Thats why the main quest in Skyrim was kinda lackluster... after surviving an invasion from Oblivion in TES4, the threat of dragons and world eaters is kinda meh... It would have been beleivable had they not done the whole dragon wall thing and tried to make it more epic than it really was, ie using the plots of the 4 previous TES games as mere telltale signs of greater enemies yet to come. Well I think a demonic invasion is a LOT worse than dragons, who despite being called world eaters could maybe get through a few men/mer a day. Thats a lot of world eating... now compare that to an army of demons and dead things. Just my thoughts feel free to leave a comment.

Wait what there was an invasion? (never delivered the Amulet, not once in 450 hours of play )

Actually, the scenario in Skyrim is worse. It's not simply the invasion of Dragons, it's the end of the world. They call Alduin the World Eater for a reason. Thing is, it's his destiny to destroy or eat the world. The Oblivion Crisis was averted, Alduin eating the world cannot be. Atleast without some divine intervention. Remember when you defeated him in Sovngarde? What happened? You didn't absord his soul, he just exploded and disappeared.

By the 'Army of Demons' you mention, I take that as the 4 that are by each gate and the 10 or so that are inside a realm?

Now if I say an Army of Dragons that continue to be reborn by the World Eater in an epic tale of saving the world from destruction, that sounds better than a few dragons.

Your descriptions are a bit biased

Actually, Dragons are a lot worse by far, if you consider the CK...I'm thinking, instead of one Drake-per-spawn two or three Drakes per spawn...That, would be a much bigger threat indeed!

Unless of course, you're playing on a console, then you've got a valid point!


Gahh, you're right..I was going with a game-play perspective...

I think the real problem is that there's no indication that the world is really going to end... just some silly prophecy and some old guys telling stories. There's no evidence at all that the dragons are doing anything but waking up a bit cranky.

..Until you fight 2 dragons at the same time.

So a dragon that is going to eat the world and end time is not as bad as some demons who want to enslave mundis? Makes sense.

A demonic invasion would've been good. Sadly the Daedra rarely seemed to go more than 100 yards from a gate.
The description of the Daedra invasion of the Summerset Isles found in Rising Threat is more interesting by far than the lacklustre presentation of a demonic invasion found in Oblivion.
Dragons attacking cities has more effect on the gameworld than Oblivion Gates did.

This is a case of what TVtropes calls http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GameplayAndStorySegregation, which basically amounts to that story and gameplay elements behave inconsistently.
In Oblivion the Daedra only walked around the Oblivion Gates, despite being called an invasion.
In Skyrim, the Dragons are the masters of the Thu'um, able to alter reality by just shouting at it.
Basically a single dragon simply has to use Storm Call in a city and gone is the population. But they do not use their power to the full extent. Therefore they do not seem much of a threat in game.

If Story is considered, both can be equally dangerous, since both the Daedra and Dragons are out to end Tamriel as we know it.

Where any cities level to the ground in Skyrim like Kvatch? The dragons are pretty localised in skyrim, the Oblivion gates where all across Tamerial. Now comepare the last bosses in each crisis about how hard they were.

The biggest problem with Skyrim is that the threat is never explained. Mehrunes Dagon coming into the world probably would have been as much a world ending event as Alduin. So both are bad. In Oblivion, though, it feels bad and scary. In Skyrim, though, all we have is a few people telling us that Alduin will end the world. They never explain why. They never explain how. The game never gives any form of indication that the world is going to be ending any time soon. As a result it lacks any sort of urgency or threat. It's just an empty promise.

From a Skyrim "average Joe" perspective, killed by a demon VS killed by a dragon ... end up dead either way.

These Dragons would stand unchecked, and could wipe the northern regions of Tamriel clean of life...

I like this reasoning.

When I first heard 'Alduin world eater' I thought wow they have given the average fantasy dragon a makeover.... but no, in actual reality he's just a fire breathing dragon. Compare the size of 1 Skyrim dragon to the size of a planet (Nirn). So no, I dont think any dragon will be doing any world eating any time soon. At best they can hope to set fire to as much as possible, but even then that would be like a soccer team trying to mow a lawn the size of Texas.

Helgen suffered as badly as Kvatch. Dragons appear as widely as did Oblivion Gates and dragons attack the towns and cities.
At least people are worried about the dragons in Skyrim. Hardly anybody outside the Blades mentions the Daedric "invasion".

The Oblivion crisis is much worse then the current situation that Skyrim has. The Oblivion crisis caused the end of the Septim line and more importantly caused the ressurection of the Aldmeri Dominion. That lead to the events of the Great War and the eventual banning of Talos.

I got the impression it was mainly Skyrim that was suffering, is there any factual mention of other provinces being dragon attacked? Once you activate the kvatch quest in Oblivion npcs never shut up about it, any one can back me up on that.

Well Mehrunes Dagon is a daedric prince and therefore more powerful than any divine and any men or mer. The same can't be said about Alduin, but he can still destroy the world.

I also think that the greater enemies refers to the Thalmor.

I'm pretty sure MK or something suggested that "World-eater" is literal. Like, Alduin (in a much bigger manifestation when we see in Sovngarde) would, y'know, gobble up the whole world at once. He was just stopped before the situation got that dire.

Me too. Well, some of my characters felt obliged to deliver it but none of them felt like being Jauffre's errand boy and hearing of an Oblivion gate being open in Kvatch, well naturally I avoided that place . . .

Oh the daedra don't want Mundus to end. Where would they get their entertainment from?

Dagon isn't just the prince of destruction. He's also the prince of ambition and revolution. Sure things probably wouldn't be good for most mortals under Dagon's rule, but mundus would still be there.

Alduin will eventually completely wipe everything out.

Helgen is probably the closest we get to a Kvatch scenario. As far as dragons compared to Oblivion gates spawning, kinda similar concept, but yes, Dragons are mobile so the threat is often taken to you more directly. Whether you choose to engage is still a option though. In Oblivion I roleplayed that the other gates were just outposts being established strategically, for a inevitable onslaught/invasion, once Dagon gives the word. As far as the ending, Imperial City was INVADED, many daedra then no? And you had no chance at taking M. Dagon head on and winning. Tried it several times.

The ending in Skyrim's MQ seemed more about staying within Nordic lore, than providing a satisfying battle to end the Dragon crisis. You really end up with two finale type battles where Alduin is defeated. Found this kinda anti-climatic myself.

Problem with Bethesda's open format is it doesn't allow for big everyone's gonna die world ending settings because of how much freedom it tries to give. If the dragons could destroy towns and wipe out guilds it'd be no fun, if they killed more quest NPCs it'd be no fun, if Alduin was larger he'd be unable to appear outside of scripted scenes (As it is you can encounter him in the wilderness)

Similarly in Oblivion the daedra sat outside their gate for endless amounts of time ambling about because attacking cities would screw up other quests. A linear game probably could manage it, or a game focused on being able to be destroyed, but a TES game has too much else going on to let the bad guys do their thing properly. This is why Daggerfall and Morrowind made more sense - the villains were not doing much in story and in game. Dagoth had plans but no intention to come marching down for some time, and Daggerfall was mostly political with no real world threat until the end.

It's unfortunate but that's how it is

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