Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

[Voss]

Aye, the Thieves Guild questline was quite good. Sure, making you a Nightingale should probably have come much later and after more of the quests from Delvin and Vex (to those of you complaining about the lack of actual thieving and such, there are plenty of optional quests available - hell, you can break into whatever house you want and steal things), but the Nightingale suit is pretty sweet.

My objection is the nightingale stuff happens at all, and that the thieving is optional. It should be switched, really. The point of the thieves guild quest line should not be

become a cultist of a demon lord so that you can murder some guy. (even if he probably deserves it). And that the demon lord somehow makes thievery possible due to some BS theories about luck is just icing on the cake of badness

It treads too much on the Brotherhood questline in a lot of major ways and generally misses the point of what a thieves guild is.

[N810]

Having just finished the companions guild quest, I have to say it was prety enjoyable, wish it was a little bit longer tho.

[theunwantedbeing]

I found the talking dog! That was enjoyable if only for the fact that I wasn't having to listen to the same handful of voices all the time.

[Caiphas Cain]

I found the talking dog! That was enjoyable if only for the fact that I wasn't having to listen to the same handful of voices all the time.

Yeah, I think the daedric quests are my favorite.

[GodlessM]

It treads too much on the Brotherhood questline in a lot of major ways and generally misses the point of what a thieves guild is.

No, it misses the point on what the Thieves Guild was. The whole point of their story in the game is that they've wasted to nothing over the last 200yrs. The legend of the Nightingales is all they have left to make people weary of them.

Can't deny that the Grey Fox is sorely missed though.

[Eumerin]

No, it misses the point on what the Thieves Guild was. The whole point of their story in the game is that they've wasted to nothing over the last 200yrs. The legend of the Nightingales is all they have left to make people weary of them.

Which is the focus of most of the guild questlines and the state of the Empire overall. Martin Septim may have staved off Oblivion, but the continent's going there anyway - complete with handbasket. With the exception of the Companions - who notably are NOT the old Fighters Guild from previous games - the guilds are all shadows of their former selves. The Mages' Guild is in the best shape, and even they're stuck at the back end of a city that's falling apart, surrounded by suspicious natives, and trying to deal with Thalmor agents breathing down the guild's neck.

In comparison, the Thieves' Guild and Dark Brotherhood are barely hanging on.


And that description fits the current state of the Empire to a "T".

[Urgat]

I found the talking dog! That was enjoyable if only for the fact that I wasn't having to listen to the same handful of voices all the time.

Don't complete the quest! he's invaluable as a companion, I sorely missed him

[Satan]

Don't complete the quest! he's invaluable as a companion, I sorely missed him

Hated the dogs in Skyrim. They wouldn't shut up. People who make dogs bark constantly in games cannot have had much experience with dogs. Do they seriously think they do that constantly? It'd be like having a wailing baby in the game.

And how do you think real dogs react when they hear a bark? Mine doesn't bark back, but he does get agitated, thinking there's a possible playmate/opponent outside the window...

[Voss]

No, it misses the point on what the Thieves Guild was. The whole point of their story in the game is that they've wasted to nothing over the last 200yrs. The legend of the Nightingales is all they have left to make people weary of them.

Nope, pretty much on all counts. The thieves guild was fine for most of the 200 years. Its only after That Man

the current guildmaster, who was cultist #3, kills cultist #1, frames cultist #2, steals the Magical Lockpick of Making Thieves Unlucky and becomes Guildmaster that things go bad.

This is all entirely spelled out by taking to Cultist #2 after she rescues you from the Death, No Save scenario in the barrow of sealed doors (up by Winterhold). So the problems of the thieves guild only date back 10-15 years or so. And can pretty much be summed up as Cultists are Bad when they break the rules.


On a fairly unrelated note, the problems of the Empire don't really stem from Oblivion. Its pretty much entirely a case of Elves Are Jerks. And Better Than You.

[theunwantedbeing]

Don't complete the quest! he's invaluable as a companion, I sorely missed him

Too late :P
He was a much better companion than any person I've had though, mainly as when he's in the way you can jump over him and he never circled anything he was fighting making it very easy to put arrows in enemies to help him out.
I did get a handy helmet, that my character looks suitably absurd in.....

Now I just need to find somebody sleeping so I can feed and stop being a hated vampire for a day or two........oh how I wish I hadn't stashed my sneaking items in my house.

[eldargal]

Wasn't it twenty five years? Fairly sure Karliah says 'I've waited twenty five years for revenge' or something along those lines.

Nope, pretty much on all counts. The thieves guild was fine for most of the 200 years. Its only after That Man

the current guildmaster, who was cultist #3, kills cultist #1, frames cultist #2, steals the Magical Lockpick of Making Thieves Unlucky and becomes Guildmaster that things go bad.

This is all entirely spelled out by taking to Cultist #2 after she rescues you from the Death, No Save scenario in the barrow of sealed doors (up by Winterhold). So the problems of the thieves guild only date back 10-15 years or so. And can pretty much be summed up as Cultists are Bad when they break the rules.


On a fairly unrelated note, the problems of the Empire don't really stem from Oblivion. Its pretty much entirely a case of Elves Are Jerks. And Better Than You.

[Eumerin]

On a fairly unrelated note, the problems of the Empire don't really stem from Oblivion. Its pretty much entirely a case of Elves Are Jerks. And Better Than You.

It's considerably more complicated than that.

First off, the rise of the Thalmor extends directly back to the Oblivion Crisis. Oblivion gates were appearing all over Tamriel, and not just around Cyrodil. When Martin Septim "resolved" the crisis, it wasn't immediately apparent to the rest of the Empire what had happened. All that anyone knew was that the gates had stopped appearing. So the High Elves took advantage of that to step forward and claim credit both in their province and in the Wood Elf province. The Rise of the Thalmor literally traces to the Oblivion Crisis.

Second, much of Morrowind blew up. That removed the Dark Elves as a power within the Empire.

Third, the Argonians left the Empire and invaded Morrowind. That sort of thing couldn't happen if the Empire were on top of its game, and thus implies deep weaknesses within the Empire. Given that we haven't heard of any other major problems with the Empire over the last couple of centuries, the most likely culprit for such a thing is the succession crisis created by the extinguishing of the Septim line with no clear heirs. While it's difficult to say for certain, it's likely that too much time and energy is being spent on maneuvering for the throne instead of properly maintaining the outer provinces.

Of the major racial groups...

Imperials - Obviously loyal to the throne. However, the lack of strong political leadership after the Oblivion Crisis caused too much energy to be spent infighting over control of the Empire, allowing first Black Marsh and later Sommerset Isle and Vallenwood to slip from the Empire's control. The taking of the capital by the first of the Mede Emperors finally resolved this problem.
Nords - Skyrim is in the middle of a civil war, and my understanding is that the province was all but written off before General Tullus arrived and single-handedly turned things around.
Redguard - Hammerfell left the Empire as a result of disagreements over the White-Gold Concordat. The Concordat gave the Thalmor control over roughly half of the province, but the Redguard refused - violently.
Bretons - High Rock gives lip service to the idea of loyalty to Cyrodil, but is too isolated to effectively govern. The locals are currently too caught up in their own political intrigues to pay attention to the rest of the continent. It doesn't help that - due to the loss of Hammerfell - the *only* current link between Cyrodil and High Rock is Skyrim, which is in the middle of a civil war. If the Stormcloaks win, then High Rock is essentially lost to the Empire. That leaves the Empire with the Imperial Province, and the shattered remnants of Morrowind that the Argonians didn't seize.
Dark Elves - Morrowind had a series of disasters in the immediate aftermath of the Oblivion Crisis that destroyed much of the power of the Dark Elves. And then the Argonians invaded after centuries of Dark Elf slave raids. What's left of Morrowind (and isn't under Argonian rule) is in no shape to provide real support to the Empire.
Argonians - Black Marsh was the first province to secede, and did so immediately after the Oblivion Crisis was resolved. Then it invaded Morrowind after the latter province suffered particularly debilitating disasters.
High Elves - The Thalmor claimed to the local residents of Sommerset Isle that they were the ones who had made the Oblivion Gates stop opening, and used the resulting publicity to seize power from the local monarchy. They purged dissidents and non-High Elves, and seceded from the Empire.
Wood Elves - Enough Wood Elves apparently believed the Thalmor claims regarding the Oblivion Crisis to provide the edge that the High Elves needed to seize Vallenwood from Imperial Control. The province is supposedly an equal partner with Sommerset Isle in a political union between the two provinces, though in practice the High Elves are clearly in control and treat the wood elves as little better than chattel.
Khajit - 98 years after the end of the Oblivion Crisis, the two moons disappeared from the sky. Two years later, the moons came back. The Thalmor claimed responsibility for making the moons come back. The Khajit believed them, and the province of Elswyr started its move into the Thalmor's political camp. The province eventually joined the provinces of Sommerset Isle and Vallenwood under the control of the Thalmor.


In short, the loss of Black Marsh can be immediately traced to the Oblivion Crisis as the province seceded during the aftermath. In Morrowind, the destruction of Vivec is likely the result of the game Morrowind. The eruption of Red Mountain is a little trickier to explain, but is likely related to a combination of both Morrowind (i.e. the destruction of the Heart) and Oblivion (i.e. the stresses caused by Oblivion Gates opening all over the place). These two events are what weakened the province sufficiently to allow the Argonians to take large chunks of the province, effectively removing what little power the province still had. The loss of Sommerset Isle, Vallenwood, and Elswyr can also be traced to the Oblivion Crisis, albeit more indirectly, as the Thalmor were able to manipulate enough of the citizens of those provinces. In the former two provinces, the Thalmor were able to fool the public into believing that they had resolved the Oblivion Crisis. The power gained as a result allowed them to eventually pull another (probable) con in Elswyr. The loss of Hammerfell is the indirect result of the loss of all of the above. The loss of the other provinces weakened the Empire enough that Emperor Titus Mede II felt compelled to agree to the White-Gold Concordat (which appears to be more or less the same demands that the Thalmor issued right before the war started...) at the conclusion of the war. The Redguard, for obvious reasons, disagreed with the idea of handing over large parts of their province to the Thalmor, and left as a result.

There's a strong argument to be made for the idea that - had the Empire had a proper ruler on the throne - then neither the Argonians nor the Thalmor would have been able to successfully secede from the Empire. Remove those two secessions, and you essentially negate all of the problems above with the exceptions of the loss of Vivec, and possibly the eruption of Red Mountain.

[jason_sation]

Looks like Steam has Skyrim on sale for 40 (US) dollars. Getting it now!

[Voss]

Wasn't it twenty five years? Fairly sure Karliah says 'I've waited twenty five years for revenge' or something along those lines.

It may well be. But it is just this particular guy and his takeover, with nothing at all to do with the Empire.

I
There's a strong argument to be made for the idea that - had the Empire had a proper ruler on the throne - then neither the Argonians nor the Thalmor would have been able to successfully secede from the Empire. Remove those two secessions, and you essentially negate all of the problems above with the exceptions of the loss of Vivec, and possibly the eruption of Red Mountain.

Meh. Thats a lot of speculation and supposition, and the timeline is more than a little vague and unsupportive. The Empire has been less than impressive in all the Elder Scrolls games, all the way back to Daggerfall. Bottom line is the Thalmor are jerks, and they apparently had some deep seated issues dating from way back to the ascension of Talos to godhood, if not the arrival of humanity on the continent. Taking control of the high elf government took some time, and then they flipped out on their long-time allies.

And sadly its a major plot point that is just left hanging in the breeze, especially since in the face of everything, the Skyrim civil war is entirely stupid and a bad idea.

[Deamon-forge]

iv not found a dog as a companion.

just got my back side handed to me by 2 dragons....

[Urgat]

Regarding the MMO: they've announced 3-way faction PVP (ala DAoC). Seems they don'(t do things randomly, at least (insisting on two factions for a PVP game is probably what put Warhammer Online under, imho).
It's Nords+Dark Elves+Argonians VS khajit+Bosmer+Altmer VS Orcs+Bretons+Redguards, btw.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featur...-director.aspx

[Voss]

Thats a bit boring, honestly. Factioned by geography? And ignoring racial animosity to do it, as well. Also... what about Imperials? Are they not playable?

It might be worth splitting the MMO discussion off to its own thread. Leave the skyrim thread for comments on playing that (and the upcoming Dawnguard expansion, once more stuff about that comes out). Since the MMO is a very different beast and being done by a separate, though related, group, there isn't going to be all that much overlap.

[Urgat]

Thats a bit boring, honestly. Factioned by geography? And ignoring racial animosity to do it, as well. Also... what about Imperials? Are they not playable?

It's before the Empire.
I don't think there's enough info about the mmo to warrant its own topic for now, to be honest.

[Wyrmwood]

Perhaps not, but we can discuss possibilities. If a mod casts his gaze over the thread and deems it a waste of forum space, then said mod is welcome to lock it.

I'll start a thread.

[Irisado]

I've been playing this for a while now. It's the first time I've ever dabbled in the Eldar Scrolls series. For me, it's like the Fantasy version of the Fallout series that I've always wanted. I've developed a seriously strong liking for destruction magic.

My toughest decision at the moment is deciding who to back when the civil war really starts to kick off properly. At the moment, I've only completed the first act of the main quest, so to speak, meaning I've been able to put the decision off. It's a shame there doesn't seem to be a way to negotiate a peace treaty. Ah well.