About Dwemers and Clockwork City Design

Avrael · January 2018

I have to say, it kind of bothers me that Dwemer Culture and Machines, and Clockwork City Culture and Machines look almost identical.
I know that Sotha Sil probably took a lot of ideas for his work from the Dwemer, but... if Sotha Sil (or in the real case, the designers of the game) would have at least chosen a steel/silver Metal color for the Clockwork City and everything, it would have made such a big diffrence.
And would have looked much better imo. Just imagine the City, environment and factotums in steel instead of brass. I can see that most people would say "But steel or gray are boring", but that would be kinda the point in my eyes. I personally like sterile/simple colored environments, especially if they would be in contrast to the "normal" colorful Fantasy world of games like Eso. But that could be just me.
One big point for me is, that the 2 last Trials, Halls of Fabrication and Asylum Sanctorium, look almost identical. It just looks like they wanted to save work. Which isnt even the case, because i dont think any textures got reused, but because of the theme it looks like it. Its just a bad design choice imo, to make 2 trails one after another in themes that are this close, both brass colored and about machines, with "robot" enemies if you want to oversimplify it.

What do you all think about this? That those 2 totally diffrent cultures looks almost the same? Did you even know they were not related at all, or maybe thought at some points there is no difference between dwemer machines and factotums at all? Would you like to see the Clockwork City in another color/style? Do you have other ideas how it could be made different/better?

Nestor · January 2018

If you read the lore and listen to Sotha, he tells you he was influenced and inspired by the Dwemer. Dwemer Technology is at the base of all of his research.

MAEK · January 2018

Aren't both HoF and AS clockwork? It makes sense for them to look similair, since they were created by the same person.

Avrael wrote: »

...Did you even know they were not related at all...

What? Didn't Sotha Sil get massively inspired by the dwemer, meaning that they are very much related?

Avrael · January 2018

Inspired is not really related for me... the Dwemer were dead a long time already before the Clockwork City got build, no Dwemer laid hand on it.
And i belive HoF is Dwemer, because its on Vvardenfell and Clockwork City came afterwards. But thats exactly what i mean, most people cant even tell the diffrence, and i dont blame them. If you dont look closely and know the lore, it just seems like the same.

VaranisArano · January 2018

Avrael wrote: »

Inspired is not really related for me... the Dwemer were dead a long time already before the Clockwork City got build, no Dwemer laid hand on it.
And i belive HoF is Dwemer, because its on Vvardenfell and Clockwork City came afterwards. But thats exactly what i mean, most people cant even tell the diffrence, and i dont blame them. If you dont look closely and know the lore, it just seems like the same.

To add to this, Sotha SIl was alive and a companion of Nerevar when the Dwemer disappeared, shortly before Sotha Sil and the rest of the Tribunal used the Heart of Lorkhan to become gods. Given that Nerevar was best friends with Dumac Dwarf-king, its not that surprising the Sotha Sil would be very familiar with Dwemer machines and how they work.

I find the Dwemer style and the Clockwork style to be visually distinct enough. The Clockwork brass and Dwemer metal read as distinctly different shades of gold/brass to me and the stone that forms the base of their buildings is also clearly different. Where they are similar, well, there was plenty of trade and fighting between the Chimer kingdom of Resdayn and the Vvardenfell Dwemer, so I'm not bothered by it.

WhiteCoatSyndrome · January 2018

MAEK wrote: »

Aren't both HoF and AS clockwork? It makes sense for them to look similair, since they were created by the same person.

Correct. The Halls of Fabrication are part of the Clockwork City, just not a part we can access in the DLC.

Avrael · February 2018

I just googelt it, and really... HoF is Clockwork too. My bad, i was wrong. I thought it was Dwemer, but the second boss even is called "Pinnacle Factotum". Should have thought harder. Now im even more confused. X-x And yes right, Sotha Sil was still in the time of the dwemer, i knew that, but didnt remember that either.

Avrael wrote: »

most people cant even tell the diffrence, and i dont blame them. If you dont look closely and know the lore, it just seems like the same.

This fits me also, im one of those people. <-<'
Well, but now it seems even laizier that they made 2 Trials in the same region... but i guess Craglorn also has 3 Trials, so...
Now i thought about this a bit more, and it kinda makes a lot of sense that the color of Clockwork City is brass... real life clockworks color is brass too, pretty much always. I guess i just wanted to see dwemer and clockwork more diffrent then they are. Maybe i should view everything in the Clockwork City as "Improved/ripped of Dwemer". xD

Aliyavana · February 2018

hof are early era clockwork and incorporates dwemer automatons in refabricated form, cwc areas are modern in design and don't use dwemer automatons. dwemer brass is golden and clockwork is more brown

platonicidealgirlfriend · February 2018

Dwemer and Clockwork machina aren't brass just because it looks cool and "brass" isn't actually an alloy of copper and zinc. Brass is the byproduct of tonal manipulation upon metal, ergo they look the same because they're made via the same process and are largely the same material. The differentiation comes in the complexity and aesthetic vision of Sotha Sil upon Clockwork, and this is lampshaded during the Precursor quest where they discuss the "ugly" Dwemer-derived design of the Precursor.

Chaos2088 · February 2018

Its is like clockwork style is/has/was evolved from Dwemer style.....so kinda makes sense that it looks the same.

Like if the Dwemer people continued (on Tamriel) that's what it might look like..

-side note- would be awesome if the dwemer were in a pocket realm of Aetherius or some were still left on another continent. Or both. lol

DoctorESO · February 2018

Clockwork City creations/fabricants have biological components in them.

Dwemer creations do not.