#i've played skyrim and oblivion

[artharakka]

My Skyrim character, Ruis. She's originally from Daggerfall 🗡

[vaiyamagic]

Something that always bothered me about Elder Scrolls games is the lack of more than one generation of immigrants.

Sure, you have racial diversity: you get a family of Redguards in Skyrim or Argonians in the Imperial City, etc, but they're almost always the first ones of their family to have moved there. No one is the grandkid of the person who moved there. No one is like, yeah, I'm a Kajiit but my family has lived in Morrowind for 5 generations. Even in the beginning of Skyrim, Hadvar tells you your remains will be sent back to your homeland once you've chosen your race.

How do you know that's where I live?? Hm???? Maybe I've lived in Anvil all my life. You don't know. Racist.

I just want more realistic lives.

[poor-ciceros-voring-again]

Me realizing as I'm typing stuff that I need to up the scale of how many other people are in Cheydinhal Sanctuary. Like yeah it makes sense for oblivion that there's only THAT many. But I think I need to like. Multiply it by a decent amount. Cause I know there's a lot of sanctuaries but there is absolutely more than 8 people in a sanctuary, especially in a city as big as Cheydinhal should be cause it's a major city in Cyrodiil ?? Right?? Like ? To me I think they'd have more than just 8 people in one Sanctuary?????

Does anyone else have any opinions on this

[argisthebulwark]

seconding the notion of "you'd probably love martin"

is he worth playing oblivion for because i'm willing to do this if i'm gonna find a new man to be Completely Normal about

[wuxian-vs-wangji]

Bought Poppy Playtime Ch 1-3 on Steam.

Am I going to play them? No, because it's way too scary for me and I'm not good at video games in general.

But I love watching the playthroughs because the story absolutely fascinates me. So I consider buying the game encouraging more of those videos.

I, a grown-ass woman in her 30s, am going to make my big brother play all the boss stuff while I just wander around and read the posters and lore.

Maturity.

[eastgaysian]

hi

[kikinom]

Anyone here have a nice smaller TES discord? I love talking about the lore and I would love to connect to more fans!

[volfoss]

Fell asleep watching an oblivion playthrough and woke up with the strongest urge to start new playthroughs in like every single fantasy RPG I own

[leguin]

starfield review so far: it's fun! the flying system largely being fast travel through maps is a bummer, but i don't really have any other complaints so far. feels a lot fallout in space-y, and a little morrowwind-y, but most of all just a very bethesda game. if you like them you'll like this, if you don't you almost certainly won't.

[unusedcactus]

it's kinda refreshing playing a bethesda game that doesn't crash because i looked at a tree kinda funny

[artbyblastweave]

I've started Oblivion, and playing it basically blind to everything but the broad outline of the main story has been fantastic, because holy hell is this thing hitting the "put that guy in situations" button in a manner Skyrim only occasionally gestured at. I drop 10 gold on a room at a novelty inn set up in a refurbished permanently docked boat (escaped from jail and saw the emperor get assassinated three hours ago) (Need to level up before beginning my arduous journey to find his heir, can't do that without a bed, have been selling dead rats for money and this stupid boat was specifically called out as the cheapest option in the city) and wake up to find the entire thing's been hijacked and sailed out to sea, because the dipshit proprietor deliberately started a rumor that there was hidden treasure on his boat to attract business from adventurers and brigands, only to make a surprised Pikachu face when he attracts adventurers and brigands. I try to bluff my way through the first two guys by claiming I was a late hire to their group. They both believe me and immediately try to kill me to keep the payout a four-way split. I tell the third guy I killed the first two guys and he immediately tries to kill me to make the three-way split a two-way split. Four homicides and change later and we're back in dock at the Imperial City. What was any of that about. The Hero of Kvatch is not a man in control of his own life in any way shape or form and I like it that way

[jiubilant]

The racism present in TES does make me uncomfortable at times, but what's a real doozy is that I genuinely can't find any lore community where I don't see excessive fantasy racism that at best is just plain unfunny and at worse just actual irl racism. If I see another "The Snow Elves deserved extermination" post I might go crazy.

Its also another thing where if you don't have an analytical eye of the lore it can often seem like the games are actually justifying that sort of stuff, intentional or not.

Sorry, this was a bit of a vent ask after I was inspired by your posts on the topic. I've been recently playing a very modded playthrough of Oblivion and really enjoying it so far, so that got me back into the fandom.

well hey welcome back :) i might jump back into oblivion too once i've beaten bg3

i made a reddit account recently and one of the first things i saw in r/skyrim was several people tossing around an antisemitic dogwhistle. it's an unfortunate reality that any work of fantasy featuring racial essentialism as a plot point or gameplay mechanic is tailor-made for bigots whether bethesda intended them as the game's audience or not

[videogamepolls]

Video Games Polls 9-Month Report

It's been 3 months since my last report and I've polled over 500 more games since then so I wanted to post an update on the top 10 games across each of the four options included in my polls, plus a couple other new categories.

🏆 Most Played

Games with the highest percentage of "Yes" votes:

The Dinosaur Game (2014, AKA Chrome Dino Game) - 93.9%

Pac-Man (1980) - 93.4%

Wii Sports (2006) - 87.7%

Tetris (1985) - 86.9%

Pokemon Go (2016) - 82.9%

Minecraft (2011) - 81.1%

Angry Birds (2009) - 80.1%

Stardew Valley (2016) - 79.3%

Space Invaders (1978) - 78.5%

Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020) - 74.1%

🏆 Most Known but Not Played

Games with the highest percentage of "No" votes:

Raid: Shadow Legends (2018) - 85.8%

Final Fantasy XI (2002) - 82.1%

Halo Infinite (2021) - 77.6%

Baldur's Gate (1998) - 76.1%

Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000) - 75.8%

Call of Duty (2003) - 75.2%

Counter Strike 2 (2023) - 74.9%

Valorant (2020) - 74.7%

Donkey Kong 3 (1983) - 74.5%

The Last of Us: Part II (2020) - 74.4%

🏆 Most Watched

Games with the highest percentage of "I watched someone play it" votes:

Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (2017) - 54.2%

I Am Bread (2015) - 51.3%

Octodad: Dadliest Catch (2014) - 47.0%

Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach (2021) - 45.6%

Phasmophobia (2020, Early Access) - 41.3%

P.T. (2014) - 41.0%

PowerWash Simulator (2022) - 40.4%

Slender: The Eight Pages (2012) - 38.4%

Raft (2022) - 38.3%

The Convenience Store (2020) - 38.1%

🏆 Most Obscure

Games with the highest percentage of "I've never heard of it" votes:

Just, Bearly (2018) - 96.9%

Anito: Defend a Land Enraged (2003) - 96.6%

That Damn Goat (2023) - 96.5%

Star Seeker in: The Secret of the Sorcerous Standoff (2020) - 96.4%

Mr. Robot and His Robot Factory (1983) - 96.1%

Quando Fuori Piove (2018) - 95.9%

Turovero: The Celestial Tower (2017) - 95.8%

I am Magicami (2020) - 95.8%

Weird and Unfortunate Things are Happening (2020) - 95.5%

The Unholy War (1998) - 95.2%

🏆 Most Balanced

Games with the most even spread of votes:

Human Fall Flat (2016) - 19.3% Yes | 28.5% No | 26.1% Watched | 26.1% Never Heard

Kerbal Space Program (2015) - 21.9% | 31.1% | 24.5% | 22.5%

The Henry Stickmin Collection (2020) - 19.3% | 29.2% | 22% | 29.5%

Ib (2012) - 24.1% | 26.8% | 19.2% | 29.9%

Superhot (2016) - 24.9% | 25.1% | 30.5% | 19.5%

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (2010) - 25.8% | 31.1% | 20% | 23.2%

Limbo (2010) - 30.2% | 28.7% | 23.9% | 17.1%

Wobble Dogs (2022) - 18% | 25.4% | 25.2% | 31.3%

Slay the Princess (2023) - 30.2% | 27.4% | 26.1% | 16.4%

Baba Is You (2019) - 26% | 32.9% | 19% | 22.1%

🏆 Most Votes

Games with the most number of votes:

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011) - 4,329

Flight Rising (2013) - 4,132

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (2004) - 4,053

Final Fantasy XV (2016) - 3,056

Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (2009) - 2,844

Dark Souls (2011) - 2,823

The Dinosaur Game (2014, AKA Chrome Dino Game) - 2,758

QWOP (2008) - 2,636

Dragon Age II (2011) - 2,576

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006) - 2,398

*I did not take most Pokémon games into consideration since I handle those polls a little differently.

Check out my results spreadsheet for an alphabetized list of all poll results plus some other stats.

[unironicallytes]

HELLO EVERYONE I HAVE SOME THINGS TO SAY ABOUT ASTRID!!!

(Discussion and sharing of thoughts encouraged even if they're opposing viewpoints, please join me in the sandbox)

In working on Dear Brother's timeline, I've been revisiting a lot of the canon even around the Skyrim era, and I find Astrid so much more compelling and sympathetic nowadays. I used to dislike her a lot, because I was coming fresh off of Oblivion and also hadn't deep-fried my brain in lore yet. I was playing the Skyrim DBh with @orfeoarte last night and we got to talking about her again, specifically about how she's probably having a crisis of faith during the game.

Like, in thinking about the entire Dark Brotherhood questline from Astrid's perspective ... she's the matron of the last Sanctuary. They haven't had a Listener since 4E188 - that's 14 whole years without a religious leader, organizational leader, or any of the Black Hand for that matter. (As far as I can tell, Rasha sounded like a Speaker from Cheydinhal, and he lasted until 4E189 according to Cicero's journals.)

Basically, up until this point, Falkreath stayed functional due to Astrid's leadership alone, and Astrid herself went through that bearing the knowledge that their gods had probably abandoned them. That's a lot to deal with. Imagine the absolute inner turmoil of turning your back on the Brotherhood's religion, because there's no point in holding to a spiritual leader that refuses to lead. Maybe Astrid had spent a few of those 14 years mourning, wondering why she'd received no guidance; but eventually, she had to amputate that part of herself and move on because no one else was going to do it for her. She would've needed to focus on the survival of the order that was left, rather than cling to the ashes of the one that was dead and gone. Besides, the latter seems to have collapsed in on itself because the Hand couldn't even agree on how to move forward, so why would she follow their lead?

All that being said, 14 years pass, Astrid keeps it together, keeps the last remaining family together ... then suddenly out of fucking nowhere, Cicero shows up with the Night Mother herself, spouting the old ways. A bit jarring, a bit poor taste - it's not his fault, he has no idea what this Sanctuary might have been through. He hasn't interacted with family members at all for these 14 years, and he probably expected them to be exactly as he remembered them. And then, barely any time into Cicero's arrival, the Night Mother finally chooses someone, and it's Astrid's newest recruit.

Like, how dare she, after all these years of abandonment? Wouldn't that infuriate you? In Astrid's eyes, the Night Mother hasn't done shit for her. No wonder Astrid's immediate reaction and tone is basically "are you fucking kidding me" followed by "I need time to process this." It makes a lot of sense that she resists the return to tradition, both from a leadership level and from a personal level. No wonder she shatters through Tenet 1 in front of Cicero and everyone, no wonder she tries to get you removed from the equation, too.

Extremely interesting character right there!!! I am spinning her on the microwave plate-- ..... ....... ah, well, uh. I suppose the Penitus Oculatus did that already, poor choice of words.

[skyrim-forever]

Through playing through the Civil War questline and in general thinking about the Great War, I find the perspectives in Skyrim very interesting

We obviously interact with many Great War veterans throughout the game (Ulfric, Galmar, Rikke, although others such as Noster Eagle-Eye who are less important to the story). Notably these are all Nords from Skyrim (duh Eve, the game is literally called Skyrim), but I think that's telling when examining the perspective characters like Galmar in particular have.

The idea that the Empire bent the knee to the Dominion doesn't make sense when you look at the fact that the Empire was on its last leg by the end of the war, many parts of Cyrodiil had particularly hit hard by the Thalmor invasions (Anvil, Bravil, the Imperial City). But this point makes more sense knowing that the Dominion never set foot in Skyrim during the war, Nord soldiers were incredibly important to helping the Empire retake the Imperial City. But the Nords never saw their homeland destroyed, there's a good chance many of them do not know how close total defeat was for the Empire.

Although I imagine there are citizens of Cyrodiil upset about the White-Gold Concordat, they are the ones who watched their civilians and cities be destroyed. The Nords can have this opinion because they weren't in the thick of it the same way. I think it would have been cool to see more characters from Cyrodiil who would have lived through the war and hear their thoughts on the civil war.

Just some ramblings, I've been thinking a lot about the Great War lately

also I am in the camp that the White-Gold Concordat is based on a bluff. Between the oblivion crisis, eugenics, and harder time reproducing, no way the Dominion have enough people

[zsakuva]

Hello!! Even though it's absolutely irrelevant, I thought I'd ask anyway since you seem the best person to answer the question(s) I'm about to ask:

First of all, I am someone who has listened to/ is open to listening to most types of music. But these days I feel like I'm falling behind in music genres such as ambient, folkkore or soundtrack annd much more.

On the other hand, it would be hard not to realize that you listen to these genres religiously in the short time I was able to use Discord!! So you kinda get the point of me asking this question specifically to you 🦉

So, let's ask you, King Crumpet, do you have any suggestions?, or important stuff you want to talk about? Let your people be cultured too!!

I normally consume soundtracks of things that I've played/watched before, and many are nostalgic for me. But I tend to listen to music that helps with my work, so I curate my playlists when I'm searching for a specific theme or mood. I also listen to my 'Discover Weekly' and 'Release Radar' semi-regularly to find new songs, so the artists in total are ALL over the place.

So in no particular order, I'll list off soundtracks that help my brainstorming/writing (bear in mind I don't listen to the whole soundtrack, just pieces that fit what I need):

MOVIES/TV SHOWS/ANIME

Game of Thrones - Ramin Djawadi

House of the Dragon - Ramin Djawadi

The Hunger Games movies - James Newton Howard

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power - Bear McCreary

The Wheel of Time - Lorne Balfe

The Untamed - Hai Lin

Tales From Earthsea - Tamiya Terashima

Psycho-Pass - Yugo Kanno

The Sandman - David Buckley

The Bourne Trilogy - John Powell

Oppenheimer - Ludwig Göransson

VIDEO GAMES

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Jeremy Soule

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Jeremy Soule

Final Fantasy XII - Hitoshi Sakimoto

Final Fantasy XV - Yoko Shimomura

Horizon Zero Dawn - Joris de Man

Moss - Jason Graves

Pine - Tumult Kollektiv

Detroit: Become Human - Nia Fakhrara; Philip Sheppard; John Paesano

MISCELLANEOUS BUT NOTABLE ARTISTS

Yuki Kajiura

Gareth Coker

Nobuo Uematsu

Two Steps From Hell

Howard Shore

Jia Peng Fang

Will Savino

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (normally renditions of video game soundtracks like Tomb Raider II)

Hans Zimmer

Loreena McKennitt

Mark Eliyahu

Yutaka Yamada