I started a new vanilla Fallout 3 playthrough last week and already have 30h. It's unbelievable how good this game plays and feels without any need for mods. You can't say the same about Fallout New Vegas.
>It's unbelievable how good this game plays and feels
This is precisely what I realized upon replaying both 3 and NV. I think the mapping and pacing is done wonderfully in 3.
In terms of gameplay, I had more fun with FO3 than NV. The level design was generally a lot more interesting, especially in the city ruins. A lot of the overworld in NV consists of vast empty desert where you're just walking from point A to point B shooting the occasional gecko, especially in the early portions of the game. Every time I consider reinstalling NV I remember the long and roundabout route you've got to take to get from Goodsprings to Vegas and immediately lose interest.
Haha frick off. The fact that the game is structured around defeating him, or rather, some other universal
Superpower that isn’t you defeating him, is part of why Oblivion is so terrible.
The game is structured around you finding and protecting the only person who can defeat Dagon. YOUR final boss is dismantling the Mythic Dawn and killing Cameron
I was never under the impression that fighting him was going to do anything. Don't even know what that'd look like. >If I stab your big toe enough times will you die?
inb4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40Kr804lge8
No. CoC beat Jyg but he was already borderline Sheogorath at that point. ESO protag also beat an Avatar of Molag Bal but he had help from Meridia and Dragon God was literally his copilot.
>all the morons in the replies
you Black folk your TEC character can beat any deadric tard, you just need to open the command console and kill him
ACHIEVE CHIM
Aedra are dead, and in their current state they're just concepts who are literally just what the world is made out of rather than individuals with bodies and shit, you wouldn't really be able to fight them in the first place unless they did whatever the frick Akatosh did at the end of Oblivion, and as
Some dumb monkey named Marukh did it, couldn't be that hard.
you could just do some reality-bending rituals to frick them up if you had the means to do it
Nope.
Daedric Princes are living concepts. The best you can do is piss them off.
>series has interesting thing >series removes that interesting thing and replaces it with uninteresting thing
hmmmmm can't understand why people would be upset I actually prefer the Skyrim we got to naked animal-worshipping barbarian land though. Watching them struggle with imperialism and the erasure of their identity is way more interesting and novel than yet another generic viking culture. The nords literally starting a civil war over the right to worship a foreign, southron God is a brilliant irony that wouldn't be possible in fully MK'd Skyrim. Still wish the Nordic Gods woulda gotten a larger role but I definitely remember Kyne and Shor being referenced a bunch yet people act like that didn't happen.
They actually aren't living concepts. The concepts are living because they exist.
If all dunmer turned away from Azura she's eventually fade into nothingness. Changing perception of reality changes the daedra as a response (sheo/jyg and triminac).
They are the most mutable parts of the aurbis.
you fight molag bal at the end of ESO, the only good part of the main quest
99% of the main story is so forgettable and boring so i don't remember how you're actually able to fight him, i think it's something to do with meridia
I remember the build up to this being tight, like you power up in this really stupid golden armor with literal god powers, just mowing down legions of daedra, and then you 1v1 the big man himself, definitely one of the best finishes in an mmo.
yeah it was pretty good
honestly i dont even know what the frick the companions did in the story, you spend like 80% of the story gathering these boring companions together who seem to disappear entirely when you enter coldharbour
ive put a fair amount of time into it and haven't run across anything very out of place, though a lot of the content is extremely forgettable so it's likely i just forgot it.
will say though, the design of the clockwork city fricking sucked.
the city just felt generic. i don't recall how the whole of clockwork city is described in morrowind, but i liked that it was essentially just brass hallways in the game itself. made it feel claustrophobic like a bizarre magical shrunken city.
Dunno why gays don't want ESO to be canon. It's not perfect- I don't even play it- but on the lore front it feels way closer to Morrowind-era schizokino then say Oblivion or even Skyrim. Almost course-correcting in some respects tbh. Too little too late but still a good sentiment.
>but on the lore front it feels way closer to Morrowind-era schizokino then say Oblivion or even Skyrim
Frick no. It's an even worse version on Oblivion and Skyrim.
How so? Clockwork City, Orsinium, the new Oblivion lore we got with the last couple of DLCs were all weird and evocative and great. Thieves Guild, Blackwood (or was it deadlands?), and High Isle had a lot of good lore surrounding the more mundane aspects of the setting like politics and cuisine of all things.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Feast_of_Saint_Coellicia_I
Well the Champion of Cyrodil is a normal human, the Neraverine transforms himself by having Dagoth Ur's corrupted Lorkhan power into him, Azura's direct guidance and by wielding the the Dwarves most advanced tools ever made that are specifically made to deal with divine energy.
>Arena Cyrodiil is a standard fantasy land >israelitebride retcons it into a jungle during a drug fueled episode >Todd makes it a fantasy land again >NOOOOOOO WHY THEY DO THIS
>series has interesting thing >series removes that interesting thing and replaces it with uninteresting thing
hmmmmm can't understand why people would be upset I actually prefer the Skyrim we got to naked animal-worshipping barbarian land though. Watching them struggle with imperialism and the erasure of their identity is way more interesting and novel than yet another generic viking culture. The nords literally starting a civil war over the right to worship a foreign, southron God is a brilliant irony that wouldn't be possible in fully MK'd Skyrim. Still wish the Nordic Gods woulda gotten a larger role but I definitely remember Kyne and Shor being referenced a bunch yet people act like that didn't happen.
Serana and her mom weren't raped, they're just shameless hos. The real question is how the father got turned, did he become one by having his wife and daughter as part of the trade or got butfricked into a vampire, and got vampire aids as a result.
>Serana and her mom weren't raped
I don't think Molag's into consensual sex >The real question is how the father got turned
He claims it's because he sacrificed 1000 souls to Molag Bal back when he was a petty king but he might just be coping to hide the fact that he let Molag go Bals deep
>The ceremony was... degrading. Let's not revisit that. But we all took part in it. Not really wholesome family activity, but I guess it's something you do when you give yourselves to a daedric lord. >give yourselves
Serana and Valerica are prostitutes. Both were fricked to death by Molag's "mace". I'm sorry anon; your waifu is addicted to BDC.
>I don't think Molag's into consensual sex
He's into it as long as it's brutal and degrading, they type of way that he would enjoy making them regret it.
>The ceremony was... degrading. Let's not revisit that. But we all took part in it. Not really wholesome family activity, but I guess it's something you do when you give yourselves to a daedric lord. >give yourselves
Serana and Valerica are prostitutes. Both were fricked to death by Molag's "mace". I'm sorry anon; your waifu is addicted to BDC.
They probably just did it because Harkon forced them to. There's an in-game book which says that sorta thing is common in Bal cults. Like IRL if two women were 'offered' to some crazy cult leader (or in this case- the God that the cult worships) I'd say that sounds like they didn't have much of a choice.
11 months ago
Anonymous
Re-read the quote from Serana. That doesn't sound like someone who was forced into it. Plus she values her vampirism. Someone who was forced into a ritual like that would jump at any opportunity to cure it, no?
11 months ago
Anonymous
>Re-read the quote from Serana. That doesn't sound like someone who was forced into it.
I mean if your daddy asks you to frick the demon god so he can become an immortal you can still technically describing it as 'offering yourself' or 'submitting yourself'. I don't think like Molag Bal literally jumped out of the portal out of nowhere no context and started fricking her but I do think she made the "decision" under heavy duress where it was pretty clear that they wouldn't take 'no' for an answer just like how it works in actual cults. My interpretation also lines up with the aforementioned book which talks about Molag cults doing generic comically-evil satanic shit and offering up women to the demonic ding dong. >Someone who was forced into a ritual like that would jump at any opportunity to cure it, no?
Can't you get her to Cure it? Not like the desire doesn't exist in her.
11 months ago
Anonymous
It's not like Serana or Valerica were helpless. They could have left the cult long before that. Serana was an adult before the ritual, she could have left by herself.
Maybe she wasn't a prostitute thirsting after Satan's spiky schlong, but she obviously wanted the power that came with it.
You convince her to cure herself after she's forced to side with vampire hunters, went to some forgotten corner of Oblivion that took Valerica lifetimes to get to, exposing a prophecy her family was obsessed as a fraud, launching a raid on her home, killing her father and everyone in her clan, and asking pretty please reverse the effects of Molag's demon wiener.
She only gets cured because you bent over backwards for her, not because she really wants to.
11 months ago
Anonymous
Dude, she wanted it.
11 months ago
Anonymous
>It's not like Serana or Valerica were helpless. They could have left the cult long before that. Serana was an adult before the ritual, she could have left by herself.
Not really tenable when your father- who by the way, is the literal King of the Kingdom you live in- and everyone else you know are zealots who worship a God of domination. I mean technically anyone in a cult or a fricked up family can 'just leave' but there's practical reasons why their don't in spite of themselves.
I really do think it might just be your fetish anon.
11 months ago
Anonymous
Serana was raised into it, so she probably saw it as an honor.
11 months ago
Anonymous
We already know she saw it as degrading and comes across as traumatized by it though. I'd definitely say she probably had some confused feelings about it at the time, yeah. But lots of incestuous fathers raise their daughters as sexslaves or prostitute them off to their cult leaders and we still say they were raped.
11 months ago
Anonymous
If she was traumatized by it, wouldn't she want to get rid of her vampirism as quickly as possible? I can understand waiting until after Harkon is gone, but as it is, if you get one dialogue wrong, she'll stay a vampire.
11 months ago
Anonymous
Yeah but when she does actually get rid of vampirism she says that she feels like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders. She mighta just needed support from someone she trusts go through with it. That or Bethesda's writing is inconsistent. Wouldn't be the first time. But go read the dialogue on the wiki if you don't believe me.
11 months ago
Anonymous
Shit, anon.
If my options were to flee off a secluded island away from High Rock and take my chances in the wilderness or get fricked to death by demon dong and come back as an immortal monster, I'd probably just get outta there.
Unless I wanted to be an immortal monster. Or just wanted to get "beat" with a "mace"
Why defend Serana anyway? She'll never frick you, so why bother?
11 months ago
Anonymous
I guess you're a lot tougher than Serana then but many people in that situation would go along with their family. There's a million IRL examples of it happening but then again maybe you'd just say that those girls were all hungry for the BCC (Big Cult wiener) and that they shoulda beat up all those creepy suckas ala black widow. >Why defend Serana anyway? She'll never frick you, so why bother?
harhar but Serana's NOT my waifu. I'd never choose a waifu that's so sex-averse. Meanwhile you've outright admitted that this is your fetish. C'est fin mon ami...
11 months ago
Anonymous
Real people in real cults don't get real rewards for participation.
If they got super powers for doing the rituals, then I'd be suspicious of them too.
Not to mention both Valerica and Serana were decent mages before the ritual. Comparing their cult to real cults is apples and oranges.
11 months ago
Anonymous
>Real people in real cults don't get real rewards for participation.
Highly doubt that was even at the front of her mind considering she wasn't even fully expected to survive the ritual. But we don't even need to be arguing about her motivation: When you ask Valerica whether Serana did it willingly, the best she can blubber out is that 'It was expected of her, just as it was expected of me. Being selected as an offering to Molag Bal is an honor. She wouldn't have dared turn her back on that'. Keep in mind that Valerica is flagrantly guilty and coping the entire time you talk with her that even this- the most charitable possible interpretation of Serana's motivations and agency that Valerica could muster in order to absolve herself of her own responsibility- still basically boils down to 'she had to because cult' >Comparing their cult to real cults is apples and oranges.
No it's not. The family psychology is pretty comparable if you're not being deliberately dishonest. Not to mention Serana is definitely not at the level where she could fend off the resources of an entire kingdom. I also don't know how much of Serana's magical prowess was developed before her transformation and how much came after.
11 months ago
Anonymous
Also while I'm at it come to think of it real people in real cults do often get real rewards for fricking the supreme leader and friends (i.e. money, connections, the love and adoration of revered authority figures, acceptance by a community). Not at the same level as supernatural powers but yeah. Yet everyone can still plainly see that it's rape and that's usually how it ends up if it ever gets to the courts.
Frick. You got me. You're right. I forgot the ritual wasn't guaranteed to produce a vampire.
It's not my fetish, though. I just really hate the dumb family drama of Serana.
11 months ago
Anonymous
>t's not my fetish, though. I just really hate the dumb family drama of Serana.
I actually kind of like it. It feels like the writers actually looked at her experiences and followed them through to how they'd eventually contribute to the way Serana thinks and acts now. Character writing 101 I know but this is Skyrim we're talking about here- the bar isn't exactly scraping the clouds or even always above sea level.
11 months ago
Anonymous
Honestly, the complexity goes a little higher than just 101 to me. That's why it pisses me off. Some family in a rape cult gets more characterization than Alduin, the main antagonist? All that development and decent writing to a un-marriable waifu character, but the civil war remains gutted? Two whole factions about vampirism while werewolves and warriors have to share one exceptionally shitty one?
I would have been much happier having to pay for an expansion that actually finishes the game than play family therapist.
11 months ago
Anonymous
>the civil war remains gutted?
Well I'd argue the writing behind the Civil War was actually pretty strong. Ulfric is probably the best-written character in the game, and Tullius, Galamar, Balgruuf, and Torygg ain't no slouches either. What happened with the questline itself- all the removed content, STORMCLOAK GIANTS- is downright tragic, however. >Alduin, the main antagonist?
Sometimes I think they should've stuck to his role as world-eater instead of playing this whole 'he's actually just arrogant and wants to defy his destiny and rule the world' angle that they ended up doing. But then they'd be forced to justify how the Dragonborn can beat this unstoppable, apocalyptic, planet-sized maw creature. So they decided to neuter him.
11 months ago
Anonymous
I meant the more mechanical side of the war, yeah. All that just left on the cutting room floor in favor of stuff like the Soul Cairn and Forbidden Vale.
Alduin is a God out of his time. The Dragon Break happened while he was gone. The Alessian Covenant was struck. The Dwarves made a god and disappeared. A man became a God. The Amulet of Kings was shattered.
Yet, he has nothing to say about any of it. Akatosh, his direct father, was broke, remade, and walked on Nirn.
But he's got nothing to say about any of it. He barely says anything about losing the Dragon Cult war.
I guess he would have been better as just a force of nature. But that still would have been a waste.
11 months ago
Anonymous
TES villains in general get way too little screentime. Sometimes they narrowly make it work if the dialogue is especially on point (Dagoth Ur had literally one in-person appearance yet everybody remembers that fricker because his dialogue was great and all aesthetic cylinders were firing at full blast at that point) but mostly they end up feeling like as you said giant wastes of time.
Also I was thinking less outright primal Force of Nature and more like his depiction in the Aldudagga where he almost comes across as a beleaguered celestial bureaucrat who has a job to do which- while a messy business to be sure- is a necessary spin of the ole' cosmic wheel which keeps things moving along. I like your idea more though, which is really just Bethesda's idea but more thoughtful than it ended up being.
11 months ago
Anonymous
Shit, that's just the start.
Alduin's purpose is to keep kalpas going so that no one gets too aware about stuff like the Godhead. Between the Dwarves and the fact that only two Towers are still active, he's got a very good reason to be very pissed. He could've had some spiel about him seeing where things were heading and that being the reason why he tried to rule over Nirn. There's a lot of room for him to have some depth beyond just "grr, angry dragon".
But frick that. Here's Laura Bailey playing a traumatized vampire lady with daddy issues.
Even Mankar Camoran got the Commentaries. Alduin was done so fricking dirty.
11 months ago
Anonymous
Agreed. I did really love the Forgotten Vale. Probably my favorite TES 'Dungeon' besides maybe Blackreach. Haunting soundtrack too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBGgZ1PUFWU
11 months ago
Anonymous
Also while I'm at it come to think of it real people in real cults do often get real rewards for fricking the supreme leader and friends (i.e. money, connections, the love and adoration of revered authority figures, acceptance by a community). Not at the same level as supernatural powers but yeah. Yet everyone can still plainly see that it's rape and that's usually how it ends up if it ever gets to the courts.
Michael Kirkbride, the previous lead art director and important writer who's responsible for a lot of TES' aesthetic identity.
He eventually left Bethesda and Oblivion retconned his portrayal of Cyrodiil (which took elements from mesoamerica and imperial china in addition to the iconic rome vibes) into generic late medieval/early renaissance italy/germany which is why lots of people don't like that game.
He also wrote some insane schizo shit around the time of Skyrim's release most famous a script called c0da which details the destruction of the entire TES setting. Sometime he does consulting work for Bethesda on the side and some of his material worms its way back into the series.
I kind of liked the fact that you were more just a sidekick dude who got shit done rather than another generic "muh special snowflake prophecy man" like every other RPG story.
>and important writer who's responsible for a lot of TES' aesthetic identity.
To be fair, he only really worked on Redguard and Morrowind.
>To be fair, he only really worked on Redguard and Morrowind.
True but those are the games where TES began to uncouple itself from its classic DnD roots and really come into its own. A lot of the foundational texts like Varieties of Faith and Pocket Guide to the Empire were written around that time.
>subverting a trope is automatically a good thing
Hi Rian
11 months ago
Anonymous
Who are you quoting?
11 months ago
Anonymous
>I like how you were a sidekick instead of a boring chosen one
Morrowind subverted the chosen one trope intelligently and thoroughly. Oblivion did it just because. There was no value in making you a "normal guy" in Oblivion cause you just do all the heroic shit you'd be doing as the chosen one anyway, except die in a cutscene at the end.
11 months ago
Anonymous
>Morrowind subverted the chosen one trope
if everyone except you and the emperor believes it, is it really subverted
11 months ago
Anonymous
Yes?? Am I talking with a moron?
11 months ago
Anonymous
yes. turn your monitor on
11 months ago
Anonymous
Yes, because many of those that came before you had shown the "signs" of their destiny. You were just the one to succeed in the tests. That's what the emperor likely saw, since he had some sense of precognition, that you would succeed and not that you were the Neravarine reborn.
11 months ago
Anonymous
Never said it was masterful writing that deconstructs the RPG genre, I mean it is Bethesda we are talking about after all.
I just kind of liked it since it was less generic than just other chosen one plot.
he basically came up with some philosophical whoa shit to explain how all Daggerfall's endings happened at once, how Vivec was simultaneously a lowborn betrayer and a warrior-poet god-king, and a bunch of other things that get oversimplified as 'CHIM is when construction set'.
which is funny because its not very much, but its still so much better than any other ideas in TES that everything else has to keep referring back to it
It's just the Temple of the One that gets wrecked along with some of the district's pavement. The giant petrified avatar of Akatosh in the ruins of the temple is pretty cool though.
>>game doesn't let you fight the final boss
I distinctly remember fighting Umaril. The game takes you into a special floating arena to do it it's pretty breasts.
Both were brought down by satan looking demons. You could stack a synagogue full to be 100ft tall.
I saw a pile of israeli shoes once that was pretty big.
>This homosexual never killed Dagon and made him melt >This homosexual never completed Shivering Isles before the Main Quest to fight as fellow Daedric Princes >This homosexual made a custom spell chain becoming a literal god to fight Dagon
lmao what a clown
oblivion pretty gud game, I remember I jerk offd to dragon akatosh ass after the final battle since it was the first HD dragon ass I had seen back then
game makes you walk into irradiated room to force endgame
you can have a companion supermutant who is literally immune to radiation but they say you have to do it anyway because destiny
they end up letting you make the supermutant do it in a later dlc, or you wake up and survive it somehow iirc
>need to go into heavily radiated area to activate device. >the companion in question is immune to radiation. >refuses to activate device for you, forcing you to die in order to activate it yourself.
There's a robot and another immune companion that also refuses to do it too. Just a shitty way to force an ending where you die.
Wish Bethesda made their games open source. Playing Quake source ports, and seeing how polished and amazing they are makes me wish TES could have the same.
You can be literally everything in Skyrim. Thane of Haafinger, Thane of Whiterun, Thane of Falkreath, Thane of Riften, Thane of the Reach, Thane of the Pale, Thane of Winterhold, Thane of Hjaalmarch, Harbinger of the Companions, Arch-mage of the College of Winterhold, Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, Guild-master of the Thieves Guild, Member of the Bards College, Dragonslayer of the Blades, Vampireslayer of the Dawnguard, Savior of Solstheim, Champion of the Nine Divines and Champion of sixteen Daedric Princes, Friend to Orcs, Honorary Member of the Moth Priests, Dwemer Expert, Bounty Hunter, Treasure Finder and master of the Thu'um, the Dragonborn!
I would trade everything away just to be Serana's bf.
What were you going to do against him, get stepped on?
if you kill him he turns into jelly
It wasn't your fight.
>You have to die and "finish the story"
kwab
I've always left him in the vault after that
I'm a Bethestard but holy shit how does anybody prefer this dogshit to NV
poojeets think in mysterious ways
I had more fun with it than with NV
I started a new vanilla Fallout 3 playthrough last week and already have 30h. It's unbelievable how good this game plays and feels without any need for mods. You can't say the same about Fallout New Vegas.
>It's unbelievable how good this game plays and feels
This is precisely what I realized upon replaying both 3 and NV. I think the mapping and pacing is done wonderfully in 3.
In terms of gameplay, I had more fun with FO3 than NV. The level design was generally a lot more interesting, especially in the city ruins. A lot of the overworld in NV consists of vast empty desert where you're just walking from point A to point B shooting the occasional gecko, especially in the early portions of the game. Every time I consider reinstalling NV I remember the long and roundabout route you've got to take to get from Goodsprings to Vegas and immediately lose interest.
Is there a more moronic asspull in gaming?
Yes.
If you bought the dlc he would say exactly same thing but agrees.
>have a nice day, MY COMPANION
>be bethgay
>defend their games when necessary
>see this
>shut my stupid fricking mouth
god fricking damn it Todd, you don't make it easy
Works on my machine, I think yours is broken.
At no point does the game even imply Dagon is a mechanical "final boss"
Haha frick off. The fact that the game is structured around defeating him, or rather, some other universal
Superpower that isn’t you defeating him, is part of why Oblivion is so terrible.
The game is structured around you finding and protecting the only person who can defeat Dagon. YOUR final boss is dismantling the Mythic Dawn and killing Cameron
*Camoran
The game makes it abundantly clear you aren't actually going to fight him
I was never under the impression that fighting him was going to do anything. Don't even know what that'd look like.
>If I stab your big toe enough times will you die?
inb4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40Kr804lge8
thank god, would've been a horrid hack and slash like the rest of the game
I agree with you OP, would've been badass to fight Dagon.
Does any TES protagonist stand a chance against a Daedric Prince?
CoC solos Jyg
No. CoC beat Jyg but he was already borderline Sheogorath at that point. ESO protag also beat an Avatar of Molag Bal but he had help from Meridia and Dragon God was literally his copilot.
martin did beat dagon though
Dragonborn has infinite power.
Hero of Kvatch is a Daedric Prince
Nerevarine after drinking few dozens of potions can beat anyone.
>all the morons in the replies
you Black folk your TEC character can beat any deadric tard, you just need to open the command console and kill him
ACHIEVE CHIM
But then the character didn't beat the daedric prince, you did.
The nords did think of Alduin as an aspect of Akatosh, he was in fact inmortal and he could only be defeated by a dragonborn aka the protagonist
Akatosh is an Aedra, also an aspect is not the divine in its full foce
Akatosh is Aedra, he would be even harder to defeath than a Daedra
Some dumb monkey named Marukh did it, couldn't be that hard.
Aedra are dead, and in their current state they're just concepts who are literally just what the world is made out of rather than individuals with bodies and shit, you wouldn't really be able to fight them in the first place unless they did whatever the frick Akatosh did at the end of Oblivion, and as
you could just do some reality-bending rituals to frick them up if you had the means to do it
Nope.
Daedric Princes are living concepts. The best you can do is piss them off.
https://files.catbox.moe/nl3cri.mp3
what the frick Serana really said that wtf I don't
They actually aren't living concepts. The concepts are living because they exist.
If all dunmer turned away from Azura she's eventually fade into nothingness. Changing perception of reality changes the daedra as a response (sheo/jyg and triminac).
They are the most mutable parts of the aurbis.
*trinimac
Nerevarine with prep time can beat ANY Prince.
All of them. Why do you think every Daedra tries to parlay for your soul when your soul is already chosen?
The daedra are fricking morons anon.
The Dragonborn beat Alduin who is Akatosh tier. CoC is just a weakling.
>Akatosh beating up Akatosh means Akatosh could easily beat Akatosh.
Try not to rely on anything involving the insane time dragon.
Kahjit after drinking 40,000 Skooma
*Khajiit
you fight molag bal at the end of ESO, the only good part of the main quest
99% of the main story is so forgettable and boring so i don't remember how you're actually able to fight him, i think it's something to do with meridia
damn serana got fricked by that?
she's a vile harlot
she couldn't help it
I remember the build up to this being tight, like you power up in this really stupid golden armor with literal god powers, just mowing down legions of daedra, and then you 1v1 the big man himself, definitely one of the best finishes in an mmo.
yeah it was pretty good
honestly i dont even know what the frick the companions did in the story, you spend like 80% of the story gathering these boring companions together who seem to disappear entirely when you enter coldharbour
>ESO
not canon, not my TES
ive put a fair amount of time into it and haven't run across anything very out of place, though a lot of the content is extremely forgettable so it's likely i just forgot it.
will say though, the design of the clockwork city fricking sucked.
Why didn't you like it? Too much clockwork, not enough Circuitry? Too many trees? I liked the giant wheeling skydome, felt appropriately trippy.
the city just felt generic. i don't recall how the whole of clockwork city is described in morrowind, but i liked that it was essentially just brass hallways in the game itself. made it feel claustrophobic like a bizarre magical shrunken city.
Dunno why gays don't want ESO to be canon. It's not perfect- I don't even play it- but on the lore front it feels way closer to Morrowind-era schizokino then say Oblivion or even Skyrim. Almost course-correcting in some respects tbh. Too little too late but still a good sentiment.
>but on the lore front it feels way closer to Morrowind-era schizokino then say Oblivion or even Skyrim
Frick no. It's an even worse version on Oblivion and Skyrim.
How so? Clockwork City, Orsinium, the new Oblivion lore we got with the last couple of DLCs were all weird and evocative and great. Thieves Guild, Blackwood (or was it deadlands?), and High Isle had a lot of good lore surrounding the more mundane aspects of the setting like politics and cuisine of all things.
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Feast_of_Saint_Coellicia_I
It is canon
Seethe
No Mankoran was always the final boss, and there is no way for you, a non divine to defeat Dagon, that's why the Oblivion gates are such a threat.
the COC is a fricking pussy and the nerevarine would have beaten Dagon's ass before breakfast
Well the Champion of Cyrodil is a normal human, the Neraverine transforms himself by having Dagoth Ur's corrupted Lorkhan power into him, Azura's direct guidance and by wielding the the Dwarves most advanced tools ever made that are specifically made to deal with divine energy.
*Mankar Camoran
>Arena Cyrodiil is a standard fantasy land
>israelitebride retcons it into a jungle during a drug fueled episode
>Todd makes it a fantasy land again
>NOOOOOOO WHY THEY DO THIS
>series has interesting thing
>series removes that interesting thing and replaces it with uninteresting thing
hmmmmm can't understand why people would be upset
I actually prefer the Skyrim we got to naked animal-worshipping barbarian land though. Watching them struggle with imperialism and the erasure of their identity is way more interesting and novel than yet another generic viking culture. The nords literally starting a civil war over the right to worship a foreign, southron God is a brilliant irony that wouldn't be possible in fully MK'd Skyrim. Still wish the Nordic Gods woulda gotten a larger role but I definitely remember Kyne and Shor being referenced a bunch yet people act like that didn't happen.
Serana and her mom weren't raped, they're just shameless hos. The real question is how the father got turned, did he become one by having his wife and daughter as part of the trade or got butfricked into a vampire, and got vampire aids as a result.
>Serana and her mom weren't raped
I don't think Molag's into consensual sex
>The real question is how the father got turned
He claims it's because he sacrificed 1000 souls to Molag Bal back when he was a petty king but he might just be coping to hide the fact that he let Molag go Bals deep
>The ceremony was... degrading. Let's not revisit that. But we all took part in it. Not really wholesome family activity, but I guess it's something you do when you give yourselves to a daedric lord.
>give yourselves
Serana and Valerica are prostitutes. Both were fricked to death by Molag's "mace". I'm sorry anon; your waifu is addicted to BDC.
>BDC
Anon this sounds like your fetish
Seeing prostitutes take massive spiked dongs until dead? I won't lie, it's pretty hot.
I like to imagine that it went like an Aristocrats joke.
>I don't think Molag's into consensual sex
He's into it as long as it's brutal and degrading, they type of way that he would enjoy making them regret it.
They probably just did it because Harkon forced them to. There's an in-game book which says that sorta thing is common in Bal cults. Like IRL if two women were 'offered' to some crazy cult leader (or in this case- the God that the cult worships) I'd say that sounds like they didn't have much of a choice.
Re-read the quote from Serana. That doesn't sound like someone who was forced into it. Plus she values her vampirism. Someone who was forced into a ritual like that would jump at any opportunity to cure it, no?
>Re-read the quote from Serana. That doesn't sound like someone who was forced into it.
I mean if your daddy asks you to frick the demon god so he can become an immortal you can still technically describing it as 'offering yourself' or 'submitting yourself'. I don't think like Molag Bal literally jumped out of the portal out of nowhere no context and started fricking her but I do think she made the "decision" under heavy duress where it was pretty clear that they wouldn't take 'no' for an answer just like how it works in actual cults. My interpretation also lines up with the aforementioned book which talks about Molag cults doing generic comically-evil satanic shit and offering up women to the demonic ding dong.
>Someone who was forced into a ritual like that would jump at any opportunity to cure it, no?
Can't you get her to Cure it? Not like the desire doesn't exist in her.
It's not like Serana or Valerica were helpless. They could have left the cult long before that. Serana was an adult before the ritual, she could have left by herself.
Maybe she wasn't a prostitute thirsting after Satan's spiky schlong, but she obviously wanted the power that came with it.
You convince her to cure herself after she's forced to side with vampire hunters, went to some forgotten corner of Oblivion that took Valerica lifetimes to get to, exposing a prophecy her family was obsessed as a fraud, launching a raid on her home, killing her father and everyone in her clan, and asking pretty please reverse the effects of Molag's demon wiener.
She only gets cured because you bent over backwards for her, not because she really wants to.
Dude, she wanted it.
>It's not like Serana or Valerica were helpless. They could have left the cult long before that. Serana was an adult before the ritual, she could have left by herself.
Not really tenable when your father- who by the way, is the literal King of the Kingdom you live in- and everyone else you know are zealots who worship a God of domination. I mean technically anyone in a cult or a fricked up family can 'just leave' but there's practical reasons why their don't in spite of themselves.
I really do think it might just be your fetish anon.
Serana was raised into it, so she probably saw it as an honor.
We already know she saw it as degrading and comes across as traumatized by it though. I'd definitely say she probably had some confused feelings about it at the time, yeah. But lots of incestuous fathers raise their daughters as sexslaves or prostitute them off to their cult leaders and we still say they were raped.
If she was traumatized by it, wouldn't she want to get rid of her vampirism as quickly as possible? I can understand waiting until after Harkon is gone, but as it is, if you get one dialogue wrong, she'll stay a vampire.
Yeah but when she does actually get rid of vampirism she says that she feels like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders. She mighta just needed support from someone she trusts go through with it. That or Bethesda's writing is inconsistent. Wouldn't be the first time. But go read the dialogue on the wiki if you don't believe me.
Shit, anon.
If my options were to flee off a secluded island away from High Rock and take my chances in the wilderness or get fricked to death by demon dong and come back as an immortal monster, I'd probably just get outta there.
Unless I wanted to be an immortal monster. Or just wanted to get "beat" with a "mace"
Why defend Serana anyway? She'll never frick you, so why bother?
I guess you're a lot tougher than Serana then but many people in that situation would go along with their family. There's a million IRL examples of it happening but then again maybe you'd just say that those girls were all hungry for the BCC (Big Cult wiener) and that they shoulda beat up all those creepy suckas ala black widow.
>Why defend Serana anyway? She'll never frick you, so why bother?
harhar but Serana's NOT my waifu. I'd never choose a waifu that's so sex-averse. Meanwhile you've outright admitted that this is your fetish. C'est fin mon ami...
Real people in real cults don't get real rewards for participation.
If they got super powers for doing the rituals, then I'd be suspicious of them too.
Not to mention both Valerica and Serana were decent mages before the ritual. Comparing their cult to real cults is apples and oranges.
>Real people in real cults don't get real rewards for participation.
Highly doubt that was even at the front of her mind considering she wasn't even fully expected to survive the ritual. But we don't even need to be arguing about her motivation: When you ask Valerica whether Serana did it willingly, the best she can blubber out is that 'It was expected of her, just as it was expected of me. Being selected as an offering to Molag Bal is an honor. She wouldn't have dared turn her back on that'. Keep in mind that Valerica is flagrantly guilty and coping the entire time you talk with her that even this- the most charitable possible interpretation of Serana's motivations and agency that Valerica could muster in order to absolve herself of her own responsibility- still basically boils down to 'she had to because cult'
>Comparing their cult to real cults is apples and oranges.
No it's not. The family psychology is pretty comparable if you're not being deliberately dishonest. Not to mention Serana is definitely not at the level where she could fend off the resources of an entire kingdom. I also don't know how much of Serana's magical prowess was developed before her transformation and how much came after.
Frick. You got me. You're right. I forgot the ritual wasn't guaranteed to produce a vampire.
It's not my fetish, though. I just really hate the dumb family drama of Serana.
>t's not my fetish, though. I just really hate the dumb family drama of Serana.
I actually kind of like it. It feels like the writers actually looked at her experiences and followed them through to how they'd eventually contribute to the way Serana thinks and acts now. Character writing 101 I know but this is Skyrim we're talking about here- the bar isn't exactly scraping the clouds or even always above sea level.
Honestly, the complexity goes a little higher than just 101 to me. That's why it pisses me off. Some family in a rape cult gets more characterization than Alduin, the main antagonist? All that development and decent writing to a un-marriable waifu character, but the civil war remains gutted? Two whole factions about vampirism while werewolves and warriors have to share one exceptionally shitty one?
I would have been much happier having to pay for an expansion that actually finishes the game than play family therapist.
>the civil war remains gutted?
Well I'd argue the writing behind the Civil War was actually pretty strong. Ulfric is probably the best-written character in the game, and Tullius, Galamar, Balgruuf, and Torygg ain't no slouches either. What happened with the questline itself- all the removed content, STORMCLOAK GIANTS- is downright tragic, however.
>Alduin, the main antagonist?
Sometimes I think they should've stuck to his role as world-eater instead of playing this whole 'he's actually just arrogant and wants to defy his destiny and rule the world' angle that they ended up doing. But then they'd be forced to justify how the Dragonborn can beat this unstoppable, apocalyptic, planet-sized maw creature. So they decided to neuter him.
I meant the more mechanical side of the war, yeah. All that just left on the cutting room floor in favor of stuff like the Soul Cairn and Forbidden Vale.
Alduin is a God out of his time. The Dragon Break happened while he was gone. The Alessian Covenant was struck. The Dwarves made a god and disappeared. A man became a God. The Amulet of Kings was shattered.
Yet, he has nothing to say about any of it. Akatosh, his direct father, was broke, remade, and walked on Nirn.
But he's got nothing to say about any of it. He barely says anything about losing the Dragon Cult war.
I guess he would have been better as just a force of nature. But that still would have been a waste.
TES villains in general get way too little screentime. Sometimes they narrowly make it work if the dialogue is especially on point (Dagoth Ur had literally one in-person appearance yet everybody remembers that fricker because his dialogue was great and all aesthetic cylinders were firing at full blast at that point) but mostly they end up feeling like as you said giant wastes of time.
Also I was thinking less outright primal Force of Nature and more like his depiction in the Aldudagga where he almost comes across as a beleaguered celestial bureaucrat who has a job to do which- while a messy business to be sure- is a necessary spin of the ole' cosmic wheel which keeps things moving along. I like your idea more though, which is really just Bethesda's idea but more thoughtful than it ended up being.
Shit, that's just the start.
Alduin's purpose is to keep kalpas going so that no one gets too aware about stuff like the Godhead. Between the Dwarves and the fact that only two Towers are still active, he's got a very good reason to be very pissed. He could've had some spiel about him seeing where things were heading and that being the reason why he tried to rule over Nirn. There's a lot of room for him to have some depth beyond just "grr, angry dragon".
But frick that. Here's Laura Bailey playing a traumatized vampire lady with daddy issues.
Even Mankar Camoran got the Commentaries. Alduin was done so fricking dirty.
Agreed.
I did really love the Forgotten Vale. Probably my favorite TES 'Dungeon' besides maybe Blackreach. Haunting soundtrack too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBGgZ1PUFWU
Also while I'm at it come to think of it real people in real cults do often get real rewards for fricking the supreme leader and friends (i.e. money, connections, the love and adoration of revered authority figures, acceptance by a community). Not at the same level as supernatural powers but yeah. Yet everyone can still plainly see that it's rape and that's usually how it ends up if it ever gets to the courts.
Molag Bal rapes anally. Harkon was raped too.
>God of Rape doesn't rape
>fully MK'd Skyrim
What's MK? I'm too new
Michael Kirkbride, the previous lead art director and important writer who's responsible for a lot of TES' aesthetic identity.
He eventually left Bethesda and Oblivion retconned his portrayal of Cyrodiil (which took elements from mesoamerica and imperial china in addition to the iconic rome vibes) into generic late medieval/early renaissance italy/germany which is why lots of people don't like that game.
He also wrote some insane schizo shit around the time of Skyrim's release most famous a script called c0da which details the destruction of the entire TES setting. Sometime he does consulting work for Bethesda on the side and some of his material worms its way back into the series.
*most famously
**Sometimes
Thank you very much!
I kind of liked the fact that you were more just a sidekick dude who got shit done rather than another generic "muh special snowflake prophecy man" like every other RPG story.
>and important writer who's responsible for a lot of TES' aesthetic identity.
To be fair, he only really worked on Redguard and Morrowind.
>To be fair, he only really worked on Redguard and Morrowind.
True but those are the games where TES began to uncouple itself from its classic DnD roots and really come into its own. A lot of the foundational texts like Varieties of Faith and Pocket Guide to the Empire were written around that time.
>subverting a trope is automatically a good thing
Hi Rian
Who are you quoting?
>I like how you were a sidekick instead of a boring chosen one
Morrowind subverted the chosen one trope intelligently and thoroughly. Oblivion did it just because. There was no value in making you a "normal guy" in Oblivion cause you just do all the heroic shit you'd be doing as the chosen one anyway, except die in a cutscene at the end.
>Morrowind subverted the chosen one trope
if everyone except you and the emperor believes it, is it really subverted
Yes?? Am I talking with a moron?
yes. turn your monitor on
Yes, because many of those that came before you had shown the "signs" of their destiny. You were just the one to succeed in the tests. That's what the emperor likely saw, since he had some sense of precognition, that you would succeed and not that you were the Neravarine reborn.
Never said it was masterful writing that deconstructs the RPG genre, I mean it is Bethesda we are talking about after all.
I just kind of liked it since it was less generic than just other chosen one plot.
he basically came up with some philosophical whoa shit to explain how all Daggerfall's endings happened at once, how Vivec was simultaneously a lowborn betrayer and a warrior-poet god-king, and a bunch of other things that get oversimplified as 'CHIM is when construction set'.
which is funny because its not very much, but its still so much better than any other ideas in TES that everything else has to keep referring back to it
So does the imperial city stay fricked like this when you complete the game? I never bothered doing the main story quests
It's just the Temple of the One that gets wrecked along with some of the district's pavement. The giant petrified avatar of Akatosh in the ruins of the temple is pretty cool though.
kirkbride haters are braindead
For some reason a lot of people like "you're not the protagonist" plot, because real life isn't enough, you gotta be a doormat even in fantasy
I was the protagonist in Oblivion, and Martin was my brotagonist.
In every other questline you already become leader of every guild and the Divine Crusader and all that.
Both you and Martin are the heroes just like the crisis in Arena was solved both by the Eternal Champion and the Apprentice in the Battlespire.
kirkbride haters are right
the joke of oblivion is that you're not the chosen one like the other games, just the chosen one's errand boy
>Mr Pope, please leave. We need you in the sequel. Arrivederci.
You beat the ever loving shit out of him though.
>>game doesn't let you fight the final boss
I distinctly remember fighting Umaril. The game takes you into a special floating arena to do it it's pretty breasts.
you are just a dude, the frick you think you were going to do
even the Nerevar was just a dude
Jesus and Michael Jackson were also just dudes. They changed the world.
yeah but they didnt do it by fighting a 100ft tall satan looking ass demon
Both were brought down by satan looking demons. You could stack a synagogue full to be 100ft tall.
I saw a pile of israeli shoes once that was pretty big.
MJ (and possibly Jesus) could CHIM though.
>Lucien Fairfax in Fable 2
>This homosexual never killed Dagon and made him melt
>This homosexual never completed Shivering Isles before the Main Quest to fight as fellow Daedric Princes
>This homosexual made a custom spell chain becoming a literal god to fight Dagon
lmao what a clown
Fricking Halo 4
And 3, but at least it made sense in 3.
>Rape god to which nobles sacrifice their children
>Moloch Baal
Bravo Todd
Serious question: Can he (Todd) even feasibly be stopped at this point?
oblivion pretty gud game, I remember I jerk offd to dragon akatosh ass after the final battle since it was the first HD dragon ass I had seen back then
>main antagonist from earlier in the game helps you defeat final boss
Qrd ? I'm not a bethesdgay yet
Forgot to quote
game makes you walk into irradiated room to force endgame
you can have a companion supermutant who is literally immune to radiation but they say you have to do it anyway because destiny
they end up letting you make the supermutant do it in a later dlc, or you wake up and survive it somehow iirc
>need to go into heavily radiated area to activate device.
>the companion in question is immune to radiation.
>refuses to activate device for you, forcing you to die in order to activate it yourself.
There's a robot and another immune companion that also refuses to do it too. Just a shitty way to force an ending where you die.
Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver kinda has this as Kain escapes in a time portal but you kinda do fight him a small bit
Wish Bethesda made their games open source. Playing Quake source ports, and seeing how polished and amazing they are makes me wish TES could have the same.
Oblivion has an ending?
You can be literally everything in Skyrim. Thane of Haafinger, Thane of Whiterun, Thane of Falkreath, Thane of Riften, Thane of the Reach, Thane of the Pale, Thane of Winterhold, Thane of Hjaalmarch, Harbinger of the Companions, Arch-mage of the College of Winterhold, Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, Guild-master of the Thieves Guild, Member of the Bards College, Dragonslayer of the Blades, Vampireslayer of the Dawnguard, Savior of Solstheim, Champion of the Nine Divines and Champion of sixteen Daedric Princes, Friend to Orcs, Honorary Member of the Moth Priests, Dwemer Expert, Bounty Hunter, Treasure Finder and master of the Thu'um, the Dragonborn!
I would trade everything away just to be Serana's bf.
>implying you could kill him yourself
Also I am pretty sure he is one of the most powerful Daedric Princes too