Game Skyrim Forum

CHIM is Elnofex for "MK". Didn't you know that? :facepalm:


___TWM

WoW'ers are hill[censored]s. Retcon that, Commander Carrionn!!!

Look, and this goes to everybody, if you want to talk lore, don't talk to a WoW player (at least, most of them), talk to a Warcraft player.

Really? I ALWAYS built the world FIRST. The world determines the story.

I might make a very skeletal plot outline, that fits on one page and is made of one-liners, but the REAL brunt of the story takes hold in the framework of a very convincing (read, very structured, well planned, and fleshed out) world.


A story about the civil war wouldn't be right, if it just focused on it in the terms of "war on slavery." because that was really a cover story. The real motivations were financially based, as the south wanted to trade with England's textile mills without paying taxes to the northern states, among many other motivators, which is why they tried to secede. If they had not tried to do so, it is quite likely we would still have slavery here.


The world is what produces the conflict, the conflict what produces the antagonist and protagonist, who then produce the story.

I'll say that a good story does not depend on itself or give itself purpose, but where it came from. All good stories are Frankensteins from their own world.

EDIT: Crappy interwebz

You can create from premise, or you can create from random image. I find that the latter usually gives birth to the former. Logical, straightforward approaches are what you use to brick in the spaces around the inspiration.

For fantasy worlds, I always start with "What if"--- which then begs to be answered "Why", and "For what reason."


Conflicts then naturally come up in the world, which are the seeds of stories.


Once you build a GOOD world, it is the source of endless conflict, which is what a story is. I ALWAYS give the world precedence over the story outline. The outline is tentative "what if"-- and it needs to obey the world, or it sticks out.

http://www.elderscrolls.com/tenth_anniv/tenth_anniv-arena.htm

Warcraft has some hope after all then, haha @ that.

Someone make a new thread of this, when the mods bust us up.

I already said I wouldnt defend TES apologetics.


My whole reason for my being here is the Morrowind lore--- It was created either prior to, or concurrently with, the writing of the Morrowind main quest. It provides the rigid world structure, and rich depth required for the conflict of the main quest.

It describes WHY the conflict exists, How it started, why the player is involved, and all the trailings. It wraps up nearly all the loose ends right from the get go. Morrowind is high fantasy. Arena and Oblivion are NOT.

And Wierd, when you asked me to explain why the demons are evil, I retort back-
Why did Padomay hate creation like he did and start all this? It was his nature, just as the demons' nature is corruption.

Actually, it was jealousy. Re-read your annuad.


Nir only loved Anu, but Padomay secretly loved her as well-- but she would have nothing to do with him. So, he beat her up what good, and tried to kill Anu.


Want to know why biblical demons are evil too?

Oh, well you appear to be speaking on more genre-specific terms.

And as for Arena's apologetics, at least all of it got jettisoned, and there aren't myths explaining Uriel Septim's replica Henry VIII outfit.

And on top of Wierd's post about Padomay, our understanding of the encounter is 100% anologous and allegorical. Stick that in your King Arthas and reanimate it.

Eh... you mean the Anuad, right? That's a children's story, and either an allegory for complex metaphysical subjects or a fictional bedtime story. Were it unexplainable in this context, it would be boring and therefore wrong.

Padomay is an entity/concept beyond the grasp of the human mind. He's a force of nature, not a demon, and is probably incapable of hate.



I'd love to. I was reading up on the Ars Goetia on Wikipedia, earlier. Sounds fascinating.

Absolutely. Worldbuilding is what you do around a story. The setting certainly isn't what makes a story great. Which is why Romeo and Juliet can reasonably be adapted to any setting. I'm not concerned with internal consistency and background details as muh as I am concerned with what it all means.

I have my own hopes and aspirations for a day when TES has ....something similar to Blizzard's current situation. *crosses fingers*

I hope to see you all there.


___TWM

And you quoted a famous work or literature for a good reason: it's about the writing, not the world. That's why ES a great; a different medium allows for an enthralling world to exist alongside great stories without becoming as distracting as it would in a novel.

I agree somewhat, but with caveats.


A conflict over how many cookies one sibling gets compared to another is not something to write home about, even if the circumstances leading up to it are detailed, complicated, and may even be interesting.


A good story is founded on a GOOD, and interesting/involved conflict. Usually a moral dichotomy, dilemma, or a struggle for survival.

The actors make the story believable, and the world makes the actors believable. The world has to suffer the brunt of the suspension of disbelief by its own intrinsic value, which is why I pour so much effort into story worlds.

I would say "Hear hear", but that would entail more mainstream appeal, which would diminish the focus on lore even more. Blizzard got to where it is because it was designed to be middle-of-the-road, audience wise.

Which is why most fantasy mirrors the world that's already there.

Which is also why you get http://images.mmosite.com/photo/2007/09/18/l2_elf0015PriqT08a3.jpgas the first hit when you Google "Elf".

Altmer FTW

You are describing every story ever written except the more experimental ones. And a conflict about cookies can certainly be something worth writing about, if one can do it believably and skillfully. Cocteau's Les Enfant Terrible hardly describes anything momentous. A series of quite trivial things, mostly, and the story comes about because of the tension about growing up. Short stories have been written about the polite smile of a stranger. And they are fabulous.


No, actors too must make the world believable, because it's the actors that are supposed to be representing the world, not vice-versa. The world exists to represent your own ideas. Some people call the world another character, but I think that's a mistake, except in the sense that, like characters, it should be a representation of your themes. If you get your themes from making worlds, well done, but I certainly don't believe the idea that worldbuilding is the most important part of "good narrative" or "high fantasy".


In many ways, the traditional "high fantasy" setting is our mythic era, even if it only superficially resembles any real time period. It's where we have our Hercules and our Gilgamesh and our Ulysses.

Well put. You don't need pages and pages of backstory to create a convincing world or a good story.

That's just it though. I dont consider Warcraft's story all that good. *shrug*


"A long time ago, some posessed wizard created a portal, and then ZOMG! Green creatures came out and started beating people up! So, we all ganged up on them and turned off their portal, and then the demons came and reopened it and made the prince into a zombie!"


It sounds like something somebody on acid would say.

If you'd been listening to anything I've said then you'd see it really isn't that way, but whatever, your opinion and your loss. The Elder Scrolls can easily be trivialized in the same manner.
'Sides, Arthas never died, he just got corrupted by the Rune Blade then absorbed one of the most powerful beings on Azeroth.