughts.
Because humans don't design those games, but a board of directors does. It is all over gaming. They try to make a game for everyone but it ends up appealing to no-one.
11:54 Yes, I have been thinking about this since the fall of the AAA Games such as Ubisoft, EA (Bioware) and Bethesda. Everglaid, Vicn, and many other talented people should rise and create their own studio and create something awesome like recently Larian did with Baldur's Gate III. The team of Beyond Project are doing simillar thing and I pray that they will suceed 🙏🏻🤍
How long until they just make all the Khajiit literal catgirls and catboys? I mean, the Ohmes and Ohmes-Raht ARE a thing, but this would be more like something Bethesda would announce in a PR nightmare "we didn't even know these were already in the lore"
It breaks my heart to see the greatest modern franchises fall to people who thought the “dance party ending” of movies like Shrek and Return of the Jedi was peak cinema.
Here in Mexico we have a cinema period called "cine de ficheras" (I wrote it verbatim so you can search for them if you want) and is widely considered the decline of Mexican cinema and our worst period in that regard. And EVERY SINGLE ONE of those movies ended like that (I even joke that all movies with no storytelling end with dancing numbers). Make what you will about my comment.
Is this the price of success? Skyrim, as dumbed down as it was, appealed to millions of gamers. Now Bethesda feels obligated to bastardize their lore to avoid confusing/repelling the lowest common denominator? It’s a shame. It seems they’ve allowed themselves to become akin to Vivec, and they’re all too eager to choke on some Muatra for that sweet, sweet CHIM.
Bethesda needs to hire some writers that actually are willing to talk about elder scrolls lore, they dont need video game industry writers, they need tes writers. It doesnt need to be so wacky that it is off putting for the wider audience but the depth and interest present in the older games (morrowind) needs to be present and able to be sought out by people who know what they are talking about. What in skyrim really furthered discussion of the deep interesting aspects of tes lore, parthurnax's conversations were about it, and everyone thought he was interesting. The rest of the game simplified more than jusst nordic faith and culture, worst affected by this being Alduin. There needs to be a few less 'bandits stole me sword bring it back' quests and more emphasis on quests that reveal something about the world. The game that did this best was Enderal, so many of the side quests in that mod nuanced the world, especially the characters understanding of the main quest. A (mis)understanding the writers had intentionally put in your mind. The Aged Man, his quest was one that an average player can go through and enjoy but someone who understands the enderal lore can spend a day speculating and theorising about.
Skyrim also had good theme of politics with Stormcloacks rebellion. It was poorly realized in gameplay, yes, but discussions about who is right still boiling. Because both sides have their opinions and beliefs, both have plans for future, both have bad sides and both are pawns in bigger picture. And the best part is that no one is going to have clear advantages from victory in this war. This is really good and serious side story in Skyrim. I don't believe Bethesda can or will make even something like that again with their current state
@@stupidlizard4764 Honestly the one thing skyrim did well with the lore was the setting, imo it's the best BGS has done, the 200 of history years prior was actually well written (if a bit too much of a gap). The themes decline were present almost everywhere you looked really helped game out it made it feel darker, if player choice was more importantit would have allowed for some cool stuff with that, and yeah the whole civil war empire slowly breaking apart was good too. There are only minor things I would change
The saddest thing about the state of elder scrolls lore is that it's become as wide as an ocean but as deep as a puddle. When Bethesda references towards an aspect of the ES universe being more strange and nuanced than most think, like the references to Kalpas in Skyrim, they do nothing with it. Like Cotho has mentioned before in other videos it seems like Bethesda just throws an interesting idea into the game but it exists for a fraction of a moment in a single quest and ultimately has no greater implications beyond the single quest it existed in. I wish not only Bethesda, but devs like Bioware also accepted that it's OK to not explain everything and embrace weirder aspects of their universes.
11:45, I can not even count how many good franchises we lost to corporate greed: first Halo, then Assassin's Creed, followed by Warhammer( fantasy UNIV.), all those valiant friends and wise teachers went away.... But they all made the same error: they couldn't stop trying to reach to ANYONE to maximize their profit, those who had passion went away( or just died for some franchise) and what was left was diluted by incompetent people until nothing was left ... elder scrolls is everything I still had, despite the more generalization of oblivion and Skyrim, TES still kept his core intact, and I had more faith in it after playing the clockwork city DLC( imagine the awe of discovering that, after all these years, the metaphisical aspects of this game are yet intact), but with last bethesda decision( starfield on top) and Ithelia ( This was just bad....). I fear that the last of the greatest franchises will see its sun setting...
Tbf to Castles, its clearly not meant to be taken seriously and clearly not canon, but it does feels like someone at Bethesda/Zenimax keeps preventing writers from truly creating something great for the sake of appealing to casuals by making everything as sanitary and surface level as possible. Everyone will have the imperial pantheon and every story will be generic big bad threatens the world and everything treats you as the center of the world. Hell, the whole "Skyrim worships the imperial pantheon" could have been an interesting plot point if expanded. Like, what if the civil war was really about the imperials erasing the nordic culture. That there not only introduces the concept of multiple pantheons to new players, but also raise questions about the affects of colonization on a nation. And depending on how the factions are framed, it create moral decisions that asks the player what is truly good for Skyrim and allow for more roleplaying, like NCR vs Mr House vs Independent Mojave in New Vegas (except Legion. New Vegas makes it clear the Legion are not good). But I guess interesting themes and political commentary is too complicated for the average gamer I guess.
I'm glad someone else sees that other franchises are falling the same way Warcraft is, the lore being softened, the edge and depth are being sanded away and buffed out, the uniqueness will eventually fade I fear
It's been happening since Oblivion when everything that made the Dunmer a unique and screwed up society was ignored or whitewashed, hell in Skyrim the Morag Tong are used as villains when they literally operate 100% legally.
Bethesda - make ebonarm canon again? Nah but we will introduce a lame new daedric prince like ithelia. Hire good writers that respect the lore and make new interesting additions? Nah. Let obsidian make spin off games after the fans fell in love with fonv? Nah. Keep mods free? Nah we’re going to introduce a store that sells mods and we’re going to break every free mod you use by updating the game!
Yes I need to adopt the term 'clapping party'. It was one of the issues that made me quit Guild Wars 2 - all the NPCs being sycophants to the player non stop until it made me puke. Felt like a very cheap try of buying approval.
It's across the board. Elder scrolls, fallout. There were so many 'updates' for fallout 4 that had modern patch the glitches after a day only for a new update to ruin the mod patch glitches to the point people thought Bestheda was trying to actively sabotage Fallout London. The very popular mod set not in the USA for fallout 4. It got so bad that GoG set it up to have their fallout 4 prevent updates and even had a separate mod/game download so you could get Fallout London without fearing an update would suddenly happen and screw it all up.
Michel Kirkbride is the only thing that made elder scrolls cool and interesting. Any cool lore facts you dredge up are his crazy out there deep lore takes. Mean while Todd has distilled it down to the safest most generic fantasy genres know to man. 😩
@Gabe_-pw7xv Yeah, and I should edit that comment to credit a few of the other lore guys the gave the elder scrolls it's identity after daggerfall. The stuff that Howard could have been riding for generations if he wanted.
Me after playing (and refunding) Starfield once: "Local man who thought he'd lost all hope loses last additional bit of hope he didn't even know he still had". It's so bad that as someone who spent countless hours on Morrowind and Oblivion, i have absolutely 0 faith and interest in TES6. Because AT BEST it'll be a dumbed down Skyrim(somehow).
I lost hope about good quality of Starfield from first 30 seconds of gameplay demostration. When I saw 2d JPEG smoke coming from engines of spaceship and remembered that it is 2023 outside I was already disappointed
I think Bethesda should listen to what the fanbase wants and offer to hire skilled mod authors, as well as people the fanbase likes the writing of. That would give them more money and a better creation.
people were complaining about degradation of TES lore since Oblivion and TES in general since Morrowind. there will inevitably be a point where you won't like Bethesda's output, and you shouldn't feel forced to find something cool about it.
I don't know why, but i feel that big game companies these days are afraid of taking riskier moves when it comes to writing. Starfield, Concord, the recent Dragon age all have the same sanitized feeling going on. Good thing Baldur's gate 3 came out to offer a great roleplaying game which lets players to express themselves, even if they are murderhobo level of deranged.
Unfortunately, this is a trend that is observable in most mature gaming companies. They become publicly traded or headed by the wrong person, and their focus becomes greatest profit return for the least amount of effort… instead of making the greatest games made for the fans who built the franchise up from nothing. Anything that is unique about the franchise becomes watered down or sanded off to avoid offending or weirding out the mythical “wider audience”, and rapid staff turnover ensures that very little generational talent (be it programming or storytelling) remains to guide newer employees.
I played the beta for castles, at first I liked the art style, and the thought of a full size elder scrolls game in a style similar to wind waker, or no more heros sounded great. But after Starfield, I finally realized it, those people just are not their anymore, they just are gone, being unable to "get rid" of begamin bayu in neon made it click, this team, the one currently in charge, they couldn't make morrowind, they cant, it would be impossible. I'm not really looking forward to anything they are putting out. The Mizzik Thunderboots quest was the best part of the gold road dlc, Ithelia was boring, both in design, and story.
what interests me is how the Halo franchise began with this massive appeal to testosterone-filled shooting game dudebros but as the series went on and the franchise got more complex, those casual dudebros gradually became more invested in the deeper lore and the story. marvel cinematic universe started out with lots of self-contained stories but gradually branched off into more complex timelines and multimedia. the fact is that audiences are incredibly receptive to being invested in large expansive fictional worlds, making things more consumable and casual isnt the way youre going to get more people invested long-term.
I WOULD be thankful if they actually milk the Kirkbridian lore for content. Sure, you are a greedy company, go ahead and profit from it. Maybe squeeze something interesting from it. But oh no no no, they aren't even milking it. Do they not want money from ye olde player base anymore?
as soon as elder scrolls blades had dragons in it, I was fuckin' done. I should've been done a while before that honestly, but at that point I knew, they just don't care any more.
100% yes i didnt even know es: castles existed until i watched your video and i can tell you all of it feels watered down. Reading the lore of the original writers for what they wanted vs Todd's latest "Oh I saw lotr or got lets make it like that!" instead of the lore already written describing these strange and alien lands. dont get me wrong ive got well over 1,000 hours into skyrim alone never mind oblivion and morrowind, but i feel like alot has been lost to a much safer fantasy world than the strangeness that was the elder scrolls.
There’s a good amount of mods that make Skyrim like how it was described in the older games! Like snow whales, snow rays, Skyrim belongs to the Nords, for a population mod. Jk/great cities to make the cities better. There’s one that makes the reachmen like how they were mentioned in Morrowind, and expands on them better then the base game. Adding the Gehenoth to the game. Adding arena cities to the game 👌🏻
tes6 will definately be a "good" game and be faithful since hammerfell and redguards have so much untold lore (also they may bring kirkbride in to advise stuff like that) but the main story will absolutely suck ass because emil's ego is too big to take critisism so his shit stands out like in starfield where the faction questlines are miles better than anything in the main story
it's gonna be in High Rock, or around the Iliac Bay. We're likely gonna be able to build our own "settlements" or "castles." Like in Fallout 4. What better place for that than the land of petty, squabbling kingdoms? The main quest is gonna be centered around Peryite and his Plague. Foreshadowed in Skyrim's Peryite quest.
I think I have more hope than most that TES6 will have decent lore. While Castles is a travesty, Blades at least had lore with every item, and with ESO they have aknowledged the big lore community especially post-launch. So I have more hope than most that TES6 will be a bit deeper. But probably not super excited still.
Actually beg you to check Forgotten Realms or Planescape lore (same thing after 3e but whatever), it's not even 1/10th of Unreliable Narrator tes has and not really THAT deep with its lore (as in depth of thought), but it's still really good and really wide and deep too, I even consider forgotten realms to be the best fantasy universe
I played Skyrim to death. I enjoyed ESO for a while, but lost interest due to repetition. Then I got into FromSoft, and never looked back. I think The Elder Scrolls is going to lose their fanbase as they delay sequels and additional content, and players look elsewhere for more material; as more intense, and interesting franchises grab their attention, it will become less and less appealing to go back to The Elder Scrolls. Mediocre content coupled with lack of new material is ultimately what's going to kill the franchise, in my opinion. Looking back, even Skyrim was somewhat lacking; you had a ton of cool skills and abilities, but a very limited range of enemies to use them against, and only a couple of major boss fights. And the combat system was very... repetitive, slow, low-impact? I'm not sure what the right description is. Detached, maybe; not tactical enough to be a strategy game, not active enough to be an action game - just an awkward combination of the two. But that's just my opinion. I had a lot of good times, I won't lie, between spellcasting, smithing, werewolf action, and vampire lords - Skyrim had some good ideas, and some great mechanics. Modding helped extend its life cycle. But at the end of the day, you expect more from a professional company than from modders, and Bethesda just hasn't delivered.
I feel like we're in a precipice in terms of game dev cycles, with the recent failures of Starfield and Veilguard and the sucess of ER and BG3 plus the recent fails of AAA game (Concord, Ubisoft as a whole) and Avowed coming out soon. I think if ES6 relases in the next 5 years, I believe they may come more to their roots. Honestly, if the next game was as least Skyrim levels, id be pretty happy.
Yeah, Skyggerfall, right? I know there's also the Unity remake of Daggerfall which is amazing and makes Daggerfall actually playable in the modern day.
When it first came, I noticed they made mod authors turn against each other instead of working together. When the paid mods came around, there were a lot of mods being stolen and people. taking other people's assets as well as needing other mods for them to work. it became one huge mess.
I would only support and respect payed mods if Vicn makes all his quest payed creations. ONLY then because it's really unfair and it feels like some people are favored by Bethesda although that man deserves much more for his contributions towards the elder scrolls franchise.
The worst part is that Bethesda actively ignores criticism like with Starfield or the fallout (shit)show. Es6 is probably just gonna be lame and gay slop
I've once heard that TES is trying to become more accessible, and through that they're losing all sense of nuance. In exchange, they earn a wider audience. I would assume because of that they want to appeal to new players and get them hooked by showing them new lore that would interest them enough to look into the old lore. And it could even be that they're unwilling to touch on the old lore like with Sotha Sil in such a direct way. But all speculation. But that writer did GOOD which should've showed them that we want lore answers and more lore questions to ask.
@@AlexJones-s2ga mediocre game that muddied the lore even more especially involving Talos and the old Nord Lores in Morrowind describing them as more Celtic and not Nordic with their own culture and Gods. Idk what your angle is on whether you think it’s a good game or a bad game but that’s my take on it.
It is baffling how many talentless hacks there is in gaming industry currently. And how much money and time they cost game companies. And, somehow, despite all of that, they're still not fired. I wonder why?... _cough, cough: NEPOTISM_
At this point saying it's "cuz nepotism, yewguize" is a copout. It's intentional and brazen money laundering, creates the impression of a competent company to fool their boomer investors/shareholders.
if you somehow manage to get big making video games or music or pretty much anything art related, congratulations, you now have the easiest life in the world
It's funny isn't it. Ever since the success of Morrowind. They've been staying away. What made it unique. I think we need some of that weird stuff back. Chances are they don't want to do a setting where the humans aren't a minority.
Not entirely true, Skyrim was closer to morrowind than oblivion, if you compare the 3 oblivion is literally a different universe so much so that when i went back to play the old games i could play morrowind no problem but not oblivion, it was 50x more generic than skyrim and 50x as retconned. Skyrim level lore but set in illiac bay would be enough for me just enough for me to be satisfied but its going to be even more generic than that
What sucks is great fantasy franchises seem to be trying to kill the fan base Elder Scrolls has entered it's Rings of Power era it is bad when I feel like Harry Potter is doing better on the fans behalf than Lord of the Rings and Elder Scrolls fantasy can't just be tossed together it takes legitimate talent and great writing so that way the lore and the story of the product hits the same notes even if it takes different paths to get there
Yes, it is and it will degrade further more if there won't be a good writer. I don't remember who it was who was working on lore in TES, but this beast made lore and esthetic for three games. And after that nothing, Bethesda just stopped. If they will keep same pace of "keep it simple, stupid" then we only get stupidly simple lore and world building. Upd: Michael Kirkbride, that's the name
The worst is yet to come. The fiasco that was Dragon Age Veilguard - or, as some call it, Failguard, made me even more fearful for the future of TES. People truly passionate about beloved franchises are gone - they've moved on or were fired for being "problematic". They're being replaced by political activists that never should have been allowed anywhere near a script. They obviously can't invent good stories, but even if they could, they wouldn't be able to fit them into the game, since they care much more about making sure that your medieval fantasy setting doesn't let you forget about political issues of the 21st century for a second. Dragon Age is dead, and Mass Effect is racing Elder Scrolls for the privilege of being next.
Yea, politics is definitely the problem, unlike games like New Vegas that has no political commentary what so ever. Good stories and commentary on politics isn't mutually exclusive. Bioshock, for example, is a criticism of Ayn Rand's objectivism. The Witcher 3 also has a side quest in White Orchard with a hunter that remarks about how it's like being gay. No one complained about any of this being poorly written. And the original Star Wars was meant to be commentary on the Vietnam War, with Palpatine being based on Richard Nixon. You can criticize bad writing without pinning the blame solely on writers wanting to make political commentary. Otherwise you look like someone who lacks media literacy. Edit: Also, people wanting to make political commentary has nothing to do with why the nordic pantheon was cut from Skyrim or other aspects of TES Lore being dumbed down. If anything, a theme on how colonization can cause existing cultures to be erased could make the fact that Skyrim follows an imperial pantheon an interesting storyline if Bethesda was willing to explore it.
@wildrose7648 oh, but I'm not talking about politics in general, about all vaguely political concepts that apply universally. No, I mean specifically politics unique to the 21st century. When you play the 4th installment of Dragon Age and suddenly hear "I'm going to be using she/they pronouns", you don't think "yeah, that's absolutely something that could happen in DA setting". You hear it and roll your eyes (or scream in joy if you're one of *those* people) because you know that it's an explicitly modern political statement of whoever wrote it.
@@jonaszpawlacz756 I agree that Veilguard was very clumsy with how those topics were included, but allegory exists for a reason. The same idea of that scene can be conveyed in a way that is more fitting to the world, which is how shows like old Star Trek commented on current events. The writer being a “political activist” and good writing aren’t mutually exclusive What happened with Veilguard was most likely just incompetence on BioWare’s part, whether due to the game being in development hell or some other reason. Edit: also none of this has to do with why Elder Scrolls is being degraded. Simplification of lore has been a problem since Oblivion, and “political activist writers” have nothing to do with cash-grab mobile games and micro transactions.
@@wildrose7648 Veilguard wasn't clumsy with the way topics were included, it was clumsy with which topics were selected in the first place. Dragon Age is a medieval fantasy setting. There is no way to implement a non-binary character there, it's always going to stand out. I haven't watched Star Trek, but in general, older media handled political commentary better, both choice of topics and execution. My issue with modern politically engaged writers is that they're activists first and writers second. Those people don't do subtlety, which becomes evident when you open a DA:V codex entry and read "trans women are women" repeated several times like a mantra, and you start wondering whether you're playing a video game or reading posts on Twitter. What happened with Veilguard was just a nail in the coffin. Bioware has been on the decline for quite a while, but honestly, having Veilguard be a repeat of Inquisition would have been fine. Not groundbreaking, not the breakthrough that Bioware needs, but just fine. But that didn't happen, and Veilguard's sins are its own - not just the political activism, but also the sanitized atmosphere in which you can't even be mean to people. Veilguard writers are the mythical "modern audience", it shows, and it's the issue number one with that game. As for the edit: this is why I said "the worst is yet to come". Maybe it will, maybe it won't, Starfield managed to stay out of that culture war bullshit as far as I recall, but all I'm saying is that if the current course of major game developers is anything to go by, concern for the next ES on the political activism front is justified.
>cyrodiil isn't a jungle >wah wah how could bethesda mess up the lore so bad >:( i genuinely think oblivion catches too much flak for almost nothing, in regards to the "dumbing down of lore"
@@EA_SP0RTCENTERto be fair, Morrowind feeling is unique, the alien looking world was something new and refreshing in terms of fantasy roleplay, and compared to oblivion and Skyrim these last look like generic fantasy and Nordic settings. I'm not saying they are bad is just disappointing they didn't continue with the thing that made Morrowind Soo original instead did something generic
@@TheDukeofDeath666 my main theory for oblivions generic medieval farmland (other than it being more digestible/LotR inspired) is machine limitations at the time. even oblivion in its current state kinda goes overboard on the tall grass and shrubbery. an actual lush jungle would have been irritating to look at with the low LOD and draw distance. part of the reason morrowind was able to look so alien is because vvardenfel is mostly dryland and sparse.
I'm not a TES fan, I've only heard reviews about how bad Skyrim is and I was never interested in buying it because of that. Until I heard people talking about Enderal and saw your video about Nehirim. I swear I'm considering buying Skirim and Oblivion just to play those mods. I think that says enough about Bethesada's strategy to reach casuals.
7:17 Okay, I know this is probably off topic and I know I'm gonna get hate for this but- From my perspective, I'm from a fandom that is very torn on official canon, in part because the original creator died and that the original company behind the media turned out to be a piece of shit that crunched their employees so badly at least one was hospitalized. And I have my own criticisms of canon since it's pretty clear the writers didn't expect the media to get so big and it was their first original writing. And they have said some similar things to this, albeit not as condescending. Problem is, I have been plugged into the critic's side for a long time. As in, 9-10 years now. And so, so, so, so, so, *so* , **so** , ***so*** many of them are TERRIBLE at their jobs. As in, they insult the original creators (the writing team) and act like they're better than the original writers...but they get basic stuff wrong. And not confusing stuff either- we're talking basic locations, basic human motivation and stuff the media outright tells you to your face. Something as basic as 'guy who talks about freeing people was just selfish' is a hotly debated topic. There are even two hugely popular videos out there that completely get stuff wrong and people gobble them up. The media has issues, yes. This is undeniable. But things have gotten so bad that a writer coming out and explaining their thought process behind a writing decision, saying 'yes, we could have been clearer'/'we mishandled this but we feel the conversation is more subjective'/'I'm just explaining our reasoning, not saying we're correct' was seen as "damage control". The most milqutoast defense that also made a lot oof concessions and admissions of fault, not the first time even, and the critics called it "damage control." Meanwhile, I don't think I've ever seen one of the big name critics ever admit they got info wrong. This doesn't even get into how some fans will make their 'fixes' to the original and either offer something completely different while calling it the same thing or make even more basic mistakes and get away with it because it has the 'X bad' sticker on it. These guys are not Vicn and SureAI, who has enough respect for the source material to understand it's basic concepts (like Skyrim having a repeated theme of 'glory days are past but you can still revitalize them'). They do not try to understand the original nor the creators. So when I see stuff like this, I can't help but emphasize with the creators. Because you have millions of people shouting, demanding conflicting improvements, being condescending about the creative process and then completely brush off the creators actually trying to be understanding. Sorry if this seems dick sucky but I've dealt with this stuff for nearly a decade so I have a vastly different perspective. P.S. I'm not saying this applies to the ESO writers per say, as they are in a different situation. I'm just explaining why I don't feel offended looking at that kind of comment.
Well yeah, this sort of thing is happening with everything now. Everything has to be cosy and shit and never offended. Everything has lost its "edge", nothing can be gritty anymore. I'm totally sick of it. When I played Cyberpunk after finishing Starfield, it was a revelation. Thank god for CDPR because Bethesda are lost, the company has been taken over by DEI hires and activists. I just hope CDPR wont go the same way, because as it stands they've still got a sack. A big fkning sack.
Great video, don't get me wrong, but Fallout Shelter had the same problem as Castles; simplification of lore to permit microtransactions, or just to make it easy for anyone to get into. Also who's gonna go to a mobile game for the lore? I get Elder Scrolls Travels could be a counter argument, but same time there's so many inconsistencies with magic in those games due to hardware limitation, does that mean at one time in TES history a lot of spells were forgotten, then remembered again after those events/periods of time? Fallout Shelter implies vaults were easily attacked from the outside, so the vault dwellers had to arm themselves with weapons and armor from the wasteland. Meanwhile the main titles show vaults being sturdy, and usually the vaults that still operate in the present period of the games show the arsenal consisting of simple police gear, 10mm pistols, smg's, and batons... Fallout Shelter implies you just need dinners to feed people foodstuffs, instead of you know, indoor farms or crops, while the main titles/media show vaults having sustainable sources of food that would be processed into foodstuffs dwellers would eat in a dinner... NOW when it comes to major titles, non-mobile, like ESO, yeah lore changes were odd; if dragons were being resurrected by necromancers in Elsweyr during the Second Era, wouldn't that mean the comments and claims in TES V Skyrim, Fourth Era, "-we haven't seen dragons since the first empire" (that was the First Era) were false, or uneducated, maybe... So in terms of lore inconsistencies, I do agree with the irritation portrayed in the video, but this is standard with Mobile games, and who knows, with Starfield displaying their creativity to make a new IP, it might also become a standard with Bethesda onward.
Yeah def the lore has been ruined, funny enough a buddy told me that super mutants are in fallout 76 when they were created almost a century after the bombs
I mean yeah since like oblivion. It is worse/less fun for the sake laziness/avoiding innovation, aswell as avoiding scaring people who don't want to think
Dude…it’s a mobile game which is meant to be played also by people/children who never even played an tes main game. Main game in universe lore isn’t needed for that, I played castles a bit but it gets stale very quick because of repetitive gameplay, looks or lore is a thing I don’t care about in a mobile spin off game.
Is the lore of a game made by a company that regurlary pulls things out of their collective asses and will belittle you for caring about things like internal consistancy in a fantasy setting being degraded? The awnser might surprise you.
Anything not made by the OG creators might as well be discontinued. Seen it so many times and it ends up with the same result. The writers at Bethesda are inept and colourless. You'll have a lot more luck with modders (the people who are actually passionate about the franchise).
To all the people asking, the Mod in the background in Glenmoril. If this is your first time seeing this mod, I highly
recommend you to DO NOT PLAY IT. It's very confusing and unfinished. If you are to play it, play Vigilant all the way through first... you will still end up confused, but you will at least be interested and confused :)
this is bla bla bla to me only because i have not had any interest in ESO, sorry but i like my RPG's in single player only, i don't want to play a damn MMO.
if they were to recreate ESO in a single player game i might agree with you because i would have played it, they would have to turn all the other players into armies that the player had working for them so they might have to change some of that games lore to fit the single player setting to make it feel real to the story in ESO but in a single player experience.
so i would like to see what you see in these stories by this one writer you think is so great, but i just can't get into ESO because i hate online multiplayer games.
@@5226-p1e I am focusing in the stories I like, best one of which is the clockwork city. It is everything you could want from a prequel DLC. It explores a forgotten part of TES lore that we only see briefly in TES: Tribunal, shines light on Sotha Sil and turns him from a corpse (the only thing we saw of him during Morrowind), and turns him into a tragic character yet wise character, all without taking anything away from Morrowind. It also explores forgotten concepts like the prisoner without taking degrading them. I made a video about it some years ago: th-cam.com/video/sM2Rlm5AHoQ/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=Cotho.
It might be a bit dated, but it gets the point across.
@@cotho.
i will give it a listen, maybe i will enjoy it.
@@cotho. well well lets play DAc0da its finally here
plays tes mobile games once, immediately loses faith in the franchise
Based on solid ground tho
bethesda started almost exclusively hiring skinwalkers who make games based on the belief that a person's flesh tastes a lot better when they play boring mobile facsimiles of games we actually enjoy
the first mobile games were pretty good, but that was nearly two decades ago.
Wouldn't you?
I may have CHIMed once, but to see something I love used so poorly makes me wish I Zero Summed
My Dunmer NPCs in TES Castles have green eyes. GREEN EYES...
Nirn has fallen! Billions must write!
Quick, orepare the ritual.
We must summon the Crackhead, that way he'll give us back some proper lore
no respect for the hood
I remember when the beast races couldn't wear shoes or full helmets.
That was the peak of Elder Scrolls, really, of RPGs in general. When beast races had a beastly silhouette, not just being humans with animal heads. Can't bring myself to play Argonians or Khajit in other games because they are just... bland... nowadays.
@@rumpelstilzzI only play Khajiit and Argonians because they're furry.
@@-gemberkoekje-5547 Vile.
i remember when we were free to be racist against those filthy beasts, theyre slaves, nothing more! the woke has ruined everything!
The woke virus has ruined everything, beasts are born to be servants, i remember when we could treat them however we liked!
Classical big companies like bethesda have one very special thing in common:
They make me ask myself how it is even possible to be so incredibly bad at your job. Like SERIOUSLY think about it: You have hundreds of employes working full time being well paid and you still end up with something that looks like a mod or worse.
If you arent yet with me, let these names go thorugh your head:
Bethesda, EA, Ubisoft, Mojang, Blizzard, Paradox.
Mojang has 600 Workers(everything included) and still manages to release content that looks like a few days of work for a single average modder every two months. Its normal.
Hm I don't know if there is an english language equivalent, but in German it is called the 'Peter Prinzip'. Basically, when someone is good at his job he gets promoted to another workplace. WHoever has a burning passion for his job does it well and gets promoted to someplace else, losing his project and his passion. Until he finally is dropped at a job he is very bad at, then he gets promoted no more and stays where he is worst at. That leads to every major company after some years ending up having just the wrong people in the wrong jobs. The bigger a company, the faster this negative selection.
Maybe that explains the problem you are mentioning.
Don't forget bioware
Add Bungie to the list as well. I still never forgive them for removing content
The money and resources made them lazy
Lack of passion and onset of laziness maybe? I feel like they're a developer that lack a consistent vision, even though they've made my favourite video game franchise, I feel like they lack a consistent vision and probably have become a little lazy because of resources and money.
The decision makers at Bethesda and Zenimax are probably one of the closest examples we get of genuine lizard people. Completely out of touch with the playerbase and mankind at large, only propped up by the handful of genuine human elements left in the company. They've read "How to market to humans for dummies" and end up releasing almost otherworldly soulless and robotic slop like Starfield and Fallout Shelter because the algorithm said this is what humans enjoy. When it all ends up flopping they're at a loss since their alien lizard minds cannot actually process genuine human thoughts.
I mean, Shelter is at least fun
Because humans don't design those games, but a board of directors does. It is all over gaming. They try to make a game for everyone but it ends up appealing to no-one.
@@chrisdiokno5600 but shelter was a employee pet project
11:54 Yes, I have been thinking about this since the fall of the AAA Games such as Ubisoft, EA (Bioware) and Bethesda. Everglaid, Vicn, and many other talented people should rise and create their own studio and create something awesome like recently Larian did with Baldur's Gate III. The team of Beyond Project are doing simillar thing and I pray that they will suceed 🙏🏻🤍
How long until they just make all the Khajiit literal catgirls and catboys? I mean, the Ohmes and Ohmes-Raht ARE a thing, but this would be more like something Bethesda would announce in a PR nightmare "we didn't even know these were already in the lore"
We first saw Khajiit variants in ESO. That's not too far back.
Technically we first saw them in Morrowind.
@@JonCrs10 There was only one type. It was simply a retcon
In Arena Khajiit are practically nekos, they started to become furries in Daggerfall.
Pelinal Whitestrake killed untold amount of Khajiit who looked too much like elves. They can look humanoid.
Fallout London basically proves this and it's not even an Elder Scrolls related mod. Bethesda is dead.
It breaks my heart to see the greatest modern franchises fall to people who thought the “dance party ending” of movies like Shrek and Return of the Jedi was peak cinema.
Here in Mexico we have a cinema period called "cine de ficheras" (I wrote it verbatim so you can search for them if you want) and is widely considered the decline of Mexican cinema and our worst period in that regard.
And EVERY SINGLE ONE of those movies ended like that (I even joke that all movies with no storytelling end with dancing numbers).
Make what you will about my comment.
Is this the price of success? Skyrim, as dumbed down as it was, appealed to millions of gamers. Now Bethesda feels obligated to bastardize their lore to avoid confusing/repelling the lowest common denominator?
It’s a shame. It seems they’ve allowed themselves to become akin to Vivec, and they’re all too eager to choke on some Muatra for that sweet, sweet CHIM.
@@francisco646 Modders: "You can't rely on anyone these days, you've gotta do everything yourself..."
Bethesda needs to hire some writers that actually are willing to talk about elder scrolls lore, they dont need video game industry writers, they need tes writers. It doesnt need to be so wacky that it is off putting for the wider audience but the depth and interest present in the older games (morrowind) needs to be present and able to be sought out by people who know what they are talking about.
What in skyrim really furthered discussion of the deep interesting aspects of tes lore, parthurnax's conversations were about it, and everyone thought he was interesting. The rest of the game simplified more than jusst nordic faith and culture, worst affected by this being Alduin. There needs to be a few less 'bandits stole me sword bring it back' quests and more emphasis on quests that reveal something about the world.
The game that did this best was Enderal, so many of the side quests in that mod nuanced the world, especially the characters understanding of the main quest. A (mis)understanding the writers had intentionally put in your mind. The Aged Man, his quest was one that an average player can go through and enjoy but someone who understands the enderal lore can spend a day speculating and theorising about.
Skyrim also had good theme of politics with Stormcloacks rebellion. It was poorly realized in gameplay, yes, but discussions about who is right still boiling. Because both sides have their opinions and beliefs, both have plans for future, both have bad sides and both are pawns in bigger picture. And the best part is that no one is going to have clear advantages from victory in this war. This is really good and serious side story in Skyrim. I don't believe Bethesda can or will make even something like that again with their current state
@@stupidlizard4764 Honestly the one thing skyrim did well with the lore was the setting, imo it's the best BGS has done, the 200 of history years prior was actually well written (if a bit too much of a gap). The themes decline were present almost everywhere you looked really helped game out it made it feel darker, if player choice was more importantit would have allowed for some cool stuff with that, and yeah the whole civil war empire slowly breaking apart was good too. There are only minor things I would change
The saddest thing about the state of elder scrolls lore is that it's become as wide as an ocean but as deep as a puddle. When Bethesda references towards an aspect of the ES universe being more strange and nuanced than most think, like the references to Kalpas in Skyrim, they do nothing with it. Like Cotho has mentioned before in other videos it seems like Bethesda just throws an interesting idea into the game but it exists for a fraction of a moment in a single quest and ultimately has no greater implications beyond the single quest it existed in.
I wish not only Bethesda, but devs like Bioware also accepted that it's OK to not explain everything and embrace weirder aspects of their universes.
11:45, I can not even count how many good franchises we lost to corporate greed: first Halo, then Assassin's Creed, followed by Warhammer( fantasy UNIV.), all those valiant friends and wise teachers went away.... But they all made the same error: they couldn't stop trying to reach to ANYONE to maximize their profit, those who had passion went away( or just died for some franchise) and what was left was diluted by incompetent people until nothing was left ... elder scrolls is everything I still had, despite the more generalization of oblivion and Skyrim, TES still kept his core intact, and I had more faith in it after playing the clockwork city DLC( imagine the awe of discovering that, after all these years, the metaphisical aspects of this game are yet intact), but with last bethesda decision( starfield on top) and Ithelia ( This was just bad....).
I fear that the last of the greatest franchises will see its sun setting...
Tbf to Castles, its clearly not meant to be taken seriously and clearly not canon, but it does feels like someone at Bethesda/Zenimax keeps preventing writers from truly creating something great for the sake of appealing to casuals by making everything as sanitary and surface level as possible. Everyone will have the imperial pantheon and every story will be generic big bad threatens the world and everything treats you as the center of the world.
Hell, the whole "Skyrim worships the imperial pantheon" could have been an interesting plot point if expanded. Like, what if the civil war was really about the imperials erasing the nordic culture. That there not only introduces the concept of multiple pantheons to new players, but also raise questions about the affects of colonization on a nation. And depending on how the factions are framed, it create moral decisions that asks the player what is truly good for Skyrim and allow for more roleplaying, like NCR vs Mr House vs Independent Mojave in New Vegas (except Legion. New Vegas makes it clear the Legion are not good). But I guess interesting themes and political commentary is too complicated for the average gamer I guess.
It's being Blizzarded. Warcrafted to be specific.
I'm glad someone else sees that other franchises are falling the same way Warcraft is, the lore being softened, the edge and depth are being sanded away and buffed out, the uniqueness will eventually fade I fear
It's been happening since Oblivion when everything that made the Dunmer a unique and screwed up society was ignored or whitewashed, hell in Skyrim the Morag Tong are used as villains when they literally operate 100% legally.
TBF, we did have, prior to Castles, at least one account of a Khajiit mistress for a Nord
Bethesda - make ebonarm canon again? Nah but we will introduce a lame new daedric prince like ithelia. Hire good writers that respect the lore and make new interesting additions? Nah. Let obsidian make spin off games after the fans fell in love with fonv? Nah. Keep mods free? Nah we’re going to introduce a store that sells mods and we’re going to break every free mod you use by updating the game!
Now you know how Star Wars & Marvel fans felt when Disney bought them.
Have a nice day.
that hurt.
Yes I need to adopt the term 'clapping party'. It was one of the issues that made me quit Guild Wars 2 - all the NPCs being sycophants to the player non stop until it made me puke. Felt like a very cheap try of buying approval.
It's across the board.
Elder scrolls, fallout.
There were so many 'updates' for fallout 4 that had modern patch the glitches after a day only for a new update to ruin the mod patch glitches to the point people thought Bestheda was trying to actively sabotage Fallout London.
The very popular mod set not in the USA for fallout 4.
It got so bad that GoG set it up to have their fallout 4 prevent updates and even had a separate mod/game download so you could get Fallout London without fearing an update would suddenly happen and screw it all up.
Michel Kirkbride is the only thing that made elder scrolls cool and interesting. Any cool lore facts you dredge up are his crazy out there deep lore takes. Mean while Todd has distilled it down to the safest most generic fantasy genres know to man. 😩
Kirkbride didn't work on Shivering Isles
@Gabe_-pw7xv Yeah, and I should edit that comment to credit a few of the other lore guys the gave the elder scrolls it's identity after daggerfall. The stuff that Howard could have been riding for generations if he wanted.
@@joshbandy8038 there's still a lot of cool and interesting stuff in Skyrim.
Not the only thing, and if he was given free range it would almost as disatrous as it is now with todd in charge
@@jaga887 I definitely feel unrestrained Kirkbride would go about as well as unrestricted Kojima. You right. xD
They SHOULD probably just hire the guys that are doing beyond skyrim bruma to make the next game
You know the Franchise is cooked when they put my Saint Jiub in the Eternal Purgatory and did not give him his freedom
He's too powerful to be kept alive. Even Nerevar could not kill all the Cliffracers.
It has been since Morrowind
Me after playing (and refunding) Starfield once:
"Local man who thought he'd lost all hope loses last additional bit of hope he didn't even know he still had".
It's so bad that as someone who spent countless hours on Morrowind and Oblivion, i have absolutely 0 faith and interest in TES6.
Because AT BEST it'll be a dumbed down Skyrim(somehow).
I lost hope about good quality of Starfield from first 30 seconds of gameplay demostration. When I saw 2d JPEG smoke coming from engines of spaceship and remembered that it is 2023 outside I was already disappointed
6:18 Thank you so much...
I almost choked when i heard that
I think Bethesda should listen to what the fanbase wants and offer to hire skilled mod authors, as well as people the fanbase likes the writing of. That would give them more money and a better creation.
I'd say they should go to Germany and get a few of the guys that wrote the story of Enderal.
the glenmoril gameplay without actual glenmoril commentary is edging me
You deserve to be alone
@@emmyturner7385 thanks
@@emmyturner7385 god forbid men have hobbies
@@emmyturner7385Trump is your president
people were complaining about degradation of TES lore since Oblivion and TES in general since Morrowind. there will inevitably be a point where you won't like Bethesda's output, and you shouldn't feel forced to find something cool about it.
I don't know why, but i feel that big game companies these days are afraid of taking riskier moves when it comes to writing. Starfield, Concord, the recent Dragon age all have the same sanitized feeling going on. Good thing Baldur's gate 3 came out to offer a great roleplaying game which lets players to express themselves, even if they are murderhobo level of deranged.
Unfortunately, this is a trend that is observable in most mature gaming companies. They become publicly traded or headed by the wrong person, and their focus becomes greatest profit return for the least amount of effort… instead of making the greatest games made for the fans who built the franchise up from nothing.
Anything that is unique about the franchise becomes watered down or sanded off to avoid offending or weirding out the mythical “wider audience”, and rapid staff turnover ensures that very little generational talent (be it programming or storytelling) remains to guide newer employees.
This is the Unslaad bad ending
it's literally the bad ending of unslaad. The world will rot away and die horribly instead of ending on a high note.
It has been since Oblivion.
Talking about good things: Olenveld just released and DAC0DA is in the testing phase :D
Yes, turning Peryite from the Lord of the Lower Spheres to Knock-off Nurgle was the first red flag. IMO
It's almost like every Bethesda game Emil has written has been a decline in quality from the games he hasn't.
I played the beta for castles, at first I liked the art style, and the thought of a full size elder scrolls game in a style similar to wind waker, or no more heros sounded great. But after Starfield, I finally realized it, those people just are not their anymore, they just are gone, being unable to "get rid" of begamin bayu in neon made it click, this team, the one currently in charge, they couldn't make morrowind, they cant, it would be impossible. I'm not really looking forward to anything they are putting out.
The Mizzik Thunderboots quest was the best part of the gold road dlc, Ithelia was boring, both in design, and story.
what interests me is how the Halo franchise began with this massive appeal to testosterone-filled shooting game dudebros but as the series went on and the franchise got more complex, those casual dudebros gradually became more invested in the deeper lore and the story. marvel cinematic universe started out with lots of self-contained stories but gradually branched off into more complex timelines and multimedia. the fact is that audiences are incredibly receptive to being invested in large expansive fictional worlds, making things more consumable and casual isnt the way youre going to get more people invested long-term.
Yes. Emil will strike again. Unfortunately.
I WOULD be thankful if they actually milk the Kirkbridian lore for content. Sure, you are a greedy company, go ahead and profit from it. Maybe squeeze something interesting from it. But oh no no no, they aren't even milking it. Do they not want money from ye olde player base anymore?
they should let me write the elder scrolls games, i'd be really good at it.
Yes. The keep changing the lore. Just like fallout. They dont care about continuity only profit
as soon as elder scrolls blades had dragons in it, I was fuckin' done. I should've been done a while before that honestly, but at that point I knew, they just don't care any more.
100% yes i didnt even know es: castles existed until i watched your video and i can tell you all of it feels watered down. Reading the lore of the original writers for what they wanted vs Todd's latest "Oh I saw lotr or got lets make it like that!" instead of the lore already written describing these strange and alien lands. dont get me wrong ive got well over 1,000 hours into skyrim alone never mind oblivion and morrowind, but i feel like alot has been lost to a much safer fantasy world than the strangeness that was the elder scrolls.
There’s a good amount of mods that make Skyrim like how it was described in the older games! Like snow whales, snow rays, Skyrim belongs to the Nords, for a population mod. Jk/great cities to make the cities better. There’s one that makes the reachmen like how they were mentioned in Morrowind, and expands on them better then the base game. Adding the Gehenoth to the game. Adding arena cities to the game 👌🏻
Bethesda has been going downhill since daggerfall, the decline has just been alot more stark in the past 8 years or so
tes6 will definately be a "good" game and be faithful since hammerfell and redguards have so much untold lore (also they may bring kirkbride in to advise stuff like that) but the main story will absolutely suck ass because emil's ego is too big to take critisism so his shit stands out like in starfield where the faction questlines are miles better than anything in the main story
I doubt they will bring Kirkbride back. Its going to be a dog water game made by corpos.
it's gonna be in High Rock, or around the Iliac Bay. We're likely gonna be able to build our own "settlements" or "castles." Like in Fallout 4. What better place for that than the land of petty, squabbling kingdoms? The main quest is gonna be centered around Peryite and his Plague. Foreshadowed in Skyrim's Peryite quest.
they literally set up the thalmor/redguard war bro
I think I have more hope than most that TES6 will have decent lore. While Castles is a travesty, Blades at least had lore with every item, and with ESO they have aknowledged the big lore community especially post-launch. So I have more hope than most that TES6 will be a bit deeper. But probably not super excited still.
Actually beg you to check Forgotten Realms or Planescape lore (same thing after 3e but whatever), it's not even 1/10th of Unreliable Narrator tes has and not really THAT deep with its lore (as in depth of thought), but it's still really good and really wide and deep too, I even consider forgotten realms to be the best fantasy universe
I played Skyrim to death. I enjoyed ESO for a while, but lost interest due to repetition. Then I got into FromSoft, and never looked back.
I think The Elder Scrolls is going to lose their fanbase as they delay sequels and additional content, and players look elsewhere for more material; as more intense, and interesting franchises grab their attention, it will become less and less appealing to go back to The Elder Scrolls. Mediocre content coupled with lack of new material is ultimately what's going to kill the franchise, in my opinion.
Looking back, even Skyrim was somewhat lacking; you had a ton of cool skills and abilities, but a very limited range of enemies to use them against, and only a couple of major boss fights. And the combat system was very... repetitive, slow, low-impact? I'm not sure what the right description is. Detached, maybe; not tactical enough to be a strategy game, not active enough to be an action game - just an awkward combination of the two.
But that's just my opinion. I had a lot of good times, I won't lie, between spellcasting, smithing, werewolf action, and vampire lords - Skyrim had some good ideas, and some great mechanics. Modding helped extend its life cycle. But at the end of the day, you expect more from a professional company than from modders, and Bethesda just hasn't delivered.
I feel like we're in a precipice in terms of game dev cycles, with the recent failures of Starfield and Veilguard and the sucess of ER and BG3 plus the recent fails of AAA game (Concord, Ubisoft as a whole) and Avowed coming out soon.
I think if ES6 relases in the next 5 years, I believe they may come more to their roots. Honestly, if the next game was as least Skyrim levels, id be pretty happy.
i remember someone talking about add DLC to the game, we are trying to remake the DLCs ever Daggerfall.
Yeah, Skyggerfall, right?
I know there's also the Unity remake of Daggerfall which is amazing and makes Daggerfall actually playable in the modern day.
Mods that Bethesda changes for feels like a very twisted version of public domain and not protecting your intellectual property.
When it first came, I noticed they made mod authors turn against each other instead of working together. When the paid mods came around, there were a lot of mods being stolen and people. taking other people's assets as well as needing other mods for them to work. it became one huge mess.
its happening to ALL the games we grew up with
I would only support and respect payed mods if Vicn makes all his quest payed creations. ONLY then because it's really unfair and it feels like some people are favored by Bethesda although that man deserves much more for his contributions towards the elder scrolls franchise.
google translating vicn script for dac0da be like:
胸森怪刀
It's okay when ESO does it!
Bro I’m more excited about getting a dishwasher than for elder scrolls 6
Either you die the hero, or live long enough to become Vivec.
The worst part is that Bethesda actively ignores criticism like with Starfield or the fallout (shit)show. Es6 is probably just gonna be lame and gay slop
I've once heard that TES is trying to become more accessible, and through that they're losing all sense of nuance. In exchange, they earn a wider audience. I would assume because of that they want to appeal to new players and get them hooked by showing them new lore that would interest them enough to look into the old lore. And it could even be that they're unwilling to touch on the old lore like with Sotha Sil in such a direct way. But all speculation. But that writer did GOOD which should've showed them that we want lore answers and more lore questions to ask.
It is indeed possible to have good writing, good lore, interesting environments and still be accessible.
What do you think Skyrim is?
@@77wolfblade Indeed it is. I wonder if this possibility will become true again for The Elder Scrolls, specifically.
@@AlexJones-s2ga mediocre game that muddied the lore even more especially involving Talos and the old Nord Lores in Morrowind describing them as more Celtic and not Nordic with their own culture and Gods.
Idk what your angle is on whether you think it’s a good game or a bad game but that’s my take on it.
There was Myar Aranath before Arktwend. I played through both and can say that I enjoyed Myar better, despite what I was told before
It is baffling how many talentless hacks there is in gaming industry currently. And how much money and time they cost game companies. And, somehow, despite all of that, they're still not fired. I wonder why?... _cough, cough: NEPOTISM_
At this point saying it's "cuz nepotism, yewguize" is a copout.
It's intentional and brazen money laundering, creates the impression of a competent company to fool their boomer investors/shareholders.
if you somehow manage to get big making video games or music or pretty much anything art related, congratulations, you now have the easiest life in the world
Short answer: yes
Long answer: yeeeeessssss
Daggerfall was good. Morrowind was their crowning jewel.
Everything since then has slowly gotten worse.
the lore has been getting degraded since oblivion, but they've been making it more and more generic and unoriginal with each game release and update
It's funny isn't it. Ever since the success of Morrowind. They've been staying away. What made it unique. I think we need some of that weird stuff back. Chances are they don't want to do a setting where the humans aren't a minority.
Hard disagree there.
@@77wolfblade they dont need to, they can keep human as the major actor but still put all the cryptic aspects present in Morrowind.
Not entirely true, Skyrim was closer to morrowind than oblivion, if you compare the 3 oblivion is literally a different universe so much so that when i went back to play the old games i could play morrowind no problem but not oblivion, it was 50x more generic than skyrim and 50x as retconned. Skyrim level lore but set in illiac bay would be enough for me just enough for me to be satisfied but its going to be even more generic than that
Give skyrim the credit it deserves it has arguable one of the most unique takes on dragons in any fantasy
4:13 Good thing that both LORT and DND lore getting worse to😬
When will you cover the sacred anatomancer from vigilant?
He said that he will do that when Glenmoril is complete.
If it's written in the Todd Bible, it is canon 😂
What sucks is great fantasy franchises seem to be trying to kill the fan base
Elder Scrolls has entered it's Rings of Power era it is bad when I feel like Harry Potter is doing better on the fans behalf than Lord of the Rings and Elder Scrolls fantasy can't just be tossed together it takes legitimate talent and great writing so that way the lore and the story of the product hits the same notes even if it takes different paths to get there
Yes, it is and it will degrade further more if there won't be a good writer. I don't remember who it was who was working on lore in TES, but this beast made lore and esthetic for three games. And after that nothing, Bethesda just stopped. If they will keep same pace of "keep it simple, stupid" then we only get stupidly simple lore and world building.
Upd: Michael Kirkbride, that's the name
It just works. *(please accept anything i throw at you, and stop questioning it)*
i cant wait for the elder scrolls 6 to do a dragon age the vail guard. and save me 60-70 bucks.
Bethesda is dead
What is the mod in the background?
The worst is yet to come. The fiasco that was Dragon Age Veilguard - or, as some call it, Failguard, made me even more fearful for the future of TES. People truly passionate about beloved franchises are gone - they've moved on or were fired for being "problematic". They're being replaced by political activists that never should have been allowed anywhere near a script. They obviously can't invent good stories, but even if they could, they wouldn't be able to fit them into the game, since they care much more about making sure that your medieval fantasy setting doesn't let you forget about political issues of the 21st century for a second. Dragon Age is dead, and Mass Effect is racing Elder Scrolls for the privilege of being next.
Yea, politics is definitely the problem, unlike games like New Vegas that has no political commentary what so ever.
Good stories and commentary on politics isn't mutually exclusive. Bioshock, for example, is a criticism of Ayn Rand's objectivism. The Witcher 3 also has a side quest in White Orchard with a hunter that remarks about how it's like being gay. No one complained about any of this being poorly written. And the original Star Wars was meant to be commentary on the Vietnam War, with Palpatine being based on Richard Nixon.
You can criticize bad writing without pinning the blame solely on writers wanting to make political commentary. Otherwise you look like someone who lacks media literacy.
Edit: Also, people wanting to make political commentary has nothing to do with why the nordic pantheon was cut from Skyrim or other aspects of TES Lore being dumbed down. If anything, a theme on how colonization can cause existing cultures to be erased could make the fact that Skyrim follows an imperial pantheon an interesting storyline if Bethesda was willing to explore it.
@wildrose7648 oh, but I'm not talking about politics in general, about all vaguely political concepts that apply universally. No, I mean specifically politics unique to the 21st century. When you play the 4th installment of Dragon Age and suddenly hear "I'm going to be using she/they pronouns", you don't think "yeah, that's absolutely something that could happen in DA setting". You hear it and roll your eyes (or scream in joy if you're one of *those* people) because you know that it's an explicitly modern political statement of whoever wrote it.
It's happened to literally every franchise from my childhood. Only 40k is still standing. And that's just a matter of time.
@@jonaszpawlacz756 I agree that Veilguard was very clumsy with how those topics were included, but allegory exists for a reason. The same idea of that scene can be conveyed in a way that is more fitting to the world, which is how shows like old Star Trek commented on current events. The writer being a “political activist” and good writing aren’t mutually exclusive
What happened with Veilguard was most likely just incompetence on BioWare’s part, whether due to the game being in development hell or some other reason.
Edit: also none of this has to do with why Elder Scrolls is being degraded. Simplification of lore has been a problem since Oblivion, and “political activist writers” have nothing to do with cash-grab mobile games and micro transactions.
@@wildrose7648 Veilguard wasn't clumsy with the way topics were included, it was clumsy with which topics were selected in the first place. Dragon Age is a medieval fantasy setting. There is no way to implement a non-binary character there, it's always going to stand out. I haven't watched Star Trek, but in general, older media handled political commentary better, both choice of topics and execution. My issue with modern politically engaged writers is that they're activists first and writers second. Those people don't do subtlety, which becomes evident when you open a DA:V codex entry and read "trans women are women" repeated several times like a mantra, and you start wondering whether you're playing a video game or reading posts on Twitter.
What happened with Veilguard was just a nail in the coffin. Bioware has been on the decline for quite a while, but honestly, having Veilguard be a repeat of Inquisition would have been fine. Not groundbreaking, not the breakthrough that Bioware needs, but just fine. But that didn't happen, and Veilguard's sins are its own - not just the political activism, but also the sanitized atmosphere in which you can't even be mean to people. Veilguard writers are the mythical "modern audience", it shows, and it's the issue number one with that game.
As for the edit: this is why I said "the worst is yet to come". Maybe it will, maybe it won't, Starfield managed to stay out of that culture war bullshit as far as I recall, but all I'm saying is that if the current course of major game developers is anything to go by, concern for the next ES on the political activism front is justified.
The mobile games arent made by the same developers, and their size and format limits the graphics.
are you going to play olenveld it came out today, hope to see a video from you about!
What mod are you playing in the video?
Glenmoril
@darkeninjx5619 Dang that's on my list.... except Olenveld just came out. And Bard College Expansion. And Coven of Crones... and ....
Everything (and mean EVERYTHING) after morrowind has been a downgrade
What mod is he playing in the background? Looks interesting
what mod are you playing?
Tod and Emil have to go
The lore has been disrespected and degraded since Oblivion
>cyrodiil isn't a jungle
>wah wah how could bethesda mess up the lore so bad >:(
i genuinely think oblivion catches too much flak for almost nothing, in regards to the "dumbing down of lore"
@@EA_SP0RTCENTERto be fair, Morrowind feeling is unique, the alien looking world was something new and refreshing in terms of fantasy roleplay, and compared to oblivion and Skyrim these last look like generic fantasy and Nordic settings.
I'm not saying they are bad is just disappointing they didn't continue with the thing that made Morrowind Soo original instead did something generic
@@TheDukeofDeath666 my main theory for oblivions generic medieval farmland (other than it being more digestible/LotR inspired) is machine limitations at the time.
even oblivion in its current state kinda goes overboard on the tall grass and shrubbery. an actual lush jungle would have been irritating to look at with the low LOD and draw distance.
part of the reason morrowind was able to look so alien is because vvardenfel is mostly dryland and sparse.
I'm not a TES fan, I've only heard reviews about how bad Skyrim is and I was never interested in buying it because of that. Until I heard people talking about Enderal and saw your video about Nehirim. I swear I'm considering buying Skirim and Oblivion just to play those mods.
I think that says enough about Bethesada's strategy to reach casuals.
Downloaded Castles to delete it forever I’m after like 5 min of gameplay. Never again
since morrowind yeah
7:17 Okay, I know this is probably off topic and I know I'm gonna get hate for this but-
From my perspective, I'm from a fandom that is very torn on official canon, in part because the original creator died and that the original company behind the media turned out to be a piece of shit that crunched their employees so badly at least one was hospitalized. And I have my own criticisms of canon since it's pretty clear the writers didn't expect the media to get so big and it was their first original writing. And they have said some similar things to this, albeit not as condescending.
Problem is, I have been plugged into the critic's side for a long time. As in, 9-10 years now. And so, so, so, so, so, *so* , **so** , ***so*** many of them are TERRIBLE at their jobs. As in, they insult the original creators (the writing team) and act like they're better than the original writers...but they get basic stuff wrong. And not confusing stuff either- we're talking basic locations, basic human motivation and stuff the media outright tells you to your face. Something as basic as 'guy who talks about freeing people was just selfish' is a hotly debated topic. There are even two hugely popular videos out there that completely get stuff wrong and people gobble them up.
The media has issues, yes. This is undeniable. But things have gotten so bad that a writer coming out and explaining their thought process behind a writing decision, saying 'yes, we could have been clearer'/'we mishandled this but we feel the conversation is more subjective'/'I'm just explaining our reasoning, not saying we're correct' was seen as "damage control". The most milqutoast defense that also made a lot oof concessions and admissions of fault, not the first time even, and the critics called it "damage control." Meanwhile, I don't think I've ever seen one of the big name critics ever admit they got info wrong.
This doesn't even get into how some fans will make their 'fixes' to the original and either offer something completely different while calling it the same thing or make even more basic mistakes and get away with it because it has the 'X bad' sticker on it. These guys are not Vicn and SureAI, who has enough respect for the source material to understand it's basic concepts (like Skyrim having a repeated theme of 'glory days are past but you can still revitalize them'). They do not try to understand the original nor the creators.
So when I see stuff like this, I can't help but emphasize with the creators. Because you have millions of people shouting, demanding conflicting improvements, being condescending about the creative process and then completely brush off the creators actually trying to be understanding. Sorry if this seems dick sucky but I've dealt with this stuff for nearly a decade so I have a vastly different perspective.
P.S. I'm not saying this applies to the ESO writers per say, as they are in a different situation. I'm just explaining why I don't feel offended looking at that kind of comment.
Well yeah, this sort of thing is happening with everything now. Everything has to be cosy and shit and never offended. Everything has lost its "edge", nothing can be gritty anymore.
I'm totally sick of it. When I played Cyberpunk after finishing Starfield, it was a revelation. Thank god for CDPR because Bethesda are lost, the company has been taken over by DEI hires and activists. I just hope CDPR wont go the same way, because as it stands they've still got a sack. A big fkning sack.
Great video, don't get me wrong, but Fallout Shelter had the same problem as Castles; simplification of lore to permit microtransactions, or just to make it easy for anyone to get into. Also who's gonna go to a mobile game for the lore? I get Elder Scrolls Travels could be a counter argument, but same time there's so many inconsistencies with magic in those games due to hardware limitation, does that mean at one time in TES history a lot of spells were forgotten, then remembered again after those events/periods of time?
Fallout Shelter implies vaults were easily attacked from the outside, so the vault dwellers had to arm themselves with weapons and armor from the wasteland. Meanwhile the main titles show vaults being sturdy, and usually the vaults that still operate in the present period of the games show the arsenal consisting of simple police gear, 10mm pistols, smg's, and batons...
Fallout Shelter implies you just need dinners to feed people foodstuffs, instead of you know, indoor farms or crops, while the main titles/media show vaults having sustainable sources of food that would be processed into foodstuffs dwellers would eat in a dinner...
NOW when it comes to major titles, non-mobile, like ESO, yeah lore changes were odd; if dragons were being resurrected by necromancers in Elsweyr during the Second Era, wouldn't that mean the comments and claims in TES V Skyrim, Fourth Era, "-we haven't seen dragons since the first empire" (that was the First Era) were false, or uneducated, maybe...
So in terms of lore inconsistencies, I do agree with the irritation portrayed in the video, but this is standard with Mobile games, and who knows, with Starfield displaying their creativity to make a new IP, it might also become a standard with Bethesda onward.
Yeah def the lore has been ruined, funny enough a buddy told me that super mutants are in fallout 76 when they were created almost a century after the bombs
2 cotho videos in a week nature is healing
I mean yeah since like oblivion.
It is worse/less fun for the sake laziness/avoiding innovation, aswell as avoiding scaring people who don't want to think
Anyone playing elder's Scroll Castle??
I liked Legends, Blades not as much but it could have been worse... it could have been Castles
Dude…it’s a mobile game which is meant to be played also by people/children who never even played an tes main game.
Main game in universe lore isn’t needed for that, I played castles a bit but it gets stale very quick because of repetitive gameplay, looks or lore is a thing I don’t care about in a mobile spin off game.
Is the lore of a game made by a company that regurlary pulls things out of their collective asses and will belittle you for caring about things like internal consistancy in a fantasy setting being degraded? The awnser might surprise you.
Anything not made by the OG creators might as well be discontinued. Seen it so many times and it ends up with the same result. The writers at Bethesda are inept and colourless. You'll have a lot more luck with modders (the people who are actually passionate about the franchise).