Thread 715182184

How come Morrowind was able to have fantasy races with actual fantasy cultures that don't seem to be direct knockoffs of real life cultures?

The antithesis to this is something like Avatar (the James Cameron film) where the "alien culture" are literally just a 1 to 1 of Native Americans, and there's nothing really alien about them. So often you explore a fanstasy/sci fi setting and it's just "culture from earth, but these guys are blue or they have three eyes". Morrowind was like one of the only times I explored a fantasy game world which truly felt out of this world. It's so rare, but it shouldn't be.

>>715182184 (OP)
Unironically Americans can't into race and culture. They only distinguish by color of your skin. That's why blue=alien.

>>715182184 (OP)
>How come Morrowind was able to have fantasy races with actual fantasy cultures that don't seem to be direct knockoffs of real life cultures?

Because you don't know that they ripped off Hinduism whole cloth, sometimes even without changing anything (see "kalpa").

>>715182184 (OP)
Because Kirkbride studied religion, which in turn he'd have studied cultural impact of religion and vice versa.
Modern writers are just writers, they're not getting a job where their interests are aligned with what they're writing about. They're taking whatever job they can get out of their stupid degree.

Everyone likes to pretend Kirkbride didn't have much of an impact but if it wasn't for him, Morrowind would have been a human culture but blue skinned. His knowledge gave us probably one of the most alien cultures to exist.

Another criticism of alien cultures is they're all monotonous. There's very rarely big differences between the aliens and they're all identical in morals and beliefs. Something Morrowind didn't do either.
This is one thing Avatar managed to avoid with the second movie (though the first movie they all had the same racial features and for some reason the horse people rallied behind a flying dragon forest hero).

I'm sorry, what? Are you confused? Almost every single one has a direct Earth counterpart. I would type out every single one but the effort would likely be wasted. Orsimer might be the one exception, due to their outcast nature, but can also be readily compared to Mongolians. For Et'Adas' sake, Vivec is literally colored the exact same as Ardhanarishvara.

As for the rest I'll post something that might actually keep your attention
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAYObr7bkjs

>>715182510
American here. Just stop; uneducated Americans are very vocal, akin to Layman of most countries.

>>715182184 (OP)
Because they had some writers who cared enough to put some nuance into those fantasy races.
They only did that with Morrowind tho, that’s why Dunmers remain such a popular race

>>715182184 (OP)
Bethesda had a really strong team of writers. That era was also the happy medium between functional 3d graphics and no horrible onerous timesink into "graphical realism" like you have today. Morrowind was at the start of the PS2 golden age, Oblivion was in the middle of it. Skyrim was pretty much at the end of that era or outside of it, but Bethesda has always been stuck in the past. Bethesda really shone when the tech involved was really simple.

>>715183172
>I'm not like those other Americans

>>715183793
>disregards post

>>715182184 (OP)
>tf no Chimer mommy gf who will betray me, cuck me, help kill me and cut off my feet

>>715183172
I guess there are tens of thousands of cultures in the civilizational record if you really get into it
>the nomadic chariot-battling scythians swore they were totally different from the nearby nomadic chariot-battling cimmerians
>there's not just goths, there's visigoths, ostrogoths, early goths, neargoths, fargoths, gothgoths, the vampire goths, iHop goths, that's just getting started

>>715183172
>Almost every single one has a direct Earth counterpart
Not really. Apart from Imperials, Bretons and Nords. Even the video you linked shows that
>For Et'Adas' sake, Vivec is literally colored the exact same as Ardhanarishvara
Sure but Dunmers also have jewish, assyrian, persian and turkic influences besides the indian ones

>>715184219
NTA but Redguards are black Samurai (until the next game turns them into Dune Fremen), Argonians are Native American's and Brazilian

>>715184219
>>715183172
at least you have to guess and pick out the details to place them instead of lazy fucking runescape
>yeah they're just fucking Olmec, look it's Olm, go fuck yourself
>oh but they had a wave of migrants that have a vaguely Roman aesthetic so all of their shit has a latin name
>the whole continent is just Roman-Mayan mixed lmao

>>715182184 (OP)
Morrowind is a Dune ripoff, it's good though

>>715183172
>nuh-uh my youtube slop says otherwise!!!
Retard

>>715184080
Absolutely, and knowing such actually really helps understand the high quality of Morrowind's worldbuilding. The dynamic nature of cultures is very properly represented in the game through individual storylines showing the writers' willingness to accept that cultures not only change, but constantly battle themselves with their own tenants of life. Without an understanding of our world's cultures and their development, I doubt that Michael Kirkbride would have been able to construct such a nuanced and believable world as Morrowind contains in TES3. He took real world knowledge of religion and applied it convincingly enough to a simulated reality that people discuss it to this day over 20 years later, and likely will still discuss CHIM and its implications for all of future video game history.

>>715184424
>>715184664
>youtube slop posted to imply a cunt has ADD
>whyd you post youtube slop you ADD cunt
I sincerely wonder why you presume my post is implying a negative nature behind these cultural inspirations. I no way do I see the comparison of real world examples as a detriment to the worldbuilding of The Elder Scrolls. Maybe this other post of mine might clarify. >>715184671

>>715184385
>Redguards are black Samurai (until the next game turns them into Dune Fremen)
Eh they’re mostly fantasy moors with some japonese and west african influences
>Argonians are Native American's and Brazilian
Mostly yeah. But we didn’t know a lot of argonian lore before TESO and most of this lore is pure trash that just copied Warhammer

>>715182184 (OP)
Bethesda hadn't shit-canned all their good writers yet.

>>715182184 (OP)
>don't seem to be direct knockoffs of real life cultures?
>Hinduism
>slavery
>racist
>xenophobic
That's your Dunmer culture, nothing alien about it

>>715185059
>But we didn’t know a lot of argonian lore before TESO
That's a good thing, they're supposed to be mysterious and collectivist, evidenced by the fact that they have no famous historical figures. ESO is pure slop and nobody in their right mind considers it canon.

>>715184671
It’s honestly really great work for a lore made by nerds with no real acadmic expertise on anthropology. Most fantasy lore tend to be pretty shitty 1 to 1 real life counterpart in comparaison

>>715185671
Kirkbride studied comparative religion in college I believe.

Impressive. Very nice.
What's the gameplay like?

>>715182184 (OP)
I never really felt realism in how the ones that worshipped actual daedra were supposed to be able to form coherent societies. Even if they weren't actively doing that during the tribunal period their ancestors (like nerevar) did. No society IRL ever worshipped pure evil deities for being pure evil like boethiah. To me that was just dumb fantasy shit like drow.

>>715186440
>why am i so slow
>that's a lot of text
>i only hit 1/3 of my swings wtf
>where the fuck is this cube
>oh damn i can make my own spells
>holy shit wait what
>one shots three separate flying dinosaurs while passing the sound barrier 1000 feet in the air
roller coaster

>>715182510
It has been illegal to deal with race since the 1960s.
All schooling has been set up so that no races can fail, so we now have illiterates graduating high school and being accepted to college.
All mass media has had some sort of wise negro in it and weak white men.
The average person in the united states has no idea about what being a people (race) is, and that is by design and careful execution.

>>715186669
Dunmers keep a lot of dark elven clichés but use them in a less evil manner. Conspiracy and assassination is a big part of their culture but instead of being a shitshow of treason and killings, it’s a public guild that execute contracts under strict legislation. Necromancy is a core thing about their relation to the dead, but it’s more about religion and rituals that necromancers building armies of the Dead