Buildings and structures in Skyrim. Drab. Ugly. Boring. : V - Skyrim

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 2:50 pm

I get we're supposed to be looking at this whole medieval fantasy world thing but I swear even back in Morrowind the houses and shacks looked absolutely awful and here we are now in 2012 with Skyrim and they look just as bad.

They are U.G.L.Y.

Maybe I'm just hard to please I don't know. I play on PC so I'm hoping some enterprising modder will tear the horrible things down and build something that is not the aesthetic equivalent of a rubbish tip in someone's backyard. I'm not just talking about low res textures here, I know we are lumbered with the technical awfulness of the PS3 and XBOX360 for it is they who Bethesda aim to please and they alone and who can blame them six year old technology is clearly where it's at right? I'm talking about the lazy art design. Just get a few grey pieces of wood, slap them together, stick a roof on them and there you go, houses. Is it time for lunch yet? Whose round is it down the pub? Hang on wait for me I've got to do a military building I'll just make the same crappy piece of wood a bit bigger and stick some kind of military sign on it and I'll meet you there mine's a Budweiser btw get them in!

I hate to infringe on the valuable time of the building designers (did I just call them designers? ffs....) but it would be nice to see something that looks interesting occasionally in an open world role-playing computer game. Did they just make one and cut and paste them all everywhere? I don't know. Maybe since it was designed for consoles they thought the textures were so blurry nobody would notice how crap they look. What you can't see you can't complain about right? Hey, what's that big blurry thing over there? Oh wait, it's my house hahahaha I can just hear them all joking about it now.

So yeah, that's my little rant abut houses. And shacks. And other stuff. I don't suppose anyone cares but that's okay, I'm off to get a lobotomy then I'm going to send my CV off to get a job at Bethesda and make houses it's going to be great.

Wish me luck.

Here's an idea... Go download Blender and design structures and buildings that suit your fancy. Then when the CK comes out, mod them into the game and there you go.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 10:02 am

My opinion is exactly the opposite. I think Skyrim's art design is not the most accomplished, most creative, most interesting I've seen in any recent video game, including all the other titles in the Elder Scrolls series.

This.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 6:49 pm

I'm not surprised. You couldn't pay me to live in that dump. Times must be hard for Bethesda too if they're paying these clowns to slap a bit of horrible looking wood together and call it a house. I always hate it when game designers use the 'delapidated world' excuse to a) put tiny towns and hardly any buildings in a huge world and :cool:

endeavour to ensure the aforementioned are terrifyingly awful to look at.

Yep,
Same concept as BGS calling it being creative and using crappy 80's sound effects for Fallout 3 guns. It was the only thing I dispised about the game. Too cheap and lazy to go find a sound library for ammo and munitions effects. The worst the combat shotgun sounding like a crappy toy gun with a spring.....Pow...Bang...BOING!!! How they made it was too obvious, the guns sounded exactly how they showed in the making of DVD. Some moron banging on a piece of sheet metal.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 7:44 pm

I like how Whiterun is set out, with Dragonreach and Jorrvaskr, the Norse architects, that would be one of my favourite city, maybe because that's the first city that I encountered, and Markath my toons home away from home. I just love the Dwemer ruins

The graphics for me in this game is absolutely breathtaking, especially if you stand at the Throat of the World or if your running towards Solitude , you can see the cities outline in the foreground. Sorry I absolutely love my graphics. But each their own I reckon

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 9:37 am

I think it is all very beautiful and unique. Gives the game great atmosphere!

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 12:32 pm

My opinion is exactly the opposite. I think Skyrim's art design is not the most accomplished, most creative, most interesting I've seen in any recent video game, including all the other titles in the Elder Scrolls series.

I agree with this. For me, Skyrim has one if not the best art direction in TES. Is as epic as when I first saw the giant Rendoran mushroom architecture in Ald'ruhn in Morrowind. The problem for me, though, is the many low rez textures that Skyrim has. I was amazed when I checked the BSA that many textures were 512x512. Luckily, textures are made by the thousands by modders.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 9:58 am

My opinion is exactly the opposite. I think Skyrim's art design is not the most accomplished, most creative, most interesting I've seen in any recent video game, including all the other titles in the Elder Scrolls series.

Read this again, and I don't think you meant to put "not" in there. Seems everyone is understanding you fine. Now I'm sorry for mentioning it.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 3:00 pm

One of Jrr Tolkien's close friends said that what was so captivating about the Lord of The Rings is that it was fantasy rooted in reality. I dont expect the OP to understand that, but it means that as people, we need SOME connection to our own world to really be immersed in the content. Everything cant be alien looking with bizzarre physics and no rhyme or reason.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 2:38 pm

One of Jrr Tolkien's close friends said that what was so captivating about the Lord of The Rings is that it was fantasy rooted in reality. I dont expect the OP to understand that, but it means that as people, we need SOME connection to our own world to really be immersed in the content. Everything cant be alien looking with bizzarre physics and no rhyme or reason.

I've argued this very point until I'm blue in the face, with little success. Some people seem to be turned off by anything reminiscent of Earth legend or folklore, despite the fact that THAT'S WHERE MODERN FANTASY CAME FROM.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 8:58 am

Morrowind and Oblivion unlike Skyrim had a great many building styles and architectures.

Phew, almost had me there with your earlier posts. I thought you were serious.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 11:27 pm

lol

» Sun Jun 10, 2012 12:36 am

Wow, sorry OP that the game you bought has realistic nordic houses and not every one of them was super amazing/crazy flying houses that had a multitude of colours each with super amazing secrets and interesting points.
Sheesh, grow up.

I wouldnt want skyrim Architecture any other way.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 9:00 pm

OP is either a cynical ass or a troll. There.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 7:39 pm

OP is either a cynical ass or a troll. There.

Well said well said!

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 8:19 pm

What did you expect in the land of the Nords? Munchkinland?

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 5:59 pm

I think the OP might be confusing well rendered and put together, but realistic buildings with the more fantastical things thrown together in other fantasy games. Yes, the giant city of crystal looks very pretty, but it doesn't really lend itself to a believable world. Bethesda's going for a distinctly more medieval, mid fantasy kinda feel, and not even faux medieval, actual medieval. You have stone and wood and brick and hay, get to it, those are your building materials. And yeah, the towns and cities seem really small by our standards, but realize that even a castle town would seem like a backwater town not even justifying a wal-mart to our modern sensibilities. Now, some of the towns are unrealistically small. Winterhold and Morthal come to mind. I mean, they don't even have a smithy. Winterhold has the excuse of being a ghost town on it's last legs that, as much as they might hate it, is only there because the college brings travelers, but Morthal? I got far enough to become the Thane, and never went back. There's just nothing there. However, Solitude, Whiterun, Riften, Markath and the like are all pretty realistically sized.

Now, there's nothing wrong with high fantasy. High fantasy can be great. I put way too much time into Warcraft in it's various incarnations to be anything but a hypocrite for saying otherwise (Though some of the Burning Crusade stuff got a little silly), but the architecture in a high fantasy game/movie is meant to get you to go 'Wow, that's amazing.' Bethesda's entire thing is making their worlds as believable as possible. Yes, there's dragons, and elves, and talking dogs, and cat people, and magic, but it's that grit and 'ugly' that grounds it in something real, something that hits racial memory and gets it to nod its head in approval. We believe the dragons and magic and elves because they're all on a realistic foundation.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 12:15 pm

At Priestly.
How do you know what a medieval building looks like?
Have you seen one in real life?
What they suppose to look like?
Have you played this game more then five minutes?
Or you just been in one town too scare to go out because of a bandits chasing you around.
I know all the buildings outside of the city walls look the same. Why?
Because of materials.
Say you want to build a shack at the middle of nowhere surrounded by thick trees and grass. What material I use to build this shack? Stone? Then you look around.

In the walled cities they are all look different to I in my game. Look at Solitude and Riften. One made of stone the other wood. Look at Markarth and Whiterun. Stone and wood. Those four cities made from stone and wood but they look different inside the walls. I bet the houses looks different.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 2:05 pm

The archetecture is great...Matches Skyrim perfectly.

OP is just used to generic medieval buildings.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 5:24 pm

Logically, a shack wouldn't be vary viable. There should also be more mud/sod houses. Also, due to the climate, there should really be no "upstairs" because it would be too cold. Most houses should of been made of wood/ mud and have just one room with a cellar to store food for the winter and a place to stay if it got extremely cold outside

Plus it is ridiculous of the number of stone houses.. I promise you stone houses would be freezing cold.

But this is a TES... shooting magic out of fingertips isn't real either... OR IS IT lol

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 12:04 pm

I get we're supposed to be looking at this whole medieval fantasy world thing but I swear even back in Morrowind the houses and shacks looked absolutely awful and here we are now in 2012 with Skyrim and they look just as bad.

They are U.G.L.Y.

Maybe I'm just hard to please I don't know. I play on PC so I'm hoping some enterprising modder will tear the horrible things down and build something that is not the aesthetic equivalent of a rubbish tip in someone's backyard. I'm not just talking about low res textures here, I know we are lumbered with the technical awfulness of the PS3 and XBOX360 for it is they who Bethesda aim to please and they alone and who can blame them six year old technology is clearly where it's at right? I'm talking about the lazy art design. Just get a few grey pieces of wood, slap them together, stick a roof on them and there you go, houses. Is it time for lunch yet? Whose round is it down the pub? Hang on wait for me I've got to do a military building I'll just make the same crappy piece of wood a bit bigger and stick some kind of military sign on it and I'll meet you there mine's a Budweiser btw get them in!

I hate to infringe on the valuable time of the building designers (did I just call them designers? ffs....) but it would be nice to see something that looks interesting occasionally in an open world role-playing computer game. Did they just make one and cut and paste them all everywhere? I don't know. Maybe since it was designed for consoles they thought the textures were so blurry nobody would notice how crap they look. What you can't see you can't complain about right? Hey, what's that big blurry thing over there? Oh wait, it's my house hahahaha I can just hear them all joking about it now.

So yeah, that's my little rant abut houses. And shacks. And other stuff. I don't suppose anyone cares but that's okay, I'm off to get a lobotomy then I'm going to send my CV off to get a job at Bethesda and make houses it's going to be great.

Wish me luck.

Skyrim isn't zoned for what you want, sorry. Maybe we can bring it up with the Community Planner during the next Town hall and get a variance for you

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 10:38 pm

Logically, a shack wouldn't be vary viable. There should also be more mud/sod houses. Also, due to the climate, there should really be no "upstairs" because it would be too cold. Most houses should of been made of wood/ mud and have just one room with a cellar to store food for the winter and a place to stay if it got extremely cold outside

Plus it is ridiculous of the number of stone houses.. I promise you stone houses would be freezing cold.

But this is a TES... shooting magic out of fingertips isn't real either... OR IS IT lol

It is.

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 12:16 pm

the artistic design is great, it is rugged (which is what beth was going for), and looks right for a region like skyrim. honestly i was hoping for more trashy places though, there is a civil war going on right now, some hastily built shacks for some refugees would be nice (why refugees would stay in skyrim? because they cannot get out, lets go with that)

save high fantasy for summerset isles/valen wood (it [valen wood] has the moving trees with houses built in, after all)

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 8:07 pm

Dragonsreach? Solitude's architecture? The Graybeards monastery?

Those look pretty spectacular. What are you expecting, every home in Riften to be made out of gilded marble?

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 10:11 am

Dragonsreach? Solitude's architecture? The Graybeards monastery?

Those look pretty spectacular. What are you expecting, every home in Riften to be made out of gilded marble?

Stolen gilded marble

» Sat Jun 09, 2012 5:34 pm

I like theme; Markarth Riften and Solitude all have beautiful architecture in my opinion, and the college of winterhold is pretty imprssive