THe landscape is all too familiar with me, especially how it varies. The Rift is autumn for me, the frozen wasteland is winter, Whiterun is summer/spring etc. The dumb population? That just goes hand in hand with living in the middle of nowhere.

I don't understand what connection the first and last sentence have.

Unless you're assuming that alien = childish and unrealistic.

My Khajiit expected a harsher welcome than what he got. That aside, it'd be pretty hard to get an alien vibe from the cradle of man.

The world has a much more organic feel to it though than any of the previous TES games with the aurora radiating high above steep mountain mist.

I thought I was the only one who noticed that.

Morrowind felt alien because it had giant mushrooms springing out of the ground, highly volcanic land inhabited by people, dust storms and enemies that are nothing like any real-world animals or mythical beasts.
Skyrim looks like real world locations and the enemies are all either real or come from mythology.

So yeah, Skyrim definitely doesn't feel alien. In Morrowind they took the time to think up their own enemy types etc, but in Skyrim they just ripped it all straight out of norse mythology, ice era species and real world animals.
I was ok with this in Oblivion because I THOUGHT that was the idea; that Imperials, as the basic human race, were supposed to have more real-world creatures and real-world mythological beasts come to life, which made sense to make the human-country more familiar with our own world. But nah, now it's like they said "oh did we say Imperials are the normal human race? We meant nords. Here, have more creatures you're familiar with."

elk running around with moose antlers and being referred to as 'deer'

It didn't feel alien at all, but that's like saying the Star Wars series didn't feel medieval - I didn't expect or want it to (though there's a solid argument that it, in fact, is in 'reality'). I get that you're asking this because Howard for some bizarre reason claimed it would be but that's what I love most about Skyim, its geographical beauty is Earth's natural beauty and it contrasts Morrowind perfectly.

These threads inevitably turn into Morrowind vs Oblivion vs Skyrim, so I'll just say that while Morrowind has some great musical themes, you're mad if you think music was handled better. Play the game and you'll find that the fantastic main TES theme plays about one in three times - I love it, but that game was really short on themes.

right on the mark, imo. it's as if they took no time to create THEIR OWN northern land of the nords. you know, a little bit of actual tes creativity, instead, of generic norway, new zealand, whatever. it was posted very wisely by savlian that real tes lore like atronach's feel completely out of place. cookie-cutter, been there before, laziness.


THIS has to happen or the character-based rpg with deep complexity, meaning and customization is gone forever on CONSOLES. everyone who mocks games like 2worlds needs to step back and appreciate the MANY things it does right and encourage it to become successful. bethesda without competition spells doom for true rpg's.

You forgot to add the last sentence of the quote you quoted...



So wait, the Bethesda people did not say Skyrim was going to be alien like Morrowind, they said it was going to look familliar (like Earth) at first, but when you look closer you're going to find some unfamiliar (to Earth) types of things.

Seems pretty spot-on to me.

Of coarse not. And it not supposed to either, for that part.

Definitely not alien. I wasn't expecting much though, since the day they announced it's set in Skyrim.

Nope,But it have a morrowind feel in it in some way.at least i think so,have a feeling i havent had since i played morrowind,but skyrim has more of a epic fantasy feel to it.

But it didn't have its own unique culture, aside from maybe in the Reach. It was all pretty generic Nordic Fantasy, just like Oblivion was pretty generic Medieval Fantasy. I get what you're saying, but I have to respectfully disagree.

The thing that irritated me more was the article's headline 'Skyrim has what made Morrowind special', 'The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will hark back to Morrowind and the "wonder of discovery" - something Bethesda wittingly "sacrificed" for Oblivion.'

Since this is an article rather than a transcript, clearly the interviewer got these impressions from talking to Todd Howard even if they aren't directly quoted in the article. Maybe I'm reaching too far here, but this article is just one example of dozens which I saw leading up to the release of Skyrim talking about how Bethesda wanted to get back to its Morrowind design, finding their roots again, avoiding the same mistakes Oblivion did. I just can't believe that all of these different writers got the same, but mistaken impression from talking to Todd and others, both on and off the record.

Elk and Moose are deer. But now I'm just getting way too technical.

Moose are called Elk in Europe.

Speaking of aliens...

I grew up in Alaska, where the real moose live. Just look at this svcker! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Bigbullmoose.jpg

I think you took my joke a little too seriously. No matter what you call them, they're all just different types of deer.

Alien no distinctive yes. Cyrodill was a little to bland and uniform for me, much improved by the Unique Landscapes mods.

it was cool but way too realistic in terms of feeling alien

only blackreach and some other falmer areas felt really alien, the rest was just too much like earth


but it was still pretty good, just different

i read the title and thought "morrowind"

and no

I think that's marketing talk, a hook for all Morrowind lovers. Skyrim is generic like Cyrodiil and the dragons don't help too much creating that 'alien' feel because the world doesn't react properly to such a rare and magnificent sight.

I do agree Skyrim lacks an alien feel, for the most part this doesn't bother me as until Morrowind TES... lacked an alien feel anyway (well, Battlespire kind-of had one, but so did the Oblivion planes in Oblivion) so strictly speaking an alien feel isn't what makes a TES game.

What does somewhat irk me is the undoing of alien-esque species, most notably the Horkers, who looked much weirder in Bloodmoon than they do in Skyrim (at first I didn't even notice they still had three tusks in Skyrim, they just looked like walruses without that strange snout). Also, Karstaag style giants and Grahls would have been a welcome addition, as I don't think the latter were ever supposed to be unique to Solstheim.

Also where are the Dreughs? I really miss them, I always wanted to know more about them and their culture (I think they have one).

Aside from that, Morrowind was alien partly because of Dark Elven culture, and partly, I assume, due to the influence of Lorkhan's Heart. Skyrim's world is really well designed though, if it's still quite cliche, it is leaps and bounds beyond Oblivion in world design.

not nearly as alien as morrowind but a lot more unique than oblivion. it feels like it's part of the same world as morrowind though, oblivion didn't feel like it was part of the same universe at all, more like a spin off. skyrim feels like it lies somewhere between the generic earthliness of oblivion and the bizarro world of morrowind. i have less of a hard time imagining that just over the riften mountains lay the morrowind mushroom trees and betty netch.

not as alien, but it feels like it inhabits the same world as morrowind if that makes sense.

I got a cold feel. More often than not the vibe in Skyrim did manage to fall into that gritty realism. Only a couple things ruined that.

-The terrible UI
-HUD (Some like change, for one did not. Why does hp regen? Call of scrolls no thanks)
-Journal
-Journal
-Journal
-Dragons, either too weak or too strong, depopulated the world etc
Did I mention journal, part of the wonder of other elder scrolls games was having a Journal as a point of reference with that gone it just felt like quest list from fallout 3.
Seriously hope they fix these issues for their next game or I will be done xD

Wonder of discovery isn't the same thing as alien:
This part only talks about the wonder of discovery, nothing about Skyrim being alien.

That talks 100% about morrowind only. Not Skyrim.

This again talks of Oblivion. Not Skyrim.

This part talks about what didn't make it to oblivion, but that was in morrowind: The wonder of discovery. In Skyrim, they brought that back. The wonder of discovery, not the alien feel.


So please, tell me where exactly in that article that Todd said "Skyrim feels alien". OP, you misunderstood the article. Completely.