Results 271 to 300 of 1475
-
2019-01-18, 12:18 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Gender
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
Granted, but at the same time you have a terrifying amount of personal power, even if you aren't leader of any guilds or anything. And that's before you allow for the possibility to be the de-facto commander of both the major underworld guilds in Skyrim. The fact of the matter is, Maven has a sharply limited ability to actually touch you, and there isn't any good reason why she should be able to stop a determined Dragonborn from killing her and dismantling her empire. There are just too many lynchpins that are too poorly protected.
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
-
2019-01-18, 12:21 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2012
- Gender
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
Maven is also supposed to draw a large chunk of her influence and power from political contacts in Cyrodiil, it's part of how she gets picked as Jarl by the Imperials, so killing her should anger some powerful people south of the border and make things get a bit out of hand.
It's still stupid she's so public about being a crime lord to every random schmuck in Riften, it'd make far more sense if you never explicitly found out who was in charge but got a few hints that the Blackbriars were somehow involved.Last edited by Grim Portent; 2019-01-18 at 12:25 PM.
Sanity is nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.
-
2019-01-18, 12:59 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2018
- Location
- The Moral Low Ground
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
Canonically, the voice's shouts should be able to level castle walls, which are realistically at least 1m thick, likely two, sometimes thicker compressed stone; but in a fantasy setting maybe more.
But of course, canonically, riften will be bigger than what we got in game.
The CoC is just some dude if he isn't sheogorath, but he's gotta be one incredible dude, because saving Kvatch would've been an insane feat if things weren't level scaled. Of course, if he is sheogorath, and The Shivering Isles weren't just the man going mad...
Nerevar... Look, if we go by chim, Morrowind had the best spells and thus Nerevar must've became an immortal god wizard, especially because he doesn't age and a warrior who completed the main quest could just do magic....
But, more related, is that, well, having a whole city on your side doesn't matter when you've got superhumans involved. Come a high enough level and the average grunt will have to saw through your throat with an ebony disk saw, which you'd never really want to do when the charm spells come into play...
Maven needs some extreme elites on her side. A city of regular people won't work.
All a character would need to do is grab maven, charm her, get her contacts, and kill them
Or Not get noticed, kill maven.
or leave no survivors
or kill her, charm the assassins that show up, kill their friends.
TES is a series where one juggernaut character can end an empire. The dragonborn is literally the sole reason for an imperial/stormcloak victory, and if you think Maven can do better than the empire/Skyrim's high king... well...
-
2019-01-18, 01:07 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2009
- Location
- A nice, sparkly place.
- Gender
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
I had a weird dream last night. The dream went that there was a second made version of Skyrim that was made after the first was such a success, a 5.5 game that you play around the same time but with a different character in a different location. In my dream, I was willing to give this game a chance again, for it felt like it did indeed come out a few years after Skyrim came out and I "remembered" being disappointed with it. For the rest of the dream I was playing the game and every different thing about it 'reminded' me on why I was disappointed with this particular game being released to coincide with Skyrim (Despite the game in real life never existing!)
The game was about 1/10th the size of Skyrim itself and positioned in the middle of a box canyon. The game was buggy as hell and most of the quests I tried broke with "familiar different bugs that I remembered broke the quests the first time I 'played' and they appeared again in this playthrough". The shouts were all different and not at all helpful (FUS-RO-DAH was taken out) and there were not dragons or walls of words for you to get more shouts, but a different way involving the Dremora that required a special kind of effort to unlock, and it was a lot more effort to unlock shouts with them being not too impressive anyways. The perk system was completely changed where the perks would allow you to do special maneuvers instead of strict benefits, where some maneuvers would have your character keep stepping forward and slashing for 5 seconds, where the enemy stepped out of the way after the 1st second, so your character is slashing at nothing for 4 seconds and you can't break him out of it. It was just bad and disappointing.
The weirdest part was, I couldn't shake the feeling I played this exact game before and was "coming back" to give it another chance, only for it to be disappointing me again. When I woke up I needed a minute to remind myself that this horrible game did not exist! It was a weird dream...
-
2019-01-18, 01:10 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2018
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
As I said, they have the potential to be, but they certainly don't start as such. When the Nerevarine walks out of the boat in Seyda Neen with the clothes on his back and whatever he managed to pilfer in the census and excise office, he's not a near-divinity ready to beat Dagoth Ur in his own volcano lair. When the CoC crawls out of the prison sewer with the medallion clutched in his hand and the ruined/rusted armor and weapons he salvaged during his escape on his back, he's not ready to escort Martin to fight Merhunes Dagon.
Well, okay, yes, because of the level scaling, he is. But he shouldn't be.
As far as the Dragonborn goes, it takes a while for his power to raise to be able to use shouts the way the legends say he can. Not to mention there's a hefty cooldown for the really powerful shouts. Can't just assault a city by himself and beat everyone in it the second he acquires unrelenting force from the first dragon he kills.
-
2019-01-18, 01:41 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Gender
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
Sure, its theoretically possible for Maven to be somewhat intimidating... for a while. But unless youre roleplaying a dragonborn who settles down as a merchant in Riften for whatever reason, that will not be the case for long. And even if youre still a character for whom having the Riften Guards try and kill you is a somewhat intimidating prospect, that doesn't help Maven at all, since she walks around town without any sort of bodyguard or protection. Heck, you could give a beggar 100 gold and a knife, and tell them to stab Maven in her stupid face the next time she makes her rounds, and Maven is hosed.
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
-
2019-01-18, 02:15 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2018
-
2019-01-18, 02:20 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Gender
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
The problem is, the Dragonborn doesn't really care about anything short of direct threat of violence. They travel all over under their own power, they don't exclusively reside in the city, theyre independently wealthy and can provide for themselves and their family if they have one... most of Maven's normal hooks simply don't apply to the Dragonborn. She can have them attacked, and that's about the extent of the meaningful things she can do to them, or arrange for her allies to do post mortem. And her thugs are... not intimidating, especially.
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
-
2019-01-18, 02:34 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2018
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
But with some rework, she could be more intimidating. For example, if you do have a family (and if I recall correctly, the only place weddings can take place is in Riften so Maven could easily find information on the Dragonborn's spouse) and you someday cross Maven somehow, and you return to your home to find a threatening message on the door, or your children kidnapped for ransom or even your spouse murdered, that certainly ramps up the threat she poses.
And if you don't, well you still have friends out in the world, people you do quests for. If a messenger approaches you and gives you a missive that says they've captured a friend of yours (questgivers you've helped out in the past will be considered your friends, for instance) and will only release them if you don't cross Maven again for X days, otherwise they kill them, then now you've got an incentive to keep a low profile.
This can then allow you to mount a rescue operation if you wish, and go into a questline to make Maven fall from her crime throne.
(This of course would work better in a rework of Maven as a whole, making it so she doesn't just stroll out in the open, is better guarded when she does, has magical protections, etc.)
-
2019-01-18, 03:40 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2006
- Location
- Up there past them trees!
-
2019-01-18, 03:47 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2006
- Location
- Up there past them trees!
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
You're inadvertently making my point for me. Let's say that the designers create some understudy for Maven Blackbriar. And one for Olfrid Battle-born. And one for Ulfric Stormcloak. And one for Esbern... and so on, and so on, and so on.
There's no limit to the bloodthirst of a potential player, so really, why bother trying to patch a bunch of holes in it, which again, still require re-recording dialogue, making more animations, more work, and for what, exactly? The fact is, no matter how wildly expansive your vision of the narrative might be, a player is going to find the parts you didn't think of, and try to pull them down.
-
2019-01-18, 03:55 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2016
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
Which is why the better solution to Essential NPCs is to just let them die if the player kills them, and auto-fail any quests that required their presence. Have some quests with alternate questgivers; most of the guilds should be fine with a specific character missing, for instance. If Tolfdir is killed there's no reason Mirabelle can't take over, for example.
Give them slight protections so they need to be DELIBERATELY killed, not just, like, the player threw a lightning bolt while they were in a group fight and the stupid NPC ran in the way, but don't make them 100% immortal.
-
2019-01-18, 04:13 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2018
-
2019-01-18, 06:43 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2009
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
In a right-thinking and properly scripted version of Skyrim, there would be a lengthy quest line devoted to bringing Maven down. One that involves, first, alienating her from the Thieves Guild (possibly by becoming guild master), then from her political allies in the Empire (including Tullius), and either severing her connection to the DB, or simply enduring their hamfisted attacks.
Then, and only then, do you get the chance to work on Maven herself. Either by killing her and her family, or better, gathering evidence to denounce her to the jarl.
It's problematic to write this as a mod, because as "potential jarl" Maven has way more complex hooks in the game than a regular essential character. I wish we could have some say in who gets to be the new jarl. Laila's pro-Imperial son, for instance."None of us likes to be hated, none of us likes to be shunned. A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound." - Mark Twain
-
2019-01-18, 11:41 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2009
- Location
- A nice, sparkly place.
- Gender
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
I have a question lore wise about Skyrim.
So, in terms of canon lore, which side won the civil war? Or is that not mentioned in the years after Skyrim?
-
2019-01-18, 11:51 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
-
2019-01-19, 07:11 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Gender
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
-
2019-01-19, 08:04 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
Personally, I suspect that they're more likely to "resolve" it with another Dragon Break, and then try to avoid addressing the question of whether Skyrim is or is not independent. It'd even, debatably, be justified, what with Alduin notionally bringing the end of the world.
-
2019-01-19, 09:58 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2014
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
You're making it sound like a superhero comic, and now I want to see Eddie Brock, investigative reporter go poking around in Riften and when Maven sends thugs after him Venom eats them.
Second this; maybe swap them from 'essential' to 'protected' like followers are.
I agree this is the most likely outcome. And it will probably be a downer ending for Skyrim; if the Dominion don't wipe everyone out then the Falmer boil out of Blackreach and do it instead, or the Eye of Magnus fallout turns the whole region into a magical wasteland. I do expect Paarthurnax will be dead and Emperor Mede as well. The Dark Brotherhood is iffy; it's a popular faction. I think it is more likely than not that it comes back, but if ESVI takes place far enough in the future they could suggest the possibility that it WAS destroyed and someone independantly started a new one and just reused the name. We even have a culprit for who that person could be - Aventus Arentino.
-
2019-01-19, 10:07 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Gender
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
I think the Brotherhood could probably survive anything short of an apocalyptic magical explosion destroying Skyrim, and even then with the Night Mother being a thing, its not out of the question that they would relocate ahead of time and carry on in the new province. The current crop survived by being the toughest and most paranoid assassins; it took treachery from their own ranks to endanger the sanctuary during the quest line.
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
-
2019-01-19, 10:24 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2014
-
2019-01-19, 10:29 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
- Gender
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
Babette and the Night Mother survive in either case, and Cicero lives if you opt to destroy the Brotherhood. So a story about how the little vampire and a handful of other (unnamed) survivors restored the DB to its glory, even assassinating the Emperor covers both options.
-
2019-01-19, 10:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Gender
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
I would also add that not every quest choice needs to be considered in future canon. There is, for example, the possibility that the Champion of Cyrodiil never went into the Shivering Isles to become Sheogoroth in gameplay, but in Skyrim its pretty clear that they did.
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
-
2019-01-19, 11:58 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2018
- Location
- The Moral Low Ground
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
I'd like to think that in skyrim, you're actually playing as at least ten different canonical characters. This is more or less how I think all the games work; There's a different character for every major questline except for the civil war and a lot of guys for all the minor quest
There's the dragonborn* who fought alduin and Mirak.
There's the chosen one* for the companions
There's the Chosen one* for the College of winterhold
There's the Chosen one* for the Dark brotherhood. Also a guy who destroys the dark brotherhood except for a few key members (they're pretty compatible)
There's the Chosen idiot* for the thieves guild.
There's Serena's sucker for Dawnguard
Then a whole lot of minor heroes who did many of the side quests.
There's a blades agent who killed parthunax
*they do this far, far too much.
(For the companions, you find out you're the chosen one through the leader's journal if you read it)
Now, for the civil war...
Saddly, my guess is that the falmer rise up and take the surface, even though I don't actually like what the falmer currently are, it's my best guess. They're so numerous and probably the toughest buggers in the game.
The next guess is that you could have it so that both sides wiped one-another out and continued to re-emerge thanks to the thalmor's interference.
-
2019-01-19, 12:49 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2009
- Location
- A nice, sparkly place.
- Gender
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
Well, I rolled up a new character with one goal in mind. Every character I've made I always picked Hadvar to follow instead of the stormcloak who was in the cart with you when you're doing the unbound quest. This time, I decided to roleplay a nord, returning to Skyrim to answer the call of Ulfric and went with the Stormcloak guy this time (Forgot his name). I was also told that if you want to have a fun civil war time, you need to do it early when you are low level, otherwise it turns into a mass of people and you need to be careful not to accidentally slaughter these guys that are intermixed with the guys you are allowed to slaughter. So I'm avoiding all quests except the stormcloak civil war quests at the beginning. I want to feel the titanic struggle on the freedom of skyrim (And not be on the Empire's side for once). I even avoided Bleakfall Barrow and Whiterun, just charging straight to Windhelm. Looking forward to this!
-
2019-01-19, 12:49 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2007
- Location
- San Antonio, Texas
- Gender
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
I'm not a big fan of the "Falmer take over the surface" idea, because I don't think it's within their capabilities.
They don't really seem to have the numbers. Once you get above ground, their lack of sight becomes a much bigger hindrance... falmer attacking a city can be shot from a hundred yards away by a dude with a bow they can't be aware of. And while Falmer have Charus, how environmentally dependent ARE Charus? Can they effectively hatch, in large numbers, on the surface? How much energy has to be put into their training?
Falmer can make life miserable for small areas of the surface, but I don't see them having the means to completely take a significant portion of it.The Cranky Gamer
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude; the appearance of truth within the framework of the game.
*Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
*Mutant Dawn for Savage Worlds!
*The One Deck Engine: Gaming on a budget
Written by Me on DriveThru RPG
There are almost 400,000 threads on this site. If you need me to address a thread as a moderator, include a link.
-
2019-01-19, 12:59 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Gender
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
I just don't think there's any way that could possibly work. The Daggerfall endings were mostly not dependent on each other, so it was actually feasible to all have them happen at once. Skyrim civil war is a pretty simple binary choice--either the Empire win, or the Stormcloaks win. (Unless they have it that the "peace" negotiated by the Greybeards in the event you don't resolve the civil war before going after Alduin somehow holds after the point Alduin is defeated, which would almost be more unlikely than a dragon break).
-
2019-01-19, 01:43 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2018
- Location
- The Moral Low Ground
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
Yeah, but 'altmer extremists took on the empire' is always an amusing thought. So, whilst painfully aware of how lack of sight sucks above ground, they have a big advantage during night warfare. Plus... they're really strong, and whilst nord-frost resistance counts for something.... Yeah, Falmer Are a ****ing nightmare. I hate fighting falmer. They do have the numbers, because I get sick of them before I've even been to an eighth of the many caves and ruins they inhabit. But hey, maybe they're just overrepresented by the -skyrim's populace are 90% bandits' gameplay mechanic.
The nords/Imperials are in a weakened state, and for whatever reason only windhelm, parts of riften and solitude actually have good walls.
See it less as 'falmer conquest' and more 'the worst raids the nords have ever seen. Swaths of villages and some of the towns have their entire populace disapear over night, and following the falmer down into their own turf is suicide.
My next guess would be 'akaviri invasion'. Snaeks take advantage of skyrim and morrowind's terrible state.Last edited by The Jack; 2019-01-19 at 01:46 PM.
-
2019-01-19, 03:29 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Gender
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
-
2019-01-19, 03:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
- Gender
Re: The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick